Something strange I remember...

[MysteryMan23]

I had heard once long ago of a version of Descent 1 that had two extra ships besides the Pyro-GX. I don't remember their names, and I have only vague memories of what one looked like. It had a triangular-ish nose, and the upper wings were slanted towards each other. Does anyone else remember this?

I also remember a Descent 2 level called Surprise. Your ship was changed to a Class 1 Drone, and the enemies consisted of the Pyro-GX and the aforementioned two extra ships. Any idea where I can find it?

Thanks.

EDIT: One more thing: I saw these two extra ships on an old Descent fansite. I think it was called Outpost Alpha or something like that? Anyways, thanks again.

EDIT2: I found the old website on the Wayback Machine. It was Outbound Gaming Network. (Link here.) They had the names of the ships; the Tigg SB and the Aggressor Prime. Unfortunately, the pictures don't appear to have been saved; I'd still like those, if possible. (I think the Tigg SB was the one I described originally, but I don't know.)

I also discovered the name of the version of Descent the Tigg and Aggressor came from. It was apparently called Descent Online, and it was a version of Descent available via something called Engage Games Online. Apparently it was a spinoff of Interplay? Anyways, I would love more data on this.

I've yet to find the "Surprise" level. Any info on that would be welcome, as well.

[Alter-Fox]

I heard of this way back when but never saw it. I've never heard even the old-timers here talk about actually playing it so I have a suspicion it was never released but I don't know anything for sure.
Huh...
Obi-Wan Kenobi/Gold Leader (forget which one he goes by here) collects anything and everything to do with Descent. If there ever were some kind of physical merchandise related to Descent Online he would probably know more about the whole thing than we do. I'll ask him when I get the chance.

And, haha, on the site you linked there's an article by Dan Wentz... the first line is... well, I'll let it speak for itself:

I've been reading enough here lately to feel compelled to give my input as to why several of us are still playing a game that is "4 years old."

20 years later...

[TRUEpiiiicness]

I've yet to find the "Surprise" level. Any info on that would be welcome, as well.

Have you checked on pootermans site? (Link to it on the Dmdb.)

[MysteryMan23]

Just went to Pooterman's. I couldn't find it there, unfortunately.

EDIT: Oh, and that's great, Alter-Fox! Hope to hear more soon!

[Jayman2000]

I did some digging. Here’s what I’ve found:

• Cover art featuring the two new ships.
• A promotional image featuring the ships labeled with their names.
• One version of Descent Online’s manual.
• One standalone version of Descent Online’s FAQ.
• Two versions of descento.exe.
• A changelog.
• An anarchy mission named “Descent Online Tournament”. This one appears to be unrelated to the “Surprise” level.

I also created a GitHub repo with information about how I found some of this stuff.

[Arne]

Interesting! There's also this thread about Descent Online https://www.descentbb.net/viewtopic.php?t=14427
Which mentions a page with the in-game models https://web.archive.org/web/20041207101 ... d1/do.html
Would be nice to see the game data files...

[Parabolicus]

So I tried running DESCENTO.EXE in a DOSBox instance. At first, I got an extremely clear error message:

Error: â─♦╟♦$☺

Turns out it needs the D1 data files to run. Once those are added, I get a different error:

We don't seem to be running in a DOS box...
Communications driver not found.

which suggests you have to run it in a DOS box within Windows. So I did just that....

VxD not installed.
Communications driver not found.

So I'm stuck without the VxD which is presumably needed for the online capabilities.

[Jayman2000]

I also remember a Descent 2 level called Surprise. Your ship was changed to a Class 1 Drone, and the enemies consisted of the Pyro-GX and the aforementioned two extra ships. Any idea where I can find it?

I found a mission on PooterMan’s named “BATTLEMECHS!” Its first level is called “Surprise”. In that level, you play as a Class 1 Drone, but there isn’t any enemies or ship models. There’s a few possibilities here:

1. The level you were thinking of is a different level.
2. When you play Battlemechs in Descent Online, Pyro-GXs look like robots, but Tigg SBs and Agressor Primes look normal. In this scenario, you would be misremembering the part about enemies being Pyro-GXs (Aggressor Primes look a lot like Pyro-GXs).
3. You’re confusing two different levels that are both named “Surprise”. In this scenario, the idea of playing as a Class 1 Drone comes from Battlemechs, and the idea of having ships as enemies comes from the “Surprise” level that this page mentions.

EDIT: I found a level named “Spindizzy” where the player fights enemy Pyro-GXs, Tigg SBs and Agressor Primes. You don’t play as a Class 1 Drone, though.

[SaladBadger]

I took the executables Jayman2000 found and threw them at the disassembler. Off the bat, the few differences I've noticed:

• The game appears to be based off of Descent's 1.0 release, not the later 1.4 or 1.5 releases. In particular, it appears to always parse bitmaps.tbl and load models through individual .POF files. This means that if one's attempting to get normal data working, only Descent 1.0's data will work (though you could recreate the needed data with 1.4/1.5's data files)
• As noted, the game appears to do two checks on running, it checks if it's running in a DOS box in Windows, and it attempts to load a specific VXD driver for communication, and will fail if these aren't satisfied.
• There's two new function modes, I'm not fully sure how they're reached.

Having the original data would be super helpful here, but I may see if I can forge enough data to make it run, since that would be super helpful.

[Arne]

There's another DOS game for Engage which does have a downloadable installer on the archive. This installer includes a vxd file egoipc.vxd, It might be the same vxd that Descent requires.
https://web.archive.org/web/19980121141 ... rcraft.exe

[Arne]

descento starts with the warcraft vxd, but there's not much to see...

[akula65]

With regard to the Surprise D2 level, there was an Interplay Contest multiplayer level entry available here in the Wayback Machine:
http://web.archive.org/web/199711100752 ... rprise.zip

This level is part of the Descent I and II Mission Builder Contest.
Visit the Interplay web site at http://www.interplay.com for more
levels and info on this and other contests.

Feel free to send comments to the author.


knudsong@cais.com

Level Name:
Surprise

Description:

This is a small level that is designed for
anarchy. There have been some changes that will not be
apparent until it is played in multiplayer. I have made
other changes that can be seen during play for a single
player or during a robo-anarchy game. Surprise!

Warning: You will needed to restart D2 in order to clear the
changes after playing the level. This level uses a hxm file and
will carry on to the next level unless the default robots are reloaded.
Anybody forgetting to reload and meeting one of these robots would
get a nasty surprise. In the level I have changed the player ship and
several robot polymodels.