ChebSkies: Extermination Day perfected and maxable, works with BDv22test3

[chebmaster]

Losing... consciousness...
It is done.

I was ripping and tearing for nearly a full year and it is finally done.

The secret maps and non-critical BD bugs could take a short hike til January: I did not want to stretch the work until my hair turns gray... Waitaminute, my beard is *already* halfway gray! :(...

 

The only maps NOT guaranteed maxable are secret maps 40..42 (two Duke maps and one Wolfenstein map)

It can be played.

 

Done December 11, 2023:
    - general: this is the Inferno update, Chebskies v 1.15 -- a preliminary release candidate of EDAY 001 Gold
    - general found out my favorite stuffed bear was stuffed with dirty socks (in other words, gazed into the BD code under the hood. The code gazed back.) The BDv21che version required updated! Reason: fixed the CVARS script. Sorry that you have to download 80+  megabytes again because of a change that weighs less than one kilobyte, but I simply... coudn't...
    - general: maxability confirmed for maps 47, 24..26, 28..30, 32 (i.e. now ALL mainstream maps are maxable, with the sole exception of the old secret maps 40..42)
    - general: maps polished to perfection: 47, 24..26, 28..30, 32
    - general: added maps 47, 24..26, 28..29, 50, 32 to the walkthrough.
    - general: imported music D_BUNNY from HESP. Reason: the finale after you beat the end boss is very old (dates back to HESP) but it tries playing that victory music... And fails because it is missing from both BDv21 and EDAY001.
    - general: changed rolloff for some sounds from default to having full volume at longer distances: dragging metal squealing; metallic door slam;    stone door slam
    - general: new sound sequences: stone grinding ends in a splash
    - general: fixed errors in sound definitions (like flesh sound not working for doors) and increased lousdness of some by merciles compression
    - general: added a variation of mech that cannot jump (says jump jets offline). New sounds: KYSNDBZZ
    - general: added permafrost deaths to mummy, duke of hell, arachnorb, volcabus, ancient arachnotron. New sprites: FZDYA0, FZDYB0, FZDYC0, FZDYD0
    - general: tweaked mummy's extreme death. Less meat, more bones.
    - general: improved the purple sphere pickup sound
    - general: fixed Duke of hell a bit, does not try replacing himself with a vanilla cyberdemon when vanilla monsters are on. He stays as he is because there is nothing in vanilla to replace him with. "Vanilla" itself is a stupid idea, in my (definitely opinionated) opinion.
    - general: increased the required version of Zandronum 3.0 to 3.1 Everything still works in 3.0, but the final boss may look a bit smaller than normal in multiplayer.
    - general: fixed the fountain sound to pre-existing BD water flowing sound but short distance (500). No more fountains setting the ambience for half the map!
    - map 01: fixed the scripted fight between marines and imps outside not working properly (by some weird reason, the marines were fighting a single empty spot while the imps were completely missing)
    - map 03: fixed a bug in my ATCs (advanced teleporter closets). First my upgraded version Mk II (with shape improved to guarantee thicc mobs like mancubi and arachnotrons never ever getting stuck) failed craptacularly when applied to map 24. A lot of those thicc mobs got stuck on their first try :( Truly "better is the enemy of good". I haven't noticed it before because all the maps where I used Mk II had enough space that monsters never cycle en masse waiting for a free spot. Then I looked back and realized that Mk I could malfunction in a similar manner (the tip of the main belt and the edge of the safety margin pushing two monsters in opposite directions resulting in a deadlock) it was just so improbable I never saw it happen. The requirement: the distance between that tip and the margin must be larger than the diameter (two radii) of the thicciest mob in the closet.
    - map 09: fixed the ATC bug
    - map 12: fixed the ATC bug
    - map 17: fixed the ATC bug (now each cyberdemon has his own ATC, special solo version for extra thicc bosses).
    - map 17: fixed one pillow on one bed in one building having been accidentally deleted resulting in a bedsheet-colored pillar in its place
    - map 18: fixed the ATC bug
    - map 47: retextured doorframes and elevators, got rid of DOORTRAK everywhere replacing it with GTOLDF02 and METAL10 , whichever fit better. Reason: not medieval enough. Also added chains moving with the floor to some elevators (and will do the same for other Hell maps)
    - map 47: applied new sound effects to all doors and elevators.
    - map 47: fixed one bogus secret preventing maxability
    - map 47: maxability confirmed
    - map 48: fixed the ATC bug
    - map 48: fixed the alt entrance potentially trapping coop players inside
    - map 48: hunted DOORTRAK to extinction
    - map 48: applied new sound effects to all doors and elevators.
    - map 48: changed the blue key area with some more doors for more player suffering (also removed the deaf flag from three monsters)
    - map 24: hunted DOORTRAK to extinction
    - map 24: applied new sound effects to all doors and elevators.
    - map 24: made the coffin trap undetectable and unnoticeable until sprung
    - map 24: upgraded the teleporting monster closets (all six of them!) to my advanced design with 100% reliable deployment, for guaranteed maxability.
    - map 24: marked one door requiring blue skull key with appropriate skull side panels
    - map 24: fixed one candle inside an bookcase, now a proper bookcase with a candle on its empty shelf
    - map 24: fixed health bonus breadcrumb row under a 3d floor bridge instead of on top of it
    - map 24: maxability confirmed
    - map 25: hunted DOORTRAK to extinction
    - map 25: applied new sound effects to all doors and elevators; added ambient sounds.
    - map 25: restored some roasting humans to non-charred variations
    - map 25: fixed the indestructible fireball trap counting as a monster thus ruining your kill count
    - map 25: fixed the revenant marching algorithm
    - map 25: fixed texturing errors
    - map 25 maxability confirmed
    - map 26: hunted DOORTRAK to extinction
    - map 26: applied new sound effects to all doors and elevators; added ambient sounds.
    - map 26: restored some roasting humans to non-charred variations
    - map 26: upgraded some railings in the cellars from *really* ancient "custom invisible bridge" things to walkable+ shootable midtex
    - map 26: fixed two armor bonuses stuck inside walls ruining your item count (my fault :( )
    - map 26: fixed three armor bonuses under a 3d floor bridge instead of on it
    - map 26: fixed ceiling height of the bfg secret
    - map 26: maxability confirmed
    - map 28: hunted DOORTRAK to extinction
    - map 28: applied new sound effects to all doors and elevators
