Descent 1 1/2

[Alter-Fox]

I think occasionally using stuff like that to call out to other mission packs is a fine idea.
I mean, I've got plenty of songs on the hi-fi ost already that try to imitate the midi style of some other mission, and even once or twice actually featuring their composers.

If what you are trying to do is call out vignettes, though, keep in mind that your energy center would also need to have ridiculously stunning geometry...

[Xfing]

Aight, so finished flying through level 31. Gotta say it's the type of level I've been hoping for for a while - the geometry is usually perfectly adequate, but then there are some of those amazing landmark moments that make your jaw drop. Talking mostly about the "receptacle" for the red key, the reactor room and the water pool early into the red area. Stellar stuff. Also liking how the level reminds of Maximum more than Counterstrike thanks to its dim lighting - having beaten Maximum relatively recently I can definitely say that's a good thing, although I can't remember if in this case we've got a light, whites-heavy Puuma Sphere-style level in the pack - we could definitely use at least one like that. Perhaps worth considering for the Tycho Brahe boss level (I've made the arena for that one, hopefully it can be integrated).

One thing: I think I've done something like this myself in the past, but it's been a while -think you could try and make the circular water flow in the horseshoe pool seamless?

If I recall, it's done by switching to line mode and aligning the texture with its neighbor that way - the movement feels a bit distorted, but it's seamless. If you can't get it to work, I'll take a crack at that myself.

Also, I think it's a great opportunity to use the swampy green texture that was used as sewage in one of Vertigo's secret levels here - since there are already water pools in other places in the level, it probably wouldn't be a big waste (especially since the sewage texture is only convincing when moving).

Next, the green cobblestone texture has already received plenty of love in this mission, both inside and outside the Solar System levels - think we could maybe use another type of D1 green for that instead?

And last but not least - the level seems a bit light on the secrets and it's right at the cube count limit, so we probably can't do very much about that. Inventive and/or sprawling secret areas are the number 1 factor that makes games like Doom or Descent engaging and rewarding to play, so we need to take special care that our secrets also leave an impression - especially since Counterstrike did a great job of those, and fan missions such as TEW have too.

Regarding level 45 and the remaining levels overall - since there's fewer and fewer left to make - we need to examine what we're still lacking for sufficient variety. One thing I've noticed we're missing is a level heavy on the "natural" rock textures, such as TEW level 2, and especially 4. From Counterstrike guess level 7 had some of those, and some more did in D1. The downside would be that the rock textures don't allow for secret doors, but it's not a problem thanks to vanishing walls and trigger buttons. We definitely need a level like that too, for the Vertigo portion.

[Alter-Fox]

Yeah, Quartzon is probably a good spot for that, but I decided to make mine more alien

I still haven't figured out that water trick, btw, even with the instruction... unless someone can make a video tutorial showing what buttons to press when, you and lightwolf might be on your own for that
And I can't even guarantee a video would get through my denseness XD

[Xfing]

I don't remember how to do that either, though I could probably figure it out again if you reminded me which level I did that in.

[Xfing]

Ok, Lightwolf was kind enough to explain it. It's actually quite simple in principle, and the seamlessness part itself is actually really easy. The hard part is giving the texture the proper level of zoom. So to go step by step, it's something like this:
1) Use "stretch to fit" on the face with the texture (the function that condenses the entire face into a standard-sized square)
2) Rotate the flowing texture in the general direction you want it to go in.
3) Repeat for adjacent face

And that's it, they'll be seamless. But then you need to make the texture bigger, as it'll be super pixelated if left the way it is. You can do it by:
4) expanding the square in the texture editor while in point mode to a desired size, just make sure all the adjacent faces have a matching size so the texture looks even - adjacency can be achieved by simply extending the points in the direction of the neighbor texture, or moving the texture towards the neighbor in face mode:


Turns out it really isn't that complicated. I'll make the adjustments to Trueepiicness' level myself and then put it up on Dropbox.

