ChebSkies: Extermination Day perfected and maxable, works with BDv22test3

[chebmaster]

PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU HAVE INSTALLED THE UPDATE OF JUN 07, 2024 THAT FIXES A GAME BREAKING BUG: map 242 was impassable with 75% probability on difficulties below Ultra Violence because the blue key was missing from the cave barred with blue bars into which you drop after opening the red bars -- thus effectively trapping you in that cave. If you got trapped in that cave, please use the "give keys" cheat instead because updating WADs makes saves incompatible.

 

P.S. I hate game breaking bugs with a passion and hate even more when they happen because of me.

 

GOLD since Dec 17, 2023
Suitable for Zandronum coop multiplayer (8 players max) since May 19, 2024

Links to files:

    http://chebmaster.com/downloads/chebskies/?C=M;O=D

    Make sure your browser doesn't redirect to https: : I am spectacularly lazy when it comes to setting up Let'sEncrypt. Certificates are kaput.

    The hosting for that server is in Moscow, Russia, under my table where the dust and cats lurk.

    (P.S. I heard Chrome refuses opening plain http links nowadays, you can use a retro browser to download it, e.g. PaleMoon - since I am STILL too lazy to fix the encryption on my server)

 

P.P.S. The must have links to support the creator of Extermination day and Brutal Doom:

His current project on Steam, you may wishlist it (release date: TBA) https://store.steampowered.com/app/1409460/Brutal_Fate/

His https://www.patreon.com/sgtmarkiv -- I cannot, due to banking blockade, but maybe YOU would?

 

AN OPEN LETTER OF APOLOGY TO MARK:
    I know, I was not planning on releasing this anywhere ever, intended only to serve as testing grounds for you.
    BUT.
    After not one but three (3) close brushes with Death in the span of one year, something in me snapped.
    
    So, I decided to uphold the vow I made to myself while suffering sheer boredom for a week with nothing to do but lie flat and breathe oxygen through my mask, I found salvation in imagining myself walking the streets and bridges od the City of Dis, recalling each building and each decorative tree vason in vivid detail. I *will* release this as a mod for EDAY test 001. I wanted to make a game engine first, but... Too long.
    
    Anyways, if you wish to use anything from this "mod for a mod" in any shape and form, you have my heartfelt permission (how could it be otherwise -- it is fucking YOURS).
    
        Cheb aka ChebMaster.
        
WHAT IS THIS MOD ABOUT:
    It finished and improves the last publicly available beta of Sergeant Mark IV's Extermination Day campaign, beta 001 dated march 2019, hopefully making it fully playable.    
    1. Numerous bug fixes in all maps
    2. Polishing up the maps that were great but raw (11..13, 15..18, 20, 23, 25, 28)
    3. Massive stylistic changes to some maps (242, 26, 29)
    4. Rather bold gameplay changes to some maps (6, 12, 22, 27, 29, 32)
    5. Bringing back cut content from older versions of EDAY and its primeval variant, Hell on Earth Starter Pack, as maps 47, 241 and a large new part injected into map 27
    
    ALL my modifications, both the code and the maps, are literally littered with comments, sometimes explaining, sometimes even ranting at length. Because  my intent from the very beginning was for people to grab resources I made, study and copy the code I made, as working samples or as inspiration -- because there are so many things that could be done with Zandronum but no one knows about because documentation is shit, wikis are woefully incomplete or describe things as they are in GZDoom instead.     
    
    
RATIONALE:
    The creator had last updated years ago, his masterwork lays unfinished. And when fans find some great game incomplete... We all know what happens. Mods. Fan patches. Cut content hunted for and restored.
    I am no exception. I am a rabid fan of EDAY, since it was HESP.

BDv22 DEGRADATIONS:
    Although I had designed, and thoroughly tested, ChebSkies to run on top of my heavily patched custom build of BDv21, BDv21che, I also made a special mini-patch to make ChebSkies compatible with the latest (as of time f me writing this) BDv22test3. There are caveats, though: mostly because some issues could only be fixed by patching the BD itself -- and I am NOT entering that race with BDv22
    1. Destructible computer screens and such are immune to plasma gun fire.
    2. Absense of my nerf of lost souls that prevents them spamming close-range attacks and turns their fire invulnerability to 75% resistance (a BDv21che feature)
    3. Absense of any gore landing in lava charring and smoking (a BDv21che feature)
    4. Friendly marine tanks are nerfed by necessity, don't do any splash damage and WILL keep missing when shooting at any moving monster
    5. The lava in map 22 does not hurt your tank 100/second if you drive it across that lava lake
    6. Any marine NPC followers WILL get lost as you enter map 242 and get themselves killed (requires removing their spawning script from BD itself to switch to my much better script - I honestly tried, but even named scripts do not replace a script from previously loaded PK3, they simply run in parallel)
    7. Absense of my smart limit to the number of NPC followers at a map start (ditto)
    8. Absense of my re-balance of the revenant launcher (meaningful alt-fire, ammo amount 4x; ammo cost 4x and halved fire rate for primary fire homing fireballs while dumb alt-fire rockets only cost 1x each) and the visible indication (fireballs vs rockets) of homing/non-homing revenant missiles (a BDv21che feature)
    

        
HOW TO PLAY:
    1. Install either Zandronum or GZDoom.
    2. Go to https://www.doomworld.com/forum/topic/137366/
    3. Follow the download links in the first post of that thread
    4. Download chebskies-v<version>-<date>-all-files.7z
    5. Unpack all files into your game's folder
    6. If you intend to play it with BDv22 (not recommended) find and download brutalv22test3.pk3 (batteries not included!). Yes, that exact version. I'd need to re-test compatibility and update my mini-patch as necessary every time a new verison is out.
    7. Run it by dragging chebskies-launcher-BDv21.pk3 or chebskies-launcher-BDv22.pk3 onto the game's executable. DO NOT drag it together with other files: the launcher forces the game to auto-load all required files in the correct order. If any of those is missing, you will get an error. If you drag them *together* with the launcher, you will get an error (begause of stuff loading twice, d'uh). If you try any other versions or other mods, you would likely get an error.
    8. Make sure to use the following settings, otherwise you get glitches and fail in unexpected ways (like your precious revenant missiles auto-locking on trees or rubble instead of demons)
        options -> player setup -> autoaim: never
        options -> gameplay options -> smart autoaim: off
        options -> gameplay options -> allow autoaim: no (YES, there are FREAKING TWO options for autoaim in gameplay options alone. This ruined my first tank battle back in the day as my tank's machinegun was auto-aiming at the ground in front of monsters instead of shredding them)
        options -> gameplay options -> allow jump: default
        options -> gameplay options -> allow crouch: default
        options -> display options -> opengl options -> preferences -> sprite billboard: x/y axis
        options -> display options -> opengl options -> preferences -> use models: on
        options -> customize controls -> brutal doom advanced actions / interactions: bind those!
            kick: is required for the flying kick jump combo -- the only way to get to many, many secrets AND to survive the final boss - his blast radius is so large that he rapes you in punishment for merely sprinting. Not to mention the backsliding that lets you go UNDER cyberdemon's missiles or weak enemies as they rush at you
            reload: nuff said
            flashlight: there are *very few* truly dark areas, but it is stil helpful. Alerts monsters, tho.
            dual wield / special action: wait until you get to that boss with his twenty thousand hit points. You will bewoe your inability to dual-wield plasma guns as he massacres you
        
    9. For pure pixellated joy, (filtering is plebeaian!) set
        display options -> opengl options -> texture options -> texture filter mode: none
    10. Crosshair is for wusses, there are iron sights for aiming in BD:
        hud options -> default croshair: none
    
HOW TO PLAY THE RUSSIAN VERSION (Zandronum only):    
    1. The steps above.
    2. Download chebskies-ru.pk3 in the same place where you got chebskies.pk3
    3. Change "language=default" to "language=ru" in Zandronum-<windows user name>.ini  
    4. Drag chebskies-ru.pk3 together with chebskies.pk3 (it contains fonts needed)
        
Performance:
    No worse than the original EDAY. On my favorite potato (i5 2450M + Intel HD 3000) with gore janitor enabled and resolution 1280x720, the framerate mostly stays above 60. But there are certain areas where it drops into 30s and, in rare areas on maps with hordes of monsters, even into 20s.

 

List of required files you get somewhere else:
    DOOM2.WAD
        
The list of maps confirmed to be guaranteed maxable:
    ALL OF THEM

  

Edited June 23 by chebmaster : server trouble

[chebmaster]

Now when I am not blindly obsessed anymore and can think rationally again... I think I should redo the thunder attack.

The most obvious solution would make the boss fire an invisible, intangible LostSoul that dies on a successful melee hit, and then have the thunderbolt follow it, instead of running its own A_Chase each tic.

