DescentBB

Well, it took me long enough, but I finally beat D1 level 7. On Trainee.

God, I suck at this game.

Great random post, DCrazy

Congrats! \"You've taken your first step into a larger world.\" (Obi-Wan Kenobi)



If you've got the full game, you're actually ready to take on the rest.

D1 was probably one of the hardest games of its day. The robot intelligence on Insane is just incredible; it easily obliterates the AI in most modern shooters I've played. I'm slogging through D1 on Insane, currently on Nereid Volatile Mine. I usually load my game after I die and save a lot, so I have a ton of lives that betrays just how bad I am at it.

First time I beat the L7 boss on Tranee it took me better than a couple hours of peek-a-boo sniping since I couldn't dodge homing weapons at all. It was a good feeling to fly through the exit and finally see the next level.

I used to have a really cool demo of beating him where I incidentally flew forward and dodged two smart missiles like threading a needle with my ship. Was the most awesome looking dodge ever, complete fluke but looked brilliant because I was rolling the ship which made one go over and the other go under the ship and they were so close you could make out the textures on the missile plain as day even at 320x200 resolution.

If you want to beat the L7 boss easily, just bi/tri-chord around the pillar in the middle and shoot at him as you go past without slowing down. It makes it pretty easy because you can fly faster than the smart missile homing blobs and they all hit the pillar as you keep going around. AI in D1 will never lead a shot ahead of you so as long as you keep moving the homing blobs will always be behind you. If you concentrate all your fire on the boss he will usually die by the third or fourth pass.

Of course this requires clearing out all the homing and vulcan bots in the room first which is what I always do before I even look at the boss. There is an invul and a cloak not too far away from the L7 red door, I usually save them up till I've cleared the rest of the mine and all that is left is the boss room. I grab them and use them to kill all the regular mechs in the boss room so they won't get in my way. After that there is one more cloak in the boss room, and plenty of times I've killed the boss before that second cloak even wore out. Once you get the right pattern for it he goes down pretty fast.

lobbing a few homers into the door before entering is a good way of taking down some of the drillers.

And congrats!

let us know when you take down the last guy Bring a clean pair of shorts...

Krom, that is indeed the strategy I used. I got a hankering to reinstall D1 under DOSBox for some reason (probably due to the lack of Mac games ), but I failed to reconfigure the keyboard. No joystick, no mouse, and the default config makes it impossible to slide (seriously, toggle-to-slide?). And then there's the speed bug for the homing missiles; their update rate is directly tied to framerate, so I had to bump down the DOSBox cycle count. Finally was able to beat it after about 15 attempts.

DAMN that level pissed me off. It took me quite awhile and umpteen tries to get past that boss too. Almost made me give up on D1! Talk about wrist and finger cramps! I got so that I was trying to look around the side of the monitor to try and see where the boss was coming from just out of reflex.

I ... think I first played that level in the shareware version. If my memory on that point is correct and it was me playing it (strange that I can't quite remember any more) then I couldn't beat it back then.

My second attempt would have been in 1998 sometime after getting the actual registered version of Descent, but by then I had already played Descent 2 in on-line anarchy games for a while (think I hit Demigod at about the same time, so yeah...) and it was pretty much easy.

Ah, memories...

Some people learn faster than others... but that doesn't mean one is less capable than others are.

I never lost faith in you, DC. A small accomplishment of my own: I just beat level 20 in Doom II in a similar Dosbox setup. Only 10 more levels to go. These demons are getting to be a real pain in the ass though.

DCrazy wrote:Krom, that is indeed the strategy I used. I got a hankering to reinstall D1 under DOSBox for some reason (probably due to the lack of Mac games ), but I failed to reconfigure the keyboard. No joystick, no mouse, and the default config makes it impossible to slide (seriously, toggle-to-slide?). And then there's the speed bug for the homing missiles; their update rate is directly tied to framerate, so I had to bump down the DOSBox cycle count. Finally was able to beat it after about 15 attempts.

you know, there is D2X-Rebirth or D2X-XL to utilize. But congrats on the boss.

There's a demo floating around somewhere of me killing the lvl 7 boss only using flares
It took me almost an hour...

After a few hundred deaths, I finally got out of that stupid entry hallway, and avoided the center collumn halls and just stayed in the open...that was the key to beating him....and ultimately humiliating him with the flare death :p

Somewhere along the way, people started doing speed tests thru lvl 1...get the captives, take out the reactor and escape. The time race was REALLY fun and challenging.

This thread is really making me want to play D1 SP again, damn you!

I wonder if D1X-R works in Windows 7...

Krom wrote:This thread is really making me want to play D1 SP again, damn you!

I wonder if D1X-R works in Windows 7...

Posted, I'll let you know. or it's in the Suggestions forum.

DarkFlameWolf wrote:you know, there is D2X-Rebirth or D2X-XL to utilize.

I installed D2X-XL, but I couldn't just copy the game data off the CD; I had to use DOSBox to "install" D2, which was difficult because the installer didn't want to actually install anything; it just showed the Star Trek movie and quit. Once I found the actual installer executable and it unpacked the data, I copied it over and D2X-XL crashed immediately. Then I reorganized things (seriously, I have to put the app bundle and the data files side-by-side? This is *not* how things are supposed to work!) and it launched, but the entire game world was pitch black, only lit by dynamic lighting like flares.