[Xfing]

Done. I put Level 31 up on Dropbox. Here's what the horseshoe looks like now. I also swapped out the cobblestone for the traditional D1 greens in the level like I said.


When all the levels are done, we'll have to check them from several not immediately obvious angles:
- secret level teleporters - gonna have to add those, we'll probably have to select levels that have segments to spare so we have room to put them in alongside some puzzles
- door choice - since most mappers haven't seen the rest of the levels except the one they're making, they're picking preferred doors, and we need a more or less even representation of door types in the mission - or at the very least every main door type accounted for at least twice, preferably thrice.
- seamless flowing liquid textures - I can take care of that now that I remember how
- the black obsidian texture in the Vertigo portion, needs to be in every level in at least one place since Wentz literally always used it

Let's think about what we still need in terms of themes. We've already got representation of the six Counterstrike themes and a better variety in the Solar System portion than First Strike had, even though it's 18 levels vs 30. Sedna is pushing it a bit with some D2 textures (Eris uses the grated door too), but those are justified in being really remote distance-wise. The Beta Ceti system on the other hand is very, very different from the Wentz-esque Vertigo missions (which is not a bad thing), emphasizing variety and deeper exploration of D1-based themes mixed with newer aesthetics. We've given birth to some new themes and are really good on lab-based levels too, so what do we lack? 5 levels to go.

1) The final level needs to be foreboding, militaristic and hostile, so it'll be full of grayness and metal kinda like Eris (only not shying away from D2 textures), possibly supported by colorful accents such as green, red and purple. It needs to remind of D1 levels such as 12 or 26 aesthetically and visually, but mechanically exploit everyting D2 has to offer. It can be devious, full of traps, forcefields, matcens and secrets, not to mention an appropriately elaborate boss arena containing tons of goodies.

2) Like I mentioned, we also need a natural-rock-based level, so one of them will need to be like that. Not sure if that's what TRUEepiicness is making, but

3) We may be a bit light on well-lit, bright Puuma Sphere-like levels and the white alien-like texture in general. That'd work well for the Tycho Brahe boss level, for which I've already got an arena. An emphasis on the non-lab whites would actually be pretty nice, since we don't really have all that much of that variety of white in the mission at all (not even in the ice levels if I recall), so creating a whole level around the idea of the color white might be very interesting - though of course the alien greens here and there could support the idea of it being Puuma-based. We don't need to restrict ourselves to those, though, since it's Beta Ceti, so some other ideas to mix things up would be cool as well, like the dark cyan texture I built the boss room around.

Then there's the 4th and 5th level - one of which is the penultimate one, which honestly I only care about being memorable - more like level 26 of D1 than level 23 of D2, that's for sure. Full of angry mechs of the toughest variety, probably accentuated by the metal exit shaft textures too, but otherwise guess it's free for all. And the last one? Honestly no idea, we've got quite a lot of variety going on already, so guess it could be anything.

[TRUEpiiiicness]

The "receptacle" for the red key.

Thanks for the review. That room was so difficult to make, so it's my greatest room so far.
Did you find the special thing about the location of the three keys yet?

As for level 45, I already started it a few days ago. It's coming along REALLY nicely. The name I've settled on is 'Deep Station Artosis'. It uses groupa and spans the texture schemes of counterstrike levels 1,2 and 3 where the more icy colour scheme of level 3 is at the top, then after the blue door there is the level 1 colours minus the whites. After the yellow door there is the red and oranges of level 2 at the bottom. This makes you feel like you are getting closer to the core hence the name.

I looked at certain levels that have a lot of verticality for inspiration, namely plutonian shores level12, 13 and 20.

It is a large level but still not apocalyptic factor large. I dont know how many other large levels there are, but this is definitely one.

[Xfing]

The "receptacle" for the red key.

Thanks for the review. That room was so difficult to make, so it's my greatest room so far.
Did you find the special thing about the location of the three keys yet?

Not yet, but you've got my curiosity hehe!

