Ancient Aliens - final version on idgames

so uh, does this mod have any custom enemies in it? because it sounds like it has some custom monsters in it, and if so, are they DEHACKED or DECORATE?

Doomhuntress said:

so uh, does this mod have any custom enemies in it? because it sounds like it has some custom monsters in it, and if so, are they DEHACKED or DECORATE?

Two custom enemies, both in DEHACKED, as it has to work in PR+ :P

I personally really like both of the additions.

I'm chipping away at this megawad, so far really enjoying it. Map03 being my fav at the moment!

More bugs to fix! Keep em coming.

Linguica said:

Is this a ZDoom thing? (2.8.1)

I think so, I see that issue a lot on maps with midtex vines as well.

Brewtal_Legend said:

Boom? Please work in Doom Retro. I'm going to try this weekend. Looks ludicrous, yet awesome. If it doesn't play in DR, I will be sorely disappointed. :P

I haven't tested it in Doom Retro. Let me know if it works OK.

unraveler said:

Senpai PCGamer had notice you http://www.pcgamer.com/ancient-aliens-is-a-32-map-megawad-for-classic-doom/

Awesome :D

an_mutt said:

One thing I have to echo is that I also felt the archvile set-ups from map 09 need some reworking.

Thanks and yes that encounter will be revamped for sure.

rhinoduck said:

Here's a version that will work in ZDaemon: aaliens_rc1-zdaemon2.zip
...

Cool. I will probably incorporate your ACS into the main build if you don't mind since it seems to work in multiplayer (My implementation would not in Zandronum when we tested coop before release).

Sure Bowb said:

Those troopers are probably my least favourite addition, but I have to admit that I am very biased here. scythe2 and other wads that made use of those "evil marines" are high on my "play-only-when-in-the-right-mood-list". Thank goodness, they have less hp, but they made my rockets blow up in my face on occasion, because they are easy to overlook, and not exactly slow.

I think the troopers are a great addition. They're like a stealthy, sped up version of the Lunatic Plasma Marines. High threat but low HP. I find the regular shotgun to be very effective against them as well as the chaingun since they die so quickly. And those flying, demonic looking rocket drones are like a deadlier Arachnorb which are also high threat and low HP. I was very pleasantly surprised with the custom enemies in E2.

Seems to work ok with Doom Retro. But it does not let you adjust gamepad sensitivity in the menu when loading the wad for some reason. And the screen shake is a bit more distorted than usual. Hard to tell really though since I can't seem to get past the beginning with the area with the caged cyber demon.

Map 16 needs waaaaay more stuff before the triple-cyb stuff. Right now, it's really dull before that, and then there's a sudden jump into "interesting combat".

(also, I'm so drnk i can barely sit up straight, so sorry if ths post doesn't make sense.)

rileymartin said:

I think the troopers are a great addition. They're like a stealthy, sped up version of the Lunatic Plasma Marines. High threat but low HP. I find the regular shotgun to be very effective against them as well as the chaingun since they die so quickly. And those flying, demonic looking rocket drones are like a deadlier Arachnorb which are also high threat and low HP. I was very pleasantly surprised with the custom enemies in E2.

As I was saying: They are my least favourite, which does not mean I hate them like the plague. I will add though, that in some spots their quantity, along with their inherant individual lethalty, is somewhat dicey as far as "survival on first sight" goes. Some ambushes in later maps were very close to the edge for me, while some got me almost instantly, partially because smart me kept playing eventhough I was tired.

Those flyers... Like, when I first saw what loadout they had, I was like: "Dude, did we really need flying revenants that fire rocket salvos?!" On the other hand, their movement is more predictable, and you can capitalize on them because of their on-death-explosions, at times at least. Also they seem to be far less numerous than those plasma-cloakers, which makes those flyers more of a "highlight" with interesting aspects to it.

Again, I am very biased when it comes to plasma troopers in general, and I am honest and upfront about it.

