DescentBB

Good news, everyone! After more than enough tweaks and delays, Plutonian Shores is finally released to the public.

Plutonian Shores is made up of 30 regular + 2 secret levels with a mix of D1, D2 and Vertigo bots used to their full potential. Every level has a different aesthetic and architecture, and most of them have a few custom images related to the plot in the briefing. There is a lightly-edited HAM file which restores Spreadfire and Fusion to their D1 power levels, which you'll be grateful for as you start taking down the hordes of robots. And thanks to the help of both Sirius and DH, you can now enjoy a detailed storyline full of investigations, subterfuge, extrasolar exploration, a technological arms race and a whole lot of hostile robots.

The entire mission is available for download here:

http://www.enspiar.com/dmdb/viewMission.php?id=1615


Good luck and have fun!

Downloaded

On level 6 the reactor vanished when I looked away (I could see it through the door but after I'd cleared the robots out from the room, it was just not there anymore). If that's not strange enough when I looked at the exit it was open even though the countdown never happened.

Oh HELL yeah! I'll download it right after I finish work. Splendid news, I've kinda been slightly discouraged from playing Descent due to the relative lack of progress on D2L21. This should rekindle my passion for the game, and for editing too.

EDIT: Shame you decided not to build off a HOG with the sound patch. I remember you saying something about being bothered by some of the D1 door sounds or something... I've gotten too used to having all the sounds back, so think I'll probably personally play with it. Just tell me what needs to be changed in the default HAM - if it's just the Spreadfire and Fusion and nothing else, then it won't be very hard for me.

EDIT 2: I see you've also made some adjustments to laser balance, so they're not as underpwered as in D2. There's just a difference of 1 point, but it adds up with continuous fire to be sure. Still, if there are no edits to robots, I could make the very same adjustments based on the HOG with the sound patch, I just need your confirmation. Unfortunately that's the only way, as the HAM inside the mission's HOG file overrides the game's native one entirely.

When I exited the first level, upon hitting ESC to get out of the briefing, it crashed. Something to do with an ice texture in a PIG file.

I actually found just about enough descent remixes around to give the pack a studio-quality soundtrack with almost entirely the same songs. Had to cheat with D2 redbook or a few of my own here and there but it's worth it for the extra feeling of professionalism/qualiy it gives to the set.
Unfortunately the remixes and other tracks are not all mine to give away-- even though they've all been made available to the community freely at one time or another.

@Alter

I once had that reactor bug playing First Strike. Seems like that's just a weird quirk with D2X-XL. The exit opening is likely a failsafe.

Great new, it came right in time... Did not played Descent for long because I ran out of good D2 missions, and started some D1 stuff which did not inspired me that much except Iron* missions, and Cererian Expedition.
Just downloaded the thing, hope to try it (and record) on Insane cold start, couple days ago even did a small "warm up" for it by recording D1 L9,11,19 Insane cold starts. BTW the pictures look awesome, and I really like that you added the story!

I've played it through and it had to be released right after I played the demo which meant I had to go through level 10 again

Was Secret Level 2 made from scratch, or starting from the level that inspired it?

Damn, gotta say that level is what I imagine CD-Enhanced Descent would have been like.

Xfing wrote: ↑Sat Nov 24, 2018 12:52 pm Was Secret Level 2 made from scratch, or starting from the level that inspired it?

From scratch. It was originally meant for another project idea that never really took off... so I took the half-finished design, figured I could take it in a new direction with the inspiration behind Plutonian Shores, and decided I should just go to it.

As for the glitches people have been mentioning, I don't recall anything like those coming up during the test sessions. The levels ran without a hitch for each of the testers in Rebirth and Retro at least, so if these things only happened once, I'm thinking each of them might just be a fluke.

Another one that happened once, but only once, during testing was the Level 7 boss escaping from its spawn area near the start of the level. It didn't ever happen again, so we just chalked it up to DH somehow alerting the boss to his presence very early... but it's still something you may want to make note of just in case. If that happens to anyone, I would recommend just restarting the level.

I gotta ask...
What was the other project idea?

I kind of don't want to spoil the surprise. If you find Secret Level 2, you'll instantly figure out what it was meant to be.