    - map 28: reworked the four-archvile surprise: now two of them teleport away when they leave their niches -- to begin a scripted march across corpse fields to meet you somewhere on the sky bridges! :D
    - map 28: added two health bonuses to the altar as a shmuck bait for the player to release the archviles prematurely.
    - map 28: reworket the lost souls trap to use my advanced teleporter closet, for guaranteed maxability.
    - map 28: fixed minor texturing issues
    - map 28: reshaped bridges in the yard where the red key niche is. Now are not ugly (were because of me fighting to resucitate dying framerate and thus adding dog-legs to the map)
    - map 28: added +200 MG42 ammo to the blue armor secret
    - map 28: partly get rid of the pre-UDMF textures with scale and rotation set from TEXTURES.
    - map 28: maxability confirmed
    - map 29: hunted DOORTRAK to extinction
    - map 29: applied new sound effects to all doors and elevators
    - map 29: improved the yellow key trap algorithm
    - map 29: removed one unnecessary volcabus replacing him back with a mancubus
    - map 29: reworked the Wham episode into actual game mechanic: mercy-killing all the tortured marines also kills the FUN archviles
    - map 29: doubled the number of mummies in the monster closet (replaced pinkies with them earlier this year): mummies are not pinkies, their strenth is their numbers!
    - map 29: marked two secrets as secrets, thus increasing their number to 5
    - map 29: connected one room to another room's monster closet so that when it opens they become one. Reason: the annoying last straggler problem, normal backtracking route was bypassing the five pain elementals trap leaving those sad and unloved.
    - map 29: maxability confirmed
    - map 30: added instant death to the bottom of the abyss
    - map 30: fixed two armor bonuses stuck in the void thus ruining your item count
    - map 30: applied new sound effects to all doors and elevators
    - map 30: exterminated DOORTRAK everywhere outside the UAC base
    - map 30: added an aquarium and a secret mech bay to the UAC base
    - map 30: widened many passages and heightened some doors so that you can bring the mech to the central round hub area.
    - map 30 fixed several texturing errors
    - map 30: maxability confirmed
    - map 31: hunted DOORTRAK to extinction
    - map 31: applied new sound effects to all doors and elevators
    - map 50: hunted DOORTRAK to extinction
    - map 50: applied new sound effects to all doors and elevators    
    - map 32: changed the bosses' minion spawning mechanic and the crowd composition. Reason: to reach maxability, had to make all monsters explode when the boss dies -- for which I needed to give them a TID when they spawn. BUT their spawning mechanics, turns out, were buried so deep in the hardcoded engine innards (the Doom2 boss cube) so I'd have to recreate all that jazz by hand. Too lazy, I simply made my own mechanism with gambling and loose women. My spawner cubes are monsters whom the boss spawns inside an advanced teleporter closet. They are then teleported to random spots mid-air and fall slowly to the ground. When they see the player they make a "Boo!" sound. These cubes are physical, they can be shot and perform monster spawning on death. What gets spawned is controlled via lists I composed myself. Include some really rare monsters never seen before. So as you can see, you will NEVER get telefragged again, and no monster will never pop in your face unexpectedly when you are about to shoot a rocket. They can fall on your head, though :p As a downside (or FUN, decide for yourself) I amped those lists that can now include mini-bosses when the Boss goes into his last stand mode. Ancient arachnotrons, dukes of hell, volcabi, archviles -- that sort of "fun and balanced". New sounds: KYBOCUB1, KYBOCUB3
    - map 32: finally noticed and fixed a great blunder in bosses' attack patterns (inheritance was NOT working -- DECORATE classes do not behave like classes with virtual methods, ancestor's state's Goto leads to ancestor' states instead of inherited ones). As a result, ITYTD version became WEAKER and the UV version became STRONGER, and the coop version is INSANE. I have completely reorganized the code gathering every state in a single class, and key parameters are now controlled via arguments you set in the map editor.
    - map 32: made the boss turn literally red (performs a palette swap) when he goes into the last stand mode, emitting an unholy roar. I was unaware this was even possible until I noticed Mark-sensei's scripts for coloring dresses on mannequins in map 20.
    - map 32: fixed a tiny problem with the boss retaliating each time he flinches, by clearing attack cooldowns: using a minigun resulted in... him spamming a powerful attack non-stop because he was flinching non-stop. I added a cooldown to that cooldown-clearing retaliation.
    - map 32: fixed a blunder where you could flinch the boss before he roars, thus preventing both the roar and the health indicator from appearing (minigun again)
    - map 32: improved bosses' nuke launch sound
    - map 32: changed map geometry (more open sky, less cave ceiling) and made bosses' seeking thunderbolts die if they touch the edge of said ceiling -- e.g. they can only exist under open sky now
    - map 32: changed the map geometry again adding a tunnel below the southern part of the arena connecting the "horns" of the icy lake so they stop being deathtraps. Moved some ammo there. Don't get over yourself about having cover: if you hide there, what would happen? You get swarmed, the tunnel is narrow and slippery, the boss switches to spamming thunderbolts nonstop... It's a deathtrap :D
    - map 32: replaced the bosses' thunder attack animation. Reason: with him enlarged, his flashing upper arms remained above the upper screen edge most of the time, leaving you with no clue to the bosses' actions. New sprites via simple retouching and frankensteining: ICOT frames ABCDEFGHIKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ, all front only of course. The animation is still inexpressive crap but it gets the job done.
    - map 32: tweaked the thunderbolts appearance, mostly their death animation
    - map 32: fixed the bosses' fire breathing animation (ICOA frames E nnd F): I desaturated the yellow flame, to look like frost breath then added mist-like whitish overlay.
    - map 32: fixed the bosses' sprite clipping through the arena edges if you looked around while he was still rising. I decreased his initial scale from 10.0 to 8.0, a script enlarges his sprite slowly from 8.0 to 10.0 starting at the moment he sees you, creating also an impression of him coming closer to loom. Requires Zandronum 3.1 to work in multiplayer, see Zandronum 3.0 bug https://zandronum.com/tracker/view.php?id=3847 fixed in 3.1
    - map 32: maxability confirmed

