Lunar Catastrophe - An Ultimate Doom Megawad (RELEASED!)

[Miss Bubbles]

3 hours ago, JohnnyTheWolf said:

In E1M2, I was not able to get 100% kills, so I noclipped and I found a lone Shotgunner hiding out of sight in a corner of the soutmost courtyard.

Ah, yeah, you're absolutely right. You could go out there at one point, but I cut it out. Forgot to remove one of the dudes I left out there. Thanks for pointing it out!

*Figured out you were talking about E1M3 though lol.

[JohnnyTheWolf]

Oh shit, you are right! My bad.

 

In any case, great megawad so far!

[CorianderCastor]

Oh cool, the titlepic loads in EE now. I'm going to try to make an emapinfo lump for this. The tricky part, for me, is going to be getting the text screens right. I beat episode one in GZDoom earlier, great stuff. I need to check out those Quake maps.

[Jaska]

Played E1 and liked much! Have to replay it to find more of the secrets and play on UV rather than HMP. Good E1 feel. Going to play rest of it some day.

[CorianderCastor]

Okay, this should work. I tested that the end text prints. The boss specials should behave properly, but this could use more testing. Also, I didn't add the creator fields to any map, as I don't know who made each map. Not necessary, but just want to give you that information.

 

I need to see if the scary gold errors of "texture not found" is a problem for Eternity though. But this might give people an option besides GZDoom, even if it's not the one people want. Of course if UMAPINFO was further supported, this would be less of an issue in the first place. Oh well, these things take time.

[Kroc]

NB: DOOM Retro is a Chocolate-Doom based limit-removing port that also supports MAPINFO & Boom

[Hells Kitchen]

Played through the first 3 maps of E2. Wow, that was an episode opener that won't be forgotten in a hurry! 

 

Things get intense in this episode so far, and I like how there is more to monster placement than simply being infront of you. There were some  "oh shit" moments here and there. Not to mention, it looks great and has some cool secrets and puzzles. 

 

This is going to be a sensational Ultimate Doom wad I think. Most tend to be cautious with monsters and gameplay, not here though! 

[Mk7_Centipede]

I am a sucker for vanilla and this is a work of art.

 

E1m1 obviously felt inspired by the source. But m2 was a great expression of setting. Felt rather phobos labs honestly. My favorite btw.

 

I stuck my head into the other episodes. Holy cow episode 4! But episode 3 looks to be a great expression of hell.

 

Praise is me. thanks!

[Rex R]

been playing this wad using the 'La Taylor Girl' mod...overall I'm liking it, I did find a fly in the ointment in map E2M3 though that deserves mention. on the east side of the map there are 2 hazmat suits that rise up when a switch is thrown...with the la taylor girl mod you can't pick them up if the player is wearing an 'outfit'/armor. at the moment I can't think of any practical way to fix this, there is a way to get it to work* so I wouldn't spend time/ effort trying to fix this. from what I've seen so far this is a very nice megawad.

Rex

*to grab the hazmat suit while running the la taylor girl mod you need to drop the current outfit/armor and pickup the hazmat suit as the new outfit/armor, the hazmat suit will last until it takes enough damage or you drop it for another outfit :).

[galileo31dos01]

Played a bit of this yesterday using Crispy Doom, a vanilla limit-removing port, and not ZDoom because I'm a rebel heh. The first 5 maps (E1M1 to 9) worked all fine, E1M4 took me to the secret map and that one back to E1M4, which was going to happen anyway since I wasn't playing in the intended port. Pretty dope reinterpretation of KDTID so far, tons of secrets to find, UV is plagued of dudes like I expected, cool stuff. I'll stay with Crispy and warp to the corresponding maps after the secret ones, seems like there won't be any other issues. Congrats on the release!

[CorianderCastor]

Finished episode two in EE. Had to no clip the first door in E2M6. I think it's because there's a trigger too close to the door. Classical Doom does not like that. Otherwise seems great. Nice boss map by the way. Am enjoying episode 3 now.

[Korikon]

Never heard of this WAD but I'm definitely gonna check it out

[Miss Bubbles]

Thanks everyone for the feedback! Glad to hear y'all are enjoying it :)

[Korikon]

sdfsdfsd

Edited December 18, 2020 by Korikon

[Rex R]

observation; e2m6. there is one secret that is a pain to get, if one isn't careful a pair of cacodaemons will lock the player out of it. have not yet figured out the proper tactics for it yet...I can think of a few things that might work(speed, standing in the right place, or both).

