DescentBB

That very low, rumbling sound that plays constantly whenever he pops up. In D2 it's replaced with the screech from the class 1 drone. I've tried changing the sound in DLE to a bunch of different ones but can't find it. I also have Xfing's UUD2SP which doesn't change it.

Eventually I'll replace the boss robots entirely but I'd like to use the D1 boss sound and it'd be good to know if this sound is in the D2 game files and what it's called, or if I need to import it.

[edit] Another boss question: Say you have a boss enclosed by walls in a one-cube area (like the Red Fatty from D2). With any D2 boss AI, it will stay inside that cube until it's revealed or "woken up" or whatever - with either D1 boss AI, it will start teleporting around its arena immediately despite starting in the hidden cube.

I'd like the staying-inside-until-revealed behavior, but not all the D2 stuff that comes with it like immunities and spawning D2 robots. Is this all entirely hardcoded? Is there a way to tweak the Boss 1 AI to make it stay put, or a way to tweak the D2 AIs to remove the spawning/immunities? Not a huge deal if I have to redesign this boss arena but I had some cool things I'd rather keep.

Ok, here's the deal.

The Class 1 Drone sound is present in D1 too, it plays when the robot is made aware of your presence, or straight after transforming. The perpetual ticking sound was indeed fixed in my sound patch (it was sped up to 2x in original D2), but it not playing is more than a sound file issue - in D2 the two D1 bosses don't have their intact AI from Descent 1, so they don't play any sort of perpetual sound at all, and also don't cloak or teleport. There is no way to make them do it other than changing their AI to be one of D2's bosses. In that case, they'll play the sound like any other boss. So it's not just a matter of fixing sound files, but also properly programming them. The sound patch did that for normal robots, but it doesn't touch bosses, since they would require alterations to their AI. Also, the sound you are talking about (the perpetual ticking) does play for the bosses. It's just not well... perpetual, and much quieter. The boss robots do emit it occasionally, every few seconds or so.

In the altered HAM file for D1,5, I gave these bosses that neededAI overhaul and they do indeed work as intended, sounds included. But their AI is quite different from what you're used to. If you want to see what it looks like, here's the file. But I'd advise a separate folder installation, or at least backing up your old Descent2.HAM, since this thing also changes weapon balance to a degree.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ua97cp4o2y3xv ... 5.HAM?dl=0
The file works with the same altered sound libraries as in the Unofficial Patch, but you already have those, so this file is all you need. Just rename it to Descent2.HAM and you're in business.

The only other way to fix the D1 boss sound is to make a HXM file and put it into the HOG archive. It's sort of a mini-HAM that only alters some particular robots, and can't encompass weapon balance. These are also made using the tool HAXMED32.

[edit] Another boss question: Say you have a boss enclosed by walls in a one-cube area (like the Red Fatty from D2). With any D2 boss AI, it will stay inside that cube until it's revealed or "woken up" or whatever - with either D1 boss AI, it will start teleporting around its arena immediately despite starting in the hidden cube.

That's maybe true for D1, but not for D2, since with "factory AI", Descent 1 bosses in D2 don't teleport at all. The only way to make them is to change their AI to one of the D2 bosses. If you want no immunities, choose Red Fatty or Quartzon boss.

I'd like the staying-inside-until-revealed behavior, but not all the D2 stuff that comes with it like immunities and spawning D2 robots. Is this all entirely hardcoded? Is there a way to tweak the Boss 1 AI to make it stay put, or a way to tweak the D2 AIs to remove the spawning/immunities? Not a huge deal if I have to redesign this boss arena but I had some cool things I'd rather keep.

The only boss features that are hardcoded and can't be changed are the immunities and the robots that are spawned by the bosses. The closest you will get to the D1 boss AI is choosing either Red Fatty or Water Boss, like I said above, since they have no immunities. But they will spawn their respective selections of robots when hit, and you can't do anything about it. What you can change, however, is everything else, ranging from weaponry to movement patterns. You can indeed make the bosses stay put and not move in any other way than teleporting, you just need to change the map_speed property to "0" in HAXMED32. Weaponry can also be changed, for realism I suggest changing Boss 1's weapon from robot smarts to player smarts for example.

