Oops! All Techbase - Final Release! NOW ON IDGAMES!

[HAK3180]

@beast, I finished 100/83/0 in 10:48. No secrets makes me sad panda, as always, but it seems there are perhaps some untagged secrets. For example, I had 12 rockets and never found a rocket launcher. 

 

Visually, I thought it was fine. A touch boxy and flat, yes, but there are some pretty big areas. I wouldn't be surprised if you were nearing visplane or drawseg limits. The detail that's there is suitable - texture variety, light changes, etc.

 

The setup reminded me a lot of TNT, and I have no problem with that. I actually thought the layout/progression was pretty clever - seemed like you had to make some decisions/could take a couple things in different orders. 

 

It was a little easy, but I'm actually okay with that because I did think it was engaging most of the way through, so it was more of a fun easy than a mindless easy. However, I do think the player is bailed out too many times. At least two berserks and a soulsphere, plus a very high number of medikits, some of which are doubled or tripled up? (At one point I thought I was really low on health, grabbed "a" medikit, and then had 100). 

 

Overall I think the layout is somewhat distinct and fun to travel, even without a ton of detail or any real "signature" areas. On the other hand I think the combat, while serviceable and while avoiding really any boring grind, isn't so distinct and could maybe use a moment or two to make it a little more memorable.

[Magicana]

3 hours ago, beast said:

The first playable version of MAP26 is ready for testing.

 

Would someone assist me by running through, pointing out the obvious flaws or issues please. It is a medium sized map and takes about 15 minutes to complete. Skills are implemented, I can finish the map on UV (which says a lot since I am not the greatest player).

 

I checked the map in visplane explorer and fixed all game-breaking problems, tested in Chocolate and Crispy. I believe all that remains is balancing monsters and items. If anything there is too much health/armor bonuses, but I will wait after some feedback if anyone thinks this is a problem. Let me know if you think the map is too small, I can always add new areas to explore.

 

MAP26 - Untitled

 

Did a quick play through (Well it took 17 minutes because I went item hunting, but I still missed ~25 items. Which I've now found where they are in Doombuilder. Clever).

 

I've got the same comments as Hak really. Over supplied with health and armor - I ended up shotgunning demons even though I had a berserk because the map was throwing ammo at me. 

 

I did a search in Doombuilder, and there are no rocket launchers but there is 5 rockets (Plus backpack). Normally if a weapon isn't in a map, it's better not to include any ammo for it.

 

I didn't mind the difficulty though. Yes I finished with a lot of health and 200% armor (I didn't find that non-secret secret till the end of the map), but I think with a bit better ammo management it would have forced more choices on me.

[Mk7_Centipede]

@beast

 

Loved map 26.  Very well done.  Short and action packed and a little confusing.  I think you have secrets already in your map (like the secret +1 HP in the vent which made me laugh) but you should tag them as secrets maybe.  Its kinda cool not knowing how many secrets are in a map, but I think you should tag a few just to re-enforce the idea that there are hidden things in your map.

 

Great pace.  Cool layout.  Nice colors.  I was running around with 1HP for a minute so I am obviously not as good as the other testers.  100/98/100? at 15:36.

 

I enjoyed it.  I think it was cool looking, confusing layout, and the fights were fun.  It definitely felt alien as I died in the first room XD before seeing an enemy.

[HAK3180]

@Magicana, I see you went to just the one switch (although inside another switch-accessed area) for the exit after you found that softlock possibility. I think you said you're more of a Boomer, but this is the kind of stuff I love, figuring out ways around these roadblocks in vanilla. So anyway, if you wanted to do it the old way with two platforms, I think a simple solution would be don't have the platform sectors touching anything except nukage. Then you'd need a dummy sector at 56 height (or really anything from 56-80 - 68 might be nice). So then when the sectors raise to next highest, they'd raise to the dummy sector height, no questions asked, no matter how far along the previous is.

 

 

The dummy setup is at the bottom right. They are tagged differently, formerly 15 and 18 when you had the two-switch setup. The sector between is your dummy sector at height 56-80.

