[Ultimate Doom, complevel 3] Solar Struggle Community Project: Release thread. [Now on IDGAMES]

[Wavy]

23 minutes ago, Book Lord said:

E2M2: Storage Complex by @Wavy
For some reason, I could not score the lowering crate secret in the warehouse.

This has also been fixed.

[myolden]

5 hours ago, PinkFlamingo said:

A few more bugs/texture misalignments I spotted in the first two episodes:

 

E1M1: The stone texture on the bed in the very first room (linedef 783) seems misaligned when compared to all other beds in the other cells. The vertical stripe should line up with the corner of the bed. A similar misalignment can be seen on the most eastern bench in the waiting area before the RK door (linedefs 2130 and adjacent ones). These are very minor details but it's the first room of the megawad and the first thing people might see so it's better to be perfect here.

 

E2M1: Towards the final cave area, linedefs 1402 and 1063 seem to be misaligned? Or is this intentional to simulate a collapse of the floor?

E2M2: The "Evil Eye" in sector 595 (Thing 122) is not flagged for Easy difficulty and is thus missing on HNTR. This makes this secret difficult to spot/understand.

 

E2M4: In GZDoom, this switch at the bottom of the water pit (linedef 239) does not animate. This is because there is an unnecessary upper texture on this linedef. Remove it and the switch will animate correctly (I had this same problem in one of my maps).

 

 

This would have worked as well in this case. At some point I discovered that you could make a sector 25 pixels tall and block the player (instead of raising it to the typical 32 pixels). Since then, I've used this technique for all kinds of obstacles. Usually tables or desks where I feel 32 pixels is too high to look realistic, and where I also want flying enemies to be able to fly over them. In this case though, it wasn't necessary. It's just a mapping habit really.

Damn, not sure how those texture alignments slipped by. @ViolentBeetle would you kind fixing those for me? Probably easier than doing a whole new version of the map.

[Book Lord]

I have played E3 on Hey Not Too Rough (RC2). Nothing big to report from the gameplay standpoint, I spotted a few texture oddities that I missed on the first run, and a non-working teleport bug on M7 that I did not experience on UV (details below):

 

E3M3: Deep Space Observatory by @dac

A staircase has some leftover alignment problems. Linedef 1412 has the wrong offset and is misaligned, while the sides of the staircase, still properly aligned, do not look very good because TEKGREN5 has many asymmetries. Maybe you should choose another texture for the staircase exterior.

 

E3M7: Freight Terminal by @MemeMind
1) Linedef 3121 has a strange SLADWALL texture that does not look misplaced or misaligned, but is there for no apparent reason.

2) Tag 12 on Linedef 532 opens both the way forward (in green) and three teleport closets (in red). The latter do not work on easy skills because the teleport destinations (Things 135/138/139) are tagged as Medium/Hard and do not appear on HNTR. The monsters are trapped in their closets and cannot be killed.

3) I insist that the return point to the first part of the level should be placed before the exit, so there won't be a non-return portion of the map.

 

Regarding the endgame message, there is a missing full stop, the word "Venusean" (Venusian) and an extra space towards the end.

 

Are you planning an RC3? If yes, I will be waiting for the new release to retest E4 on HNTR (I have already played it on UV-RC2).

Edited June 16, 2022 by Book Lord

[ViolentBeetle]

9 hours ago, Book Lord said:

Are you planning an RC3? If yes, I will be waiting for the new release to retest E4 on HNTR (I have already played it on UV-RC2).

Yeah, waiting on a couple of mappers to make changes.

I think E3M7 was fixed, but you make a good point on teleport. I'll look into this.

[PinkFlamingo]

I played through episode 3 on HMP and nothing seemed broken. Here are some comments:

 

Ammo distribution.

I played in continuous mode and naturally I began to accumulate excess ammo as I progressed through the episode. There are, however, two points in the episode where the player simply gets way more ammo than needed and it starts to ruin the experience. The first point is in E3M4, which has way too much rocket ammo. At some point I was carrying 100 rockets here. I suggest to remove several rocket boxes from this map. The second ammo spike was at the end of E3M7 when I was given a BFG and tons of plasma cells. Here I had 600 cells at the exit, which made the opening fight of E3M8 trivial. I suggest removing a few large cell packs.

 

I know its hard to balance a wad for continuous play, but a good trick is to play through the map with pistol start, and write down how much ammo you have left at the exit. If you have 600 cells at the exit, it means that you could probably safely remove 500-600 cells from the map without it feeling like there isn't enough ammo. Now, keep in mind I was playing on HMP so I probably got a bit more ammo anyway.

