ALIENS: The Total Conversion - Doomworld /idgames database frontend

Title:	ALIENS: The Total Conversion
Filename:	themes/aliens/alientc2.zip
Size:	906.67 KB
Date:	11/03/94
Author:	Justin Fisher
Description:
Credits:
Base:
Build time:
Editor(s) used:
Bugs:
Rating:	(55 votes) Log in at the Doomworld forums to comment.

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Reviews:

Anonymous	The feeling and design weren't actually very bad back in the day - I tried to play this in 1996 :-p - . I wrote "tried to" because, like other pre-1.9 Sprite & DEH using TC's, it was very harsh on your Doom 2 installation (screwed everything up, hard to install/uninstall, bug-ridden). Not bad in any case, just very hard to use with anything short of vanilla Doom2.exe v1.666, take or leave. 3/5	x
Anonymous	Greatest mod ever.	x
Anonymous	This is a horrible wad! There is SOOOO many misaligned textures. If you have Doom 1.9, forget about loading the level, cuz the dehacked patch is not compatible with the doom version you have. Unless you can figure out how to load that crud without probs, chunck it out of your hard drive.	x

View alientc2.txt

A L | E N S 
                            ===========                    
                        The Total Conversion.

Doom conversion by Justin Fisher.
                  With Secret Level by Richard Love.

(New Installation by O.Montanuy)

My Internet address is: MISC335@csc.canterbury.ac.nz  so send
heaps of feedback everyone.

In this file:
First, a brief guide to getting AliensTC to work,
Second, a guide on how to play it. (AliensTC doesn't play like
     doom, and there are a few fundamental differences, I
     strongly recommend you read this before playing Aliens
     the first time.)
Third, everything else.

PART ONE - Setting up Aliens TC.

You need Doom version 1.2, or 1.666, it must be a registered.

*************************Modified*Installation*******************************

This part is written by Olivier Montanuy, as a replacement
 to the original installation. If you have problem with this 
 installation, mail montanuy@dmi.ens.fr. 
 Do not bother Justin Fisher.

Why do I propose this new installation?
   - It takes less Disk space, due to the new DeuSF append command 
   - You won't need to unistall ALIEN TC.
   - Your main DOOM.WAD will never be modified.
   - I deleted about 800k of waste data (data unreferenced in
    the PWAD directory. It happens with obsolete tools...look
    at the duplicated sounds in :-) DOOM 1.666 !!!) 
   - DeuSF has built-in support for DOOM 1.2 1.666 and DOOM2 :-)
   - This new installation is supported by Justin Fisher.
     (written agreement by e-mail, and new .txt file).

Remark:
 This install does not change the Dehacked/string patches.
 To make the installation of Alien-TC completely safe, the modified 
 DOOM.EXE appears as ALIENTC.EXE. It can only run (properly) AlienTC files.
 Your DOOM.WAD will be only read, and not modified at all.

All the files that make up AliensTC should be put in the same
 directory that DOOM 1.2 or 1.6 is in.
 All of the following files must be present:

INSTALL.EXE	 -INSTALL PROGRAM
     ALIENTC.TXT         -YOU'RE READING IT.
     DEHACKED.EXE        -.EXE EDITOR for DOOM 1.2 and 1.666
     DMSTR.EXE           -STRING EDITOR for DOOM 1.2
     DEUSF.EXE		 -A new SPRITE&FLAT utility 
     ALITCSF.WAD	 -PWAD for SPRITES and FLATS
     ALITCWAD.WAD	 -PWAD for LEVELS, DEMO and WALL PATCHES
     ALITCSND.WAD	 -PWAD for SOUNDS
     ALITCP16.DEH	 -DOOM 1.666 .EXE PATCH
     ALITCP12.DEH	 -DOOM 1.2 .EXE PATCH
     ALITCS12.DEH	 -DOOM 1.2 .EXE STRING PATCH
     ALIEN.BAT		 -batch to play Alien TC
     *.TXT		 -manuals and informations.

Note: When distributing Aliens-TC, you need only include the 
  above files, the files listed below will be created during 
  the installation, but you must give ALL of the above files to 
  get the desired result. However, If Alien-TC has been installed,
  you will need to restore ALITCSF.WAD by typing:  DeuSF -restore ALITCSF.WAD
  before you distribute it again, else it will contains copyrighted data.