That's when I decided to go back to DOSBox.

DXX-Revolution does work in Windows 7, I just tried it. It worked flawlessly 3d graphics and USB joysticks included, unfortunately after better than a year off my piloting wasn't so great...

And DCrazy, you should try DXX-Revolution, its a lot easier to configure the first time and you already have the needed data files (assuming you patched to 1.4a or higher). Pretty much it will run just by unzipping it and copying the data files.

DXX-Rebirth (not Revolution ) also works on my Mac. Much better than D2X-XL, but unfortunately it refuses to play the MIDI music, and it seems quite sluggish in comparison to the DOS version. (Maybe the lack of pace-setting music is what does it.)

just btw. If you buy Descent 1 from GOG, it comes 1.5 patch ready.

I'm using the Definitive Collection disks; I tried running the 1.5 patch but it failed, so I'm assuming that my version is patched to 1.5 already.

Doesn't the definitive collection come with some weird 1.4 version that doesn't patch to 1.5 using the official patches?

yeah Jeff. It came with 1.4 and to patch to 1.5 you have to have 1.4a. ... go figure. Really though, all 1.5 offered was some kind of sound support that iirc, isn't used anymore.

DC, I think that descent2.net or com or whatever has all the patches you need.

Unfortunately it doesn't, and neither does PD. Apparently D1 Definitive is unpatchable.

Man I remember spending all of 6th grade futzing around with DMB. Those were the days...

Try THIS

There are at least two versions of Descent: The Definitive Collection. One version has D1 patched with the bogus Version 1.0=>1.5 patch and screwed up music. A fix for this version can be found here:

http://vogons.zetafleet.com/viewtopic.php?=&p=97437

Another version has a Version 1.4a install that cannot be patched with the official patch. A fix for this version can be found here:

http://vogons.zetafleet.com/viewtopic.php?t=20483

Other versions may exist as well.

Ah man this reminds me I still need to play the full D2

Did D1 rebirth a while back and started on D2. Was on level 11 or something when I had my OS go all loopy and needed a reformat! And of course I forgot to save my progress

But then again this is just another good excuse to play some old school Descent for a change

Once in a while I'm tempted to play D2 SP again, and I never finished Vertigo either. But D2 just isn't as fun since they nurfed Fusion. I could play it all over again a half dozen times if there was a way to make the D2 Fusion cannon == D1 Fusion cannon (without using D2X-XL which I know has a slider for it that is really tempting but is too much of a nuisance to install/configure).

Well the installer worked but it obliterated the progress in my pilot file I wonder if the DOS equivalent of PLREDIT32 is still around.

Didn't Rebirth require some form of shoving data files around or at least configuration file tweaks as well? It's basically the same thing...

Installers would help obviously, but although I've heard of some in-progress ones I don't think anyone finished one yet.

Hehe, this thread made me pick up D1 SP again...

Yesterday I was pretty sloppy, but today I was much better (although still far from what I could do before). It was still enough to beat the level 7 boss in less than 30 seconds on insane though, so I'm happy. Just a couple more levels before my favorite Fusion cannon...

Sirius wrote:Didn't Rebirth require some form of shoving data files around or at least configuration file tweaks as well?

There are data folders and such, but from memory. It's not required.
Though I could be wrong. I haven't been keeping up with Rebirth as of late.

There's extra stuff, but if you unzip it in your D1 folder all the stuff lands where it needs to.

There is the typical ini file like d1 and D2 have always had, but that's about it. And there are still a couple of bugs, but Zico is working on it as he can. RL, you know.

Yep, I know. The \"other camp\" has the same issue.

My objection to both D2X-XL and DXX-Rebirth is that the data files have to be put in folders that sit alongside the executable, so you wind up with a folder structure that looks like this:

Descent
- D1X Rebirth.app
- Data

The data files really belong in ~/Library/Application Support/D1X Rebirth, that way I can just keep D1X Rebirth in /Applications. I have an Applications icon in my Dock that pops up a list; I don't want to have to traverse a folder hierarchy to launch the application. (My same complain also holds for Adobe apps, which all like to have their own individual folders in /Applications. )

Well then DC, it's open source, get after it. chop chop!

Is that on a Mac? At first I was thinking Linux, then I realised Adobe doesn't release software for that...

Duper wrote:Well then DC, it's open source, get after it. chop chop!

I've taken a look in the code, and I haven't seen where I could patch the code to make it look where it should. If I have more time, I'll do it and submit a patch.

there's a whole lot more than patching. complete rewrites are needed.
My point is that both camps found patterns within a bowl of spaghetti to be more coherent than the code in Descent. To make some basic necessary improvements, a lot of the game needed a complete overhaul.

If the structure is really that much of an issue, head on over to the either of the forums and post your ideas. (civily of course) Either will give you an ear and a decent answer.

man you guys are making me want to play SP again. I figure a nice easy cruise on Ace setting should do.