 

The video below shows it in action, this a modification of the old version of the map.

Spoiler

 

 

[Magicana]

On 9/17/2019 at 2:07 PM, HAK3180 said:

@Magicana, I see you went to just the one switch (although inside another switch-accessed area) for the exit after you found that softlock possibility. I think you said you're more of a Boomer, but this is the kind of stuff I love, figuring out ways around these roadblocks in vanilla. So anyway, if you wanted to do it the old way with two platforms, I think a simple solution would be don't have the platform sectors touching anything except nukage. Then you'd need a dummy sector at 56 height (or really anything from 56-80 - 68 might be nice). So then when the sectors raise to next highest, they'd raise to the dummy sector height, no questions asked, no matter how far along the previous is.

 

 

The dummy setup is at the bottom right. They are tagged differently, formerly 15 and 18 when you had the two-switch setup. The sector between is your dummy sector at height 56-80.

 

The video below shows it in action, this a modification of the old version of the map.

  Hide contents

 

 

 

I really need to learn more about dummy sectors! 

 

I'm a bit torn on which way to go. Leave it like the original, or make the player fight through the hordes to finish like the current version.

 

 

---

 

Alright, I'm putting it up as done (Unless someone finds an error or something with how it runs).

 

 

Edit: Found an error in how it runs. Uploaded a new file.

 

Oops Despondent Nukage Base.zip

Edited September 22, 2019 by Magicana

[beast]

Just popping in to say I have not forgotten about this project. I have done a bunch of changes and have a few more to go before the next iteration of MAP26. Thanks all for the helpful feedback.

[Armolitskiy]

Hey. Can I use these textures for my levels?

[ketmar]

join the army project, and it will answer all questions! techbases ftw!

 

;-) (just in case)

[ZeMystic]

5 hours ago, Armolitskiy said:

Hey. Can I use these textures for my levels?

I found the textures on realm 667. make sure to credit them in your wad.

[Angry Saint]

Placing monsters...

[Mike_C]

Hi everyone, I've got some progress made on map 07 and it would be really helpful to get some feedback as at this stage I'm looking at monster/health/ammo placement and possibly changing some of the rooms around, before I commit to a final layout. Let me know what you think!

 

-Edited-

 

this should be close to the final version of the map. Reworked some of the rooms and added more monsters with difficulty modes. There's still some textures to align and I still haven't been able to get it to run on chocolate doom though...

 

 

 

Edited October 20, 2019 by Mike_C

[HAK3180]

13 minutes ago, Mike_C said:

[Hazardous]

 

Well, first of all, I couldn't get it to load in Chocolate or Crispy or PrBoom+. I ran map analysis and discovered an "unclosed" sector. All you need to do is delete vertex 310.

 

Anyway, I quite like the layout and progress of the second 2/3 or so. It feels task-oriented, like you have to accomplish something.

 

Some other issues:

• It's extremely easy to get softlocked in sector 123. You barely have to straferun and you definitely don't have to SR-50. I think lots of players would attempt that before trying to shoot the switch. In fact, I never knew it was a shootable switch until I saw it in Doom Builder, though I must have shot it at some point.
• There are lots of alignment issues. Some of it is acceptable, I think, but in other spots it looks not great. GRAY1 is the usual suspect. I also checked and not a single linedef in the entire map is upper unpegged. Upper and lower unpegging is often your friend for alignment. It might look nice at linedef 311 or 639, for example.
• There's probably a little too much meat for no freebie big guns. There's a trio of cacodemons and the one room with mancubi and an arch-vile. I had to shotgun them, i.e., I just left without even attempting to kill them. The cyberdemon, however, I don't really mind. It's probably not the best cyberdemon fight, but I can get on board with "If you didn't get the (right) secret(s), then you can't kill it."
• In the second last room with the nukage bridge, it's not that hard to get yourself screwed and unable to get back up. Not a true softlock since you can just die in the nukage, but it didn't feel intentional to me.
• As far as combat, I think the biggest issue is that there's tons of space almost everywhere. You've countered the potential ease for Doomguy by using lots of hitscanners, but I still think much of this is gonna feel empty. It's not that small a map but only has 72 enemies, 2/3 of which will fall with one shotgun shot most of the time. I don't think this thing would feel grindy if you doubled or even tripled the fodder in some places (think Stronghold from TNT). Alternately, you could reduce the size of most areas, but that's much harder to do retroactively.
• This is what your map looks like in brightness mode
  Spoiler

