Cyber Dreams MAP07

Discovered Cyber Dreams wad a week back (From 1998! How did I miss it?) and I decided to dive in yesterday. Now I'm stuck on MAP07. There's a cyber in front and 2 mancs. I kill the 2 mancs by doing circles around them, then a wall drops, revealing 3 arachs. Again, I circle the arachs and then a wall rises, but rises too high over a slime pit. The only way to beat it seems to be to jump? But surely not...not in 1998.

Does anyone have a solution? Do I somehow wall hug or bounce off a rocket?

Also, do tell of other puzzle wads if you know them.

As far as I can tell you need to be standing on the line when the last Arachnotron dies: you can then telefrag the Cyberdemon and reach the exit. It's a nuisance, I know.

Hi, welcome to the forums. You have to use the cyber to destroy the arachs if I remember correctly then get the cyber. Also off the top of my head, this uses monsters in a puzzle like way. There was also a concept that required the use of lost souls, though I don't think that was completed.

Check your complevels. Alien Vendetta map 07 has a similar issue if not run at complevel 2 (that is, strict Vanilla).

Ahh yes, it seems obvious now. You are meant to jump on the bridge after the last arach dies, before it raises too high. I knew that health potion was there for some subliminal reason, probably as a clue to stand on it. Doh!

Thanks lads. And thanks Springy, but I'm afraid Arch Vile Jump is already on my wad-to-play list xD

unbirthday said:

You are meant to jump on the bridge after the last arach dies, before it raises too high.

Not true; read Cynical's post for the actual explanation (which I'll expand on, in case it isn't sufficiently clear).

This is a behaviour that Boom screwed up; in vanilla it works correctly. Therefore you need to have Prboom+ emulate vanilla rather than Boom for this to work as intended, and that means using -complevel 2.

It's true that there is a work-around for the Boom bug in this case (and you can also get across that gap before the trons are dead, as used in the UV Speed demos on this map), but it isn't the way the map was designed to work.

You could also (even with Doom2.exe behaviour) be falling victim to the quirk/bug that if the last two trons die close together (to be precise: the last one dies during the death frames of the penultimate one), then the platform rises twice. This can also happen in Doom2 map07, in which case you need strafe-50 to reach the exit. It's unlikely you are getting this consistently though, since it is a bit of a fluke. It is actually used deliberately in Compet-N Max demos on Doom2 map07, since it means the platform rises earlier, which is useful as long as you are in a position to step onto it.

Grazza said:

Not true; read Cynical's post for the actual explanation (which I'll expand on, in case it isn't sufficiently clear).

Ahh right. I was using zdoom, and I played with the compatmode settings, but it didn't change anything. This happens a lot with older wads because they use unusual tricks. I presumed that zdoom would emulate them, but clearly it does a poor job.

I think if you go to zdoom forums and report this, they will add an exception to the code for this level and it will work properly. They have some database of levels where an emulation of some stuff is required.