I know what the secret level is
Was the other project idea meant to be a number of levels similar to (at least the start of) that level?

That secret level feels a lot like E3M9 Warrens or Go To It from Plutonia. A bigger and much meaner version of the original, only this time it looks stunning too. But I gotta say that up to the point I've reached, the robot selection has been pretty much impeccable - can't really say there's an overrepresentation of any game, which creates a feel not encountered in any mission up to now. Well, except for them brown Snipers, that is! They're the Driller of this mission pack, lol

Even compared to its actual drillers, yeah.
Level 12 was a chore, but up to level 21 now and no other mine has been as bad.

Alter-Fox wrote: ↑Wed Nov 28, 2018 10:29 am Level 12 was a chore

Was it because of the fact its a slower level and the fast paced music?

That was actually one of the ones I had to pick a different song for cause there don't seem to be any good remixes of the D1 map 11 song.
The music I had on it worked beautifully (maybe I'll share, haha); it was all the gauss and homing missile bots along with a dearth of guided missiles that made it frustrating. It got fairly hard to just enter a new room without immediately dying. Plus there was a lot of extraneous geometry around doors which made it hard to back out of rooms while being bounced around by gauss.

Huh, just noticed every new mission pack released these days has a pinned topic. That's...neat.

DarkFlameWolf wrote: ↑Fri Nov 30, 2018 9:22 pm Huh, just noticed every new mission pack released these days has a pinned topic. That's...neat.

This one is definitely worth it!
BTW I just redid all "demo levels" i.e 1-11 on Insane cold-start (also trying to find all secrets and do 100% kills), would say they've got great replay value, and balance tweaks definitely made it better! For example I like the addition of several Snipers to L11, which really added tension to it, as well as limiting Vulcan ammo and strong powerups a bit... Still none of the levels look too hard to that point (although they all have great gameplay) not saying some are too easy, just lacking really evil spots which are plentiful in AF or Lost Levels for example, let's see what comes next... The design of levels is really memorable, also noticed the Spreadfire and Fusion damage tweaks which made both usable weapons. And Advanced lifters seem to be modified, they are moving at crazy speeds. Interesting, I also had this L7 boss bug once, when it appeared right in the beginning of the level when I flew over the center of the room.
EDIT : my playlist on YT for PS full version (this time all levels on cold start), I just uploaded the first level

Just finished "Perdition". Gotta say, this is probably THE single level that most recaptures the initial dread, rawness and threat of late-game D1 such as level 26 in any D2 campaign I've played thus far. It's this feeling of brutality and unforgivingness that no prior D2 campaign that I've ever played has managed to convey. I managed to beat it on Hotshot, but all those matcens, traps and tons of top-tier mechs made me scared shitless the entire time I was in that level. Even though it's not a boss level, it's one of the most memorable D1-vibed D2 levels ever. Kudos for making that one - now I know what I want the penultimate level of D1,5 to be like

Also, how in the unholy name of fk did you align the textures in level 28 to form the "gate"? :OOO

This is possibly the greatest texturing feat I've seen in D2.

You know, booting up level 1 and seeing class 2 platformers alongside a good wealth of medium hulks doesn't really bode well for first impressions on the overall difficulty of this set.

DarkFlameWolf wrote: ↑Sun Dec 09, 2018 7:49 pm You know, booting up level 1 and seeing class 2 platformers alongside a good wealth of medium hulks doesn't really bode well for first impressions on the overall difficulty of this set.

Yeah, the difficulty of this set is erratic and doesn't follow any sort of sensible curve, that I can tell you. Of course it gets super hard towards the end, but also has an extremely difficult level really early on and some significant breathers even in the final third.

Xfing wrote: ↑Sun Dec 09, 2018 11:29 pm

DarkFlameWolf wrote: ↑Sun Dec 09, 2018 7:49 pm You know, booting up level 1 and seeing class 2 platformers alongside a good wealth of medium hulks doesn't really bode well for first impressions on the overall difficulty of this set.

Yeah, the difficulty of this set is erratic and doesn't follow any sort of sensible curve, that I can tell you. Of course it gets super hard towards the end, but also has an extremely difficult level really early on and some significant breathers even in the final third.