  

  Almost the whole thing is 160. A few other rooms are darker, but there's no variation within a room. Visplane explorer suggests you have lots of extra visplanes to deal with, but you might not even need them. Something like Sector 251 et al. could easily be a bit darker for some simple but effective lighting variety. you've also got a number of "light sources" (things and textures) but still no light variety. Sectors 70 and 344 could easily be much brighter, for example, as well as sectors 339 et al. Sectors 363 et al. would be a great opportunity to go brighter or darker.

• While I'm thinking of it, I always say switch textures should generally start in SW1 to avoid any confusion.

All in all, I like what you've done here. The map's got some character and some solid bones, at the very least.

 

[Mike_C]

53 minutes ago, HAK3180 said:

 

Well, first of all, I couldn't get it to load in Chocolate or Crispy or PrBoom+. I ran map analysis and discovered an "unclosed" sector. All you need to do is delete vertex 310.

 

Anyway, I quite like the layout and progress of the second 2/3 or so. It feels task-oriented, like you have to accomplish something.

 

Some other issues:

• It's extremely easy to get softlocked in sector 123. You barely have to straferun and you definitely don't have to SR-50. I think lots of players would attempt that before trying to shoot the switch. In fact, I never knew it was a shootable switch until I saw it in Doom Builder, though I must have shot it at some point.
• There are lots of alignment issues. Some of it is acceptable, I think, but in other spots it looks not great. GRAY1 is the usual suspect. I also checked and not a single linedef in the entire map is upper unpegged. Upper and lower unpegging is often your friend for alignment. It might look nice at linedef 311 or 639, for example.
• There's probably a little too much meat for no freebie big guns. There's a trio of cacodemons and the one room with mancubi and an arch-vile. I had to shotgun them, i.e., I just left without even attempting to kill them. The cyberdemon, however, I don't really mind. It's probably not the best cyberdemon fight, but I can get on board with "If you didn't get the (right) secret(s), then you can't kill it."
• In the second last room with the nukage bridge, it's not that hard to get yourself screwed and unable to get back up. Not a true softlock since you can just die in the nukage, but it didn't feel intentional to me.
• As far as combat, I think the biggest issue is that there's tons of space almost everywhere. You've countered the potential ease for Doomguy by using lots of hitscanners, but I still think much of this is gonna feel empty. It's not that small a map but only has 72 enemies, 2/3 of which will fall with one shotgun shot most of the time. I don't think this thing would feel grindy if you doubled or even tripled the fodder in some places (think Stronghold from TNT). Alternately, you could reduce the size of most areas, but that's much harder to do retroactively.
• This is what your map looks like in brightness mode
    Reveal hidden contents

  

  Almost the whole thing is 160. A few other rooms are darker, but there's no variation within a room. Visplane explorer suggests you have lots of extra visplanes to deal with, but you might not even need them. Something like Sector 251 et al. could easily be a bit darker for some simple but effective lighting variety. you've also got a number of "light sources" (things and textures) but still no light variety. Sectors 70 and 344 could easily be much brighter, for example, as well as sectors 339 et al. Sectors 363 et al. would be a great opportunity to go brighter or darker.

• While I'm thinking of it, I always say switch textures should generally start in SW1 to avoid any confusion.

All in all, I like what you've done here. The map's got some character and some solid bones, at the very least.