 

 

Todo:
    GENERAL:
        1. Investigate why the heck point lights aren't working. Did I break them?
        2. fix the asplosive pain elemental corpse bug
        3. investigate if can give +CLIENTSIDEONLY to the dynamic skybox viewport -- and remake the script making it viable for coop.
        4. investigate if can make the tank take 5000% falling damage: I've added one area in CHE22 where tank can fall off the cliff
    EDAY03:
        1. Retop, change the sky portal from thing-based to line based (btw, does it play nice with fog?)
    EDAY14:
        1. Upgrade trucks
        2. Clean trash (including the extra skybox viewpoint)
        3. Check skybox texture scale
        4. Maybe add "smoke column" to the burning city
    EDAY15:
        1. Upgrade trucks
        2. Make a better burning bus
        3. Bring back the police car (and ambulance from edaytestdec16)
        4. Collapse the tunnel -- it serves no purpose (also one ceiling light stuck in a side wall)
        5. "Oddly placed palmtree on the wall near the shotgun, shellbox, and imps after the spider mastermind fight."
    EDAY16:
        1. "Red key is missing and red key door opens without needing it. (dunno if this is intentional)"
        2. Fake staircase after blue door -- better rubble!
        3. Upgrade trucks
        4. "Narrow Blue key door can be opened, but you can't pass the invisible wall, either coming in or going out. (The Apartment building nearest the burger joint with the chainlink fence and parking lot.)" - repair and bring the red key back. There was a rubble wall previously and balcony jumping puzzle to get the red key. Maybe, make it so that blue key isn't necessary.
        5. "Chaingun Marine at the front of the trailer truck near the burger joint doesn't do anything". (9107 PrePlacedMarineMinigun)
        6. "There is an empty bottle floating in the sky near where the cyberdemon gets airstriked."
        7. "Secret behind the tank barricade near the beginning doesn't have anything in it..."
    EDAY17:
        1. "No key is required to open the red key bars blocking access to the two long houses (condos?). Same with the red key door inside that has the yellow key in it."
        2. "You might want to add some quake style messages for the dead tree and the dresser / switch chain that unlocks the shotvolver as hints for people. (Stuff like "Something opened nearby..." or "Something moved in a chimney somewhere...""
        3. Replace thing-based sky portal with line-based and check if entire map could be re-topped.
        4. Bring back the car crashed into a tree somehow
        5. Upgrade trucks
    EDAY18:
        1. "Went everywhere on the map, killed everything I found, only got 224 of 239."    
        2. Upgrade trucks
    CHE19:
        1. Make train doors sliding polyobjects
        2. Upgrade stomach trap with sliding polyobjects - OR, better, remake it into a next train running up and RAMMING the one you have arrived on!
        3. Make it a TIMED mission: train crashes if you are too late. Remove te cacoes but add a 3-minute countdown
    EDAY20:
        1. Upgrade trucks
        2. Make sure player cannot fall off the edge into the decorative highway below - OR, better, make that area insta-death
        3. Make car barricades better (regular cars can be crushed and you have a tank!)
        4. Make *sure* tank cannot get into the multi-story parking
    CHE22:
        1. Align tank track textures
        2. Try making the lava lake damage the tank if driving over it
    CHE28:
        1. replace scaled textures with UDMF freeform scaling and remove those definitions from TEXTURES
    CHE32:
        1. Rehaul the bosses' algorithms, make him adapt to player hiding in the lower area (by spamming summon and lightning). Employ A_JumpIfTargetInLOS() and A_JumpIfCloser() to make the player's life hell. Buff the "becomes red" phase greatly and, maybe, make him literally become red.
        
    
    