Well, it definitely starts off harder than most sets and gets more difficult in general as you go on, but I'd say it still doesn't get quite as fiendish as DFW's sets tend to.

I think the Parallax missions also influenced the way it came out in some way, where the set's difficulty progression is sporadic but still generally upward, rather than an exactly rigid "every level must be harder than the last, NO EXCEPTIONS" pattern. I can understand players thinking a set's difficulty is too erratic, but I've never really thought of a difficulty spike or breather as inherently bad on its own. I kind of feel like it'd kill the immersion if there weren't at least one or two.

I'm not complaining about the difficulty at all personally, juat noticing. Strong Fusion definitely helps too.

Mind answering my question about the texturing tricks, or would you rather keep quiet about that? :p

DarkFlameWolf wrote: ↑Sun Dec 09, 2018 7:49 pm You know, booting up level 1 and seeing class 2 platformers alongside a good wealth of medium hulks doesn't really bode well for first impressions on the overall difficulty of this set.

It is an easy level anyway (despite a few platformers and medium hulks), as you have adequate weapons - nowhere near Bahagad Outbreak L1 where you are greeted with flash missile bots and other nasties, many in snipe mode, with red laser only, and nearly impossible to reach energy center... And Bahagad L2 surpasses anything I played including AF - simply impossible to play on Insane dificulty because of merc missile bots in snipe mode, often in traps that open one cube away from you Lost Levels also had very painful start, need a lot of luck to hit those fast robots with anything. Fortunately it gets much more balanced from L3.

Xfing wrote: ↑Sun Dec 09, 2018 11:29 pm

DarkFlameWolf wrote: ↑Sun Dec 09, 2018 7:49 pm You know, booting up level 1 and seeing class 2 platformers alongside a good wealth of medium hulks doesn't really bode well for first impressions on the overall difficulty of this set.

Yeah, the difficulty of this set is erratic and doesn't follow any sort of sensible curve, that I can tell you. Of course it gets super hard towards the end, but also has an extremely difficult level really early on and some significant breathers even in the final third.

As I continue playing PS, I found that levels after the demo version (namely, 12 and 13) are getting harder, recently recorded L12, was really brutal when I started practicing it (speaking Insane cold-start of course), but after I found the trick for it, became quite predictable and not that hard. Only problem are those matcens that block every step (at least some triggers are one-shot, but not all) so my run was nearly an hour long. Could be shortened by skipping enemies and some rooms of course. L13 also looks hard but I hope to find the trick for it. Anyway most levels in PS I played only LOOK difficult, before you found the right way to deal with them. Which is a good thing in general.

About sensible difficulty curves, I haven't seen any in various big-sized missions (>7 levels). They all have their ups and downs, evil levels that kill you many times without respect to how good you are, breathers, and in many missions last levels suddenly become easier, like in Lost Levels or AF or D1 itself where you don't find anything close in difficulty to L19 up to the end. And frankly speaking, I don't find anything bad about it, given that all levels are interesting and variative, and require skill, strategy and good planning to do. One thing about variativity is adding weapons and more dangerous robots as the mission progresses, but that's not the whole thing, of course. One can have very challenging levels like D1 L9 without many dangerous bots. Each level having it's own idea, flavor, atmosphere - and good implementation of it - is much more important to me than strict difficulty curve (which would be extremely hard to do anyway). And PS definitely has it in many levels, I like this PS level 12 not because it is hard but because it requires me to think and plan, and also it is beautifully designed and is not like anything I played before. And L10 "Target acquired" filled with the most dangerous missile robots is awesome, although its not so hard if you are careful.

Slight drawback I see in PS is abundance of farmable matcens (in many levels) and general overuse of matcens in some levels, which slow down the pace - like in L12 and 13 - but this mostly concerns Insane difficulty, of course. Slightly reminded me of Lost Levels L13, but that one was real matcens horror.

A question on PS - there is Gauss cannon in L13, is it possible to take? I even looked where the opening switch is in DLE, but that switch does not work, I see only a small part of it and cannot hit it, looks like a bug.