As for level 45, I already started it a few days ago. It's coming along REALLY nicely. The name I've settled on is 'Deep Station Artosis'. It uses groupa and spans the texture schemes of counterstrike levels 1,2 and 3 where the more icy colour scheme of level 3 is at the top, then after the blue door there is the level 1 colours minus the whites. After the yellow door there is the red and oranges of level 2 at the bottom. This makes you feel like you are getting closer to the core hence the name.

I looked at certain levels that have a lot of verticality for inspiration, namely plutonian shores level12, 13 and 20.

It is a large level but still not apocalyptic factor large. I dont know how many other large levels there are, but this is definitely one.

It's actually great that you chose that theme - GroupA is my favorite theme of Descent, as it's got the most going on for it by far, and we're in a sore need of more Zeta Aquilae-like levels. That theme emphasizes many different vivid colors, so it's the closest thing to a "D1 in D2" that we have. Wouldn't mind if all D2 levels were like this, and groupa is definitely the best choice for that. Good luck with the mapping!

[TRUEpiiiicness]

Yeah I looked at the beta ceti section of the level list and noticed that groupa, ice and water had only one level each so I went for groupa which adds 1 to the groupa roster and maybe half to ice. (1.5 lol)

If no one figures out the key thing in level 31 by tomorrow, I'll say what it is.

One final probably-giving-it-away hint though. It's easier to look in an editor. Then look at one of the keys from either above or below.

[Xfing]

Ok, the key gimmick is pretty impressive

[Alter-Fox]

I've done a few largeish levels, TE, and two of mine that take a while to get to the end are, I think, 42 and 46. Yours'll fit right in
Will have to take a look around 31 myself soon, I tentatively wanted the first Puuma level to give D2Disciple's level 1 song a reprise, now I can finally check and make sure it works!

The image I had in my head for the final level's texture scheme was military grey metal and gratings combined with black and red rocks-- kinda if you mixed D1 level 26 with Vertigo level 18. Those always felt like the two most memorably threatening aesthetics in the base games.
I think Overload's Enceladus mission pulled off a pretty ominous look, too, in a more clinical context. Maybe we could draw from that as well.

On texture colours, if I remember the ice levels correctly I think my final Limefrost map had more white ice going on than the other two, but it still throws in a lot of blues, greys, and metal. Lightwolf's Dynamo Station has got a lot of the white ice textures mixed in as well.
And I think the closest we've got to a natural-rock look are Parabol's level 21 and my level 42. Both of them use subdued colours and 42 is pretty heavy on the different D1 and D2 browns as well. So if we don't end up with anything matching that sub-theme in the last five we could give one of those two a retexture.

[Alter-Fox]

Starting to consider doing one more "replacement pass" over my own tracks on the hi-fi OST (other musicians' songs will stay where I've already put them)... most of the vocal stuff in there follows more-or-less standard verse-chorus-verse (etc) song structures. After scoring my own XL pack with songs that more often than not played around with that structure in at least small ways, I feel like this pack would benefit from having more of that.
What I realized is that I have a whole album's worth of songs from early 2019 that will probably never be released ('cause real life got in the way of the plans, and then Covid completely derailed them), and at least four of the songs on it approach structure in some different ways while also having lyrics that would work with the game. And besides that I've also been playing with song structures a lot more this year than I have in the past.
So since I've got the material to draw on and I'm making more of it anyway, it would be a shame not to take advantage of it.

EDIT: took a look around 31 and, I can see TE's name is well-deserved
Only criticism I have is I'm not sure how well the Pluto Military door fits into the Puuma theme. The stark gunmetal look of it feels a bit off to me in comparison with the naturalistic "alien jungle" colours. We should probably ensure we've got at least one Puuma Sphere level which mainly uses the standard Puuma/Tycho doors, but even if that's not needed specifically here, IIRC Descent Maximum used the Quartzon 1 door for a Puuma level, and that one might be a better fit since it's got some browns to it. If we're dead set on a D1 door, I think there's still a couple of better choices.