 

Thanks a lot for the input! I fixed the problem with the unclosed sector, but I still can't run it on chocolate doom. I get the message: "W_LumpLength: 2929 >= numlumps". I did a search and apparently its to do with the node builder. I setup ZenNode on Slade 3 but it doesn't seem to be doing anything.

 

Anyways, with regards to the other suggestions I agree that it feels a bit empty for its size. I'll add more enemies. Maybe change the cyberdemon fight for a bunch of monsters? 

 

The textures are still a bit messy I know, those grey walls are going for the most part. But I didn't know about the upper unpegged thing, I usually just use lower unpegged for doors and fences only. Cheers for telling me about SW2 too, I completely missed that one!

 

 

[Magicana]

I played through and I've got to echo a lot of what Hak said. I managed to find a rocket launcher, so the arch-vile wasn't so bad for me, but still a lot of regular shotgunning.

 

The soulsphere secret has too many sectors tagged (It's like the E4M3 stairs all over again :P).

 

The textures need some serious alignment, but that's a relatively easy fix.

 

I definitely agree that you've got a good structure.

 

---

 

On a side note, I've uploaded a new version of my map above when I found a HOM during playtesting. 

[Mike_C]

21 hours ago, Magicana said:

I played through and I've got to echo a lot of what Hak said. I managed to find a rocket launcher, so the arch-vile wasn't so bad for me, but still a lot of regular shotgunning.

 

The soulsphere secret has too many sectors tagged (It's like the E4M3 stairs all over again :P).

 

The textures need some serious alignment, but that's a relatively easy fix.

 

I definitely agree that you've got a good structure.

 

---

 

On a side note, I've uploaded a new version of my map above when I found a HOM during playtesting. 

Thanks for pointing out the secret tags. I've updated the file with some fixes, etc.. as well as some changes in the rooms. It should be nicer to play now.

 

I tried your map. Really fun to play! I specially liked the layout of it. I felt it was consistent with being fun throughout, no parts that felt like chores or repetitive. Nice work!

[beast]

Hi everybody

 

Here is the next version of map26 ready for play-testing. I took all the feedback from the last round and made these changes.

 

- medium size ~15 minutes playtime

 

(link updated in recent post)

 

Spoiler

* Hide soulsphere on HMP & UV
* Reposition the blue key for visibility
* Tag secrets (and a new secret nukage area)
* Replace one plasma rifle with the rocket launcher
* Unpack most of the stacked medkits/ammo
* Reduce ammo for higher difficulties
* Replace one of the berserk packs

 

Edited September 24, 2019 by beast : link updated in recent post

[beast]

On 9/22/2019 at 6:00 AM, Magicana said:

On a side note, I've uploaded a new version of my map above when I found a HOM during playtesting. 

 

I ran through your map (HMP 98/100/100) and it was a a pleasant experience. The end-room looks great, and I particularly enjoyed the monster combinations to spur in-fighting.

[Magicana]

2 hours ago, beast said:

Hi everybody

 

Here is the next version of map26 ready for play-testing. I took all the feedback from the last round and made these changes.

 

Oops! Map26 Download

 

- medium size ~15 minutes playtime

 

  Hide contents

* Hide soulsphere on HMP & UV
* Reposition the blue key for visibility
* Tag secrets (and a new secret nukage area)
* Replace one plasma rifle with the rocket launcher
* Unpack most of the stacked medkits/ammo
* Reduce ammo for higher difficulties
* Replace one of the berserk packs

 

 

 

Powerups were way more balanced. What happened to the Arch-Viles? They added a bit of heat to their encounter!

[beast]

19 minutes ago, Magicana said:

 

 

Powerups were way more balanced. What happened to the Arch-Viles? They added a bit of heat to their encounter!

 

Oops! I will place them back.

[beast]

Another update for MAP26

 

(Old link removed)

 

Spoiler

- added an Archvile

- flats and texture changes

- replaced that ugly platform with stairs for better flow

 

Edited January 6, 2020 by beast : removed old link

[Mike_C]

Hi folks! Here's another update and hopefully the last major one for map 07. Iv'e tested it with chocolate doom and gzdoom and found no bugs so I'm calling it finished. Feel free to give it a go and please point out anything that I might of not noticed. Cheers!