Just a note about map 08. The flying saucers look great and everything but I noticed some major frame drops when facing a direction with several of them in view. I'm guessing they use up a large chunk of level geometry which the engine is not that great at rendering. This is in Zandronum btw. It's not too bad, and I'm sure it runs better in something simpler like PrBoom+, but definitely noticeable compared to the other maps.

Would it be at all possible to play this with TwelveEyes' old Marathon mod? Setting seems appropriate anyway.

Cynical said:

Map 16 needs waaaaay more stuff before the triple-cyb stuff. Right now, it's really dull before that, and then there's a sudden jump into "interesting combat".

(also, I'm so drnk i can barely sit up straight, so sorry if ths post doesn't make sense.)

I kinda like to agree here, and I kinda don't like to do so. Like, encounter-wise I like how m16 builds up a little bit, but it might be because I ignored a lotta stuff for a while in the first area. The frozen planet seemed a little barren at times, eventhough encounter density was OK. The fire planet was my personal highlight, that cyberdemon gauntlet right after was fairly close to the fire planet's carnage in terms of difficulty for me, so it did not exactly feel out of place. But there is somewhat of a sudden spike, I'd say. Again, not entirely sure how I feel about it, though. I think looking at it as an adventure-map with occasional outbreaks of violence seems fair. I like the map overall, because it is nicely done on so many levels. The HK/demon ambush with sniping arachnotrons killed me once, because I did not hear those flying rocket-batteries closing in, due to rocket-spamming, and monster growling, and plasma balls hitting random stuff around me.

Map 17 I don't quite get why those early cybies are there. I did not see any "use" for them, other than being something you simply ignore or burn precious ammo on, if you were to commit to tediously taking at least one of them out early.

Well, I've completed the first episode with 100% completion and have just started the second. I've noticed pretty quickly that those plasma troopers can really hand your arse back to you! haha

skillsaw said:

Cool. I will probably incorporate your ACS into the main build if you don't mind since it seems to work in multiplayer (My implementation would not in Zandronum when we tested coop before release).

Sure :) Btw, feel free to ask me any ACS related questions either here or over PM.

Also, Keyboard_Doomer and sid0rv notified me about an issue with tag 141 in map23. After a bit of digging, I think there is no way to get past the bars (sector 218 and 827) to rsk if everyone inside dies before they lower the bars with linedef 2048. I suggest adding a switch or a teleporter that will allow access to rsk area from the outside after the bars rise, and making L2048 repeatable in case it gets, by some stupid chance, pressed before L17041 is crossed and, for a change, everyone outside is dead.

I do believe this is the issue they encountered, but I did not play the map so it will be best if the author or someone else who knows the map can confirm my theory.

I just finished E1 - sorta. I got stuck on MAP10 after going into the UFO and couldn't find a way out. Presumably the central teleporter was meant to lower.

Anyway I'm enjoying this so far overall. It's punishing, for sure, and I'm a total scrub, so it's taking me a while to get through but wow these maps are pretty. Inventive on a whole other level. I honestly am left wondering how close to the author's actual psyche we are here. :P The texture selections can seem a bit wild in places but I don't mind too much. Color-wise, everything is so bright and colorful that I can have trouble distinguishing where locked doors are. Certainly this was a problem at first since I wasn't accustomed with the palette ("no wait, this door is teal, I need the deep blue door"), but it's less prevalent now during the later levels.

Parts of the palette and colormap are a teensy bit garish to me. Darker areas seem to fade through slightly ugly dark green and blue colors before fading to black. On top of that certain hues look kind of clunky on various textures like some of the gothic lights with the more wacky purple/pink shades.

I wasn't too fond of Joshy's map. Kind of hard to put my finger on why, but it felt like the level design there was confusingly abstract (more so than the rest of the maps so far) and the encounters were kind of heavy and overly saturated with big monsters - in true Joshy style, yes, but it's definitely the hardest E1 map. MAP10 almost felt like a breeze afterwards. (Even though the cybers on it murdered the fuck out of me.) Anyway I have yet to play the rest of the guest maps but I am hoping to be very pleasantly surprised by what awaits. skillsaw is definitely pulling off this crazy theme spectacularly well, though.

stewboy's tunes are a fantastically eclectic addition to the maps themselves. Particularly his more modern (i.e. most recently-composed) tunes wash over you while you're playing. They don't get in the way, even though there's a lot going on in them - in fact they seem to transport you fully to this tripped-out dimension that the maps impart.

