Descent Doom (Descent 2 in GZDoom)

[Redxone]

Descent Doom (alternatively GZDescent) attempts to recreate the core gameplay systems of Descent 1 and 2 in GZDoom.

 

General Information
The original Descent game was created by Parallax Software in 1995, it featured what’s known as a “Six Degree of Freedom” movement system, 
which essentially simulates a space-ship’s freedom of motion in space, with no gravity. So you can do cool stuff like fly completely upside-down or side-ways, basically however you want (provided you don’t get motion sick). It also featured a primary and secondary type weapon system, where your primary weapons are more energy or ballistic based and your secondary weapons are all missile/projectile based. More Information available here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descent_(1995_video_game)

 

Mod Features

• Six Degree of Freedom movement system.
• 9 distinct primary weapons from Descent 1/2
• 10 distinct secondary missile weapons.
• 8 different powerups.  

Planned Features
Feedback is much appreciated here!

• A more balanced weapon/item spawning system.
• Customized cheat-codes based on the ones from classic Descent.
• Simplified HUD and statusbar alternative HUD types.
• Fullscreen missile camera.

 

Gameplay Video

 

Primary Weapons

 

Laser Cannon: Damage - 10* (Up to 15), Energy Use - 0.1* (Up to 0.2)
Default primary weapon, a simple but powerful laser/plasma cannon, it fires 2 laser projectiles per-shot initially but can be upgraded to fire 4.
Its Level increases with each consecutive laser you pickup, maximum level 4. Alternatively if you find a Super Laser, it can be picked up to enable the Laser Cannon to be upgraded up to Level 6.


Spreadfire Cannon: Damage - 10, Energy Use - 0.13
Fires 3 plasma projectiles in an alternating cross-like pattern.
Best at medium ranges.


Vulcan Cannon: Damage - 4, Ammo Use - 13
Fires hitscan bullets at a rapid rate of fire.
Best at short or long ranges.


Gauss Cannon: Damage - 12, Ammo Use - 25
Fires explosive hitscan at a reasonably fast rate of fire.
Best at longer ranges.


Plasma Cannon: Damage - 11, Energy Use - 0.125
Fires 2 adjacent beams of plasma, has a low energy consumption rate.
Good at short to medium ranges, not great at longer ranges due to travel-time.


Phoenix Cannon: Damage - 14, Energy Use - 0.35
Fires 2 beams of bouncing plasma projectiles, great for firing around corners.


Helix Cannon: Damage - 8, Energy Use - 0.12
Fires 5 plasma projectiles in a rotating circular pattern.
Good for crowd control.


Fusion Cannon: Damage - 60* (+60 at full charge), Energy Use - 2.0
Hits hard at full charge, gets a bit hard to aim while charging up.
Best for hit and run tactics.


Omega Cannon: Damage - 18, Energy Use - 2.5 (per 100% charge)
BFG replacement, I’ve tweaked the original range to be much further than vanilla Descent.
Fires a series of homing lightning bolts which aim at the nearest target.

 

Secondary Weapons

 

Concussion Missile: Damage - 20 + 128 (Explosive)
Simple dumb-fire missile.


Homing Missile: Damage - 27 + 128 (Explosive)
Homes in on nearest target.


Smart Missile: Damage - 20 + 128 (Explosive)
Releases 6 homing payloads on impact. (35 dmg + 64 Explosive)


Mercury Missile: Damage - 42 + 128 (Explosive)
Very fast moving dumb-fire missile.


Guided Missile: Damage - 49 + 128 (Explosive)
Switches control over to the missile while in flight, controlled the same way
the player is, however does not respond to strafe or forward/backward movement.


Flash Missile: Damage - 9
Confuses nearby enemies on impact, will also temporarily blind players if close enough.


Mega Missile: Damage - 350 + 300 (Explosive)
Really big, really slow, deals really a lot of damage on impact.
Also homes in on targets.


Earth Shaker: Damage - 500 + ~1000 (Explosive)
Alternative BFG replacement, deals an incredible amount of damage (explosive damage also is unaffected by Boss monsters) 
Also deploys 6 homing mini-shakers (100 dmg + 300 Explosive)
Clears a room or two (maybe three) real fast.


Proximity Mine: Damage - 29 (Explosive)
Explodes when bumped into.