Done 2023:
    - general: more editor things for classes that weren't available as placeables: flies and maggot spawners, human BBQ and so on and so forth
    - general: made a new editor thing type for impaled gasping marines (all the code is still there, only its activation was commented out)
    - general: finally learned how to make linedef-based sky portals work in Zandronum. This is a great breakthrough: previously, adding sky geometry locked everything up because you had to keep all portal link things in *all* sectors under the sky synced perfectly. Now, it's just one pair of lines that has to be kept synchronized.
    - general: replaced blood fountain sound, was inappropriately powerful.
    - general: franken-coded up a new boss, Duke of Hell.
    - map 13: grabbed latest EDAY13, converted it to UDMF and copy-pasted my trainyard in place of Mark's trainyard
    - map 13: added new textures (TRAINSB1, TRAINBG1, TRAINBG2) and improved visual look of my train cars and their boogies
    - map 13: added a new texture (TRUCK2Y), upgraded trucks and semitrailers to look a bit more realistic (no more front wheels narrower than back wheels)
    - map 13: added a crashed trailer-less semi in place of chainlink fence to block the sidewalk.
    - map 13: rehauled the whole right half of the map to use one humongous top layer. Looks much better now, also, counterintuitively, improves the framerate.
    - map 13: changed one fence from impassable to walkable + shootable through midtex
    - map 41: fixed the normal exit, now exits to map 19. Did not touch the map itself, done via MAPINFO.
    - map 19: converted it to UDMF
    - map 19: changed that railing from impassable to  walkable + shootable through midtex
    - map 22: converted it to UDMF
    - map 22: completely redesigned the sky. Gigantic walls of flesh and bone inspired by Plutonia meat-sky are real map geometry, there is no sky at all - the clouds above are made of layers of 3d floors. On my favorite potato it turns into aA slideshow in places, BUT the built-in profiling in Zandronum says most of the render time is from sprites so screw it. I love my laptop but it was made back in 2012, it's time to stop cutting things down for the sake of compatibility with such potatoes.
    - map 22: I replaced one of the tanks at the start with a helicopter. I know it's not as polished as the tanks but DAMN being the air support is empowering. A simple script prevents you from flying too high.
    - map 22: completely rehauled the castle area. Reason: AI is too dumb, had to remove "friendly" tanks too-too prone to friendly fire accidents. Added two rideable tanks to the castle area instead. Which made your role more proactive as it is *you* who fights those cyberdemons. Also, since there is no air strike anymore, it is highly advisable to lower the gate and drive your tank into the castle. Now it is *you* who mows those barons down... Again, Mark's original concept of being just one man among many was better BUT the thrice damned Artifical Idiocy prevented it from being viable.
    - map 22: since lava edges are not impassable anymore, added a pusher linedef that catapults monsters (friendly marines count) away from the edge. No more prancing across lava for them.
    - map 22: added various sound sets to "map 21 marine"s (were using default zombie grunts) from various chatter from companion marines. Female marines cuss a lot because there was little to choose from, had to use doomgal taunts. Added basic fire and explosive deaths to the marines by copy-pasting from BD player. Still very primitive compared to companion marines but at least it's something.
    - map 22: added a secret pineapple.
    - map 23: converted it to UDMF and improved texturing (mirrored the big blocks of the central tower, to avoid cognitive dissonance of light seemingly coming from different directions at the opposing walls. And some other minor retexturings.
    - map 47 (Hell's Backdoor, Che): fit between map 23 (The Tower) and map 24 (The Blood Swamp) as a secret exit from map 23, this restored cut content is Mark's old "hell gate" map, reskinned and with secret added (the Unmaker for completionist nerds)
    - map 47: converted it to UDMF
    - map 48 (Looting the Castle, Che): fit between map 23 (The Tower) and map 24 (The Blood Swamp), this "cut content strikes back" is a reskinned right half of Mark's old Sacrificial Grounds from the Hell on Earth Starter Pack.
    - map 48: converted it to UDMF (tons of work, all the line and sector specials broke because it was in the antedeluvean Boom format)
    - map 48: removed the horror element replacing them with regular mutilated bodies. Sky portal works nicely, the ash is a novelty never used anywhere nowadays and the music I chose is from eday01 - because this map's design is so ancient it is so shamelessly and gloriously *doom*.
    - map 48: replaced 4 of the doors with tall sliding doors and learned to make sound sequences for such.
    - map 48: the former exit now houses a grenade launcher and a railgun as rewards for 100% completion.
    - map 25: replaced the dynamic skybox with a sky portal. No ugly desync from head bobbing now. Also removed all that clutter from "cliffs with faraway jungle" skybox models.
    - map 24: converted it to UDMF
    - map 24: made an alternating player start: if you come from map 48 rather than 47, you start near the yellow door
    - map 25: converted it to UDMF and added comments to sectors for my bug fixes (a closet lacking line special from inside thus locking you in forever, a step not being extruded forcing you to jump at the base of the stairs)    
    - map 25: increased open sky areas brightness to 144
    - map 25: replaced some heavy doors with sliding doors
    - map 25: replaced roasting bodies with placeable human BBQ
    - map 25: replaced big doors with sliding door polyobjects
    - map 26: switched from variant B to variant A as my main version (they differ radically in the design of the starting yard/castle). Reason: Variant B was born from the fight for the framerate (irrelevant now) while the yard in the variant A is Mark's old design that survived countless edits. Conclusion: it must be gold if he kept it.
    - map 26: converted it to UDMF
    - map 26: redid the starting castle's architecture from 3d floors to line-based sky portals
    - map 26: redid the left castle's sky portal from thing-based to linedef-based and corrected the apron size
    - map 26: designed a boss to replace Belphegor, compatible with barons and knights without infighting: Duke of Hell (a baron on steroids who spams showers of baron fireballs). Replaced the Belphegor with it.
    - map 26: applied flesh platform sound set to baron spawning cocoons
    - map 26: replaced caco lifts around the yellow key with ThingTrustZ making that entire area bottomless swimmable
    - map 26: moved latrines in two prison cells, was very hard and bothersome to pick up ammo in too narrow space between latrines and beds
    - map 26: replaced some big doors with sliding door polyobjects
    - map 26: re-adjusted the final yard to center it on the entrance axis
    - map 26: brought back the kitchen sink from the Hell on Earth Starter Pack -- now with cabinets :D
    - map 26: fixed the dart trap: satyr faces were out of alignment with dart throwers and brightness was higher than the area's making the trap painfully visible
    - map 26: fixed an impossible difficulty spike by moving the archvile in the sewer into one of the barred doorways. Now he poses a limited threat
    - map 26: made all grate raising buttons in the sewer clearly visible: lit by default glowing in the dark (SW2SLAD)
    - map 27: converted it to UDMF
    - map 27: frankensteined in some cut content, namely the left half of Mark's old  "Sacrificial Grounds" from Hell on Earth Starter Pack. I know it doesn't fit perfectly, and turns Necropolis into a nightmare endurance gauntlet (because the part I copy-pasted in is so large it is worthy of being a map of its own). But I loved that map so much, I missed it so much, I just couldn't help myself. Converting from the Boom format to UDMF by hand was no easy task either. Instead of getting the blue key you now get a yellow key and have to explore a damn labyrinth made of deathtraps to get the blue one.
    - map 27: replaced all big doors with sliding doors. Polyobjects rock!
    - map 27: added a secret with some ammo to the unfinished empty secret tunnel
    - map 27: total rehaul of sky portal geometry, replaced thing-linked ones with linedef based ones. Allowed for a VERY elaborate and large "top layer". There are 3 partial copies with differing detail for different areas.
    - map 27: improved the dynamic skybox to present a better picture and fit the new sky portals
    - map 27: split the dynamic skybox into two variants, the final area uses the simplified version with props not visible from there cut out
    - map 28: converted it to UDMF
    - map 28: fixed the fences along sky bridges to walkable + shootable through midtex
    - map 29: converted it to UDMF
    - map 29: turned it into a Wham! episode with a script switching between several music tracks accordingly.
    - map 29: redid the sky portal from thing-based to sector-based, replaced sky everywhere - so the skybox is now only visible through the top level geometry
    - map 29: massive corrections to the top level geometry: every part of it is now seen from everywhere, had to add much to turn it from a disjointed set of pieces into a solid scene
    - map 29: changed some scaled up custom textures (stained glass windows) to scaling via UDMF properties and deleteed the unnecessary definitions
    - map 29: retextured two outdoor areas from TANROCK8 and ASHWALL7 to CLIFFB and TANROCK9 (which is TANROCK8 tiled to 512x512 with a high quality mask applied). I tried preserving Mark's work, for too long, but those textures just aren't working at such large scales and ASHWALL7 is a crime against eyes.
    - map 29: replaced 8 of the barons with 2 dukes. Throwing elite monsters in such vast numbers devalues them. As one writer said, "release a thousand tigers in the open -- hovewer dangerous that mass would be, there is no tiger in it". Well said. A horde of mooks is well and good but so many barons is just not EDAY's style.
    - map 29: hacked up the unfinished BD mummy into provisional completion and replaced some pinkies with it.
    - map 29: replaced two mancubi with a volcabus at skill 4,5
    - map 30: converted it to UDMF
    - map 30: replaced blood that does not hurt with the non-glowing variant and removed haze from it (as per bug reports: was breaking convention)
    - map 30: fixed the inescapable APC machinegun bug by decreasing the APC height by 16
    - map 30: made sky fringes invisible on the automap
    - map 30: marked the invulnerability as a secret by surrounding it with a sector marked as such
    - map 31: converted it to UDMF
    - map 31: fixed the bug with the lower lava area being broken (a "set floor slope" thing was accidentally placed on the lava instead of the step designed to get out of it, which totally messed the area)
    - map 31: replaced the blood that doesn't hurt with the non-glowing variant
    - map 31: fixed floor height in decorative sectors 328, 333: blood level was not matching wall textures
    - map 31: removed all references to the non-existent texture "NATUR4G"
    - map 31: moved two candles to fix a presumed bug reported by Cybr0g on Apr 5 2019
    - map 31: slowed made the yellow key access lift (tag 20) from 100 to 64, to avoid small falling damage as suggested by Nefaz on Apr 10 2019. Also made it recyclable, entering the niche behind the yellow key raises it again.
    - map 31: fixed a broken chunk of fog at the entrance to the forest in front of the yellow key building (sector 261 had wrong light level)
    - map 31: smoothed a tall rock wall edge in the forest in front of the yellow key building, adjacent to sector 530
    - map 31: rehauled the final arena. Raised it by 1300, access is now via rising elevator (repeatable from the bottom side, in case of coop), made side cliffs into a proper ring hugging the temple, added an inescapable bottomless pit surrounding the arena, with slippery ice in places. Centered elements, polished the temple fixing misaligned textures and prettifying it a bit. Changed the exit pit from blood to ice, according to my reskin of map 32.
    - map 31: decreased the number of surprize mancubi from 26 to 14, according my own assessment and Nefaz's feedback. That area was indeed copy-pasted from HESP, from the map "bloodfalls" notorious for its particularly bad design and reliance on humongous herds of thicc mobs.
    - map 31: made sky fringes invisible on the automap
    - map 32: converted it to UDMF
    - map 32: reskinned it to icy theme (adding several new textures) and renamed it to "Traitor's Prison" (as per description of the Ninth Circle by Dante). The lower area is slippery now. The skybox was removed, using a simple sky from the Wolfenstein map.
    - map 32: changed the final bosses' damage from fire to ice
    - map 32: changed monsters' freeze deaths to permanent: they do not crack on their own and when hit with fire they still die
    - map 32: changed the bosses' attack patters, the probability of him using fire, missile or thunder depend on his state of health (the lower,  the more missiles: these are seriously OP). Made his attacks weaker when above 25000 HP. Made his attacks massively more powerful when below 7500 HP
    - map 32: fixed the broken thunder attack (by doubling the thunderbolts' lifespan)
    - map 32: added music change when the boss sees you and changed the default music
    - map 32: fixed the boss trying to run a missing script 56 when he sees you (in the ancient times of HESP this custom script defined in the map itself was displaying the bosses' health bar)
    

Done 2022:
    - nearly died three times and had an epiphany. Which is funny sine I'm a devoted atheist.
    
Done 2020 and prior: see the readme file.

Ugh, I'll go lie flat. I exhausted myself with this insane, utterly insane marathon.
At least I finished it...

I wanted to do so so much more...

Edited July 24, 2023 by chebmaster : receives stuff kicked out of the first post

[chebmaster]

Done July 6, 2023:
    - fixed the invulnerable revenant bug (will release later as a standalone fix for BDv21)
    - changed revenant's homing missile back to a fireball: you can now easily distignuish between homing and non-homing projectiles, because non-homing volleys are still rockets.
    - nerfed the lost soul: removed its backpedaling when near the target. Now they only backpedal as part of attack sequence. Also lowered their outright fire immunity to mere 75% resistance.
    - map 32: redid the final bosses' lightning attack from scratch. Instead of thunderbolts being no-clip monsters with 360-degree vision, he now fires invisible revenant fireballs that launch short-lived lightning bolts downwards every 4 tics. Also added some baboom sounds unused in BD.
    - map 32: added some more non-slipery chunks to the lower area
    - map 32: removed remaining non-frozen decorations and bloody textures and added frozen archviles in walls
   

[chebmaster]

Done July 7, 2023:
    - replaced the demon sphere with a purple haxx sphere (+133 health up to 300; +133 armor up to 300; berserk): the demon rune was malfunctioning when in conjunction with EDAY 001, 80% of the time you failed to transform into a demon, just lost your armor and health if above 100. My programming skill is sufficient but I lack familiarity with underlying morphing scripts, fixing this bug properly would have required very long and boring investigation.
    - map 48: replaced one secret soulsphere with a purple haxx sphere
    - map 26: replaced the soulsphere in the secret added by me earlier with a purple haxx sphere
    - map 26: fixed sound sequence on baron spawning cocoons NOT set to flesh platform (it seems I made a mistake, reported it earlier)
    - map 26: reduced the caco launch boosters, they were ramming the ceiling in their eagerness to sink their teeth into the player
    - map 27: replaced the secret megasphere in the restored cut content area with a purple haxx sphere
    - map 30: increased texture scale on the skybox terrain near the camera, thanks to UDMF supporting it. Mark's skybox was good but texture kind of blurred horribly on the nearby hills clearly visible around the yellow skull area.

