Question About Obtaining Alternate Missions

[taterboat94]

Before anything else, I'd like to apologize if this is not the right place to ask this. If that's the case, could you please point me in the right direction? Some boards I've been on are very particular about that kind of thing, and I don't want to break the rules on my first post, lol.

So I grew up with the original Descent on an old Windows 95 computer, and while that computer is long gone, I downloaded the game to my laptop on Steam a couple of years ago (along with D2, which I have also enjoyed) to relive the magic. Recently, I've been lurking this forum and have heard positive things about a number of additional missions like Vertigo, The Enemy Within, Levels of the World, and Vignettes. After watching a few of Calmarius's runs of such levels, I'd really like to try out some of them myself.

My question is, can someone please tell me how I can download and run those level packs (I'm not exactly the most tech-savvy guy in the world)? Or is that even possible with a digital download of the game like Steam's? In addition, are there any other great level packs besides the ones mentioned that anyone would like to recommend?

Thanks for any help you can offer!

[AlexanderBorisov]

All missions are here :
http://www.enspiar.com/dmdb/
Find (by name or author), download, unpack and put to the MISSIONS dir in the game folder.
You can use Rebirth or DX-XL source port for better gaming experience (better graphics, higher res, some minor bugs fixed, etc).
Start with Vertigo, TEW, my personal favorites (in addition to those) are Obsidian, Lost Levels, Vignettes(D1) and Enemy Vignettes(D2 version with TEW robots), Plutonian Shores-Demo, AF. Those are big campaigns with new robots, bosses, advanced level design and texturing, etc.
You can also watch walkthroughs for some of those on my channel,
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCS9FV5 ... q5u8MrqTsQ
Some of the old stuff, Konflict at Karon, Orion Nebula, Entropy Experiment and it's sequel, Phobos are worth playing, too, as Ironstar and Ironblade for D1. But IMO they are inferior to the ones in the first list (due to balance issues on high difficulty levels, quality, and even size of the missions).
Beware some of the missions are very hard compared to original campaigns.

[Alter-Fox]

Hmm... if you're playing on an "out of the box" install from Steam or GOG it may take a little extra to get Vertigo working. I don't remember exactly what is necessary.
If you play on Rebirth or D2X-XL, though, it should work without problems.

And Vertigo being the official expansion pack, keep in mind it may need to be installed for some (not all, but some) of these mission packs to work.

[taterboat94]

Looks great, thanks! I'll definitely have to try out those you mentioned when I get the chance.

I see a "missions" folder in the D2 folder, but not in the D1 folder. D1 seems to just have everything in one big folder. Should I copy the new D1 missions to that big folder, or should I copy them to the D2 "missions" folder and run those missions on D2?

Using one of the new ports also sounds like a good idea. Based on that XL thread further on down the page, it sounds like Rebirth might be the better option. I'm assuming this is the right place to download it? http://www.dxx-rebirth.com/

Thanks again!

EDIT: Oops, didn't see your post, Alter-Fox. In that case, downloading Rebirth or D2X-XL sounds like the way to go. I need to give that a look.

[AlexanderBorisov]

For D1, just create the "missions" folder. About Vertigo, yes you need it, but I don't remember whether it was in my original package (from GoG) already or I installed it from DMDB, or it came with Rebirth. Use stable version of Rebirth (yes, it is the right place), like 0.58, not the nightly build. DX-XL changes the mechanics of the game a bit, so probably you should start with Rebirth, and then try DX-XL if you want.

[Xfing]

If you play Descent 1 through DOSBox, then no "missions" folder is necessary, the game reads everything from the same folder the application is in.

[taterboat94]

Yep, I ended up figuring that out after a little trial and error and got Vignettes to work. However, I was unable to get Vertigo to work at all for D2. I decided to go ahead and get Rebirth for D1 and D2 to simplify things, and I'm glad I did. The games look better, they run a little more smoothly, and the Vignettes soundtrack sounds so much better on that sound board (although I do kinda miss the old MIDI soundtrack for D1, but hey, I can always boot up the original whenever I need a shot of nostalgia). Looks like from here on out it should be simple to download and play the new missions.

Thanks for the help, everyone! I'm looking forward to playing through these new level packs.