Also did a run of LW's level 32 -- while the population certainly needs a fair amount of finessing, I like the whole smart missile theme that shows in the robot placements, powerup placements, and the angular level design. It even plays into the door choice (since Boarshed has an easy time shooting you through them without having to open them) which is pretty neat. And obviously fits with what comes at the end.
If it were me I might change the lower red door to a puuma-style one, since that's on my mind. It's not strictly necessary with the way the room is set up, but it would still be a neat visual signifier that it does indeed lead to a different sort of fight.

[Xfing]

BTW, I'm working on a patch to D2 textures and eventually, when Sirius fixes DLE, I'll be able to add a few new textures and set up complete, working animation sequences for them etc. So we'll have a perfectly working spider monitor (that'll in fact be ready even without the DLE update, only the breaking anim and the broken screen won't be selectable on their own), the D1 lava and lava trickle and the D1 green cobble hidden door. Also a few other select D1 textures such as the doorlights and three purple walls. I'm also making fixes to textures such as door11, door50 and most monitors, which are misaligned in some variations.

So when that's done, we'll also obviously need to adjust the .pog files that levels inside the mission are using so as to remove the redundancies, because we will be shipping the mission with these new changes anyway. What's killing me though is that I'll have to make the descent2.ham edits three times: for a clean version, one combined with the UUD2SP, and also one containing the specific changes to the weapons and bosses that D1,5 will be using (which also contains the UUD2SP) and make sure all three are identical - so yeah, gonna be quite a bit of work to be sure. Right now I've fixed 3/7 PIG archives without the additions, when I finish those I'll take care of the HAMs. Keep an eye out for updates in the Descent Development threads.

[Alter-Fox]

Sounds like a lot of work! I want to get back to level-population station myself, but this coming week of evenings at work is going to be pretty busy.
Maybe I can make some time in the mornings or the week after.

[Xfing]

Sounds like a lot of work! I want to get back to level-population station myself, but this coming week of evenings at work is going to be pretty busy.
Maybe I can make some time in the mornings or the week after.

That'll definitely be appreciated, since I probably will have to chill for a while after making this patch, got a room to paint (and a ceiling to patch up) :c

And the amount of work is big but not insanely so - once I'm done with the patches, the addon textures (there's a limit of 31 additional bitmaps that the engine can take, 4 already taken for the broken spider monitors) should be relatively easy to add. But like I said, my hands are tied in that DLE won't be able to display those extra textures in its current version. Sirius said it should be possible to edit DLE so that they are, but that might on its own be quite a bit of work. I think it'd be worth it in the end though, since mapmakers would have somewhat more liberty with D1 assets they might otherwise not decide to use. Long-term it would be ideal to be able to bring in all the D1 textures to the D2 PIG archives, but that would require an engine rewrite and a complete recompiling of Descent 2 from the source code, so it's gonna be off the table for the foreseeable future. Still, having those extra interactive textures brought back from D1 without the need for POGs will definitely be a huge plus, so I'm hoping it can be done as soon as possible.

Also, if you get a moment, please vote in this thread: https://descentbb.net/viewtopic.php?f=2 ... 43#p391643
There's one duplicate texture in D1 that we could replace without risking losing any content (literally - rock019 is identical to rock004), and I've put up a poll to let the community decide what that should be. This thread gets some hits, so I thought I'd advertise here haha

EDIT: took a look around 31 and, I can see TE's name is well-deserved
Only criticism I have is I'm not sure how well the Pluto Military door fits into the Puuma theme. The stark gunmetal look of it feels a bit off to me in comparison with the naturalistic "alien jungle" colours. We should probably ensure we've got at least one Puuma Sphere level which mainly uses the standard Puuma/Tycho doors, but even if that's not needed specifically here, IIRC Descent Maximum used the Quartzon 1 door for a Puuma level, and that one might be a better fit since it's got some browns to it. If we're dead set on a D1 door, I think there's still a couple of better choices.