[chebmaster]

Also check out my Shantae / Extermination Day crossover @ https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12870466/1/Too-Nice-for-Such-Brutality

(unfinished as of now, but I will eventually get there)

The fanfic and this mod evolved as one, inspiring each other in a feedback loop like two Uroboroses feeding on each other's tail

Quote

The giant cyberdemon was one mean beast. Fast, tough, throwing around overwhelming firepower, he was bred - or designed, or how else they give birth to these abominations - to be the ultimate showstopper, able to obliterate any number of forces in this masterfully organized chokepoint.

He doubled as a point defense platform too, our two lost copters being testament to that.

Anything our Marine Corps could throw at it, it would grind to dust.

Except me.

My aptitude for allotech was a weird one. A rare one. While your average test subject could hold one spare weapon in their hammerspace pocket, rarely two, I... I'm not really sure what my limit was. While most guys could manage a burst of super-speed, I could move continuously for sizable lengths of time. Are you trying to become a race-car, Blazkowicz, they joked good-naturedly. While my tech was in fact more like ice-skating. Across uneven ground. In combat boots.

There were so few of us, attuned to the alloenergies without nasty side effects. It's clear now, why. After the hell UAC had been courting came loose, the revelation where they were getting their knowledge from sent many of us reeling. Ancient Chinese martial arts my ass. Whatever those Chi-practizing grandpas use, I'm sure it doesn't come with corruption of the user's mind. Nor do they empower average Joes in the course of weeks. Me? I just grit my teeth and pushed my will against the temptations, the mindless bloodlust. I don't know if that Blazkowicz who put his bullet through Hitler's brain was really my great- great- great-, but the name obliges to carry it with honor. To give my inner predator purpose and unleash it at the hellspawn.

With most of us, the experimental super-soldiers, lost in the mess of the Incident, I remained only one — to my knowledge — who could challenge an APC in open field and win. Decisively. As many of the beefier demons didn't live long enough to learn.

This operation, this push back into the Hell, was organized on such a short notice. The Command was reacting to the unexpected, the unthinkable. That's why this entire offensive depended so heavily on me. It's not how things should be done, military operations should not hang on one unique asset. But the humanity — represented by the Marine Corps here and now — didn't have luxury of time to study the enemy, to develop strategies and war machines specifically adapted for the demonic threat. We only had me to be the point of this assault, the spear tip that penetrates the enemy armor, driven by the rest of the shaft and the arm behind it, to do the required work on the enemy's insides. Ripping and tearing them.

Being such a special snowflake, I had no right to fall here. So I didn't. I used my training, my allo-abilities and my dual plasma guns to their fullest effect. The giant cyberdemon never managed to land even a grazing hit on me.

Now he was still raining around me, blood and burnt ashes, his pillbox-sized hooves the only solid chunks left. And I could take a few moments to just stand there, reminiscing.

As soon as the elevator goes all the way down and back - a bloody long journey - my fellow Marines would establish their beachhead here. I only had to hold this position for them... And here we go. Hell doesn't play fair. The gate had opened at some point and there was a literal flood of pinkies stampeding towards me across a bridge, with a flight of cacodemons hurrying to give them air support.

My energy cells nearly depleted, I whipped out the bazooka walking out to meet them head on. That was hell of a lot of pinkies, coming faster than my weapon was eliminating them. I was mowing them down, but they persisted. Then the cacos went in, firing and moving to flank me. Just when I thought I'd have to pull out the super shotgun and dance, the cacos started exploding. Someone from the other side was firing rockets at them.

Had someone from the ill-fated recon drop teams survived? It seems I was not the first man to set foot here in the upper Hell. Anyway, this breather was welcome if not entirely necessary. I managed to blow the rabid pinkies up before they reached me, kicking the last straggler into the abyss: this bridge didn't have any railing. Whoever he was who helped me, he was under fire now, launching rocket after rocket at the cacos and missing. These beasts are surprisingly agile when they want to be, firing unguided rockets at them head-on is just wasting ammunition. Ignoring the incoming horde of imps for now, I switched to the minigun, spraying the cacos from behind. Me and that guy on the cliff quickly disposed of them. It was about time as the imps opened on me. Dancing between their projectiles, I began cutting them down. This push was becoming very ammunition-costly even for one-man arsenal like me.

In a show of quick thinking my ally fired into the crowd of brown beasts, using up only three rockets where I would have expended a sizable chunk of my rounds. Quickly eliminating the remaining few I jumped the last one to recharge my energy in a bout of mindless brutality.

This was just how it worked, ever since the hell came loose. I am convinced it is either a natural law of this place or a plan of not-so-subtle temptation laid out by some intelligent arch-demon. Or both. So far I was able to resist succumbing to it, knowing firmly what I was fighting for. My cause was righteous, however banal that may sound.

Then my ally made themselves known, and... Have you ever felt awkward on the verge of mortified? Like walking down a street and then suddenly realizing you didn't have any pants on? Like making a casual comment and then realizing you offended your squadmate's beliefs something horrible?

It was one of those moments.

Instead of a fellow grizzled marine, a half-naked teenage girl was staring at me, leaning on a rocket launcher too big for her, already growing green around the gills at my... display.

I froze like a deer in headlights. The imp brains splattered around suddenly felt like a damning evidence.

[chebmaster]

Done July 9, 2023:
    - general: fixed a severe error in DECORATE that was preventing GZDoom Builder from parsing it properly. As a result, trees and lots of other decorations were working in game but in the editor they were shown as red circles with question marks, <unknown doomed number>
    - map 48: fixed misaligned textures in the first room south of the yard south of of the hub hall
    - map 48: fixed knights in the weapons reward area behind the yellow lock not waking up to teleport in for a surprise buttsecks (prevented 100% kills on UV)
    - map 26: fixed wrong textures and misaligned ceilings at the exit to the final yard
    - map 26: extensive reworking of top layer geometry, three of the skyboxes could now only be viewed through said geometry that is only visible through the sky portal. In theory, this should increase the framerate. As my research shows, this may be, ironically, the only way for complex skyboxes to have acceptable performance.
    - map 26: assigned "block monsters" to dining table edges
    - map 26: added four windows to the wall with the blue door
    - map 26: minor texturing corrections in the front yard

 

[chebmaster]

Currently doing horrible things to map 28. Splitting and optimizing and splitting and optimizing and it grows and grows...

Lo and behold, GZDoom Builders' Nodes Viewer Mode *can* suffer an overflow where it fails to visualize the node builder's output!

 

 

[image deleted due to free my upload quota for newer content]

Edited August 23 by chebmaster

[chebmaster]

Fun fact: portal anchor lines (Action special 57) should NEVER be placed out of the 16384 rannge.

I chose a convenient line at Y = -16400 and Zandronum happily warped the anchor to Y=+16K-something.

I had FUN hours debugging and wall-banging and pixel-hunting if I missed some tiny sector with a wrong tag

(because it so happened the anchor point got warped inside a different top layer -- go figure).

 

 

[chebmaster]

Done July 15, 2023:
    - general: added a fix for maggot-ridden corpses hanging in raging flames that applies to all maps retroactively. This is a soup stone mind you: Mark had a quite ingenious system for this in place, BUT it seems he burned out before calibrating it properly, also incorporating many more types of marrot-laden corpses -- so it was misfiring 90% of the time. It only needed minor adjustments to finish. As a side effect, charred hanging bodies went the way of the Dodo: aren't used anymore unless I placed them manually. An upside: I will release this as a standalone BD fix later (together with my other fixes). Or see DECORATE.nomaggots for yourself.
    - general: replaced CREDITS with a copy of TITLEPIC. That image was messy and worse than useles.
    - general: added five creepy chant voices for special places (who knew I had it in me to be a voice actor?)
    - map 47: added the creepy chant #4 to the Unmaker secret
    - map 27: changed textures of the final area gates' tops
    - map 27: added the creepy chant #4 to the Unmaker secret
    - map 28: made titanic work splitting map into base layer and top layer geometry
    - map 28: went to town on it making top layer humongous and elaborate, much-much detail. Framerate died screaming.
    - map 28: found a spot where looking straight down resulted in 5 fps. Was horrified.
    - map 28: cut the dynamic skybox down to save the framerate. Did not help.
    - map 28: radically changed city architecture halfway to the blue key to save the framerate. It was ineffective.
    - map 28: replaced all doors in the blue key building with sliding doors
    - map 28: fixed broken sound zone boundaries (some monsters on this map are, shockingly, not deaf as usual)
    - map 28: changed the blue key trap mechanics and fixed the broken (when?) route for the FUN! archviles to tour the entire map. There are dozens of patrol points all the way from the blue key building to the exit area, and *all* links between them were messed up.
    - map 28: added line specials to some choke points that make monsters crossing them join the patrol point conga line
    - map 28: rehauled the passage between the right and left halves of the map into a dog-leg. Now you walk *above* the red key where the floor is a grate.
    - map 28: replaced all doors opened by the button in the chapel with sliding polyobject doors
    - map 28: changed the comitee that greets you as you return with the blue key. Now at skill 4,5 there are chaingun guys, just like the oldest version of this map.
    - map 28: changed the trap that spawned nine lost souls to nine random niches with lost souls opened with the actual button. Reason: "when player bumps" on the wall below the actual button isn't very reliable. Player could easily press it without bumping into that wall.
    - map 28: changed the exit from the blue key building from a door opened by button to a door that requires the blue key from the inside -- and opens very, *very* slowly. Changed that button to teleport the key onto the altar. If you bump the altar before pushing the button you'll release the archviles anyway and will have FUN without a way out.
    - map 28: made the roof outside the blue key building very steep and slippery. You step out, you go aaaah-splat.
    - map 28: made the grand arched bridge narrower
    - map 28: clearly marked the red key niche as requiring the blue key to open
    - map 28: retextured the chapel a bit using my own specialized stained glass windows as well as existing BD/EDAY resources    
    - map 28: added creepy chant 31 to the chapel. Removed waterfall sounds from the blue key building and added creepy chant #2
    - map 29: made the grand arching bridge narrower to match the changes to map 28
    - map 29: added the creepy chant sound #5 (the creepiest, my masterpiece!) to the yellow key hall
    - map 31: added the creepy chant sound #3 to the boss arena's temple