To istall on DOOM 1.666, simply type 	INSTALL
To install on DOOM 1.2, type 		INSTALL 0

To play, simply type ALIEN, and hit enter.

You should not have any problem. I successfuly tested this 
install more than once, and heaven knows my PC is bug prone.
Even if installation fails, bear in mind that your precious
DOOM files are *not* affected :-)

WARNING: if you lack space on your disk, the modification of ALITCSF.WAD 
will fail. ALITCSF.WAD will still be usable, but some junk data might
have been appended at the end, making it unsuitable for distribution.
Replace by the original one.

************************Shameless*Plug****************************
  *                                                                *
  * This install makes use of a new tool called DeuSF              *
  * If this tool suits your need, check also my PWAD composer      *
  * named DeuTex, which I used to ripp off and rebuild AlienTC.    *
  *  (infant2.sphs.indiana.edu:/pub/doom/deu/deutex2?.zip)         *
  *                                                                *
  *************************So*Flame*Me******************************

Note for DOOM2 users:

Al|en TC cannot work under DOOM2. Howver the sprites, flats and sounds
 PWAD should work directly under DOOM2, the dehacked patch might also work,
 but still the level names must be changed, and care must be taken for 
 potentially missing textures.

Supporting Justin Fisher:

For those interested, here is his snail mail address.

Justin Fisher
	7 Nepal pl
	Christchurch 5
	New Zealand

(Hey, ID, it might be still time to ask him for a C.V...)

**********************End*Of*Modifications****************************

PART TWO - Playing the game!

The Story so far...    (Skip this if you want to)

LB4-26. The terraforming colony has stopped transmitting
or responding. There is a possibility that this is the result
of an unknown parasitic alien species. Against this
possibility, a military force has been mobilised to
investigate. 
This information comes from Flight Officer Ripley, she claims
the Nostramos set down on LB 4-26 in order to investigate a
transmission, an unidentified alien ship was discovered. While
exploring the ship, a crew member was disabled by an alien
parasite, which deposited an egg inside him before dying.
He became host to an embryo and was killed as it exited his
body. The alien quickly grew and began to attack crew, usually
capturing them, we assume for food. Flight Officer Ripley was
the only survivor, she destroyed the xenomorph by opening an
airlock when the alien was inside. 
     According to Officer Ripley, the original parasite came
from a large "egg", and that there were thousands of such eggs
in the hold of the alien vessel. If this is correct, and
members of the colony found the alien ship, there may be
hostile alien activity in or around the colony. Your job is to
find out why the colony has stopped responding, and if a
xenomorph is involved, destroy it.
     [Classified] Ensure that live samples are secured for
     laboratory study.

Firstly, this game is built around suspense and atmosphere,
you can completely destroy this by using cheats to find out in
advance what everything is. (ooh, I wanna see an alien, Light
Amp cheat, degreelessness, happy ammo etc.) RESIST THE
TEMPTATION! The first time you play this will be the best. Not
knowing what is around the next corner is what doom is all
about, in other words, when you use cheats, there is only one
possible outcome - you complete the level, there is absolutely
no challenge, which means there is no FUN.
As I said, the first time you play a level is the best, I've
put a lot of work into this conversion and I require that you
enjoy it :-), these are a few basic requirements
1) pull the curtains and turn out the lights
2) turn down the monitor brightness so that what is meant to
be dark is actually dark.
3) set aside at least an hour when there will be little
distracting background noise.
4) Set the music to about half the volume of the sound FX (so
it's there, but not consciously there)
5) read the rest of this file (-:
6) Play until your nervous system is overriding your motor
control and you can't stop shaking long enough to calm your
heart...
Now, back to the subject.

AliensTC differs from doom in a few ways;

For starters, some standard doom tactics either don't work, or
result in quick and messy death, don't approach this as
another doom conversion, treat it like something new, pay
attention, don't slip into Auto-kill-&-Collect mode and finish
the game while thinking of other things, get immersed, look at
the architecture, predict the layout and how it affects your
plans etc.