Regarding this - it's just what I wrote a few posts ago. We definitely need ot have representation of each door type in the mission, even though some are chosen more readily by designers than others. This particular door needs to be used for the final level (can't think of a better choice there), but the Puuma door definitely needs some love too, as do many other door types. Then again, we also want some D1 doors to be used in the other portions of the game as well so it feels seamless, like they're chosen from a single pool of doors rather than two separate ones. When I'm done with the patch, I might make a list of doors in the tracker (think I've actually started on that some time ago).

[Alter-Fox]

On the topic of the patches and those doors, I'm still a little iffy myself on the Puuma door getting the D2demo secret door sounds, since it wasn't even in the demo.
It would feel better to me to give that sound to a couple of secret doors if that's possible, especially since that set seems like the most obviously lo-fi of all the D1/d2demo sounds -- and I'll admit I don't particularly like it or think it fits in with the rest of the game's audio.

I still would like it somewhere, but I don't really think it sounds good enough to be used on a main level door.

[Xfing]

On the topic of the patches and those doors, I'm still a little iffy myself on the Puuma door getting the D2demo secret door sounds, since it wasn't even in the demo.
It would feel better to me to give that sound to a couple of secret doors if that's possible, especially since that set seems like the most obviously lo-fi of all the D1/d2demo sounds -- and I'll admit I don't particularly like it or think it fits in with the rest of the game's audio.

I still would like it somewhere, but I don't really think it sounds good enough to be used on a main level door.

The thing is, this sound was used for all the secret doors in the Interactive Demo, and clearly intended for all secret doors overall. I felt selecting a list of arbitrary secret doors to assign this sound to would make less sense than selecting a single, comparatively rarely used main door to assign it to. As for the noticeable low-fi, I don't think it's as bad as you say - also that sound happens to align very well with the Puuma door's animation, almost like it was made for it. In retail D2 that Puuma door used the same sound as the secret ones, so had Parallax gone ahead with the original sounds, this door would have it too. Actually it DOES have it when you play 11k sound in the first place - the asset was ripped from D2's files, not D2 demo, believe it or not. And of course it was upscaled in audio software as well. I just think it's a better match for that Puuma door than for the secret ones. It just fits. So yeah, I'm gonna stand by that decision. But don't worry, you can influence what texture gets added to descent.pig before it happens, just chip in in that thread haha

BTW level 45 has arrived, I'm gonna check it out in a moment

[Xfing]

Ok, level 45 is geometrically one of the best levels I've ever played, no contest - especially the whole huge chamber around the yellow key. Definitely mixes things up with its vertical sprawl too, while horizontally being rather compact. Sweet level to be sure! Only thing I'm going to change is going to be the texture around the red key from the robotic one to the smooth one from D1. The blue door lights could also use a re-import. I'll put it up on Dropbox in a moment

[Alter-Fox]

On the topic of the patches and those doors, I'm still a little iffy myself on the Puuma door getting the D2demo secret door sounds, since it wasn't even in the demo.
It would feel better to me to give that sound to a couple of secret doors if that's possible, especially since that set seems like the most obviously lo-fi of all the D1/d2demo sounds -- and I'll admit I don't particularly like it or think it fits in with the rest of the game's audio.

I still would like it somewhere, but I don't really think it sounds good enough to be used on a main level door.

The thing is, this sound was used for all the secret doors in the Interactive Demo, and clearly intended for all secret doors overall. I felt selecting a list of arbitrary secret doors to assign this sound to would make less sense than selecting a single, comparatively rarely used main door to assign it to. As for the noticeable low-fi, I don't think it's as bad as you say - also that sound happens to align very well with the Puuma door's animation, almost like it was made for it. In retail D2 that Puuma door used the same sound as the secret ones, so had Parallax gone ahead with the original sounds, this door would have it too. Actually it DOES have it when you play 11k sound in the first place - the asset was ripped from D2's files, not D2 demo, believe it or not. And of course it was upscaled in audio software as well. I just think it's a better match for that Puuma door than for the secret ones. It just fits. So yeah, I'm gonna stand by that decision. But don't worry, you can influence what texture gets added to descent.pig before it happens, just chip in in that thread haha

Well that's the thing though, isn't it? We're essentially forcing the 11khz sound onto players (such as myself) who might prefer the other one.
At the very least we could have an optional patch for the mission that allows that one to be reset to normal since it is just a lower-fidelity version of the same sound. I'm sure I can't be the only person who just doesn't like it.