 

 

[chebmaster]

P.S. Oopsie, uploaded the wrong version :(
Re-uploaded wit h the same file name.

Relesing when dead tired is bad idea >_<.... ZzzzZZzzzz....

 

[chebmaster]

Done December 13, 2023:
    - general: shortened one sound effect in half (forgot to do this in the big update, remembered just now)
    - map 50: remembered to fix one blunder in the minion infighting mechanics (I was going to, but forgot to do in the big update) - fixing it took actually less time than launching the game to see if it worked.

[chebmaster]

I considered such thing as momentum. I had a great momentum, if I stopped to finish in January who knows how long it would take of how much extra effort waste to restart my dormant brain processes.

So I decided to sacrifice one weekend but finish all the maps -- then only minor BD bugs would remain to be fixed in January.

It *should* have been only a saturday sacrificed, but...

The wolfenstein map fought back tooth and nail. Up to the point where everything finally worked... Until nazis and their dogs started dropping dead after being teleported. It looked like they were being killed by falling snowflakes, but... What killed all the dogs in the castle corridor, then? I checked on monsters in teleporting closets using noclip -- they looked fine. I temporarily moved both the player start and the trigger line close to the deployment area... NOPE, they were teleporting alive but dropping  dead shortly after, at very random delay. More, they were losing their health gradually as if something was draining them. AAaaAaaAaaRRRgGhhhh.

 

In short, it was a sleeper BD bug: unlile all other monsters, nazis & dogs did NOT have zero damage vulnerability multiplier declared for such damage types as gore janitor and teleport remover. So the janitor kicked in due to kilotons of things spawning and despawning in that area (the falling snow... Each snowflake is a thing) so it began trying to clean up... And killing all the buggy monsters in the process. Lol...? Lol. Hilariously Lol. I'm frothing at my mouth, that's how amused I am.

 

So here we are, it's 5 in the morning MSK I am about to drop ded but keep uproeight on sheer will power.