If you want to minimise spawns, Quartzon only spawns IT Droids.

Don't worry about weapon balance etc - I've actually copied most of the changes from your Descent 1 1/2 post except I've done weird stuff to the laser.

Xfing wrote:they don't play any sort of perpetual sound at all, and also don't cloak or teleport

Xfing wrote:Descent 1 bosses in D2 don't teleport at all

This doesn't match up with my tests. Descent 2 seems to have 2 copies of Boss 1: "New Boss 1" (ID 32) seems to kind of match what you're describing, since it's just a normal robot and doesn't even end the level. But if I put a "Boss 1" (ID 17) in the level, then as soon as it teleports for the first time it will start emitting the class 1 drone screech (or whatever is its "see you" sound) incessantly, over and over. And if I have a "Boss 1" with the Boss 1 AI in one cube closed off by an opaque "close" wall, eventually it will teleport out and start attacking.

With your HAM and UUD2SP files, it has the old low hum - excellent - but also emits the drone screech when it actually fires (makes sense, you've changed the attack and taunt sounds to the class 1 drone and changed "See you" to 90 - I assume that's the old sound in UUD2SP) and has the Fire boss AI (incl. spawns and immunities). And with the boss in an enclosed space, it never teleports out (since it has the Fire boss AI).

So I think I have all the info I need now (which I guess is just that the old hum is sound 90 in UUD2SP) but since I'm still confused about this AI thing, here is a zip containing a test level with a Boss 1 behind a wall, and a demo showing the teleporting behavior. The boss teleports out despite being entirely hidden behind the wall (which is opaque on both sides). This was recorded with the default descent2.HAM on Rebirth 0.59.100 - if our versions are different (and/or the boss AI was changed somewhere) the demo might just desync. Idk. I can get a video in OBS as well if that would help.

Well, this is what it looks like in my demo, playing through the same mission:

https://www.sendspace.com/file/3vu0t5

Just like I said. The robot does end the level, but neither cloaks nor teleports. The behavior in your demo is kinda like it was in original Descent though, no idea how you got that. Maybe you're using an early version of Descent2.HAM?

ΕDIT: I tried another thing. I replaced the boss with "New Boss 1" and changed up its AI to "Boss1" and I got the same results you did. This actually does replicate the boss' AI in Descent 2! It does indeed teleport and cloak as per normal, and the sound it emits is indeed the Class 1 Drone sound. This is something to be fixed in HAXMED32, and I might as well do it. Holy crap, you can actually have a real, functioning D1 Boss in D2 with no alterations! If only I had known earlier Too bad there is no way to achieve the same with the second boss though.

Still, if you want the full experience, you should probably set its map_speed to 0, so that it's immobile like in D1. I didn't see any of the behavior like premature teleporting though, he only noticed me first when I opened the wall.

That's... certainly weird. I just looked for my old CDs and I have the "Definitive collection" which included D1 with some LOTW stuff, D2, and D2 Vertigo. I'd like to look through your game's HAM file if you don't mind - mine is here.

I'm going to look at the differences between the Boss 1 and the New Boss 1 as well. I was under the impression that the only thing that could control this type of behavior was the Boss AI (which is boss_flag in the HXM I think), but maybe not.

[edit] These are my versions of the Boss 1 and New Boss 1 specifically. The only differences that seem relevant are the AI (of course) and something called "badass". I have no idea what that does but it's usually set to 0 except on bosses (but not always - the diamond claw has it at 7 and the thief has it at 17. Maybe something to do with willingness to get near the player, and the teleport AI needs it for some reason?)

[edit 2] I just ran my test mission in DOSBox and got your results (moving around, no teleport). So it sounds like it's not in the HAM at all but the game executable. The moving in DOSBox/your game is odd though, because the map_speed is actually zero in the HAM - maybe a bug in vanilla D2 that Rebirth fixed?

ShivanHunter wrote:That's... certainly weird. I just looked for my old CDs and I have the "Definitive collection" which included D1 with some LOTW stuff, D2, and D2 Vertigo. I'd like to look through your game's HAM file if you don't mind - mine is here.