Rex

[damo]

This is now hosted on ZDaemon for coop survival:

 

Broken Glass Breakfast - Lunar Catastrophe

zds://37.247.54.67:10603

[NoWits]

Very cool map set. Gives off strong original doom vibes in every level; not sure how deliberate it was but a lot of the structures are evocative of various landmarks in the original ultimate doom levels. You've got the style nailed down! Emulating the classic style didn't make it the least bit boring either, plenty of originality to be seen everywhere. Some striking rooms that made me pause and take in the visuals for a second - not often that happens with 90s-themed wads. Basically took everything I loved about the original ultimate doom level design and amplified it. Thank you for this awesome level pack, this will keep me busy for a while and I'll be looking out for anything else you guys make!

[JohnnyTheWolf]

Okay, I have beaten the first episode. Pretty good! I did not expect E1M8 to be much more of a challenge than its vanilla counterpart! However, I seem unable to get 100% items. I got all the Health Bonuses in the secret area, the Computer Area Map as well as the Soulsphere. What am I missing?

 

Finally, on the nitpicking side, why is E1M8 called "Deimos Gate"? Given the title, I thought the first episode was set on the Moon, not Phobos. Not that it really matters, since the mapset still uses vanilla skyscapes, but I am just curious.

[Miss Bubbles]

9 hours ago, Nixot said:

Very cool map set. Gives off strong original doom vibes in every level; not sure how deliberate it was but a lot of the structures are evocative of various landmarks in the original ultimate doom levels. You've got the style nailed down! Emulating the classic style didn't make it the least bit boring either, plenty of originality to be seen everywhere. Some striking rooms that made me pause and take in the visuals for a second - not often that happens with 90s-themed wads. Basically took everything I loved about the original ultimate doom level design and amplified it. Thank you for this awesome level pack, this will keep me busy for a while and I'll be looking out for anything else you guys make!

Thanks so much!! What rooms in particular did you find to be striking :D?
 

1 hour ago, JohnnyTheWolf said:

Okay, I have beaten the first episode. Pretty good! I did not expect E1M8 to be much more of a challenge than its vanilla counterpart! However, I seem unable to get 100% items. I got all the Health Bonuses in the secret area, the Computer Area Map as well as the Soulsphere. What am I missing?

 

Finally, on the nitpicking side, why is E1M8 called "Deimos Gate"? Given the title, I thought the first episode was set on the Moon, not Phobos. Not that it really matters, since the mapset still uses vanilla skyscapes, but I am just curious.

Hmm I'll check out the item placements today. Episode 1 is set on Phobos as usual. As for the name, it's the UAC's Gateway to Deimos :P. Idk I'm not very creative with naming things lol.
 

Spoiler

Is it possible that once you teleported to the exit room into " hell " you didn't pick up the Soulsphere placed right underneath the teleport destination? That may happen if you don't move but I'm not certain.

 

[JohnnyTheWolf]

 

You mean the Soulsphere on the burning red star-shapped platform? Yes, I did pick it up. Doing so causes me to have 18 items out of 19.

But I now see that there is also a second Soulsphere in the final room. For some reason, I do not get teleported right on top of it and because I get immediately surrounded by Demons, I do not get to move around and back into it, hence why I was missing the 19th item.

 

 

I guess it is no big problem though, seeing how the level and the episode are pretty much over at this point.

[TheOrganGrinder]

So having finally played through all of this (with the exception of the E4M9, which I missed the entrance to - although having popped open E4M3 in Doom Builder I can see exactly how I was supposed to access the secret level, I just failed to do so) some general, overall thoughts on it.

 

I think Episodes 1 and 4 are the strongest parts of the WAD, with the former possessing a consistently displayed and constantly developed techbase aesthetic which shares enough with the classic Knee-Deep in the Dead style to feel familiar, prompting an instinctive response that the shapes and layouts and use of textures feel right, while at the same time not coming across as derivative at all.  The latter episode is likewise consistent in quality and as consistent in theme as an episode modelled after the occasionally-inconsistent aesthetics of Thy Flesh Consumed can be.  I will admit that E4M5 jumped out at me as perhaps not being up to the standard set by the rest of the episode; it's a simple and rather brief layout of relatively crude construction, and I found myself asking "That's it?" when I got to the end of it.

 

Episode 2 and 3 felt somewhat less consistent to me, each of them starting strong but gradually developing a sense that the aesthetic and ideas couldn't sustain the number and scale of levels being demanded of them.  Episode 2 starts to run out of steam for me about E2M5, Episode 3 around E3M3, though in the latter case E3M6 is really good and helps to make up for that sense that the WAD is losing its way about.  I think in Episode 2 the main factor is that there are more corridors than rooms on a lot of maps, and I don't know to what extent the hallways of one map within the episode can be readily discerned from the hallways of another - in that respect it's a bit less varied than the techbases of your Episode 1.