 

IT'S GOLD, BABY!

ALL MAPS ARE MAXABLE! (and you wouldn't believe how much of my blood those "last straggler" bonuses drank each time I overlooked ONE during testing)
Well, excuse me for switching to God Mode after my eight or so run of this map in a row.

Quality control blows :(

 

P.S. Will go celebrate now, the collection of moonshine samples in my fridge is all lonely, untouched since october.

 

 

Done December 17, 2023:
    - general: this is the Enigma update, Chebskies v 1.16
    - general: I hereby declare chebskies having achieved the Gold status. There shall be bug fixes, because nothing is ever perfect, and final BDv21che bugfixes I promised earlier, but that will *really* be somewhere in 2024. And then, after time unknown, it shall ascend to Platinum. But that is a tale for another time.
    - general: fixed a BD bug: nazis were being killed by the gore janitor script (a very hard to catch, it only activated after they teleported). The BDv21che version required updated!
    - general: patched a EDAY bug, german dogs were being killed by the gore janitor script  
    - general: maxability confirmed for maps 40, 59, 41, 42 -- meaning the set is now COMPLETE
    - general: maps polished to perfection: 40, 41, 42
    - general: added maps 40, 41, 42 to the walkthrough -- meaning the walkthrough in now complete.
    - map 40: converted to UDMF
    - map 40: made the berserk secret reliably registering
    - map 40: automap prettification
    - map 40: redesigned the movie teather hall: twice more rows (this map isn't a perfect copy of the Duke map anyway), halved the seat back's height and restored low light levels. New textures: TLITE6_Y (a clone of TLITE6_1 without glow attached)
    - map 40: redesigned the projector room area using 3d floors. New textures: DOOR05E
    - map 40: added antenna to the comm tower
    - map 40: redesigned the area around the exit. Reason: sanity check. Doom has no jetpack and so no jetpack-related secrets high up so making buildings more solid was a possibility.
    - map 40: redesigned the secret window a little (the one matching Duke's aappartment secret in duke 3d e1m1), less standing out
    - map 40: added more buildings to the starting area's fringes to prevent looking in to the skyboxes underpants
    - map 40: added 20 damage to the dumpster on fire, including edges
    - map 40: fixed the messed up texturing on the breached movie screen
    - map 40: removed the "mars ambience" from the exit signs: was creating stupid columns of fog. Replaced with specialized light shafts from EDAY repertoire.
    - map 40: renamed the map from the iconic "Hollywood Holocaust" to "Movie Night Out". Because sirisly.
    - map 59: marked the megasphere cage as a secret thus increasing their number to 1
    - map 41: converted to UDMF
    - map 41: automap prettification
    - map 41: corrected texture scale on the condemned building
    - map 41: evicted moved most of the surrounding cityscape (except the chunk of the trailer park cacodemons come from) to a top layer, added several simple buildings to it and added antennas to comm towers.
    - map 41: added a climbable ladder to the sewer hatch
    - map 41: added a *fourth* variation of demon porn to the adult film cabins (those with paper towels in them) and a special zombie suffering from it. Delightfully offensive and decidedly hilarious. Reason: H-Doom moved ahead from the point Mark was quoting it... With more monster designs... New textures: ZZPORNT..Y; new sprite frames: FRAA T..X
    - map 41: added posters and replaced the secret to Wolfenstein from a misaligned wall texture to a wall with a poster that is not a movie or game poster but an actual ww2 nazi poster copied from EDAY resources and downscaled -- and its overal color matches that of the wall making easy to overlook. New textures: ZZNAZIY, POSTERW, POSTERV, POSTERX
    - map 41: made player unable to be catapulted out of playable boundaries into the trailer park over the fence
    - map 41: made the porn booth entrances soundproof and their curtains NOT openable by monsters from the outside (the herd of shotgunners just outside was activating them by walking around and bumping into them)
    - map 41: marked the blue armor as a secret thus increasing their number to 6
    - map 41: fixed the shotgunners behind the red door waking up prematurely and grunting through it (both sides of the doorframe were a single joined sector, thus screwing up sound zone boundaries)
    - map 41: retextured the secret exit room to obsidian. Reason: I put so much effort into creating this obsidian tileset back in 2018, but it is too dark to use anywhere! Well, not anymore.
    - map 41: moved some monsters on distant rooftops to the front edges. Reason: a lost soul ruined my test run's kill count by being so deep the roof edge blocked its line of sight and it never woke.
    - map 42: converted to UDMF
    - map 42: automap prettification
    - map 42: replaced the MG42 generated from a bfg spawner detecting wolfenstein map to a placeable MG42 + 200 ammo
    - map 42: replaced ammo clips in the ammo storage with placeable mp40 ammo and ammo boxes with shotgun shell boxes. Why would nazis, all armed with mp40s, keep stocked up on NATO intermediate cartridge?
    - map 42: replaced a plasmagun surrounded by rocket boxes with a rocket launcher: assumed it was a mistake.
    - map 42: set all ceilings of prison cell doors to undefined: were generating ugly parallax effect when rising above you, the grates filled with a sliding cobble texture.
    - map 42: added a most sadistic new secret with three armor bonuses hidden inside, not showing on the automap unlike all other secrets. Also serves as a red herring for the MG42 secret.
    - map 42: fixed and rearranged paintings in the library secret
    - map 42: upgraded the backtracking ambush with my advanced teleporting closet. As the monsters are deployed still sleeping, I used different spots: hand-picked ambush positions for nazis (whom I made deaf) and tightly packed packs of teleporter dests for dogs, who are NOT deaf and will hear you when you fight in appropriate sound zone, wake up and swarm towards you.
    - map 42: replaced all evil marine spawners (TID 736) with regular placeable nazis (TID 0). Purists would have to DEAL WITH IT. That setup was an unstable scripting nightmare.
    - map 42: improved abyss fringes where player can fall off the wall: no more splattering against the sky with the bottoms of castle walls hanging in it.
    - map 42: replaced kitchen doors with swinging polyobject doors
    - map 42: applies sound effects to all doors and elevators. Now this castle sounds real medieval.
    - map 42: made the invulnerability secret shallower
    - map 42: various minor texturing fixes
    - map 42: fixed a STUPID case of you never getting 100% kills unless you activated the crusher in the torture room. Trivia: there was a lone nazi in a detached room in the void, the floor and ceiling combination marking textures marking it as a "wolfenstein" map thus making *all* evil marines to spawn as nazis and the bfg to spawn as a MG42. That room was also a crusher activated by the same switch -- an ingenious way to eliminate that dummy "marker" nazi. Buuut, what if the player haven't activated that crusher?
    - map 42: moved one dog in a dead end kennels room. Reason: it was deaf, never waking up until you checked that entire room thus causing a nasty "last straggler" problem for perfectionists.
    - map 42: fixed many sound zone boundaries
    - map 42: fixed lightposts from randomly rotated 3d models (fluorescent too!) to their historical sprite forms. Sprite frame PSTE B ripped from EDAY as PSTE Y
    - map 42: transformed bookcases with tops higher than room ceilings into solid voids. Reason: were creating false impression of possible secrets showing on automap as non-solid walls
    - map 42: fixed the inescapable corner behind the chair in the torture room