My HAM has been altered, as part of the UUD2SP, I needed to change some sound flags for robots, doors and bosses. I haven't altered any robot behavior or weapon values, that also pertains to the bosses. Still, if you want D1 sounds in proper places, you need this HAM. The HAM that has all these balance and boss alterations, well, you've already got it But truth be told - Descent 2 does alter Descent2.HAM when patching from version 1.1 to 1.2, and again when patching to Vertigo Enhanced (though that probably just means overwriting the 1.2 version with 1.2 anyway, just to be safe). Just make sure your game is version 1.2, in that case there should be no differences between our HAMs.

I'm going to look at the differences between the Boss 1 and the New Boss 1 as well. I was under the impression that the only thing that could control this type of behavior was the Boss AI (which is boss_flag in the HXM I think), but maybe not.

Yes, that's what I was talking about. When you put the normal Boss 1 in the level in DLE, its default boss flag will be Boss 1. This makes killing it end the level, but it only moves around and doesn't teleport. New Boss 1's default boss flag is "none", that's why it behaves as a normal robot. But if you set its flag to Boss 1 manually, say in DLE (which creates a HXM), you get a fully functional Boss 1 that teleports, cloaks and emits a perpetual sound (the wrong one mind you, but I actually haven't altered this boss' sound flags in the patch yet). It also moves around a little bit, so its map speed must not be 0. I'll check that out in HAXMED.

[edit] These are my versions of the Boss 1 and New Boss 1 specifically. The only differences that seem relevant are the AI (of course) and something called "badass". I have no idea what that does but it's usually set to 0 except on bosses (but not always - the diamond claw has it at 7 and the thief has it at 17. Maybe something to do with willingness to get near the player, and the teleport AI needs it for some reason?)

That is indeed very interesting. This one stat may be what makes one of the Boss 1 versions behave properly when loaded with Boss 1 AI, and the other not.

[edit 2] I just ran my test mission in DOSBox and got your results (moving around, no teleport). So it sounds like it's not in the HAM at all but the game executable. The moving in DOSBox/your game is odd though, because the map_speed is actually zero in the HAM - maybe a bug in vanilla D2 that Rebirth fixed?

I remember specifically having to change the map speed to 0 in my altered HAMs. I believe that in the original it's not 0 actually. Gonna check it out.

You were right, the map_speed is 0 for both robots. Strangely enough, I remember being able to make both Boss 1 and Boss 2 immobile with alterations of my own, though I later chose to let them move around a bit (as a story-justified improvement).

Interestingly enough, Boss 1 and Boss 2 have "badass" set to 0. This might be what prevents their proper boss AI routines from executing, considering that New Boss 1 has "badass" of 5, and when loaded with Boss 1 AI, he behaves just like you'd expect him to.

As for movement, I think the "circle distance" statistic could be responsible for it. Map_speed determines the speed the robot tries to approach you with. With 0, the robot can't get any closer to you, but looks like it can still circle.

Just got patch 1.2 but it said the new version of Descent2.HAM already exists. According to this thread, the Definitive Collection installs version 1.1 already, and there are no HAM changes between 1.1 and 1.2. So it looks like I have the latest version.

There's definitely something going on with the "badass" flag but I'm still curious about what my version of Rebirth is doing differently than DOSBox, since the behavior is so different between them given the same HAM. The ability to teleport out of the enclosed cube seems like a bug in Rebirth, since it shouldn't be woken up - but the teleporting and lack of "drifting" seems like Rebirth fixed an old bug.

ShivanHunter wrote:Just got patch 1.2 but it said the new version of Descent2.HAM already exists. According to this thread, the Definitive Collection installs version 1.1 already, and there are no HAM changes between 1.1 and 1.2. So it looks like I have the latest version.

There's definitely something going on with the "badass" flag but I'm still curious about what my version of Rebirth is doing differently than DOSBox, since the behavior is so different between them given the same HAM. The ability to teleport out of the enclosed cube seems like a bug in Rebirth, since it shouldn't be woken up - but the teleporting and lack of "drifting" seems like Rebirth fixed an old bug.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/e7vmcrfof802q ... e.zip?dl=0

Here's a package with all 3 hams. Descent2.HAM is a clean 1.2 HAM straight from the Vertigo CD. Descent2SP is the sound patch HAM. Disregard the last change date, I tried messing around a bit in it, but nothing good came of it, so it's the same as before. And Descent15.HAM is the altered version for the mission. Take a look and see if you notice different behavior.