Switches - they don't automatically do something good,
think before switching them, you should be able to work out
what they do. A switch next to a door operates that door,
there are three obvious types -
     Green switch; opens the door for either 6 seconds or
          until it is closed with another switch.
     Green and Red switch; same as above, but usually only
          opens for 6 seconds.
     Red switch; these operate security doors, once hit, the
          door closes permanently. These can be used to seal
          off areas of the colony, forcing the aliens to find
          an alternative route, and allowing much better
          defense planning, even adding and element of
          strategy to the game. (Also, in some cases these
          will show up on your automap at the start of the
          game, make use of the automap.)
     Switches usually operate something in the immediate
vicinity (eg a lift, door, landing platform), if you can't see
anything for it to operate, take a risk. :-)

Weapons - you can have up to six weapons at any one time, they
are; Fists: Not a good idea
     Pistol: Still not a good idea
     Shotgun: Good all purpose weapon, (you're all familiar
          with these three)
     Pulse Rifle: Combination weapon - 10mm Assault rifle with
          underslung grenade launcher. Press 4 to use the
          rifle, or 5 to use its grenade launcher, (generally
          not a good idea...  , BTW I used some artistic
          license on this one, you can tell which setting
          you're using by the colour of the LCD display,    
          Green - rifle, red - Grenades.)
     Smart Gun: The 2 metre electric monsters on the
          suspension-arms, carried by Drake and Vasquez. These
          are pretty specialised and there isn't much ammo for
          them, save it for those special moments.
     Cargo bay Loader: Not designed for combat but pretty
          intimidating, a last ditch attack when you've run
          out of ammo. (Replaces the Fists when you get it.)
I have left a few of these weapon changes pretty superficial,
as they are nicely balanced, but there are still a few subtle
changes. Note: I have disabled weapon 7 in such a way as to be
a liability to those who cheat :)  (ie, it will slow you down when
you can least afford it)

The Missions - Each level roughly corresponds to a part of the
film (Aliens. If you havn't seen it, it doesn't matter but it
is a great film.), and you will find each level a lot more
coherent if you know what you're meant to be doing.
     Level 1 - Secure the area before moving on further into
               the complex.
     Level 2 - Atmospheric Processor; find the colonists,
               their PDTs indicate they are all deep in the 
               lower levels of the plant.
     Level 3 - Medlabs & Operations; seal off medlabs and
               operations closing the security doors and
               blowing away whatever gets through. Caution -
               there are too many aliens to take out yourself
               so _use_ the security doors and don't be afraid
               to retreat. (Stealth is a good idea) When
               Medlabs is secure, crawl down the main         
               pipeline to the landing pad. (to patch         
               in the colony transmitter.)                    
     Level 4 - Escape from Medlabs; like a normal Doom level,
               retreat from medlabs and try to get to the
               landing pads. 
     Level 5 - In the film, the marines made their escape from
               the Atmospheric Processor on the APC. You
               don't have one, Slog it out on foot. (This
               level is designed for deathmatch, and is big, 
               to aid in "The Hunt", there are proximity
               indicators scattered throughout. This was meant
               to be E2M3, but I had to shift it to allow the
               secret level to work properly.
     Level 6 - Atmospheric Processor; the search for Newt,
               find the sector indicated on your automap (red
               square). This is another good deathmatch
               scenario - very non-linear.
     Level 7 - Atmospheric Processor; escape from the hive
               and try to make it back to the Processor
               landing pad.             
     Level 8 - The Sulacco; Destroy the Queen and complete the
               episode!
Secret Level - The derelict alien host ship. This level was
               made by Richard Love, hence is the only level 
               I have played in which I didn't know what is 
               coming next - ie playing my creation the way 
               others will. It was terrifying. It was great.

Extra Levels - (E3L1), originally part of E2M5 D-match wad,
               the wad was so huge it didn't run at a playable
               speed, let alone networked. I split it, and
               made this half a level on it's own.
               Play this on Ultra Violence to see what yer
               made of! It's probably the hardest level, even
               I find this one a challenge.

(E3L2), Level one with a slightly larger
               populace...
               Just a bit o' fun.

There is no unstable nukage in Aliens, the nearest thing is 
filthy water. Hence barrels do NOT explode (I know you'll all
hate that one, but I had no choice - Doom just doesn't have
enough damage frames.), and lakes of water will not harm you 
either. Sorry :)

That's all you _need_ to know.

The Aliens - There are five main types; Warriors, Drones,
Queens, Face Huggers, and Eggs. Be warned, the aliens have
extremely corrosive internal fluids, if you fill them with too
much lead or grenades, the result will be a shower of lethal
bio-acid. Eggs hatch, so shoot them quick. Drones can spit
bio-acid at you (I put that in for more variety, it can get
monotonous if all the foes are too similar.), you've proved
yourselves to dangerous to the hive to be captured, the
warriors will just concentrate on ripping you to shreds, but
that doesn't mean a frontal assault...
      