 

Edited December 17, 2023 by chebmaster

[chebmaster]

Oh the shame, the humiliation! I forgot the walkthrough for maps 30 and 31 was postponed for later. So the walkthrough is NOT complete yet. Will finish someday later: now I return to my long neglected fanfiction!

[Somie1998]

13 hours ago, chebmaster said:

Oh the shame, the humiliation! I forgot the walkthrough for maps 30 and 31 was postponed for later. So the walkthrough is NOT complete yet. Will finish someday later: now I return to my long neglected fanfiction!

 

Hey man can you make on for Project Brutality 3.0 "https://drive.google.com/file/d/1p617GfeW60-oZhVw9DBg-lgZTis2AAYT/view" and what is "Gold Soul Sphere Armor and Health" how do you get it in map ??? 

 

Edited December 18, 2023 by Somie1998

[chebmaster]

9 hours ago, Somie1998 said:

can you make on for Project Brutality 3.0

What do you mean "make ON" ? Take on? Make one?

The answer is a resounding NO. As far as I know, Brutality requires GZDoom, it is written in ZScript, a completely different scripting language from the ancient DECORATE and ACS duo this project uses (siznce it aims at Zandronum, which is a decade behind in technologies supported).

 

Well, GZDoom won't run on my favorite laptop I have used, am using and will keep using forever and ever: GZDoom requires a higher OpenGL version than 3.1 the integrated video on this machine has (with latest drivers, dated 2015). So I simply won't play GZDoom or any megawad that requires GZDoom -- including Project Brutality.

 

Because the idea of replacing your laptop every ten or fifteen years because it becomes "obsolete" is just ridiculous. I have faith in this little machine, I believe it can easily push 20 years of age still kicking.

 

9 hours ago, Somie1998 said:

 

 and what is "Gold Soul Sphere Armor and Health" how do you get it in map ??? 

 

 

"get in map" in what sense?
If you want to use it in mapping, copy all related classes from DECORATE.skies into your project, attach resource file when editing map in builder and simply place thing 17561 "GoldLifeSphere" where required.

The powerups, as they are declared in DECORATE, each powerup is actually a family of items: one that you see in game and pick up and ones that it add stuff to your inventory. These virtual items define amount and ceiling of the actual health or armor they add. Since the gold life sphere is unique, it uses custom such items: one adds 75 health up to 200, another adds 75 green armor up to 150.