As for New Boss 1's sounds - it appears to not be possible to change them - changes to its sounds in Haxmed32 don't do a thing - when Boss 1's AI kicks in, the perpetual sound is always that of the Class 1 Drone. Perhaps it's hardcoded to take that sound from the actual Boss 1's "see" sound, in which case there isn't anything we can do.

So you basically have two broken bosses - one that has properly programmed sounds, but its AI routine doesn't work, and the other can be programmed to work properly, but will never have appropriate sounds

I'll see if I can do something about the boss, tinkering with AI options and such.

EDIT: I've verified that Boss 2 at least does have positive movement speed (from 60 on Trainee to 90 on Insane), and reducing it to zero indeed makes him stay still. I'll see if similar tinkering can be done with the first boss too. This is not possible to achieve with either Boss 1 or New Boss 1, something is simply bugged with them. It is however possible to change Boss 1's sound (not New Boss 1's) to the appropriate one, by changing the "see" sound to 90. Haxmed32 is an imperfect, third-party tool and it apparently mixes up the "see" sound with the "attack" sound, among other things.It also mixes the AI designation for D2's Quartzon boss and Brimspark boss, so yeah, you need to test everything as you go.

I'll take a look later, gotta get going now, but

As for New Boss 1's sounds - it appears to not be possible to change them - changes to its sounds in Haxmed32 don't do a thing

Make sure, if you had an HXM in your HOG from doing stuff in DLE, that you've really gotten rid of it. I had issues with that before and DLE is really goddamn stubborn when it comes to HXMs. Pressing "default" seems to do something, but does not actually delete the HXM even if it was the only modified robot. Going into HOG manager and deleting the HXM, then saving, ALSO does not work, since it seems the HXM is saved in memory and is restored in the HOG when you save. You have to open a new/different level, then "open" the HOG and delete the HXM without actually loading up the level.

I don't recall from all my testing if these "ghost" HXMs actually interfere with behavior but I think they did at one point.

Right, they totally do. I got rid of the ghost HXM and the sounds at least started playing like they should for both versions of Boss 1. The editor creates a HXM every time you change any robot's settings to any different than default, that's why it's so troublesome to get rid of them.

However, without the HXM, hard-setting New Boss 1's AI to "Boss 1" in Haxmed32 reverted its behavior so that it no longer teleports, cloaks or emits the perpetual sound. Looks like there is some sort of interplay between the stuff coded into the HAM and the changes from HXMs. I wonder if this could be exploited to allow us to make perfect D1 bosses in D2.

Still, nothing I've tried so far can keep Boss 1 from moving around.

Also, I'm very curious if there is any way to get to Descent 1's weapon and robot balance files, to either read or alter them. From what I know, all this data is stored in the PIG.

Bet that's
* Delete last modified robot, now nothing is modified
* Save -> any modified robots? No -> don't write HXM
* Catch: not writing the HXM means we don't delete it either, so most recently saved version persists

I'll take a look at that, shouldn't be that hard to fix if that's the cause.

I tested the level with a Boss 1 and a modified New Boss 1 (with the ends level flag and the Boss 1 AI) in both Rebirth and DOSBox (GOG version), using both the normal HAM and the Descent1.5 HAM. Rebirth is not entirely clear on which version it is - the game log and window title say "D2X-Rebirth v0.59.100 0.58.1-d2x-7390-g4a01fab66d98*" which is either 0.58.1 or an old beta build from a "0.59" branch.

Here are the demos and test missions: "_test" is the Boss 1, "_test2" is the modified New Boss 1. There are demos for every combination of Rebirth/DOSbox, Descent2 HAM/Descent1.5 HAM, and Boss 1/New Boss 1.

The modified New Boss 1 was no different with either HAM (not surprising), so there were effectively three bosses: D2's Boss 1, the modified New Boss 1, and your D1.5 Boss 1 using D2 AI.