[chebmaster]

Done July 16, 2023:
    - general: added full lyrics and translation to the creepy chants (see the TXT included in the sounds folder)
    - map 28: fixed the monster closet that broke when I rehauled the red key area. I completely redesigned and retextured it, now has two consequtive doors that open from different triggers, monsters teleport out, the closet has two large stimpacks and is marked a secret.
    - map 28: re-designed the grates at the red key niche using better texturing.
    - map 28: retextured the big doors connecting side wings to the small round yard.
    - map 28: various small corrections of alignment and texturing in the top left quarter of the map. Some roofs were redesigned, one building shortened, one missing roof added to the top layer. Hopefully there would be no more artifacts with sky cutting through distant buildings.

[chebmaster]

Done July 17, 2023:
    - general: corrected track textures for the static (made of map geometry) tanks from the insane "imma square with a leetle wheel, wheee!" to less pretty but much more sane "here be blackness" Textures edited: APC1, APC2, APC3, APC4, PANZE1, PANZE2

 

[chebmaster]

Done July 18, 2023:
    - map 06: ripped EDAY06 and converted it to UDMF
    - map 06: fixed the inescapable sewer of death with blue armor in it. Now there is a grate lift behind the bars (for normal access from the starting area via raising the bars) and also instead of large holes in the toilet stalls there are floors that crash down when you step on them and leave a raised rubble pile to climb out. This way, the secret cannot be used for sequence breaking if you access it as intended, from the starting area: if you arrived via lift, there are no holes large enough to fit through and no rubble piles. And if you haven't figured how to access the elevator, it stays raised high above your head.
    - map 06: in the hub hall with liquid tanks in the center, fixed some shadows and added damaging effect to the spilled pool of green slime
    - map 06: replaced the big doors of the reacror halls airlock with sliding polyobject doors
    - map 49: split the former EDAY06 in half making the boss fight a separate map. Reason: it posed impossible difficulty spike for people like me who only ever use auto-saving and always replay the entire map if dying. The evil marines are one of the hardest bosses in the game due to their entirely unfamiliar moveset (for one who never encountered them). The giant cyberdemon is cheese compared to them.
    - map 49: fixed the container with blue armor by lowering it a bit so that it could be jumped onto.
    - map 10: ported the missing texture COMP009 from the EDAY test dated Dec 16, 2017 (the file itself id dated Jan 13, 2017). The texture is not present in any later versions but was still used in the cafeteria area of EDAY10 (a big monitor under the ceiling).
    - map 13: fixed wrong sky and music being used (were inherited from older versions of EDAY)
    - map 13: fixed a body hanging high in the sky
    - map 13: fixed a weird glitch with skybox showing through solid road surface
    - map 28: removed one unneeded tree accidentally stuck in a column near the map start
    - map 28: fixed texture alignment of the demonic face in the blue key building
    - map 28: fixed moving fence's sound that broke because of me cleaning up SNDSEQ.skies

 

[chebmaster]

Done July 19, 2023:
    - map 11: ripped EDAY11 and converted it to UDMF
    - map 11: fixed missing textures HOM in the hangar doors' sides
    - map 11: aligned textures on crates' tops (not possible without UDMF)
    - map 11: fixed a railing midtex misaligned from one side
    - map 11: switched railings to walkable+shoot through from jump-over railing
    - map 11: locked two revenants prone to jumping off of their designated container by giving its walls "impassable"
    - map 11: rehauled the area where the red key rests. Instead of a boring corner no one would pay attention to, it's a full entrance checkpoint with watch towers, immediately drawing attention. There is now a security camera in the security room next to the exit door, showing the entrance checkpoint and the red key. The security room itself doesn't need the red key anymore -- that lock was moved to the button. The inner gate of the checkpoint is closed and you require to get to the security room and press a new button to open it in order to get t o the red key.
    - map 11: changed the exit door into sliding polyobject doors
    - map 11: minor fixes to the surrounding cliffs and misaligned textures on the base's walls
    - map 11: made the sky walls invisible on automap, made some invisible structures visible again, generall prettification.
    - map 31: fixed creepy chant to #3 (#2 was being used due to duplicate doomed numbers)
    - map 31: fixed lava in the moat surrounding the boss arena doing no damage
    - map 32: removed some garbage code from actor IconOfSinBossChe
    - map 32: fixed the bosses' lightning: was ignoring time limit

[chebmaster]

Done July 22, 2023:
    - general: fixed a bug introduced by me, hanging guy with no leg on death could drop a ghost hanging guy with no leg who then promptly falls to the ground and cannot be interacted with.
    - map 11: changed railings from FENCE09 (64x24) to my new frankenpatch GRATE14H (64x36) made by cropping GRATE14 via TEXTURES. Reason: FENCE09 was too low, player could simply walk over it. Monsters, likewise.
    - map 11: replaced the sky with a different one made by me.
    - map 12: ripped EDAY12 and converted it to UDMF
    - map 12: retextured the eye-watering acid-blue waterfall to brown
    - map 12: reduced the trailer's height and retextured its front with a scaled gray car texture. Did you notice the smoke rising friom the trailer is purple? It was like that from the beginning, I can even point you at the ACS line Mark used to color it, with his comment "Setores coloridos...". I wonder what are they cooking up in that t railer. Beside the secret megasphere, there are two barrels of poison next to it.
    - map 12: fixed misaligned thing-based sky portal (extra cliff top above the starting base's yard) by moving the top anchor from -5348, 8712 to -5350, 8712. Only two units, but the crack in the cliff face was showing if you paid attention. I did not change it to line-based because this map exploits areas' discontinuity in full, lots of open distant spaces in topologically impossible overlaps. It works great, so "don't fix it if it ain't broken".
    - map 12: fixed sound propagation blocking between the right and the left large open areas
    - map 12: rehauled monster closets from normal ones with hearing tunnels to my experimental advanced design: sushi bar conveyor belts with teleport to line. Monsters don't wake up, they are teleported while still sleeping. If there is not enough room, they will keep cycling until there is.
    - map 12: made many monsters in those closets deaf, so that they sit in ambush upon being deployed instead of stampeding towards the player. THE CHANGE TO GAMEPLAY WAS RADICAL, the fight changed from a sudden onrush of everything and kitchen sink (you could snipe from that relatively safe position next to the switch) into backtracking through a map that is suddenly full of monsters.
    - map 12: switched many fences from impassable to walkable+shootable midtex. This is an accessibility improvement for the cacoes.
    - map 12: fixed coop player start: there was no player 2 start and two extra player 3 starts.
    - map 12: fixed missing animated flame texture overlaying the distant city in the skybox
    - map 12: fixed the secret megasphere being inaccessible: both cliffs too high to jump onto and the alternate jumping puzzle having its lowest step marked as impassable
    - map 12: upgraded the trucks to my latest specification, to unify their looks across all maps. Sadly, that cheapened two of the four secrets.
    - map 12: changed the entrance door with sliding doors identical to the exit doors of the previous map. Updated the security room to match the changes in the previous map. Removed small medkit from the security room: inaccessible by design, it was preventing 100% items.
    - map 12: redid the watchtower in the likeness of the ones I did for the previous map. Reason: the old concrete behemoth was fine, but looked too primitive after those two. Textures added: GRATE13B, LADDER3B, CRKGLSY, GRATE14H
    - map 12: made possible to jump over the fence from the watchtower - because why the hell not.
    - map 12: various fixes of glitches and ugly corners in the rock walls surrounding open areas.
    - map 12: prettified the automap
    - map 12: raised the floor in the cave, jumping required was a bit too tiresome. Did Mark nerf jumping height in his last BD update...?
    - map 12: replaced the two anemic smoke pillars above the burning city with a humongous smoke pilar and a humongous smoke cloud
    - map 12: added several fine steps to the terrain to prevent monsters clumping in certail places, stopped by insurmountable knee-high thresholds
    - map 12: ACS cleanup, removed garbage scripts designed for map 11
    - map 12: enlarged sky portal's apron to acceptable size. Small aprons are frequent cause of severe framerate drops due to camera clipping into the void, this is undetectable otherwise and may be easily overlooked by a mod dev with a powerful PC. I, on the other hand, work on a venerated potato (while my ThinkPad gathers dust abandoned and unloved and my powerful gaming rig is only ever used for TF2)
    - map 12: replaced the sky SUNRISE1 with a different one made by me, SUNRISE9. I can't say it is better, just much cleaner.