 

Minor gripes... I feel as though Episode 4 had a few to many "Here's a shotgun, there's a Baron of Hell, go!" moments which would be especially significant when pistol-starting each level; particularly when their movement is constrained, they're not so much threats as timesinks.  Of the three secret levels I played, I was left wondering what about them qualified each of them for the secret level slot; each one felt as though it could have been slotted into its respective episode elsewhere without feeling particularly different.

 

Those are minor gripes though, I maintain that this is overall a really good classic Doom WAD and I'm looking forward to the hinted-at Doom II follow-up.

[General Rainbow Bacon]

Just finished episode 1 found all but 2 secrets on my first go though and got every secret in the episode on my second pass.  Fantastic set so far.  I started getting cocky in e1m6 and died several times there.  Wish I had demo of all of this for you guys, but I forgot to record.  Took me about 2 hours to play through the whole thing.  I had some of the most fun I've had in Doom in years with these.  They felt challenging, but not overwhelming.  I'm looking forward to Episode 2 - 4.  Keep mapping guys.  You're doing great!!

[CorianderCastor]

I'm almost done with this, at E4M5. Episode four really is a jump in difficulty, but it's not bad. The secret level is good fun. I should run through episode one again in Eternity. So far the only level that isn't compatible with Eternity is E2M6.

[Miss Bubbles]

1 hour ago, General Rainbow Bacon said:

Just finished episode 1 found all but 2 secrets on my first go though and got every secret in the episode on my second pass.  Fantastic set so far.  I started getting cocky in e1m6 and died several times there.  Wish I had demo of all of this for you guys, but I forgot to record.  Took me about 2 hours to play through the whole thing.  I had some of the most fun I've had in Doom in years with these.  They felt challenging, but not overwhelming.  I'm looking forward to Episode 2 - 4.  Keep mapping guys.  You're doing great!!

Thanks! Which secrets did you miss? (On what levels, I mean, if you can narrow it down.)
 

1 hour ago, PaquoCastor said:

I'm almost done with this, at E4M5. Episode four really is a jump in difficulty, but it's not bad. The secret level is good fun. I should run through episode one again in Eternity. So far the only level that isn't compatible with Eternity is E2M6.

Thanks! E4 can be rough, especially when pistol starting all the maps as we did to test them, but playing through it isn't too bad.

[General Rainbow Bacon]

@ Miss Bubbles:  I missed the secret in the NE corner of e1m3, and I missed the secret in e1m8.  All the others I found on my first run and on my second attempt I did find those other two.  Also, I got all secrets in E1M5, but I don't know what I did to open the outdoor soul sphere secret in the west section of the map.  PM me to tell me what opened that if you want as I have no idea what I did. 

[ShadesMaster]

 

And YES I made sure my voice made it in hehe!!!!

[Miss Bubbles]

On 1/9/2019 at 8:51 PM, ShadesMaster said:

 

And YES I made sure my voice made it in hehe!!!!

Awesome! I'll give it a watch when I get the chance. :)

[JohnnyTheWolf]

How do I get 100% kills in E2M4?

 

 

I see there is a triangular room to the south-west of the circular room with the lozenged lava pit, but I do not know how to get there. 

 

Speaking of the lozenged lava pit, is the switch on the southern pillar not a bit redundant, given how the secret it opens can be accessed otherwise?

I also found a Cacodemon hidden in a narrow green marble passage in the south-west corner of the map, which only came out of hiding after I came back and started pressing the wall around. It did not notice me the first time I passed by.

 

 

That issue aside, great map! On Ultra-Violence, it is neither too hard nor so easy that I am swimming in ammunition.

[Miss Bubbles]

3 hours ago, JohnnyTheWolf said:

How do I get 100% kills in E2M4?

 

  Hide contents

I see there is a triangular room to the south-west of the circular room with the lozenged lava pit, but I do not know how to get there. 

 

Speaking of the lozenged lava pit, is the switch on the southern pillar not a bit redundant, given how the secret it opens can be accessed otherwise?

I also found a Cacodemon hidden in a narrow green marble passage in the south-west corner of the map, which only came out of hiding after I came back and started pressing the wall around. It did not notice me the first time I passed by.

 

 

That issue aside, great map! On Ultra-Violence, it is neither too hard nor so easy that I am swimming in ammunition.

 

Spoiler

The caged eye inside the red key room will take you to two different locations depending on which side you enter. ;)

 

Spoiler

The Cacodemon there is intended to see you after some time once you've moved far enough away from him. Derek does this a couple of times in some of his maps to startle the player after they think they've cleared an area out lol. Sometime's it can be a little buggy though!

 

[ShadesMaster]

To all who may be interested....

 

 

Episode 3 playthru! One more to go!