If you want to find it during play, it is exceedingly rare, I created it as an intermediate power-up stronger that soulsphere but weaker than megasphere, for rare cases when balancing powerup composition required it. I only used it AFAIR in two or three maps, mostly in secrets.

Edited December 18, 2023 by chebmaster

[chebmaster]

The terrible cost of ChebSkies:

There were two periods: June to August and the crunch of late October to mid-December

:(...

[chebmaster]

Just discovered

 

 

- and realized that this thing DOES work with quite wild mods (I assume this is the Project Brutality I've never played, because my potato cannot run GZDoom and when I turn my gaming rig on, my hand reaches for the Team Fortress 2 icon regarrdles of my will).

But oh boy SO MANY things breaking. To the point the maps are barely passable because important scripts are attached to cyberdemons -- who don't show at all!

Also, my advanced teleporting monster closets break, some varieties of demons are never deployed.

 

I researched (for like half an hour) and figured quick-and-dirty fixes:

1. Some monsters I will replace with "irreplaceable" cloned classes blocking PB from changing them (all cyberdemons everywhere; all cacoes, pain elementals and lost souls inside ATCs).

2. Non-flying monsters in ATCs will be raised to spawn in the air and the sector they are in given "Actor hits floor" thing so that the property-assigning script runs on ALL monsters, even those without proper TID, as they fall down to the floor after spawning. EVEN if that other mod changes their TID or forgets to pass the existing TID after changing monster type.

3. Some triggers will be improved taking into account the unplanned wall-climbing ability.

 

[Firedust]

35 minutes ago, chebmaster said:

I researched (for like half an hour) and figured quick-and-dirty fixes:

1. Some monsters I will replace with "irreplaceable" cloned classes blocking PB from changing them (all cyberdemons everywhere; all cacoes, pain elementals and lost souls inside ATCs).

2. Non-flying monsters in ATCs will be raised to spawn in the air and the sector they are in given "Actor hits floor" thing so that the property-assigning script runs on ALL monsters, even those without proper TID, as they fall down to the floor after spawning. EVEN if that other mod changes their TID or forgets to pass the existing TID after changing monster type.

3. Some triggers will be improved taking into account the unplanned wall-climbing ability.

 

Why not just specify that this project is built and balanced for a specific version of BD?
At some point mods are bound to get updates that may break even more things.

[chebmaster]

 

1 hour ago, Firedust said:

Why not just specify that this project is built and balanced for a specific version of BD?

I already did that -- but I have nothing against people trying it with other mods. If there is a simple solution that can make such plays easier, then why not?
Also helps weed out weak points.

 

P.S. Watch video, find a bug, pause video, fix bug, watch further :D

P.P.S. The youtuber says it was https://www.moddb.com/mods/brutal-doom/downloads/customized-dox778-standalone-bdv21-mod , not PB. Video is invaluable anyway as it shows *many* places where a first time player could get confused -- and rightfully so.

P.P.P.S. After all, I played several Oblige-generated megawads with La Tailor Girl + BD monsters only. Which wouldn't have been possible if there wasn't a BD monsters only version.
Should remember to fix that one too.

Edited January 19 by chebmaster

[chebmaster]

Now it will probably take me about two weeks to TEST the changes.

 

While at it, invented a nasty variation: a couple archviles guarded by nine pinkies... Except those pinkies are under the Stoneskin spell, raising their HP to 2000 - practically invulnerable. Of course they revert to regular pinkies after you kill the casters - both the archviles... But try doing that over the bullet sponges harrying you while the archviles themselves are taking potshots at you, *UNIMPEDED* by the wall of bodies between you.

A very hard, FUN combination achieved with simplest of tools!

A great surprise for a player on his last legs after a grueling gauntlet of a map opening what he thinks is the exit door.

Edited January 20 by chebmaster

[chebmaster]

http://chebmaster.com/downloads/chebskies/videos_upload_to_toutube_later/

Of the first 7 maps, where I roleplay a naive first-time user who has no idea about secrets and ambushes.

EDAY as it was MEANT to be played.

 

Will upload the update when I finish the whole set (thus also confirming nothing broke).

 

Hilariously videos show some bugs that are already patched in the future update: map 01 crates have their tops textured like ground and map 062 exit door opening when the number of evil marines drops to 1 instead of to 0 as it should have been

[chebmaster]

Got sidetracked as I remembered my old dream of bringing back the cars *exactly* as they looked back in the hoary days of HESP, made with map geometry, before Mark-sensei switched them to models to add destructibility. There were several iterations of 3d models, some better than others, but none looked the same. And the final version, while low-poly for performance, was standing out with its paper-thin 3d wheels and real empty space under the car.

 

So I grabbed an old HESP map, measured the car texel by texel and recreated its look in a 3d model as precisely as I could. Now with solid black under, exactly as the vehicles made of geometry look.