[chebmaster]

Done July 23, 2023:
    - map 12: more polishing raw cliff faces and automap prettifying
    - map 13: more polishing raw cliff faces and automap prettifying
    - map 13: fixed the inescapable trap bug (between the crate with the secret megasphere and the wall) by adding a niche to the cliff face.
    - map 13: widened the collapsed tunnel entrance and retextured from ASHWALL to RUBLE1
    - map 13: narrowed the car-carrying flatbed to the width of a normal truck
    - map 13: MASSIVE changes to the tunnel blockade to eleminate backtracking: instead of a semitrailer parked across and a retractable invisible wall above it (it was there since forever - it retracted as you entered the tunnel through the blue key door - you were supposed to hop onto wrecked cars, then onto truck and out of the tunnel... No one ever figured that out: who heard of *retractable* invisible walls ?) I first invesigated where did the cyberdemon go? I clearly remember a cyberdemon coming at me as I grabbed the red key... I started traveling back in time, to older and older version sof EDAY but all I could see was the same trigger supposed to open a door that wasn't there. And only in the antedeluvean depths of HESP, in the map that had the same resemblance to EDAY13 as the first fish to walk the earth resembles Marylin Monroe, I have finally found my cyberdemon. So... I got to work. I brought him back. I created a semi that transforms into scrap metal at script's command (new textures: SCRAP7, SCRAP8) and releases that cyberdemon. No more backtracking: a grate blocks your path to the blue door leaving the smashed semi the only way out. Goal achieved: no backtracking. A direct, clearly visible route from the red key to the red door. With only one, angry snag in the way.
    - map 13: fixed the HORRIBLE bug of map starting in invasion mode and ending in 2 seconds because there are no waves and you are the last man standing. Caused by too much subdivision on the specimen tank breaking Zandronum. I also had GZDoomBuilder hang on me when I tried the nodes viewer mode (literally: it was unresponsife for so long that I went away to have dinner, when I returned half an hour later it still haven't finished showing nodes and the laptop was still at thermal maximum). It was when Cheb realized he had screwed up -- and deleted 3/4 of that round tank's vertices.
    - map 13: discovered a dangerous hack in BDv21: Never, *ever* place a cyberdemon at x=-1472, as that causes him to decide this is map 8 of of Doom1 Episode 2 and replace himself with a specialized boss version. Who proceeds ruining your map by running the script "MapEnhancementE2M8". I accidentally placed my cyberdemon at *exactly* x=-1472 (because grid) and hilarity ensued. "Wtf is sky on fire? Is this Deimos?"
    - map 13: marked my jumping puzzle in the trainyard as a secret (More tags for the tags throne! More 3d floors for the 3d floors god!)
    - map 13: fixed the map flow: my modifications to the trainyard were allowing you jumping onto the station platform right away, instead of going around train cars searching for a ladder as in the original. A few crates here, little walls around a flatbed car there... Now you can't. You *may* figure that jumping onto the coupler solves your issue before finding that ladder, but you still have to go around and deal with those imps.
    - map 13: retextured the tops of wooden crates in the trainyard to BOX13, the same as their sides: UDMF allows rotating and shifting flats to match the sides.
    - map 13: made train cars visible on automap (as 1-sided, but that's the only way)
    - map 13: fixed a bug in skybox that only became apparent with removing obstacles in the tunnel

[chebmaster]

Done July 25, 2023:
    - general: modified truck front and back end textures TRUCK2, TRUCK3E replacing dark gray strips, intended to depict tires, by blackness. Reason: a) weren't working anyway; b) interfered with my rare hacks to classic trucks.
    - map 14: ripped EDAY14 and converted it to UDMF
    - map 14: massive flat re-alignment for crates, containers and pallets -- because with UDMF you can.
    - map 14: dumpster and pallet retexturing. Added placeable maggots and flies to a couple dumpsters.
    - map 14: shortening one side of the balcony in the red door building - furthering impossibility of jumping onto the raised highway.
    - map 14: upgraded the trucks. Except the one on the distant raised highway: too distant, did not need so much detail. And one frankentruck vital for a red key jumping puzzle: I just widened the front of this one to full width stretching its radiator texture (thanks to UDMF scaling). And one more truck I franken-merged my new wheel wells with the old radiator design: let there be a variety of models. Oh, and I recolored one truck to gray. Never saw that texture used anywhere.
    - map 14: curved two 90-degree road turns and two road corners.
    - map 14: unclenched the river. Mark made a very long and fancy wall with liquid waste flowing out of holes in it.. Then he squeezed the opposite shores together (almost touching) hiding it all from sight. I made the river wide again. Now instead of a seeming rock wall blocking it there is a giant grate with impassable fence. Vistas open ahead.
    - map 14: fixed  the underground hall filled with nukage having "unknown effect 5" instead of intended damage 10%. Seems like a very old bug: present in EDAY and likely happened during conversion from Boom to Hexen format.
    - map 14: traumatized by my experience with too many subdivided lines breaking Zandronum, I committed exterminatus of vertices on distant features like cylindric tanks or factory chimneys. Rule 1: when nodes viewer stops displaying, only showing a disjointed mess of scattered subsectors, and number of subsectors creeps up to 35 thousand, START REDUCING DETAIL!
    - map 14: *massacred* the elaborate skybox geometry that was completely invisible from any position, too far below. Brought in the burning city and few strategically placed hills from map 12. With the humongous cloud of smoke included.
    - map 14: resized many buildings and otherwise fixed their texturing: lots of windows were overlapping corners
    - map 14: added purely decorative barred inflow tunnels to the nukage hall
    - map 14: general automap prettification
    - map 14: made various impassable fences show as 1-sided on automap. Would hopefully help find which paths are free to take.
    - map 14: added a couple slightly deeper pits to the river
    - map 14: fixed a extremely narrow slit between buildings at (-2500,1500) by widening it to a walkable passage. If Mark wanted that gone he would have just welded them together.
    - map 14: fixed all the "missing pavement stone" holes obviously made for a different sidewalk texture and misaligned to boot
    - map 14: made the bridges visible on automap
    - map 14: fixed inescapable trap bug in the yard with a secret trapped marine (between a cardboard box, a pallet stack and the fence, at (4912,1880))
    - map 14: fixed the duct leading to blue armor: it felt like there was an invisible wall but in reality there was a tiny one texel high step that required you to crouch to continue. Also fixed flickering textures in it. Also fixed the grate not being damaged by a kick.
    - map 14: fixed a fence in the building above the nukage hall being a ghost
    - map 14: enhanced cardboard boxes laying on their sides, introduced rotated versions of their textures BOX15L, BOX15R, BOX16L, BOX16R: there are details that don't match otherwise, like the plastic ribbon and the "this side up" arrows
    - map 14: made the grate balcony transparent to monster line of sight and shootable through. Not with plasma, though. Now those nice chaingun guys can see you and shoot you through the floor - but you can't hit them with projectiles due to engine limitation. FUN! :D
    - map 14: also made the railing there shootable through.
    - map 14: also made a dent with railing missing in the place where you are supposed to jump because the jump was annoying. Not hard, just annoying. The railing arrests your motion, you have to jump onto it... And have a very good chance of falling short of the containers and hurting yourself.
    - map 14: made the red panels framing the red door finite height
    - map 14: replaced the red door with sliding polyobject doors. I will DENY that I have unhealthy obsession with sliding doors!
    - map 14: fixed a presumed jumping puzzle at (420, 2860). Assuming that fence was intended to be jumped over from the crate but broke because of a jumping height nerf (from 64 to 48, I think), I lowered it.
    - map 14: moved the "distant firefight" ambient sound to (-4112,2664) because it was heard from the wrong direction (opposite the burning city)
    - map 14: commented the intro text out. Video games are visual art, the only place for words is explaining some tricky lore, like the marine captain's speech.
    - map 14: locked the sniper revenants on their cargo containers by marking their walls impassable. Todo: fix this BDv21 bug as well. Mark made a visually nice algorithm of monsters searching for player. But it has one very severe side effect: there are intervals when "heavy" monsters slide to a stop driven by inertia. And this movement type outright ignores "block monsters" and height limits. So revenants, mancubi, knights and barons tend to fall off ledges a lot if they awaken, then lose sight of the player. Very noticeable on maps generated by Oblige 6 where 60% of these demons will end up in deep pits.
    - map 14: repositioned one specific truck, added skidmarks - it now stands where it went off road and smashed two cars into a wall. This made the berserk secret more obscure, too.