EDIT: I found some issues with the software renderer on level 45, where having a reactor in a segment smaller than it is makes it partially invisible and very glitchy. I was able to leave the structure behind the reactor as it was, and just made a small adjustment to some of the other segment geometry in that room and switched the reactor type-- the ZA one doesn't look that good without both a floor and ceiling to attach to, anyway. Also changed a couple textures underneath it to match the new reactor a little better.
Baloris reactor fits better with the type of environment the level ends with, and I think that helps reinforce the cold-to-hot theming. Plus it's small enough to fit in the adjusted segment

[Xfing]

It's more than just a 11k version of the same sound. The sound is completely different, which is a rather unique situation when you explore the sound files. As for 11k, keep in mind that the D1 robot sounds were also upscaled, as 22k versions of these sounds simply didn't exist at the time. But sure, it's easy enough to make a version where the sound is reverted to normal.

Ok, since we've only 4 levels to go, maybe someone would be interested in finishing level 39 - the Tycho Brahe boss level I made the arena to? That would kinda be the inverse of what we did with level 5 - the level was mine and the arena was Naphtha's. The arena here is 367 segments, so there are 532 left to go for the rest of the level - should be enough to make something. Of course improvements to the arena itself are also welcome, but I'd be rather insistent on keeping it in some shape or form, since it's a recreation of a dream sequence from years ago (personal sentimental value 'n shiet). I've put up the level on Dropbox. I leave the naming of the level to the other designer, since I don't really feel strongly about any name. Then again, it would perhaps be nice if the name contained the word "derelict", that would feel right.
The boss arena: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/gninxixinl1n ... 9ajla?dl=0

[Alter-Fox]

So, a little announcement of a rule-change --although the rule was never really enforced to begin with.

If you've got a map in the Descent 2 or Vertigo section of the mission, feel free to go back to it and give it some preliminary powerup/robot population. The key word here is preliminary. There's no need to populate every part of the level or try to perfectly balance it, 'cause the balance will be adjusted later anyway. I've just found while I've been populating maps, that when I have some idea how the designer intended the different areas of their own map to feel, the gameplay ends up feeling more deliberate and easier to balance for.

That all said, there's a few caveats here:
Only populate your own maps. Populating someone else's map would be more hindrance than help to Xfing and I.

If the main hog is close to eating your map already, that may mean we're already working on your map ourselves and won't see any changes you made-- keep that in mind. If it's more than three or four levels away, you're probably fine. So far we've only tended to do two or three in a sitting. At the time of this post it was at level 15.

Try to give us enough equipment to get through the sections you put enemies in-- if we have to use cheats, we haven't really learned anything about how you want it to feel.

Upload it as something like [levelname]_pop.hog, so it doesn't overwrite the original file in the dropbox.
And of course post here when you do that so we know you've updated it.

-------

BTW X, I had a name suggestion for 39 based on that arena-- one of those sorts of nonsense anagrams D2 loves
It was "Hiagn Caf-t'troerym", which unscrambles into into "Nightmare Factory", while sounding like something out of the cthulhu mythos
And funnily enough one of the potential songs I have on the drive for the mission is called "Derelict" XD It's more creepy than intense, but whenever the map's finished I'll check if it fits

[TRUEpiiiicness]

Thanks for the great review of level 45. The blue door lights I did myself using the blues in groupa.

Because I think this:

Looks better than this, which is what I get when I import them (I don't think descent has purple doors ):

Funnily enough about level 39, I was actually going to take it and use the boss area that was posted long ago in another post because I knew you wanted to use it.
If I can do it, do you mind if I make the arena from scratch? It will look like that in the end but just more cube efficient, I'll have it open as a reference.

[Xfing]

Thanks for the great review of level 45. The blue door lights I did myself using the blues in groupa.

