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Posted by Lunaran [68.51.209.251] on 2004/12/15 04:42:44

I figured it was time I started a thread for the mod. In a nutshell, Byzantine is my Doom3 SP project. It is not, despite rumor, a remake of CASSPQ1 (see pq.com/teamshambler for more), but if you played them both they'd probably remind you of each other. I have three SP maps planned.
I also have a host of gameplay alterations planned, most of which I already have sorted. (everybody already knows I didn't like the combat.) I made a quick and somewhat dirty DMSP-style map to test the altered monster/weapon balance, which I'm letting you fiends at it because I wasn't getting much feedback with a closed test.
That and it turned out to be brilliant fun and I have to share. :)
[ http://www.lunaran.com/files/byzan... ]
The instructions and additional information are all in the included .txt. If you downloaded earlier versions, this one doesn't have anything wrong with it and will actually work.
Give it a play and post back here with your thoughts. I know the map is ugly, and it's just a test map so don't bother telling me, but let me know how the monsters and weapons and feedback and stuff all feel.
Also, we can compare scores. :) The standing record on Medium skill is 280, in 29:20, by me.

Some Tips
#1 posted by Lunaran [68.51.209.251] on 2004/12/15 04:48:04
Don't give maggots a clear shot for takeoff. It hurts when they do that.
The ugly green Trites are best killed at a distance. Acid for blood and all that, you know.
If an Archvile can see you but doesn't have a clear shot for his flame wall, he may pull an old trick. You've been warned.
Armor shards will always add 5 to your armor and are therefore your friend - especially once you get the red armor. Pick them up every chance you get, because if you grab a red armor and it all gets shot off, you go back to green.
The chaingun is for killing Hell Knights. End of story. You could try it on a Baron of Hell too but you're better off running away.
Dodging into the lift is a great way to make an escape. Dodging in too late and getting cornered in it is a great way to get yourself killed.
#2 posted by Blitz [66.31.112.116] on 2004/12/15 05:17:14
In before Dune comment.
Lunaran
#3 posted by nitin [138.217.4.99] on 2004/12/15 06:16:06
I dont have d3 so cant test the map out, do you have any other documentation on this project that you are willing to share? I'd be interested in taking a look if its alright.
Well
#4 posted by Lunaran [68.51.209.251] on 2004/12/15 06:55:34
I've got the whole design doc written but I don't really pass that out. I can summarize however.
You play the captain of the interstellar shipping vessel Byzantine, which is currently locked in a kind of under-the-table contract with the Yatsura corporation. You're on a trip hauling a pretty hefty cargo they've just dumped on you, without telling you much about the contents, when you're awoken from hypersleep to make repairs on an internal system on the engineering level.
Once you're up, however, it becomes clear that this mysterious cargo of yours is waking up and escaping, and is marginally hungry. This complicates matters to the degree that you criss-cross the ship running damage control until ultimately you have to make your way across the monster-infested storage deck to escape the ship with your life.
Provided no big complaints come in from people playing the test I'll be able to go ahead and start mapping. A few people in #tf seemed interested in making their own maps for it, which they're more than welcome to, but for the moment they'll just have to deal with it being a limited weapon/monster set, since I'm going to concentrate on getting my bit done before worrying about anybody else's. :)
It's Fun
#5 posted by BlackDog [202.72.148.102] on 2004/12/15 08:01:00
I'll play a bit more, then waffle for you.
Well.
#6 posted by Shambler [82.38.194.13] on 2004/12/15 09:07:51
I've tested it a bit recently, and the one thought that is most prominent in my mind is "Why?".
I know you're changing things to suit the theme of Byzantine but I think you're ending up in the somewhat uninspiring grey area between maps and conversions. I.e. changing some bits of the original game so it loses the feel of the original, but not changing enough so it feels like a different game - thus ending up with it feeling like a less cool version of Doom3 rather than a cool conversion in it's own right.
Specifically the weapon tweaks are of little interest and minor effect, and the lack of various monsters is....well, lacking.
Now, you're making the choice to do that, for whatever reason, and some people might like it, but so far I don't think I'm going to - at least, I'm not going to like it as much.
...
But anyway, to give feedback on what I've experienced:
Changed damage effects: GOOD but could be better. Certainly better than the mutant vertical owl neck, but having a certain amount of owl neck for particularly vicious attacks would be good - i.e. not as much as D3's owl neck, but, say, proportionately to the damage there should be some owl neck, as it does give a "serious" feel to the damage.