 

Texture issues.

 

E3M1

I found numerous misaligned SUPPORT3 textures, in particular in the areas between the yellow key and the red key door, and in the secret cave area. I've made a few screenshots of some obvious ones. I also found a misaligned wood wall (last screenshot).

 

 

 

E3M3

Spotted one misaligned metal texture in one of the red carpet arenas:

 

E3M7

Not a texture but a common perspective issue: The building in the opening shot of E3M7 has a weird cutoff against the sky background making it look flat. A similar cutoff can be seen on the mountain from the other side.

 

[ViolentBeetle]

1 hour ago, PinkFlamingo said:

I played through episode 3 on HMP and nothing seemed broken. Here are some comments:

Ammo, especially on HMP continuous ammo will stack up a bit. I'll look into some suggestions and fix the textures. Will take a look at the skyhackery too.

[DJVCardMaster]

A really minor update to E4M4

Some texture alignments and a little detailing here and there, I made the BFG secret a little bit more visible, but subtle anyway, I did not want to make it so easy to see, since it's a BFG.
Nothing in terms of gameplay, though, I moved some tps at the YK "trap" to make it closer to you.

Music needs to be changed to something not copyright-claimed, if someone wants to sneak a MIDI that fits well, you are free to do so.

[SMG_Man]

@ViolentBeetle I'm making some adjustments to my level, and I'm wondering if it would be better to have some of the monsters come in once the yellow key is grabbed on UV, that way the player isn't wondering aimlessly without resistance while making their way towards the yellow door switch.

[ViolentBeetle]

3 hours ago, SMG_Man said:

@ViolentBeetle I'm making some adjustments to my level, and I'm wondering if it would be better to have some of the monsters come in once the yellow key is grabbed on UV, that way the player isn't wondering aimlessly without resistance while making their way towards the yellow door switch.

Possibly. Being stabbed in the back right after cyberdemons are killed would be annoying though. Opening some rooms to guarantee I have time to react might be a good idea.

 

Also maybe add multiple instances of keys and switches so they are found faster? Not sure if it's a good idea.

[SMG_Man]

Here's my updated level.

e4m6_v14.zip

[sandwedge]

keepin the solar struggle going.

 

 

[sandwedge]

 

Great episode, only confusing thing for me were the optional areas in transport nexus.  kinda felt like the type of the thing that would lead to a secret level, but I already found that.  couldn't figure out how to explore it all in a reasonable time frame.  it's a great level and that stuff is optional so don't know if anything needs to be fixed, really, but hey.

[Jark]

2 hours ago, sandwedge said:

Great episode, only confusing thing for me were the optional areas in transport nexus.  kinda felt like the type of the thing that would lead to a secret level, but I already found that.  couldn't figure out how to explore it all in a reasonable time frame.  it's a great level and that stuff is optional so don't know if anything needs to be fixed, really, but hey.

 

What was supposed to have happened was after returning to the start and being unable to reach the main hub (with Research Complex and Fuel Depot entrances), you would open the red door to the left of leaving the starting room and continue that way which eventually leads to the 4 way crossing arena which you entered the back of via the level return at the end of the map for completionists. Main issue here being that I didn't factor in that you could strafe jump from the plasma cell platform onto the flesh ledge after picking up the red key leading to the entire train and 4 way arena section being skipped. Sorry about that.

Edited June 23, 2022 by Jark

[ViolentBeetle]

RC3 (And probably final before idgames) is coming soon, but I want to give a little time to reduce risk of some hickup. Meanwhile I made a new intermission for E2. It's probably an improvement. Thanks to @PinkFlamingo for help.

Spoiler

 

[DFF]

30 minutes ago, ViolentBeetle said:

RC3 (And probably final before idgames) is coming soon, but I want to give a little time to reduce risk of some hickup. Meanwhile I made a new intermission for E2. It's probably an improvement. Thanks to @PinkFlamingo for help.

  Hide contents

 

Absolutely love it! Great work

[ViolentBeetle]

The Release Candidate 3 is here. Hopefully, if nothing comes up, it'll go to idgames like that.

Important things:

• E2 gets new intermission screen
• All maps now have co-op starts (most already had them, few didn't)
• Most E4 maps been revised to some degree by their authors
• E2M4 start moved to the correct place
• E1M5, E4M3 and E4M4 had their music replaced to something less copyrighted
• There's demos now

TODO: Make credits art.

SolarStruggleRC3.7z

[PinkFlamingo]

17 minutes ago, ViolentBeetle said:

The Release Candidate 3 is here. Hopefully, if nothing comes up, it'll go to idgames like that.