 

You can see how "modern" the tools I use are:

(tried using Blender once -- luckily, managed to get away before losing too many SAN points)

[Shulbocka]

You sir are a literal mad scientist. That looks extremely cool, well done. That is some ancient technology as well, you weren't joking. Also just wanted to say your playthrough videos were helpful and fun to watch, thanks for sharing those.

[chebmaster]

:) Glad you liked it.
Although, as I will always be saying, my work is 5%, just polishing what Mark-sensei created.

 

Seeing there were visual glitches in several maps in GZDoom (I target Zandronum, where everything runs perfectly, but I am aware that 99.9% of people who would play this would likely use latest GZDoom) and that I've also patched away a couple minor annoyances and seeing the "hardening" part work just fine in the maps I already tested, I decided to upload an UNTESTED BETA of this update. For the full list of changes see the readme file.

 

Everything up to and including map 15 runs fine. After that, uncharted territory (with 95% probability it is fine too).

 

I also recorded more videos. The walkthrough ones are now up to and including map 15, the nospoiler ones up to and including map 10. You may notice that the nospoiler one for map 10 shows visual glitches in portal rendering. the walkthrough one I recorded after fixing that issue (GZDoom is more demanding and treats some edge cases of map geometry differently).

I record videos in GZDoom... Have you noticed these are in fact 540p even as I record them in 1080p...? GZDoom has weird settings, to have text and HUD big, you have to run in "pseudo low-res" where the engine downsamples the picture to one half then renders it without filtering. Not how I prefer to play, BUT this is much better for recorded videos' compression.

 

What Zandronum COULD NOT do is align sprites to camera (making antennas look ugly if you look straight up at them being high up) and tilting the camera (when you ride the motorcucle in GZDoom, your view tilts, while in Zandronum only the handle bars tilt).

[chebmaster]

Added walkthrough videos for maps 16 & 17.
Discovered a tragic incompatibility: the best secret of map 18 does not activate in GZDoom -- meaning the map is only maxable in Zandronum. Seems GZDoom doesn't count non-solid midtex + switch height check as a button press, nothing happens.
Will patch ASAP.

[chebmaster]

Uploaded the patched BETA3 version

 

[chebmaster]

Fixed ANOTHER secret not working because of the same "switch height check" not behaving in GZDoom as it behaves in Zandronum.
Uploaded BETA4 and the walkthrough of map 18. The video misses one secret, also I use noclip to bypass that one button not working (fixed in beta4) -- well, excuse me, I was on my last legs. It takes 40 minutes (check the video's length) to play that monster of a map IN ONE GO, without dying. Well, the hard part is the "without dying" part. Now my fast nvme drive reserved for fast things is choke full of take after take after take of me wasting half an hour then dying stupidly near the end. Again and again and again.

 

The prize goes to my mech exploding when I dodged a stream of fireballs but a car behind me couldn't and detonated killing me. The mech is a glass cannon, after all.
Did you know that all cars have 300 health but the green ones have 400 by some reason...? Weird. And when they die - unless it is from you flattening them with a tank or a mech - they ASPLODE killing everything around them. You can even see an exploding barrel appearing over the car's roof for a fraction of a second.

 

[chebmaster]

In preparation for filming walkthrough of the secret levels for youtube, I created an addon PK3 that censors 16 specific EDAY textures used in one easter egg in map 41 and everywhere in map 42:

 

 

[chebmaster]

BETA5: due to a weird scripting error (crying about "PalmTree" class being defined twice while it was clearly only defined once), in GZDoom all palm trees were replaced with much shorter, indestructible deciduous trees.

Unfortunately, you have to start a new game to be affected by the fix because it involves changes to the classes and those, turns out, are stored in any saved game as they were when you started it :(

I have only noticed this as I tried recording map 40... And saw the secret soulsphere normally 100% reliably obscured by a palm tree's crown shining in plain sight :(

[chebmaster]

BETA6:
    - map 18: fixed music not switching back to map default every time you exit the mech as designed
    - map 18: changed the secret exit opening script from script 3 to a named script. Reason: I encountered a freeze when pushing that button when recording the video. It looks like a micro-freeze in the video, but in reality it was more than ten seconds long, I was about to kill the non-responding GZDoom from the Task Manager. Who knows how many "script 3"s the BD itself has? The only explanation to me is that GZDoom does not replace global numbered scripts with numbered map scripts but... adds? Some weird behavior here anyway.

[chebmaster]

Re-recorded map 18 walkthrough with a complete version that covers all secrets and with all buttins working properly. It is 4-part, breaking on jumping puzzles: I'm not young anymore to waste so much time on *perfect* playthroughs. Recorded walkthrough videos for the secret maps 40, 59 and 41(misses one secret).