Smart Mine: Damage - 29 (Explosive)
Explodes when bumped into, also deploys 6 homing projectiles (25 dmg + 64 Explosive)
 

Credits

 

* Graphics, Sprites and Sounds by Parallax Software *
{    
    Designer(s)    
        Che-Yuan Wang
        Mark Dinse
        Jasen Whiteside
    Artist(s)    
        Adam Pletcher
}    

* Tools Used in mod Creation *
{
    DTX2 (http://www.cybertrash.com/shareware/dtx/)
        - Used to gather sounds and sprites from Descent 1/2 
        
    OTVDM (https://github.com/otya128/winevdm)
        - Used to run older 16bit software “natively” such as DTX2
    
    DesDump (https://github.com/arbruijn/DesDump) 
        - Used to gather models and textures from Descent 1/2
}

* DescentGZ Programmers *
{
    Lead Programmer
        Lewisk3 (Redxone)
    
    Pitch-Limit Removing 6DOF code
        dodopod ( https://gitlab.com/dodopod/6dof-player )
}

* Asteroid Models and Graphics *
{
    Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).
    d880 - Stoney Asteroids (https://skfb.ly/KZPD) 
    
}

* Title Logo *
{
    OfficerD (https://www.youtube.com/user/OfficerD82)
}

 

 

Download here: Github Releases
Direct Link (v1.1): https://github.com/Lewisk3/GZDoom_Descent/releases/download/v1.1.0/lk_gzdescent112.pk3

Edited November 13, 2021 by Redxone
New version - 1.1

[UAC guy]

would it be possible to add the descent "flying out of the planet as it explodes"?

its ok if you cant do it

[Rudolph]

Impressive! This also reminds me that I have yet to actually beat either Descent 1 or 2.

[Redxone]

1 minute ago, Rudolph said:

Impressive! This also reminds me that I have yet to actually beat either Descent 1 or 2.

Haha, funnily enough me too. 

[kalensar]

This is an abomination and I Love it! Good job.

[ReaperAA]

Really impressive. I have played good amount of Descent 1 and 2, so I will definitely check it out to see how the ship movement feels compared to the original game. Would be even more awesome if someone ported the enemies robots from the two games as well.

 

At any rate, this might be the closest thing to Descent that is actually moddable without resorting to stone age modding tools. @SaladBadger and @Woolie Wool, you guys might find some interest in this mod.

[Rudolph]

11 hours ago, Redxone said:

Haha, funnily enough me too. 

Those games are so difficult.

[ReaperAA]

12 hours ago, Redxone said:

Haha, funnily enough me too. 

 

Then I definitely recommend to complete them. They are great games.

 

32 minutes ago, Rudolph said:

Those games are so difficult.

 

Don't be shy to play them on an easier difficulty. Some of the robots are really nasty (*cough* Class 1 Drillers *cough*)

Edited October 24, 2021 by ReaperAA

[Somniac]

Class 1 Driller PTSD intensifies 

[holaareola]

This is ridiculously cool! So weird to see the two games combined.

 

I love me some Descent. For me, that and Doom were the two shooters in the early 90s that really nailed feel. It's satisfying just to fly around proficiently, pitching and rolling to avoid colliding with the walls. Nothing felt as good until Quake 3 came along.

 

Now we could just do with some progress from Gooberman's BSP2Doom tool to make levels that don't leak as much of the engine's mechanical sympathy for 2d layouts.

 

[ducon]

12 hours ago, Rudolph said:

Impressive! This also reminds me that I have yet to actually beat either Descent 1 or 2.

 

I beat Descent with d1x-rebirth-gl for Linux but the thief in Descent 2 (d2x-rebirth-gl) prevents me to pass the first level.

Note that there used to be a Descent-like Doom³ mod (Into Cerberon).

 

Good job, of course, Redxone!

Edited October 24, 2021 by ducon

[ReaperAA]

9 minutes ago, ducon said:

I beat Descent with d1x-rebirth-gl for Linux but the thief in Descent 2 (d2x-rebirth-gl) prevents me to pass the first level.

 

D2X-Rebirth (Descent 2 version of the Rebirth port) has a gameplay option in the settings to disable/remove the thief from the maps altogether.

[Rudolph]

53 minutes ago, ReaperAA said:

 

Then I definitely recommend to complete them. They are great games.

 

Don't be shy to play them on an easier difficulty. Some of the robots are really nasty (*cough* Class 1 Drillers *cough*)

Actually, enemies with homing projectiles are what got me to give up. I could never figure out how to effectively deal with them.

 

Also, how do Descent's difficulty settings work? Is there a "standard" difficulty like Doom's Ultra-Violence?

Edited October 24, 2021 by Rudolph

[ReaperAA]

 

53 minutes ago, Rudolph said:

Also, how do Descent's difficulty settings work? Is there a "standard" difficulty like Doom's Ultra-Violence?