 

Great! I'll play through episode 4 this week and see if I can find any more bugs/graphical issues.

[sandwedge]

RC3, nice!  I'll make sure to download that for my next video.  I began episode 3 maps 1-4 and it's been fantastic.

 

 

[PinkFlamingo]

Finished playing through episode 4 for the first time (on HMP) and wow, this was a surprisingly fun one! Somehow, I had this idea that this episode was not going to be as cohesive as the others but I was completely wrong. I do think E4M5 is a bit unusually large and E4M7 surprisingly small for their respective positions in the episode but it doesn't really bother me that much. Each map is very memorable and has its own personality. The generous use of Cyberdemons and Spider Masterminds makes this episode a very explosive experience!

 

Graphical issues

I didn't see any significant texture misalignments this time. There is one thing that bothered me though:

 

In E4M6, in one of the outdoor sections (see screenshots), you can see slightly over some of the buildings and the illusion of perspective is broken as they clearly do not have roofs (screenshot 1). This could be solved very simply by raising the sky ceiling a bit (perhaps 64 units?), making the buildings taller.

The metal building also has a wall that seems too thin to house the teleporter in it (screenshot 2). Perhaps this wall could be extended a bit to make it appear wider?

 

Ammo distribution

No issues. I played continuously on HMP and ammo distribution felt perfectly fine this time. I believe this is in part because of all the high-tier enemies and deadly traps that make you want to accumulate as much rockets and plasma as possible.

[SMG_Man]

1 hour ago, PinkFlamingo said:

In E4M6, in one of the outdoor sections (see screenshots), you can see slightly over some of the buildings and the illusion of perspective is broken as they clearly do not have roofs (screenshot 1). This could be solved very simply by raising the sky ceiling a bit (perhaps 64 units?), making the buildings taller.

The metal building also has a wall that seems too thin to house the teleporter in it (screenshot 2). Perhaps this wall could be extended a bit to make it appear wider?

 

Took care of these, and also linked the teleporter on the STARTAN building to the one at the METAL building to allow for easier movement.

e4m6_v15.zip

[Firedust]

Started playing through this! Any idea why the correct level names aren't being displayed in zdoom?

[ViolentBeetle]

Just now, Firedust said:

Started playing through this! Any idea why the correct level names aren't being displayed in zdoom?

Your version of gzDoom isn't supporting UMAPINFO?

UMAPINFO is a relatively new addition so maybe you just haven't updated in a while. But it relies on that to provide names, text screens and custom intermission screens.

[Firedust]

1 minute ago, ViolentBeetle said:

Your version of gzDoom isn't supporting UMAPINFO?

UMAPINFO is a relatively new addition so maybe you just haven't updated in a while. But it relies on that to provide names, text screens and custom intermission screens.

Ah, my bad! I loaded the wad up with ZDoom, not GZDoom. Will rectify that!

[ViolentBeetle]

4 minutes ago, Firedust said:

Ah, my bad! I loaded the wad up with ZDoom, not GZDoom. Will rectify that!

Oof, didn't notice you mention zDoom and not gzDoom. Anyway, I'll make sure to put a mention about it in description when uploading to indgames.

[FEDEX]

Hi @ViolentBeetle ! Do you know if Lzdoom is supported? Thx

[Firedust]

Beat the first episode! Great stuff, absolutely love the visual storytelling aspects combined with fun combat. Diving into E2 now!

 

EDIT: Forgot to mention, but I love the midi choices! Great taste!

[ViolentBeetle]

1 hour ago, FEDEX said:

Hi @ViolentBeetle ! Do you know if Lzdoom is supported? Thx

I don't know, wiki doesn't list it as supporting UMAPINFO, but it's a fork of gzDoom, right?

[ViolentBeetle]

Since the thread is bumped anyway, I'd like to make progress report. Progress is that I've almost finished the final play session of E3, and once I'm done with all 4 episodes, I will upload this wad on idgames.

[Firedust]

E3M2: Why is the midi so loud in comparison to the other ones?

 

E3M4: You can actually jump into the window to the left of the red key door, which will leave the player permanently stuck.

[ViolentBeetle]

13 minutes ago, Firedust said:

E3M4: You can actually jump into the window to the left of the red key door, which will leave the player permanently stuck.

There's several red key doors, which one did you jump out of?

Update: The only "Window to the left from red key door" I found is the one next to the blue key pickup. I don't see how one can get stuck there, because there's a lift and a teleporter.

 

As for MIDI, I unfortunately don't know how to edit their volume. Or anything else.

Edited July 4, 2022 by ViolentBeetle