None of these bosses had entirely consistent behavior between DOSBox and Rebirth.

No bosses in DOSBox escape from the one-cube cell before it's opened up. So presumably the escaping is a Rebirth bug.

The original Boss 1 and the modified New Boss 1 were indistinguishable across versions. I was never able to get the "New Boss 1 teleporting and staying put" that you described earlier in DOSBox. This means I didn't see any effect of the "badass" variable whatsoever, unless it was subtle. In Rebirth, they both escaped from the walled-off cube, teleported around, and did not move. In DOSBox, they both did not escape no matter how long I waited (and didn't teleport at all), but did drift around.

Other notes:

In Rebirth, both bosses using the D1 Boss AI are prone to rapidly teleporting around once per frame until they come to rest somewhere. They fire off a volley of missiles each time they teleport. Descent 2 AI in Rebirth (such as your D1.5 boss) does not do this, so I suspect it's tied to Rebirth's implementation of the D1 boss AI.

Your boss was SIGNIFICANTLY harder to kill on Trainee, either due to lack of hitpoint scaling or damage immunity - but only in DOSBox! It died as easily as the others in Rebirth. Something you might want to look into.

I still want to test these with a newer Rebirth weekly build sometime soon. But my conclusions are basically that Rebirth seems to have tried to restore the original D1 boss behavior where it wasn't implemented in D2. This fixes some things - like the bosses correctly obeying their 0 "map_speed" and making them teleport around - but has some bugs, such as the rapid one-frame teleports and escaping from the starting cube without being "woken up".

ShivanHunter wrote:I tested the level with a Boss 1 and a modified New Boss 1 (with the ends level flag and the Boss 1 AI) in both Rebirth and DOSBox (GOG version), using both the normal HAM and the Descent1.5 HAM. Rebirth is not entirely clear on which version it is - the game log and window title say "D2X-Rebirth v0.59.100 0.58.1-d2x-7390-g4a01fab66d98*" which is either 0.58.1 or an old beta build from a "0.59" branch.

Yeah, I think only in DOSBox do you get a proper version of Descent. It displays in the lower right corner.

The modified New Boss 1 was no different with either HAM (not surprising), so there were effectively three bosses: D2's Boss 1, the modified New Boss 1, and your D1.5 Boss 1 using D2 AI.

Yeah, I never tinkered with the New Boss, since I still don't really understand the reason for including it in the first place

No bosses in DOSBox escape from the one-cube cell before it's opened up. So presumably the escaping is a Rebirth bug.

Most likely a Rebirth bug, never happens to me in my own installation of Rebirth though. What does happen to me though, in one mission where the altered bosses are tested, they sometimes need time before their AI routine fully sets in, before which they don't teleport or emit the perpetual sound, and decloak after a while of being cloaked. This has been discussed before and only happens in certain levels, luckily doesn't seem to be an issue in the official ones.

The original Boss 1 and the modified New Boss 1 were indistinguishable across versions. I was never able to get the "New Boss 1 teleporting and staying put" that you described earlier in DOSBox. This means I didn't see any effect of the "badass" variable whatsoever, unless it was subtle. In Rebirth, they both escaped from the walled-off cube, teleported around, and did not move. In DOSBox, they both did not escape no matter how long I waited (and didn't teleport at all), but did drift around.

Weird for sure, unless you're talking about New Boss 1 with "Boss 1" AI chosen in DLE, in that case it's believable.

In Rebirth, both bosses using the D1 Boss AI are prone to rapidly teleporting around once per frame until they come to rest somewhere. They fire off a volley of missiles each time they teleport. Descent 2 AI in Rebirth (such as your D1.5 boss) does not do this, so I suspect it's tied to Rebirth's implementation of the D1 boss AI.

This sounds a lot like the AI of Boss 2, but in original Descent. He would sometimes teleport frantically a few times in a row, offloading a huge volley of Megas in the process. I was never able to get that behavior in D2 though, in fact I could never get robots with Boss1 or Boss2 AI in D2 to teleport at all. They move around, fire at you and end the level, but no cloaking, no teleporting and no perpetual sound. Thought that was the actual implementation of the AI, interesting that you were able to get these two bosses to teleport actually. Maybe it had something to do with residual configuration from ghost HXMs? No idea at all. I'm gonna check out your demos.