Because I think this:
good.png

Looks better than this, which is what I get when I import them (I don't think descent has purple doors ):
bad.png

Hmmm, interesting. Then maybe I should bring that door light back now that you put it that way. Shouldn't be a big job.

Funnily enough about level 39, I was actually going to take it and use the boss area that was posted long ago in another post because I knew you wanted to use it.
If I can do it, do you mind if I make the arena from scratch? It will look like that in the end but just more cube efficient, I'll have it open as a reference.

Sure, go ahead! If you think you can pull it off and make it accurate then be my guest. Also, I'd like to keep those secrets and buttons behind those secret doors in the upper floors, though those ceiling secrets might be too essential for beating the boss and they might need a more telegraphed trigger. Those switches could open something else instead.

[TRUEpiiiicness]

Cool! I'll keep everything the way it is. Unless you say whether something should change like for example those switches you mentioned. Basically you say do something, I'll make it so.
Also, do you want the red door(s) (or another kind of entrance) in a specific location?

[Xfing]

Cool! I'll keep everything the way it is. Unless you say whether something should change like for example those switches you mentioned. Basically you say do something, I'll make it so.

The main room doesn't have to be so square, if you can find a way to make it more rounded then go for it. I just want the upper, middle and lower level kept, the tunnels in the corners could probably contain energy centers. The gimmick with having to unlock the forcefield guarding the exit definitely needs to stay etc. Overall, I'd say first remake the arena exactly as is but more cube-efficient, then make whatever improvements you think it needs.

Also, do you want the red door(s) (or another kind of entrance) in a specific location?

I was thinking it could be at the cube where the current starting location is. As for the direction you enter it from, you can use a tunnel or whatever else you fancy to attach it to the rest of the level at any angle you feel appropriate. The level could be directly in front of the room, it could turn at a 90 degree angle, whatever. Though now that I think of it, perhaps it would be interesting to make the arena above the entire rest of the level, which would mean the tunnel would have to curve 90 degrees, then 90 again and actually go under the room. I think that would actually be kinda cool. Like so:

And then the level could sprawl beneath the big arena.

Also, I used rock004 and rock019 interchangeably like a dummy. That's what happens when you have dupes. Please make sure you use rock004 only, because I'll be replacing rock019 for my texture patch with one of the green cobblestone textures, and the mission will be using a HAM including that patch.

[Alter-Fox]

If we're still using that idea where you won't find any Earthshakers until you actually reach the boss, and the level's sprawling beneath it, it could be neat to have a room or two along the way that reach up to where you can see into the boss arena-- and the boss can see you!
And since you can't hurt it yet, you'd have to be veeeeeeeeery careful.

The idea that you might get hit by an earthshaker outside of a boss battle is an interesting one, and not one I've seen many designers evil enough to use before

[Xfing]

If we're still using that idea where you won't find any Earthshakers until you actually reach the boss, and the level's sprawling beneath it, it could be neat to have a room or two along the way that reach up to where you can see into the boss arena-- and the boss can see you!
And since you can't hurt it yet, you'd have to be veeeeeeeeery careful.

The idea that you might get hit by an earthshaker outside of a boss battle is an interesting one, and not one I've seen many designers evil enough to use before

I don't recall ever leaning towards the idea that all the shakers needed will be found inside the boss arena itself. That said, I like this idea of yours, but I think it'd be better to maybe leave it for the very final level. That'd be an interesting gimmick for sure - being able to see and interact with the boss, but being forced to wait until you get the tools to destroy it. But dunno, guess we'll get to it later.

BTW, the d2 texture patch is ready, feel free to check it out.

[Alter-Fox]

Trouble if it's done on the final level is you'll probably already have some of the tools to destroy that boss. This one's at least a better opportunity.

[Alter-Fox]

EDIT: I just made a small adjustment to the exit shortcut on level 37, for two reasons. First is, that sharp angle between the floor of the main room and the ceiling of the tunnel was a little bit ugly. And secondly, doing it this way gives players a clearer indication that there is a shortcut there, so that they won't try backtrack through the whole level regardless.
It's now under a grate in the floor, and when you destroy the reactor you get access to a control panel next to the grate which will remove it.