Xfing wrote: ↑Sun Dec 09, 2018 3:39 pm Just finished "Perdition". Gotta say, this is probably THE single level that most recaptures the initial dread, rawness and threat of late-game D1 such as level 26 in any D2 campaign I've played thus far. It's this feeling of brutality and unforgivingness that no prior D2 campaign that I've ever played has managed to convey. I managed to beat it on Hotshot, but all those matcens, traps and tons of top-tier mechs made me scared shitless the entire time I was in that level. Even though it's not a boss level, it's one of the most memorable D1-vibed D2 levels ever. Kudos for making that one - now I know what I want the penultimate level of D1,5 to be like

IMO last 4 levels of D2 aren't that far from it, either... I mean, in terms of brutality and unforgiveness. Let's see when I'll come to the end of PS, anyway.

AlexanderBorisov wrote: ↑Mon Dec 10, 2018 11:25 am As I continue playing PS, I found that levels after the demo version (namely, 12 and 13) are getting harder, recently recorded L12, was really brutal when I started practicing it (speaking Insane cold-start of course), but after I found the trick for it, became quite predictable and not that hard. Only problem are those matcens that block every step (at least some triggers are one-shot, but not all) so my run was nearly an hour long. Could be shortened by skipping enemies and some rooms of course. L13 also looks hard but I hope to find the trick for it. Anyway most levels in PS I played only LOOK difficult, before you found the right way to deal with them. Which is a good thing in general.

Slight drawback I see in PS is abundance of farmable matcens (in many levels) and general overuse of matcens in some levels, which slow down the pace - like in L12 and 13 - but this mostly concerns Insane difficulty, of course. Slightly reminded me of Lost Levels L13, but that one was real matcens horror.

A question on PS - there is Gauss cannon in L13, is it possible to take? I even looked where the opening switch is in DLE, but that switch does not work, I see only a small part of it and cannot hit it, looks like a bug.

I just double-checked it, the switch works on my end. I know you have to be precise with your shots, of course, but it did work for me when I just tried it a minute ago, so I'm not sure what else could be preventing it from working for you.

As for the matcens, you do have a point. I don't like to place matcens that only get used once and can easily be bypassed, but I can see where Plutonian Shores goes too far the other way sometimes. It's definitely something I'll have to be careful with in any future levels.

Finished this mission on Hotshot. So yeah, it goes without saying that it's a collection of some of the best levels in years. Apart from the unbelievable geometry, of note is how most of these levels aren't enslaved to a single theme, in principle much like D1. Naphtha has shown with these mission packs how much more than just the 6 Counterstrike themes D2 can offer.

The story was perfectly serviceable too, with a satisfying ending and a nice tie-in to existing lore. Overall an A+ effort and something to be inspired by.

Naphtha wrote: ↑Mon Dec 10, 2018 11:53 am I just double-checked it, the switch works on my end. I know you have to be precise with your shots, of course, but it did work for me when I just tried it a minute ago, so I'm not sure what else could be preventing it from working for you.

Seems it was a random game bug (switch destroyed but grate not opened - that's why I could not hit it again). I played it several more times and it does not happen anymore (except in that one saved game). BTW I already forgot how easy things become with Gauss, recorded the no death no save run the first time I got it! But, I think it is still a very good level. Maybe those caged Sniper NGs are a bit overused, they are quite easy to corner snipe.

What was noticeable throughout the mission was the overuse of C2 plasma drillers and in consequence painful underuse of the older model. Also, the green platform bots were really few, and mostly in the beginning

In terms of difficulty curve, Bahagad and Lost Levels were my 'learn as I go' sort of level designing projects. Enemy Within was a bit better in this regard, but in terms of complete and imo perfect difficulty curve, Descent Vignettes seems to have this pretty well set.

Xfing wrote: ↑Mon Dec 10, 2018 4:11 am Mind answering my question about the texturing tricks, or would you rather keep quiet about that? :p

If you mean the L28 stunt, you can blame me for that. It took a while to figure out what kind of UV "geometry" would produce the desired effect, but it's basically a zero-thickness strip straight down the middle of a reactor room texture - and inside the gate, with one side of a face offset vertically from the other. That makes it appear to run diagonally. (The numbers of adjacent faces still have to line up, of course, which meant manually entering UV co-ordinates for every single point in the tunnel. It was slow work.)
I wasn't sure about the choice of texture, but nobody I've talked to was worried about it, so there we go.