Your boss was SIGNIFICANTLY harder to kill on Trainee, either due to lack of hitpoint scaling or damage immunity - but only in DOSBox! It died as easily as the others in Rebirth. Something you might want to look into.

HP scaling is a hard-coded feature, but only in D2. And I'm not really sure how it works, whether it's a vanilla mechanic or one brought on by Rebirth. I did create a mission with levels meant to test all 10 boss robots that'll be used in D1,5 and I distinctly remember that HP scaling worked properly in all their cases.

I still want to test these with a newer Rebirth weekly build sometime soon. But my conclusions are basically that Rebirth seems to have tried to restore the original D1 boss behavior where it wasn't implemented in D2. This fixes some things - like the bosses correctly obeying their 0 "map_speed" and making them teleport around - but has some bugs, such as the rapid one-frame teleports and escaping from the starting cube without being "woken up".

If Rebirth has actually attempted to restore D1 boss behavior, it's huge news for sure. I'll wait and see too

https://www.sendspace.com/file/vfibuf

Here's this "bosstest" mission. It's a very rudimentary set of 10 levels consisting of D1 L7's boss arena and a new boss each time. It's meant to be tested with descent15.ham, but I guess it's a convenient way to test some bosses even without it as well. It contains enough powerups and armament to be able to handle any of them on Insane. The Vertigo bosses however, are using an embedded d2x.ham, so they'll stay as they are no matter what.

EDIT: I watched your demos and that rapidly teleporting behavior is not something I've ever seen in Rebirth, no matter what I tried. I'm using version 0.58. This is some crazy stuff right there

Indeed, whenever I mention "New Boss 1" in that post I mean one with a HXM (from DLE) giving it both the Boss 1 AI and the "ends level" flag - so the only difference between it and the other Boss 1, in theory, should be the "badass" variable. In practice, since I didn't notice any difference, that variable must not be very crucial to boss AI.

You're also right about there being a "delay" before the Boss 1 AI actually starts working. It was usually about a minute in my test level, which is time I cut out of the demos for convenience (by starting a demo and then ending it/starting a new one if nothing happened for a while).

Anyway, Rebirth has almost certainly attempted to recreate D1's boss AI. My version of Rebirth was the 0.60 "BETA 1" from here, which is called "v0.59.100 0.58.1-d2x-7390-g4a01fab66d98*" in the log and window title. I tested it a bit more, didn't make any demos, but: in 0.58, I get the DOSBox behavior/the behavior you reported from the D1 Boss AI. In a freshly downloaded 0.60 BETA 1 I get my demos' behavior, and the same is true of the latest weekly build. This is pretty excellent for my mapset, since it gives me a functioning D1-like boss without any of the bull★■◆● spawning. As for the freaky teleporting... more difficulty's always good

So the fact that you're using 0.58 explains why you get the old behavior - whatever Rebirth did (whether it's a hell of a bug or an AI overhaul) was added between that and the 0.60 beta that I've been using.

Looking through some old threads I keep reading about "unification" builds which I presume means they want to get D1 and D2 running from the same codebase. If so, the AI fixes might be part of that. In that case, the bugs we've discovered here are that both D1 boss AIs "escape" prematurely from a 1-cube area, and that Boss 1 has the wild teleporting behavior that was supposedly an intentional part of Boss 2.

lol in fact I think I found the exact commit that introduced this. It's mostly a bunch of #define stuff to enable the existing D1 code in D2X builds. The commit mentions "3rd party mn2s can include D1 bosses" so I guess I don't have to worry about all this being a bug that will get fixed sometime down the line - this is definitely a feature Rebirth is going to have from here on out.

This is pretty sweet!

Still, I think I'll be keeping my D1 bosses just the way they are, for added difficulty. Though it is really nice that we'll be able to have proper D1 bosses in D2 missions, many people have been waiting years for that

Newest Rebirths gives the D1 bosses their AI back. D2X-XL has always given them a D2-style teleport. (They never spawn robots in XL or instantly teleport)