Science & Industry (rc3)

[Portponky]

 

Science & Industry is a collection of challenging maps requiring the player to understand and utilize both science and industry to complete.

 

IWAD: Doom2
Complevel: 9 (Boom)
Source port: dsda-doom (recommended) gzdoom (tested)
Rules: No freelook, no jumping, no crouching, pistol starts
Maps: map01 to map13

DOWNLOAD: https://shamblessoftware.co.uk/science/science-rc3.zip

 

This is a rather unusual set of levels I have been working on for a while. They're definitely for the more experienced doom players, as there are strong slaughter elements throughout the wad, but overall it is not a difficult wad when utilizing science and industry fully. Each level is quite short, in the five to ten minute range, but may pose quite a ridiculous challenge initially.

 

Due to the esoteric nature of these levels, I kindly request that bug reports (outside of cosmetic ones) are spoiler tagged.

 

Screenshots inside the spoiler:

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edit:

RC2 - Updates to map02, map03, map07, map11 and map12. 

Edit:

RC3 - Updates to map03, map10, and map12. Also 

Edited February 6 by Portponky
Update download link

[Midas]

Strong caco-award contender here. Really dig the red look of the red map.

[besus]

Congrats on release! Can't wait to start utilizing science and maybe perhaps industry also.
 

Spoiler

1

 

[SoBad]

Excellent wad. Can't wait to try the last few maps. And even can't wait-er for the anti-science crowd to complain about the difficulty.

[LadyMistDragon]

Well, I tried for a bit.:P

 

 

 

 

[plums]

I'm not good enough to play most of these maps normally. I am however clever enough to abuse exploits, savescumming, and the occasional rewind to get through most of them. I wonder how much, if any, of this was intended? Anyhow have some boring and bad but cheeky and maybe map-breaking fda/demos, -dsdademo 0.27.5. Big spoilers for anyone who watches.

 

https://user.fm/files/v2-b2921bbda164ee624f482deb098586a5/science_plumsfdas.zip

 

 

edit: I figured out how to do 02, another exploit, this has to be intended though right?? big spoiler again.

 

Spoiler

platform across lowering green blocks

 

edit2: the only one I can't get now is 04, though some of them (9 in particular) are still pretty hard so I'm either missing something or they're just hard with all despite all the science you can use. Just to make sure, on MAP04:

Spoiler

that switch you trigger by shooting is supposed to be set so monsters can't activate it, right?

 

Edited February 1 by plums

[Portponky]

Thanks for all the comments and the playthrough video and demos. Unfortunately plums, your demos for maps 10 and 11 desynced for me.

 

plums map02

Spoiler

Sounds like you've got some good science going on there

 

plums map04

Spoiler

yeah... I forgot about that at the time. I thought only mancs, revs and arachs could trigger certain walk lines? I don't recall the exact logic for it.

 

plums map12

Spoiler

What did you do in your demo here? It looked like a linedef skip, but then you did it again straight after... just lucky? I don't understand how you prevented the enemies from spawning in the outside area (although that is, of course, highly scientific).

 

[plums]

map 12: just lucky pure skill 😎

 

Spoiler

SR50 linedef skip the first time, fairly reliable with that much space. The second one surprised me too, though.

 

I get 10 desyncing, it's probably a combination of save-spam plus rewind, a bit surprised at 11 though. Can't rewatch now but I'll try it later.

[dashlet]

Really fun and cool mapset. Enjoyed a lot the esoteric setups and puzzle aspects. Sometimes i was wondering if what i was doing its right or not, good stuff. Anyways talking about stuff that seems like a exploit or not:

 

Spoiler

In map03 you can do two archviles jumps that pretty much skips the entire pacifist/infight arena. They are both very consistent and easy to pull off despite they needing a bit of luck to execute well. Not sure if this its an intended strategy, but i find it more fun to do then slowly making everything infight. Anyways here are some demos showcasing both jumps: science_dash03.zip 

 

Also im not sure how to complete map04. First i thought i needed the chaingunners to hit the switch, but it seems to not work. Trying the red skull key fight seems like suicide, so im 100% sure im missing some science knowledge.

 

edit: map04 solved, amazing stuff.

 

Edited February 2 by dashlet

[Portponky]

Hi dashlet, thanks for playing! About map03...

 

Spoiler

The first demo was the intended amount of science & industry. Second demo was neat, too! RC2 will make some serious changes to this map to make pacifist infighting much less viable. I underestimated how patient and careful players can be.

 

[plums]

OK, I beat MAP04.

 

Spoiler

 

Everything is fine, I too thought you were supposed to get the chaingunners to hit the switch at first, and was asking to make sure this wasn't the case. But then I did realize you can get the Baron to be a lab assistant, and got through OK.

 

Having gone through all the maps it's clear that at least most of what I did was intended. The reason I wasn't sure at first is because some of my solutions seemed overly laborious or degenerate, and also that most levels were pretty easy to manage but some were still quite tough. But it's possible that there are other ways through that I didn't figure out (like dashlet's strat for MAP03; I was pretty sure making things infight one at a time wasn't the only way to do things), and/or that a better player doesn't need to, say, spend 20 minutes opening and closing a door.

 

I would be interested in peer-reviewing someone else's science to see how some things are supposed to be done.

 

 

[plums]

As for cosmetic-type bugs, the music for MAP09 takes a few seconds to start, and a very long time to repeat. I can probably fix this for you if you want.

[Portponky]

6 hours ago, plums said:

As for cosmetic-type bugs, the music for MAP09 takes a few seconds to start, and a very long time to repeat. I can probably fix this for you if you want.

 

That'd be fantastic.

[plums]

https://user.fm/files/v2-4e5e07f93a043f9d3b8e156a052332c7/science-fixes.wad
 

Spoiler

 

Also contains vertically tiling skies; you can see the seam on the first sky on MAP03 when you do it the intended way. Making this sky tile changes it a bit so it's up to you if you want it or not, no worries if not. The second sky shouldn't matter at all but also it was very easy to do so I just did it for fun.

 

Speaking of MAP03, on non-ZDoom software ports the edge of the water wiggles a lot, if you break up the big 8192 length lines into 1024 length segments it should be a lot less noticeable.

 

 

Edited February 2 by plums

[SoBad]

Just finished the last few maps while ponky breathed heavy and wet over my shoulder. Even that couldn't ruin this wad. Give it a try or risk never being invited to the cool parties.

[Portponky]

On 2/2/2024 at 10:43 AM, plums said:

https://user.fm/files/v2-4e5e07f93a043f9d3b8e156a052332c7/science-fixes.wad
 

 

Thanks a ton, I've integrated these changes into rc3 which will probably be the final version. I'll need to add credits/thanks to the readme file too.

[JohnKeesler]

On 2/2/2024 at 4:13 PM, plums said:

https://user.fm/files/v2-4e5e07f93a043f9d3b8e156a052332c7/science-fixes.wad
 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Also contains vertically tiling skies; you can see the seam on the first sky on MAP03 when you do it the intended way. Making this sky tile changes it a bit so it's up to you if you want it or not, no worries if not. The second sky shouldn't matter at all but also it was very easy to do so I just did it for fun.

 

Speaking of MAP03, on non-ZDoom software ports the edge of the water wiggles a lot, if you break up the big 8192 length lines into 1024 length segments it should be a lot less noticeable.

 

 

Thanks, I appreciate you :)