 

BETA7:
    - map 18: fixed texture alignment on the burger joint's roof fans (scaled texture was rendered incorrectly in GZDoom only; worked fine in Zandronum)

    - map 40: fixed the fence around the starting roof so that your rockets won't blow in your face if you try shooting through it.
    - map 40: fixed the elevator doors clipping through corridor wall

[Firedust]

Are you doing these walkthroughs to ensure maps are 100%-able?

[chebmaster]

In part, yes, but mostly:
1 making sure that my latest changes did not break anything

2 checking compatibility with GZDoom. In theory, everything designed for Zandronum should have worked as is. In practice, there are lots of stupidiest incompatibilities, GZDoom works differently from Zandronum enough to break things: from various rendering glitches to outright broken secrets and thus ruined maxability, to ambushing monsters waking up where they shouldn't have.

 

Because, to be honest, I'm too worn out and too busy to do another full check.

[chebmaster]

Removed the walkthrough video of map 41.
Not only did I miss the most obvious secret (i forgot, shame on me) but, more importantly, aracnorbs -- unique monsters endemic to this map -- were as impressive as a cardboard dead fish. Won't do.

 

In my next beta, the aracnorbs -- in this case, stand-ins for DN octabrains -- will become much more FUN and engaging. All stone soup, mind you: there are enough script samples and leftover unused resources in BD/EDAY to cook up a real nasty piece of work.

[chebmaster]

New walkthrough videos for maps: 41, 42, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 47, 241, 242. Lots of imperfections and turns out I am too absent-minded to do editing properly, parts of some runs were re-recorded and added later -- so there WILL be inconsistences betveen parts.

 

BETA8:
    - general: reworked the aracnorb to make this rare monster much more FUN and engaging. As a stand-in for the DN octabrain, he now fires similar themed psionic blasts. Individual blasts only inflict 10 damage but are weakly homing and aracnorbs spam much, insta-firing aggressively, keeping re-firing with target out of sight and dashing to and fro randomly while firing. New sounds: KYARNACT, KYARNFIR, KYARNHIT1..4 - a remix of unused icon of sin sounds found in BD21 (ICOLAUG and ICOSCRE); new sprite frames: KYFR A..P ( a remix of PBAL and FX98)
    - general: fixed errors in my walkthrough
    - general: fixed a syntax error in LANGUAGE that was causing the name of map 242 to be missing

    - map 13: fixed a texturing error on the power line cables overhead between the entrance and the trainyard

    - map 18: fixed texture alignment on the burger joint's roof fans (scaled texture was rendered incorrectly in GZDoom only; worked fine in Zandronum)

    - map 41: changed the music to EDMU13
    - map 41: moved the outdoors aracnorbs so that they only see the player and engage after he detonates the condemned building and goes for the red key
    - map 41: corrected horizon when viewed from the high window in GZDoom (had no noticeable problems in Zandronum)
    - map 41: moved parts of the map geometry ( the area inacessibkle to the player) to the top layer. Reason: retreat-happy monsters like aracnorbs were getting lost behind buildings thus ruining maxability

    - map 42: fixed the super secret button that could be activated by simply punching the wall below it. The button is now not shootable -- you have to *press* it
    - map 42: fixed weird beahavior of the secret created by me (the climbable wall was emitting button press sounds when player touched or moved over it -- this never happened in Zandronum)
    - map 42: fixed one secret not marked as a secret
    - map 42: fixed minor texturing errors

    - map 19: made trains less solid to decrease the chance of them getting stuck on monster guts. Also added monster pushers to all walls of the second timed sequence, to keep monsters away from walls where the train's side walls (still solid!) may get caught on their corpses

    - map 23: replaced the teleporting of cyberdemon minions with monster closets, also upgraded multiplyer minions from cyberdemon runts to regular cyberdemons

 

The map geometry I moved from the physical layer to the illusionary skybox layer were the buildings. Now the actual map ends at that concrete fence. If you watch the corresponding video you'll see I had to use noclip to hunt for that last aracnorb to max this map: the bugger got behind one of those decorative buildings and fell asleep.

 

This is how the fixed version organized: that yard is a box with walls of sky, nowhere to get lost:

 

 

 

Edited February 10 by chebmaster

[Firedust]

Geez, how many maps are there in E-Day? I've been keeping a close eye on your updates, and there seem to be loads.

[chebmaster]

26 minutes ago, Firedust said:

Geez, how many maps are there in E-Day? I've been keeping a close eye on your updates, and there seem to be loads.

35 regular maps + 5 secret maps = 40 :D

Originally, there were 32 + 3 = 35 but I kept splitting end-map boss arenas into separate maps and bringing back cut content from older versions.

[chebmaster]

1..5, 061, 062, 7..18, 40, 59, 41, 42, 19..23, 47, 241, 242, 25..30, 311, 312, 32.