Sirius wrote: ↑Thu Dec 13, 2018 1:05 am

Xfing wrote: ↑Mon Dec 10, 2018 4:11 am Mind answering my question about the texturing tricks, or would you rather keep quiet about that? :p

If you mean the L28 stunt, you can blame me for that. It took a while to figure out what kind of UV "geometry" would produce the desired effect, but it's basically a zero-thickness strip straight down the middle of a reactor room texture - and inside the gate, with one side of a face offset vertically from the other. That makes it appear to run diagonally. (The numbers of adjacent faces still have to line up, of course, which meant manually entering UV co-ordinates for every single point in the tunnel. It was slow work.)
I wasn't sure about the choice of texture, but nobody I've talked to was worried about it, so there we go.

Well, the texture did its job so why would anyone complain? Thanks for describing the process! No idea if I'd be able to replicate something like that. But in order to do that, you had to know/predict that this effect would be obtainable. Do you know this from some previous experience in mapping?

The idea of using weird texture alignments to achieve an effect is something I've seen elsewhere, though I don't remember exactly where this one came from. DH has done some creative things with textures in past (particularly the Enemy Within robots) but I think putting UV co-ordinates on a line to stretch out a texture was in someone else's level... it wasn't as elaborate an effect as this, but when I was working on the level concept I kind of already knew the process I'd be trying.

What I only discovered through experimentation was that I needed a texture with a high frame count animation. The first one I tried had maybe 3 or 4 frames and just looked like it was flickering.

What other textures did you try?

I think the first one was the green alien1 light strip. Might have been another, don't remember what it was.

I'd like to share my impressions of full version of Plutonian Shores - see the Insane cold start no save no death walkthrough at


Like the others said - aesthetically all the levels are top class design and have some new cool ideas in them. Those designed by DarkHorse, L9,11,16,19,26,27, were really special. A true piece of art. As well as some others. Many maps are quite challenging. Great story, blends well with level design (yes, that warp gate!). Great for cold starts. Absence of Gauss cannon in the first third of the mission improves the challenge. As well as abundance of Sniper NG's. I will not repeat the praises on the design as enough was said on it already, and go to the gameplay.

Some "features" of gameplay.
1. All bosses are extremely easy to beat or just require long boring tactics (like L11, L29). Not exactly satisfying boss fights.
2. Gameplay is quite player friendly and predictable (not everywhere, of course). I.e when you know the levels they lose the difficulty factor. Almost no luck based situations with roaming robots, or hard to avoid traps. The only levels that really match D1 and D2 evil moments are 20 and 21. Probably in L12 somewhat. Even Vertigo is much more evil in most levels. However it's up to the player to decide whether it is a good thing or not.
3. Often (especially in later levels) you are given unjustified amount of strong missiles (mega, smart, guided), and powerups. Which I generally ignored.
Probably if one wants to make it more strategic, more care should be taken about item placement.
4. Difficulty progression is quite strange, it starts quite hard, then gets easier from level 13, again a few hard levels (probably 20,21 are the hardest in the mission and took me the longest time to beat no save no death), then it gets easier towards the end, despite some more dangerous robots. I expected later levels to be harder. But, I found this strange things with difficulty progression happening in every other mission, so no surprise.
5. Some weapons got painfully under-used in the mission (Fusion, Helix, Omega, also Phoenix was only useful on a few levels). Again, the levels where one of those weapons shine are very rare in any mission.
6. Many levels follow the pattern - they give you weapons too fast on Cold start. I'd try to force the player to fight harder for the weapons at the start. And also most levels are quite hard in the very beginning then get much easier towards the end (like level 25 for example). But who likes to be killed at the end of the level, anyway?
7. I think this levels set could works better with a different - more dangerous - robot cast, like TEW or LL robots, because of it's spacious geometry. We haven't seen mission with new bots for ages. Could have more snipe mode bots, too...
The levels I liked most gameplay-wise were 10,20,21,26,27... Nearly perfect balance IMO. Anyway big thanks to Naptha, DH, Sirius and other people who created the mission for their incredible work!!! Hope you will design even more exiting maps to play in the future. The mission was a great journey and I regret a bit that it's over...