 

In Descent the number of enemies/items remain same across all difficulties. What changes include:

- Their attacks. On each higher difficulty, the enemies attack more often, fire more projectiles per attack and their projectiles deal more damage.

- You get less energy/shield points from the energy/shield pickups. On Trainee you get 18 points (27 in Descent 2), 15 points in Rookies, 12 in Hotshot, 9 in Ace and 6 in Insane.

- In Descent 2, the purple robot spawners areas spawn 3 rounds robots in Trainee/Rookie before exhausing, 4 in Hotshot, 5 in Ace and on Insane, they never exhaust.

 

There really isn't "one standard" difficulty like the UV difficulty of Doom. The Descent uber pros tend to play on Insane. However for speedruns, Hotshot and below are popular because those difficulties don't require playing like a snail to beat maps.

 

I personally play the games on Hotshot. For someone who is not experienced with the games, I don't recommend to play on anything higher than Rookie.

Edited October 24, 2021 by ReaperAA

[ReaperAA]

53 minutes ago, Rudolph said:

Actually, enemies with homing projectiles are what got me to give up. I could never figure out how to effectively deal with them.

 

In that case, I recommend dodging them using trichording technique. This is kind of the Descent's equivalent of SR40. Trichording involves tilting your ship towards the direction you want to go and use forward, strafe keys and the move-up key to move where you want to go.

 

There was also a bug in the older versions of dxx-rebirth (inherited from vanilla game) where the homing missiles have stronger homing with the increase in FPS (the original game was designed for 30 fps and at 60 fps, their homing becomes stronger than intended). The bug had been fixed in the beta/nightly releases of dxx-rebirth some time time ago.

 

 

[Rudolph]

@ReaperAA Noted. What is "SR40", though?

[Master O]

@Redxone

 

Nominated for a Cacoward.

[ducon]

44 minutes ago, Rudolph said:

@ReaperAA Noted. What is "SR40", though?

Strafe Run with a speed of 40 (when you use both UP and RIGHT keys for example).

Edited October 24, 2021 by ducon

[ReaperAA]

38 minutes ago, Rudolph said:

@ReaperAA Noted. What is "SR40", though?

 

https://doomwiki.org/wiki/Straferunning

 

SR40 and SR50 are the 2 straferunning techniques that can be used in Doom. The 40 and 50 refer to the sideway/strafe speed. The run-forward speed is 50 in either case.

 

The wiki article explains how they work. SR40 is the simple straferunning (using forward + strafe to move) and it results in a 28% increase in speed compared to standard straight running. Whereas SR50 is more complex and results in 41% increase compared to straight running.

[NightFright]

Now THIS is some seriously awesome shit right there. 

[Rex705]

Groovy baby! Now for the Descent TC someone get on it now!

Edited October 25, 2021 by Rex705

[ducon]

15 hours ago, ReaperAA said:

D2X-Rebirth (Descent 2 version of the Rebirth port) has a gameplay option in the settings to disable/remove the thief from the maps altogether.

 

I didn’t know that. Thank you for the tip. 👍

[Master O]

Where's H-Descent?!!

 

(joking)

[ducon]

5 minutes ago, Master O said:

Where's H-Descent?!!

 

In Uranus, maybe.

[Redxone]

Oh btw, feel free to make addons for this mod. 

I plan on covering just the gameplay mod portion.

Feel free to link them in this thread as well!

[ReaperAA]

@Redxone BTW any reason why you chose the low-res 320x200 cockpit graphics instead of 640x480 one.

[Redxone]

3 minutes ago, ReaperAA said:

@Redxone BTW any reason why you chose the low-res 320x200 cockpit graphics instead of 640x480 one.

At first, I exported all of Descent 1's graphics and worked on finishing that, then moving on to Descent 2.

I didn't realize at the time that Descent 2 had higher resolution versions of everything, it would've been a massive pain to re-align

all the HUD images, so I just continued using the lower resolution ones.

 

When I start working on getting multiple HUD types implemented, I'll probably replace the current graphics with the 480p versions.

[Rex705]

This is a fun mod. Any plans to swap the monsters out with Descent bots?

 

 

[princetontiger]

Holy sh!t this looks fun...

 

[edit] I can't play... GZDoom instantly crashes. What am I doing wrong? I'm on a mac and using opengl. Thx.

Edited October 26, 2021 by princetontiger

[Master O]

2 hours ago, princetontiger said:

Holy sh!t this looks fun...

 

[edit] I can't play... GZDoom instantly crashes. What am I doing wrong? I'm on a mac and using opengl. Thx.

 

For very new mods like this, it would probably be a good idea to use the latest version of GZdoom available.