[chebmaster]

Done July 30, 2023:
    - general: upgraded dynamic skybox script, should in theory work in multiplayer (Zandronum only) but haven't tested yet
    - general: created the dynamic fog script I wanted to make back in 2018 but was too tired to do so.
    - general: fixed bugs in my skybox composer utility and began the long process of remaking skies for maps 11..21 in Quake 3 cube map format.
    - map 11: replaced the sky cubemap with a better version.
    - map 11: applied dynamic fog. Generates a powerful blinding effect  when you look at the sun, monsters become black cutouts drowning in orange light.
    - map 11: by necessity changed some map geometry to place sun line of sight probe things (the glare disappears if you hide behind a crate or building)
    - map 11: moved some trees that were being cut by the sky when viewed from distance due to watch towers.
    - map 11: changed smoke rising from exploded fuel tanks from pathetic "BurningBuilding" to chad "HumongousSmokePillarTall"
    - map 11: cleaned trash, some unneeded things were stuck in the void.
    - map 12: replaced the sky with a new cubemap. A bit rough, will clean when correct more deficiencies in my skybox composer.
    - map 13: replaced the sky with a new cubemap. Burning city baked in.
    - map 13: changed the flow again. The changes were story-driven but reduce backtracking to zero. The exit is now in the trainyard, the warehouse gate closest to the yellow key is openable with said key and it opens right at your shiny new ride, bright yellow and activated with the yellow key. So Doomguy leaves this map in style. The former exit building houses the red keycard, and I moved the trigger for surprise cyberdemon buttsecks to activate earlier, as soon as you exit the tumnnel. Now the cyberdemon reaches you just as you have to engage those arachnotrons. FUN :D
    - map 13: fixed damaged geometry as I accidentally replaced all floor slope variations with pinkies :( Solved by copy-pasting from the previous release.
    - map 13: took a level in badass by coding an outro where you crush demons with a locomotive. In an engine that doesn't support such things  in princilple (Zandronum 3.0).

[chebmaster]

A quick bugfix before another long pause...

 

Done July 31, 2023:
    - map 13: minor cleanups
    - map 13: returned one accidentally deleted pinky
    - map 13: fixed a blunder in the cinematic outro (wrong anchor for a half of the lattice arches)
    - map 13: blocked the cyberdemon from entering rooms a the tunnel's bend. He was getting stuck in them a lot.

[chebmaster]

Done August 02, 2023:
    - map 14: modified the starting area to match the previous map's exit
    - map 14: added one secret and one zombie to the new starting area
    - map 14: cleaned some trash comments
    - map 14: made one distant truck's front wider
    - map 14: made some fences impassable to prevent player being catapulted out of bounds (very unlikely)
    - map 14: generated new sky cubemap. Now you can see where the narrative is going: it's not nightfall why the maps are becoming progressively darker
    - map 15: found a bug, the exit script could break. Added to my TODO list.

[chebmaster]

This absent-minded Cheb forgot to update the link in the first post.

So embarrassing :(

The new skybox is quite rough around the edges, BUT am I aiming for perfection of am I aiming to finish my toil this year, please?

I can always recompile and re-upload any skyboxes made with CheSkymp.

[chebmaster]

Currently: am temporarily knocked off-line by the last heat wave of the year.

Sadly, when air goes above +25C my productivity goes down the drain.

I was too lazy to set up air conditioning this year and now it is a bit too late.

When this "parting gift" from the weather is over, I am gouing to FIX map 15.

 

Next after: FIXING the map 15. I wasn't aware it was completely broken, exit not working (when you press Use on the marine captain he just grunts and transforms into a regular non-responsive marine), and nobody likely saw my work on maps placed later down the line.

TBH, I last played complete EDAY during "previous* version, PreBetaX. Back them, map 15 was working fine.

This is sad reality of the creator losing their steam amid a re-haul.

 

Fixing this problem spot is my first priority.

Sadly, it will likely only happen a week from now:

[chebmaster]

This is just a quick and dirty fix, mind you. The map in question is horribly raw and needs ton of polishing, the megasphere secret is still broken, and so on and so forth.
I only fixed the main game-breaking bug.

..too too hot, I am melting... :(((((

 

Done August 05, 2023:
    - map 15: ripped EDAY15 and converted it to UDMF
    - map 15: changed the sky to a very sketchy version of my new skybox (too raw, must improve how city looks) and commented out the script that was painting outdoor light sunset orange
    - map 15: fixed the marine captain: Mark used a treacherous function A_CheckSight that actually does the opposite of what you expect of it. So, for him to start talking to you you had to LEAVE the captain's sight. Also, pressing "use" on him rekt the sequence, forever turning him into a regular guard dummy. I fixed both in, like, five minutes of coding.
    - map 15: rearranged that room, added one sight-blocking wall so that the captain only starts talking to you when you really approach him, NOT when he glimpses a silver of your butt all the way through the toilet door.

[chebmaster]

Done August 06, 2023:
    - general: fixed bugs in CheSkymp and added support for supersampling
    - map 11: tweaked the mountains color darker and re-compiled the skybox with 12x supersampling
    - map 12: re-compiled the skybox with 12x supersampling
    - map 12: changed map geometry to create deep shadows from my sunrise sky, colored sunlit areas orange, changed the doors and yard gate to be controlled through scripts to have switchable shadows.
    - map 13: re-compiled the skybox with 12x supersampling
    - map 14: re-compiled the skybox with 12x supersampling
    - map 15: re-compiled the skybox with 12x supersampling

 

 

[chebmaster]

This is 66% stone soup, mind you. Mark already had half of map 12 with shadows, for the most difficult areas. I merely built up on that idea, expanded shadows, added shadows to areas that didn't have them and changed shape of many existing shadows to match sun position.

 

Did you know you can create floodlight like effects using non-solid transparent 3d floors with vastly different light levels? You can make them *sloped* -- just don't let those sloped surfaces intersect any floors or ceilings, only walls are fair game. If you make sloped 3d floor intersect another floor, the Zandronum engine processes the physics fine but utterly fails to render them, resulting in ugly visual artifacts.

See the cave in CHE12 as an example. Light falls through the hole in ceiling and illuminates part of the floor and one wall leaving ceiling above dark. Merely a 3d floor with flats and controlling linedef having undefined texture and opacity jf 1/255 th. The opacity is only for convenience of editing (otherwise you see it as an opaque orange tent in the editor) as any surfaces with undefined textures are never rendered. And you can exploit the hell out of that fact.

[chebmaster]

Done August 11, 2023:
    - general: added textures CRKGLSX, which is a 256x64 rearranged CRKGLS4; CRUMPLE3, which is 128x128 URCEIL05 modulated with CRUMPLE (which itself was made by putting crumpled tinfoil into a scanner); REDCARSC, which is 128x128 tiled REDCARTO modulated with SCRAP7; TRUCK3DC, which is  TRUCK3D  modulated with CRUMPLE; STREET2K, which is 256x128 tarmac with a solid 8-wide line, combining and tiling STREET2C and FLAT5_4; STREET2I, which is a 384x256 tarmac with a dashed 8-wide line, again combined from STREET2C and FLAT5_4; RUBLEY, which is a 128x128 brown rubble, CRATOP2 modulated with RUBLE1
    - general: modified big trees Tree04 and PalmTree with +FORCEYBILLBOARD. I have x/y set as default but tall things look ugly when you look up or down close up. Must hunt all of them and give this property.
    - map 15: put the buses through the same tratment as I did trucks. Meaning I made them have less wheels than a centipede :p
    - map 15: removed all RubbleSuspendLarge things from the near side of the broken bridge: this shit has no collision but looks like map geometry, provoking the player to fall through it and take a ton of falling damage. Re-textured the broken end a bit to compensate.
    - map 15: upgraded all trucks. Added a new variation without wheel wells and two headlights on each side, to not interfere with the obligatory jumping puzzle.
    - map 15: made one truck into a trap and moved one chaingun guy inside it
    - map 15: created a burning rekt bus variation and replaced one of the buses with it. New frankentextures: CRKGLSX, CRUMPLE3
    - map 15: removed tons of geometry that was only giving vast meaningles expanses to get lost in. Namely: a) removed the raised highway closer to the evacuation shelter b) cut the tunnel in half, straightened the remaining part connected to the other side of the broken bridge and made it inaccessible + not shown on map (also fixed that bug with a ceiling lamp stuck in a wall, LOL); c) remade the areas, where the raised highway once resided, into parking lots and inaccessible industrial buildings behind tall fences.
    - map 15: fixed trees stuck in the void and on top of fences, including "Oddly placed palmtree on the wall near the shotgun, shellbox, and imps after the spider mastermind fight" and the one that was sticking its branches through the toilet wall.
    - map 15: remade the river's end into a barred tunnel and the means to get out of the valley into a ladder. No running around the mastermind anymore.
    - map 15: rearranged the monster onslaught. Now the cyberdemon erupts separately, from a gate further down the street. This also fixed the bug with the megasphere secret being inaccessible. While at it, upgraded the script: marine only talks to you after the cyberdemon's demise when you are in his line of sight. Failed to make him only talk to you if you are not dead (the tank is mighty and that marine has 99999 HP, as is fitting of a quest NPC, so the cyberdemon is guaranteed to die even if you are dead).
    - map 15: retextured roads, excluding curves, to use a texture with baked in markings instead of adding sectors for markings. Added center line to the road in the starting area and the broken bridge.
    - map 15: connected toilet windows to the outside filling that area with bushes, trash bags and dumpsters. No more looking into  skyboxes's underpants.
    - map 15: added simple streets and buildings to the far side of the evac site. Connected its windows to a simplified street copy-pasted from EDAY16
    - map 15: improved cliff faces, fixed discontinuities
    - map 15: drastically simplified cliff behind the parking lot: the map was beginning to bug out, there were sky holes in the road signifying node builder's failure and Zandronum 3.0 crashed on cyberdemon's death (I can't use 3.1 because it requires OpenGL 3.3 while the end-of-the-line drivers for my potato's integrated video, dated 2015, only support OpenGL 3.1 -- so Zandronum 3.1 simply cannot run. This is dangerously bordering on religion as I *do* have a gaming PC with gtx 1660 and Ryzen 7 5800X -- but I am too lazy  to bother using it)
    - map 15: fixed the pack of arachnotrons accompanying the spider mastermind: they did not have any difficulty set, so were never spawning, leaving their boss to fight you alone. Not anymore.
    - map 15: minor prettifying of the urban area
    - map 15: moved one dry tree: the spider masterming was always getting stuck between it and the cliff
    - map 15: retextured the river from greenish to brown: the waterfalls are brown, there is no greenish version