...Truthfully, I feel a little bit sorry that I never contributed any maps or music to this project while it was being developed. It was kept pretty hush-hush all things considered, although the small amount of intelligence I got over IRC kind of led me to believe it was all being taken care of and no further mappers were really needed. Certainly things seem to have got done exceedingly fast, considering it was only a few months ago that Valiant was released in full. I never even really thought to ask about music for whatever reason. Oh, well. :<

Jimmy said:

I just finished E1 - sorta. I got stuck on MAP10 after going into the UFO and couldn't find a way out. Presumably the central teleporter was meant to lower.

There is a real tiny switch that lowers the center teleporter. No idea if it's available to begin with, but I certainly didn't find it until after a bout of wall-humping the outer rings myself.

rileymartin said:

Just a note about map 08. The flying saucers look great and everything but I noticed some major frame drops when facing a direction with several of them in view. I'm guessing they use up a large chunk of level geometry which the engine is not that great at rendering. This is in Zandronum btw. It's not too bad, and I'm sure it runs better in something simpler like PrBoom+, but definitely noticeable compared to the other maps.

FWIW, this also happened to me on GZDoom, using a reference GeForce GTX970. I dunno if it's the geometry of the UFOs or what, but there's definitely some framerate drops in there.

Yeah some of the maps are real hogs. There's one level later on, like Map23 or something, that's a big wide open area, and my framerate was tanking pretty badly.

...which is exactly one of the reasons I DON'T use rendering interpolation on GZDoom! I've had no issues running those maps with it disabled.

I've completed most of MAP13 but one of the monster closets never opened and it doesn't look like it can. Unlike the closet below it, the one circled in red has no sector joining it to the rest of the map...

Yo in MAP02, i did all the shit, got the blue key, hit the switch, and....nothing. Pals in #doomtwid said it should've lowered me into a pit, but it did not. I'm running on Zandronum 2.1.2.


edit: it worked this time when i went through. apparently last time a linedef didn't trip and it fucked everything up

HavoX said:

...which is exactly one of the reasons I DON'T use rendering interpolation on GZDoom! I've had no issues running those maps with it disabled.

Neither do I. Still get framerate drops.

I do have AA and AF cranked up in the drivers, though (because Doom is so light on polygons that it's typically a gimme). Haven't tried disabling it.

rileymartin said:

Did anyone figure out how to UV-max map 15 and exit to map 31? I couldn't find a way back to the secret teleporter after clearing all the monsters in the main area. And once in the secret exit room it seems there's no way back.

Yeah. I've just come across the same problem. In the picture below, if the gap was made bigger, you could drop down to the red teleporter and get to the secret teleporter. That would be one solution I'd imagine.

I just fucking blazed through maps 1-15 very quickly, then got myself horribly lost in MAP31, maybe I'll finish it later. Echoing what others have said so far, totally awesome stuff. was able to max on everything so far, except for 13 and 15 as already described. also, I can't max 15 and head into the secret exit as shown in that screenshot.

The palette is pretty cool, but it sort of messes with custom weapons, as I was playing with some mod and honestly, I'd be scared if my hands looked all fucked up like this.

Getsu Fune said:

I just fucking blazed through maps 1-15 very quickly, then got myself horribly lost in MAP31, maybe I'll finish it later. Echoing what others have said so far, totally awesome stuff. was able to max on everything so far, except for 13 and 15 as already described. also, I can't max 15 and head into the secret exit as shown in that screenshot.

The palette is pretty cool, but it sort of messes with custom weapons, as I was playing with some mod and honestly, I'd be scared if my hands looked all fucked up like this.