 

 

Updated Again. Changed a couple textures, fixed some alignments and added a bit more balance to the last fight.

Hazardous Zone.wad.zip

Edited October 20, 2019 by Mike_C

[Egg Boy]

Map28: Corporate Mandated Singularity

 

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1IKc-SWciymM0qP3ePFKrue_csblJEmJv

 

Here's a slight edit of the resource that needs to be run with it (don't worry, its been approved by the project leader)

 

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1wS-GtloBEGO3OkmenU8RchJkaz05SxEM

 

 

[Magicana]

I completely missed @Mike_C post!

 

Here I am almost 3 weeks late with it, but better late than never.

 

Enjoyable map - I felt like it could have used a green armor as part of the main map (I found one later as I went secret hunting), because it's pretty punishing without it.

 

There were a few misalignments, mostly where you had raised/lower sectors (Such as windows) which you should be able to fix with unpegging upper/lower linedefs, depending on what is misaligned.

 

The teleporting cyberdemon was pretty tricky - I was shotgunning him, and having him teleport behind me was pretty hair raising! I felt it probably teleported a little too often between the three locations I think it was.

 

I had to noclip up to that ledge with the backpack - What was the intended route? I have to know for my own satisfaction :P.

[Mike_C]

Thanks for checking it out @Magicana !

 

3 hours ago, Magicana said:

Enjoyable map - I felt like it could have used a green armor as part of the main map (I found one later as I went secret hunting), because it's pretty punishing without it.

There's one hidding soon after the beginning, but maybe it's not that easy to find. I want to know what others think too.

 

3 hours ago, Magicana said:

There were a few misalignments, mostly where you had raised/lower sectors (Such as windows) which you should be able to fix with unpegging upper/lower linedefs, depending on what is misaligned.

Thanks for pointing it out, I think I've found them all now, they should be fixed in the update i've just edited at the post above.

 

3 hours ago, Magicana said:

The teleporting cyberdemon was pretty tricky - I was shotgunning him, and having him teleport behind me was pretty hair raising! I felt it probably teleported a little too often between the three locations I think it was.

The idea behind it was to discourage crossing over and circle strafing so you have to carefully dodge the rockets and not waste ammo as it keeps teleporting whenever its not firing. 

 

3 hours ago, Magicana said:

I had to noclip up to that ledge with the backpack - What was the intended route? I have to know for my own satisfaction :P.

Basically there's this secret passage that lets you skip the yellow key and leads you there. Good luck finding it :)

 

 

[JBerg]

Is map slot 2 still open? I’ve got a nukage map I’ve been sitting on for a while. I would still need to do a pass for difficulty settings.

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/xwg8cd92hy7aw86/Refinery.zip?dl=0

[JBerg]

Alright, going to get to work to convert the map format from Boom to Vanilla, retexture and implement difficulty

[Egg Boy]

Here you guys go, the (hopefully) final version of map28. Enjoy, and don't forget to run it with the edit of the resource provided above.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1cMNKHsfti5cFaOUbpvoyHurUx12WcrdG

[Egg Boy]

Sorry for double post, but I updated the map, use the same link provided above, I fixed a *small* issue where 3 cyberdemons were not teleporting in GZDOOM, which I did not playtest with.

[Angry Saint]

Here my map, The UAC.

 

It uses textures from the texture pack plus a "new" music midi which I think you will recognize.

 

Map slot is map 22.

 

It is a lot of time since last I mapped so please have some patient with me if something is wrong.

 

Map was tested with Chocolate Doom and Zdoom.

theuac.zip

[Mk7_Centipede]

that is a great doom 2016 remake.

 

having hak do a playthrough would be cool.

 

also: we have 2 slots still open in e3.

Edited October 25, 2019 by Mk7_Centipede