Proximity indicators - These are blue panels inset in the
walls of some levels. When you walk past one, two red lights
flash back and forth for 30 seconds. These are for Deathmatch.
I like _big_ d-match levels, the concept of The Hunt, the
problem is, players leave so little evidence of passage - the
occasional sound, or corpse (which could have been there since
who knows when.) The proximity indicators just make the
hunting a little easier. (And introduce new tactics with
players who use them.)

Speaking of Deathmatch....
All levels in TC are designed with deathmatch in mind, ie E2M2
is a fairly linear level, but in d-match, you start with all
keys which changes the level into the non-linear style so
vital to d-match. Most levels (with the possible exception of
E2L7) work well for d-match without needing the remove-
monsters option (v1.666), as you do not _have_ to encounter
them to meet your opponent, but the option is there...

Now play the game! (type Aliens to install, Doom to play)

PART THREE - Everything else.

More background information:

The Xenomorph - There appear to be several stages to the
xenomorphs life cycle, and two, possibly three distinct types.
Comparison to an ant colony is a suitable analogy, using that
analogy, the types are Warriors, Queens, and Drones. It is not
known whether drones exist differently to warriors, it is
possible that the warriors perform the tasks of drones, but in
most other similar observed social structures, both warriors
and drones exist and are of a different makeup. In Xenomorph
hives, we suspect that when a warrior (or drone) is removed
from it's queen for a long period of time, it develops into a
queen, able to lay eggs and hence create a new hive. This
suggests that a queen somehow limits the growth of aliens
around it, probably a secreted chemical. 
     The life cycle is equally fascinating. The queen "lays"
large eggs, these eggs are capable of staying dormant for
extremely long periods of time (how long is unknown), and yet
still hatch quickly after being disturbed. a fully developed
"facehugger" hatches from them. These are the parasitic
element of the life cycle, they are like large fleshy spiders.
When a host is found, the parasite attaches itself over the
face (hence the name) by means of its long legs and tail
(which is wrapped around the neck), whereupon it inserts a
tube down the trachea, and deposits an egg or embryo under the
rib cage. The egg will grow for about a week before leaving
the host body by breaking through the ribcage. (resulting in
the death of the host), the small "chestburster" then rapidly
grows into either a queen or warrior. 
The Warriors capture hosts and immobilize them in the hive for
the facehuggers (from eggs layed by the queen, and presumably
nurtured by the drones.).
     At all stages in the life cycle, the alien has extremely
corrosive body fluids, pressurised under the exoskeleton or
skin. The fluids are a sort of biological acid, and is much
stronger than concentrated HCl.

I'm tempted to give more detailed account of the hardware in
the film, but I won't.

Bugs in ALIENS-TC.

There are none. My work is flawless :-) 
No, the effects of selecting weapon 7 under the ammo cheat is 
not a bug, it's me being nasty to people who cheat.
Alright;
There are a few inconsistencies, most notably Apone and others
giving advice when, in the movie analog, they wouldn't be
present. (or alive). 
Doom v1.2 has a limit of 16 transparent linedefs onscreen, if 
you get a lot more than this, you start getting huge chunks of 
HOM (Hall Of Mirrors) effect. 16 two-sided linedefs isn't much,
and in some places, I have had to exceed this. The worst areas
are the outdoor part of E2M3, and the cargo bay in E2M8. Step
back for a panoramic view and you may end up with sections of
the screen flashing.
In E2M4, at the start where the aliens fall through the roof, 
some of them don't...  When that happens, if you walk to close
to them, you will run against them like an obsticle, and start
taking damage as they merrily rake you. I can't figure out why 
they don't fall like the rest, so you're stuck with it.
I suspect there are a few other minor bugs, but none spring to
mind right now.
It's not really a bug, But the Queen alien graphics are a bit of 
a mess. I have a good excuse. The queen graphics were made from
video shots of a model, the problem was, I don't own any of the
equipment necessary, which resulted in time and other constraints,
the most destructive being the lack of light control (it wasn't in
a studio), resulting in different light effects through different
frames. I was able to compensate to a degree on the resulting 
images by converting them to 24bit and using light filters, but 
the resulting queen is still very patchy and irregular.