If you convert the graphics in the mod to PNG, they'll be palette-independent.

Skillsaw,

Just wanted to let you know that your WAD is trending on Facebook. Also, PCGamer and Kotaku both published popular articles on this. Great job! I'll be LP'ing this very soon, as long as the new Doom game doesn't consume me too much.

Getsu Fune said:

I just fucking blazed through maps 1-15 very quickly, then got myself horribly lost in MAP31

I do tend to make slightly mazey layouts but I tried to make it fairly obvious which part of the map you're in, is there a particular area you're stuck on?

Jimmy: To be honest I kind of felt 'Jimmy's had his fair share of megawad soundtracks, now I want one where I can shine' :P

rileymartin said:

Just a note about map 08. The flying saucers look great and everything but I noticed some major frame drops when facing a direction with several of them in view. I'm guessing they use up a large chunk of level geometry which the engine is not that great at rendering. This is in Zandronum btw. It's not too bad, and I'm sure it runs better in something simpler like PrBoom+, but definitely noticeable compared to the other maps.

Hm not really sure I can do anything about that at this point. For whatever it's worth there's no noticeable slowdown on my machine in software or hardware mode on any map except 23, and that is only in software when in the large outdoor area.

dethtoll said:

Would it be at all possible to play this with TwelveEyes' old Marathon mod? Setting seems appropriate anyway.

Maybe? If it uses png graphics and is decorate based it has a strong chance of working.

Cynical said:

Map 16 needs waaaaay more stuff before the triple-cyb stuff. Right now, it's really dull before that, and then there's a sudden jump into "interesting combat".

Any specific suggestions? I'm not particularly pleased or displeased with the gameplay on this map. I'm not exactly sure where I'd start.

Jimmy said:

...Truthfully, I feel a little bit sorry that I never contributed any maps or music to this project while it was being developed. It was kept pretty hush-hush all things considered, although the small amount of intelligence I got over IRC kind of led me to believe it was all being taken care of and no further mappers were really needed. Certainly things seem to have got done exceedingly fast, considering it was only a few months ago that Valiant was released in full. I never even really thought to ask about music for whatever reason. Oh, well. :<

You should have asked! I would have been thrilled to have a Jimmy map. There are a couple of weaker (IMO) maps by me that I wouldn't mind dropping if you want to whip something up quickly! If you're serious catch me on IRC.

savagegrant said:

... multiple bug report posts ...

Noted! not sure how I deleted that monster closet sector, haha.

stru said:

Skillsaw,

Just wanted to let you know that your WAD is trending on Facebook. Also, PCGamer and Kotaku both published popular articles on this. Great job! I'll be LP'ing this very soon, as long as the new Doom game doesn't consume me too much.

Cool. Looking forward to it. And I'm very happy to see aaliens get as much press as it has!

esselfortium said:

If you convert the graphics in the mod to PNG, they'll be palette-independent.

That makes sense, thanks.

stewboy said:

I do tend to make slightly mazey layouts but I tried to make it fairly obvious which part of the map you're in, is there a particular area you're stuck on?

I can't remember exactly, but it was some time around the blue key area. I was trying to get all the secrets too, some of them are quite hard :). I may have missed one way back in the map though. I also found the secret exit by accident when I played too, but didn't manage to find the normal exit yet. No worries, I'll figure it out tomorrow.

esselfortium said:

If you convert the graphics in the mod to PNG, they'll be palette-independent.

I did the SLADE conversion to PNG in the PK Smooth Weapons mod but for some reason the weapons are shades of black and white now. Same issue with SmoothDoom. Am I doing something wrong there?

http://i.imgur.com/qv9PRId.jpg?1

rileymartin said:

I did the SLADE conversion to PNG in the PK Smooth Weapons mod but for some reason the weapons are shades of black and white now. Same issue with SmoothDoom. Am I doing something wrong there?

http://imgur.com/qv9PRId

You need to set DOOM2.WAD as your base resource in Slade, so it has a palette to compare to when doing the PNG conversion.