Also X, I tried to do a preliminary run through Sedna but it won't load in the version of Chocolate I'm using to do level populations. Trying to figure this out-- I don't want to switch versions, because I'd like the main testing and balancing to be done for as close to vanilla DOS as possible-- which means this will become a problem for me pretty soon. You know the level better than I do, so if you've got any ideas they would be appreciated. Already tried reducing the number of characters in the filenames but that didn't work, and diagnostics in DLE turns up no problems.
I also pointed out a problem I found with some vertigo bot texturing that seems to be caused by our modded HAM on our discord chat.

[TRUEpiiiicness]

I've also noticed the texturing issues. Its definitely the ham because it happens with just the sound patch. It also completly messes up custom robots. (Decided to play The Enemy Within.) It's mostly the eyes that get borked.

[Xfing]

Well, I made the early edits to the HAM using Haxmed32, so I may have screwed something up in the process. D2W is much clearer in its interface so it's a bit harder to ruin something you don't intend to. But I know I didn't touch anything that related to Vertigo bots (in d2x.ham I only changed some values for the bosses), so I have no idea what is causing all this trouble. I know it' d be nice to take care of this, since we need to test for balance using the altered files that have different damage for certain weapons.

[Xfing]

Okay, SaladBadger found out what was causing the issue - turns out it's actually caused by D2W - it switches around the numbers of certain v-clips when recompiling descent2.ham - it's not a problem for native robots, but ones form v-hams start matchign to wrong indices then and that's why we get Vertigo bots with no visors. Luckily there's a simple option that can just be ticked that resolves this problem, all the HAM files just need to be re-saved with the option enabled. I'll do that as soon as I can - though probably not today. I'll let you know anyhow.

Oh, and the Sedna issue was identified too, so no worries there

EDIT: All the patch files and versions have been updated, just get yours from the usual links. Now robots should have visors again hehe

[Xfing]

I've also noticed the texturing issues. Its definitely the ham because it happens with just the sound patch. It also completly messes up custom robots. (Decided to play The Enemy Within.) It's mostly the eyes that get borked.

Reinstall the files and you should be fine now. Hopefully I may have messed something up while repacking, since I'm not at full mental capacity today

[TRUEpiiiicness]

I wish I could test, but how you open .dxa files? Google says that dxas store video frames but this isn't that.

[Xfing]

I wish I could test, but how you open .dxa files? Google says that dxas store video frames but this isn't that.

They're just renamed ZIP files, you can enter them as if they were folders if you just click them (at least in software like Total Commander) - if that can't be done using the regular Windows Explorer, then just rename it back to a ZIP.

[TRUEpiiiicness]

I've thought of a good name for level 39 now.
I'm calling it ul'go k'doc derelict quarter.
The first two words are an anagram of 'good luck'.
It has a nice ring to it and it also sounds like a base name for the orcs in The lord of the rings.

[TRUEpiiiicness]

And it's not wishing you good luck either

[Xfing]

I have sent you my impressions via DM, good job overall, as always

[Xfing]

Aight, we've got level 39 ready, completed by TRUEpiiiicness. Great job as always, the level is definitely going to be very memorable! It's indeed short, but not as short as it initially seems and is very appropriate for a boss level. Best of all, it feels busy even without the robots - it's just got stuff going on for it, and that's great. The puzzles are so tough that I couldn't even get them on the first flythrough even with the help of the full map, meaning the secrets are right up there with the best of them. Sweet level as always, I'm very grateful <3

I'm going to credit it as a split between the two of us, since I consider the initial version of the boss arena that I did primary mapping (even though you overhauled it), hope you don't mind that. I'll put the level up ond dropbox in a moment and mark it off in all relevant lists.

[TRUEpiiiicness]

Thanks for the review.

Quick question, which puzzle did you find the hardest? I'm just curious because there are a couple of difficult ones.

I'm fine with the crediting, it was your idea after all.