Things-I-didn't-have-time-to-put-in-but-will-in-the-supplement
LOTS of things. The episode map at the end of each level, a
better smartgun explosion, lots more destroyable scenery, an
egg-laying queen hanging from the nest roof, A proper sky   
texture, better sounds, lots of things...

Making your own Aliens-TC levels.
I doubt it, but if anyone really wants to make a TC level,
send me Email, so I can send you info on what goes where, what
replaces what etc. It'll be a real mess otherwise.

Weird and unconstant Things:
I ran out of graphics and Things when making this conversion, 
the result is massive and chaotic frame table patches (so I 
could steal every sprite not otherwise in use), if you want
to see how doom runs without the graphics patches, but _with_
the .EXE patches, just run DOOMEXE instead of DOOM, the 
results are...  strange

Thanks to: (in no particular order)

Richard Love - for creating level 9, (the secret level) and
          the textures peculiar to it.
Glenn Fisher - for writing the custom editors, and the 
          ALIENS.EXE file.
Me - For doing all the hard work! (Nobody reads this bit
          anyway, so why not :)
Darryn Pat - for the use of the video blaster (to scan the 
          queen model.)
Darryn Yee - for supplying all sorts of things necessary for
          scanning a model, including his home :-)   
Jordan Yee - for supplying the model alien queen to be 
          scanned.
My 486 - for being so reliable, fast and having 24bit graphics
          Vesa is an absolute _must_.         
Morpheus - for sending me nodebuilders, and giving me extra D/L
          time on his BBS.
IKON Attendees - for giving the beta a thorough playtesting. 
          (It's much better now) :)
ID Software - Take a guess... a wild stab in the dark, you
          shouldn't miss at point blank.
Terry Pratchett - For giving DOOM exemption from the idea that
          VR should complement rather than replace reality.
The authors of all the editors, viewers, nodebuilders, hacks, 
          FAQ's, out there. 
The many people who have aided by telling me where I could
          find various utilities, giving me new editors etc.
To anyone even remotely connected with this, who would like a
          mention. (That was it. Oh, you blinked?)
Me, Again...

That's it for now, and in case you missed my name and net
address (which I've blatantly plastered everywhere I could), 
send feedback, comments, problems, criticism etc to:

J.Fisher@csc.canterbury.ac.nz

And above all, DISTRIBUTE Aliens-TC! (I want to see how far 
it will get :-)

BTW, if anyone is interested in what I'm doing next (The hope 
is that everyone says "WOW, this guy is a GENIUS!, I can't 
_wait_ to see what he does next... :-)" ), but if anyone _is_
interested, with the advent of Doom Ver1.666, which allows 64
instead of just 16 two-sided linedefs, it's time to make some
M C Escher style rooms, probably as a part of a larger
wad loosely based on the film "Labyrinth" (no, I have no idea how 
you spell it.) where they can form rooms of Jareths castle.
Another thing I would like to do is actually make a wad which
uses the _origional_ doom textures, they are increadible graphics
and it seems such a shame to continually over-write them, and
I'm sure I can use them in ways people never thought of before.
(No offence all you level builders, but in my (not excessivly vast) 
experience of Pwad levels, the true doom levels, especially episode
one, still reign supreme in pure imagination. Especially when 
you compare them to the ever growing number of Pwads that are
just based on a simplistic concept, ie when viewed in automap, the
rooms form words, or the whole wad is so repetitive that you only
need to see a tiny bit to be able to draw the whole thing - a circle
divided into pie slices, four rooms that connect throught the middle
(popular idea in many D-match wads, the reason invariably being
"equal starting points" (I prefer more varied hunting grounds). etc
As you can see from reading this, I really like interesting locations
and archetecture, (rather than levels made up of rooms connected by
doors and corridors, of which I am often guilty) Even with it's 
limits, doom can make fantastic worlds, places that have never 
existed, or ever will. The power to experience a world of your own 
creation is what I like about making doom locations, (and I'm getting 
better too :-), I know a few will disagree - there are many Pwad 
levels in which the effort has been put into gameplay, rather than 
enviroment, leaving default textures, not worrying about unpegging 
doorways etc. I hope Aliens-TC has a high level of both elements, 
let me know what you thought.

'Till the next virtual creation then...
(If I can find some free time... :-(

mong