[chebmaster]

Done August 13, 2023:
    - general: removed ", Che" from the map titles of the maps edited by me. With most of the maps modified, it was making no sense.
    - general: gave the purple haxx sphere unique sound effect on pickup (crappy but unique)
    - general: added various elevator sounds from the free sound library
    - general: new textures SW1SHWN2, SW2SHWN2, which is SHAWN2 with a square green button
    - map 16: ripped EDAY16 and converted it to UDMF
    - map 16: changed the sky to a cubemep with smoke and city baked in
    - map 16: edited one collapsed building for aestetic purposes
    - map 16: greatly reformatted the balconies with fire ladders. Made all ladders climbable (enlarged openings from 32 to 48), removed all ladders hanging from the second story to the ground; made all railings solid; ladders are now solid, prevent jumping from balcony to balcony in certain places.
    - map 16: removed red key markings from the door that leads to the roof (in times of yore, required the red key) and reformatted the ijside of that building from an elevator to stairs, with "out of order" fake elevator doors on both floors
    - map 16: made the megasphere secret painfully visible, the room is now large and has two additional impassable windows to stare into and salivate. Added a ladder leading into the room for easy access - BUT it requires the red key.
    - map 16: returned the red key to its ancestral resting place, BUT moved that room from 2nd story to 3rd story - now requires climbing fire ladders and jumping between balconies. This will distract from the blue armor secret because no one would expect one more secret inside a secret that hard. Well, this map already contains one utterly impossible secret: the berserk pack room. I had no idea it was there even after hours of editing, only noticed it while modifying the adjacent building. So utterly diabolic...
    - map 16: fixed the impassable blue door bug in that same building
    - map 16: moved some rooms required for the obligatory jumping puzzle (you have to solve it to advance further) fron 2nd to 3rd floor. So it now requires ladder acrobatics.
    - map 16: replaced the burger joint doors with swinging polyobject doors.
    - map 16: upgraded all the trucks. (whimper) so many trucks... I will have nightmares about trucks... So much toil and grind :(...
    - map 16: resolved the "Chaingun Marine at the front of the trailer truck near the burger joint doesn't do anything" - he was just turned off, frozen and invisible to monsters. Obviously intended to wake up and die in a heroic last stand as you approach but the activation script was nowhere to be seen. He did not even have a tag!
    - map 16: fixed the "Narrow Blue key door can be opened, but you can't pass the invisible wall, either coming in or going out. (The Apartment building nearest the burger joint with the chainlink fence and parking lot.)" bug
    - map 16: wherever there was RUBLE2 texture (a collapsed building's innards) I enlarged it more than twice by setting a scale of 0.43. This way, its broken floor match the height of common building floor (128). Will repeat the same for all maps ahead.
    - map 16: retopped it with a sky portal top layer. In the process, moved all communication towers to tallest buildings (which are void in the base layer), clipped all sky ceilings to 400 and made the one taller building's top floor part of the top layer clipping it in the base layer to 400 (also widened it). Added two distant taller buildings to the top layer.
    - map 16: fixed the "There is an empty bottle floating in the sky near where the cyberdemon gets airstriked." bug
    - map 16: moved two dumpsers away from the broken fence thus removing the bypass route for the blue key and balcony acrobatics. Obligatory jumping puzzles must be obligatory!
    - map 17: ripped EDAY17 and converted it to UDMF
    - map 17: changed the sky to a cubemep (provisional, the same as the previous map)
    - map 18: ripped EDAY18 and converted it to UDMF
    - map 18: reworked elevators in the yellow key building, the unnamed building at (2700,500) and the wham bang hotel to work like realistic elevators with doors closing and so on. There are 7 elevators in total. For more detail see the my tutorial wad @ https://www.doomworld.com/forum/topic/138033-realistic-elevators-acs-udmf-zandronum-30
    - map 18: rearranged rooms in the wham bang hotel, the goal was to turn the elevator 90 degrees clockwise so that its doors move in the north-south direction. Easier than cloning the elevator scripts.
    - map 18: widened shower entrances in the wham bang hotel so that you can actually enter them. That one shotgun guy dropping ammo... always out of reach... tantalizing... Fr-r-rustration!.. Well, not anymore.
    - map 18: retextured the receptionists deck in the wham bang hotel: it was a brick wall made of brick >_<
    - map 18: upgraded fence at (3588,1096) from part impassable, part ghost with crates flush to it, to walkable + shootable midtex
    - map 18: changed the secret exit door to a sliding polyobject door. Hilariously, I still have no idea how to open it and go to the secret levels: I just modded Script 3 that opens it but I don't know what runs that script.
    - map 18: changed the doors of the chaingunner cafe (it's full of chaingun guys, d'uh) to swinging polyobject doors
    - map 18: added a coffee maker to the chaingunners cafe.
    - map 18: replaced doors in the yellow key building's upper offices with swinging doors

[The Almighty Egg]

This looks awesome so far!

[chebmaster]

Thank you :)

For me, it's more like a horrible obsession that won't let me go.
There are only two maps to go: 17 and 19 (except upgrading trucks in 18), then it is nearly done. I don't want to touch Map 20 (except fixing bugs and upgrading trucks) and there is literally nothing to do in map 21, it's perfect. After that, it's only making the final boss stronger and angrier and my work will be finished.

 

I planned The Great Rebraining (teaching monsters circle-strafing and shooting at the door if you pop in and out) but, realistically, that would be the next summer. I'm exhausted!

[chebmaster]

I am trying something impressive with DECORATe, but...

It zeems, Zandronum 3.0 dies horribly at the mere attempt to parse it :(

 

[chebmaster]

%##$%#$ dumb cant-do-pitch-calculations Zandronum!
Still I prevailed. Not as good as it could have been, relies on hacks and heuristics instead of math... But whatever works.

 

Finished it today because Baldur's Gate 3 crashed with Vulkan failure, I got to download drivers, got much done while waiting for drivers to download, began installing them, they were taking so long I got bored and went working on the cyberlord and then promptly forgot about everything else.

So here we are. Baldur's gate 3: unplayed. Another update of ChebSkies: finished.

 

Done August 15, 2023:
    - general: researched a method to make monsters deadlier and smarter, react properly and PUNISH players who like to pop in and out of cover. Could (and WILL be) applied to all monsters eventually.
    - map 23: with the help of copious map triggers, ACS mojo and darkest of DECORATE magicks I remade that giant hunk of cheese called "cyberdemon lord" into a real lean and mean killing machine. I named him "brutal cyberdemon lord". He will *curbstomp* you, I made sure of that. I kept buffing him and making him trickier until I myself, with all the experience of cheesing him dozens of times before, could only prevail by the skin of my teeth. He behaves like a living being now, not as automaton all of them are. He will not aim into a wall dumbly if you duck behind cover but would continue spraying at your last position with redoubled ferocity. He can even predict your movement - try hugging that wall, popping in and out of cover and you have a good chance to eat a preemptive strike. He hates it when you pop in and out of cover. Oh, and I buffed his AOE radius too. A LOT.

 

Edited August 15, 2023 by chebmaster