Changed armour: OKAY but fairly pointless. D3's armour system was okay and a little more realistic.
Shotgun burst: OKAY on it's own, GOOD if combined with a double shotgun. Swings and roundabouts really - more versatile but slightly less easy to aim. *Shrug*.
Machine Gun change: Pointless IMO. Adds nothing, I prefered the MG as it was.
Chaingun change: Pointless IMO, apart from increased magazine which is GOOD. Otherwise the spinup changes etc adds little, perhaps more versatile for facing smaller monsters but there's other weapons for that.
Grenade Launcher: GOOD, actually makes grenades useful, even though it's cliched. Reckon you should go with a slightly smaller magazine as they are powerful (4 to kill a Hellknight).
...
Lack of tech monsters: BAD. Some of the coolest monsters were tech =/.
Trite etc toughness increase: Don't like it, I think it's better to have them as a small puny monster you can use in hordes.
Maggot toughness increase: Pointless IMO. Can see the reasoning, but not keen on it.
Teleporting monster changes: GOOD, they do seem to teleport a bit better and be more unnerving. Cloaking effect is neat but could be a bit more prominent?
Sergeant Imps: BAD apart from fireball quake. Reskinning existing monsters to make them into similar new monsters is a cardinal conversion sin. If you remodelled them to look a bit tougher and had an only slightly changed skin, that would be GOOD.
Barons Of Hell: Ditto, but didn't get to see much of that.
Archvile changes: the lack of resurrection is BAD and turns a genuinely scary (in gameplay turns) monster into one that has neat attacks but lacks the same essential malevolence. New attack is GOOD but doesn't quite compensate.
...
Ummm yes so overall I don't really like it as much, I think it's very much a mixed bag. Some changes are definitely good, some don't have any point, and some make things worse. Not going to put me off trying it but the way you're changing it is not really to my taste.
Now, About That Waffle
#7 posted by BlackDog [202.72.148.102] on 2004/12/15 11:28:00
I like this. I've had more fun killing stuff in byzdmsp1 than anywhere in D3, simply because more is going on. The movement, monster and mapstyle changes all lead to a nice variety of tactical situations and options which are largely lacking in Doom, and the result is more entertaining and worthwhile demon-butchering.
These are some of the things I felt could do with changing.
Shotgun: Although the new spread is more useable and far preferable, I felt a distinct lack of power using the weapon. I remember in Doom 2 being able one-shell-kill at least four different guys - there's no such effectiveness against the lower tier of monsters here, making the gun a bit lightweight. With a double-barreled fire for close-up work it could feel more dependable, but I think it just needs a bit more damage.
Grenade launcher: I didn't like this one. The slight firing delay is a pain in the ass, the trajectory feels a bit too low, and it's far too easy to lose track of the grenade (the skin could easily be more colourful). The explosion seemed a bit too powerful, both in splash-damage and monster-smooshage. Again, that delay... urgh.
Chaingun: Not bad, but unlike the other weapons I never seem to get the number of confirmed hits it feels I should, unless I'm aiming at something huge. More accuracy perhaps?
Trites: More interesting to fight, but perhaps a little tough. Feature request: I always felt it was a shame that you couldn't blow the legs clean off these things.
Arch-vile: Now a suitably tough mofo as God intended. Er, I find fighting an AV quite strange - you are punished for staying away from the monster with a very hard to dodge attack, and rewarded for being within hugging distance with the almost-useless swipe attack. In between is that more normal firetrail thing. The resulting gameplay just doesn't feel right.
Barons of Hell: Now they fire vore-balls. :( I'm not a fan of player-tracking missiles, although these aren't as unrewardingly brutal as some.
Armour: Three differently coloured armours doesn't seem to fit with your theme and just looks like a Quake ripoff, right down to the colours. The gameplay isn't harmed, but something less derivative would be nice.
Summary: very much worth doing. Go finish it.
#8 posted by Zwiffle [69.210.49.54] on 2004/12/15 16:07:53
I like it. Thumbsup.
Map is well balanced IMO. Small, but cover is VERY useful, usually not hindering of movement. Infighting is a welcome addition, adjustments feel very natural to me (3 or 4 shotgun blasts to kill an imp, machine gun dmg increased etc.) Awesome job so far, will be playing until my interest runs out. :D
We Love Log!
#9 posted by czg [81.191.27.124] on 2004/12/15 16:30:46
<czg> ok, the grenade launcher shouldn't have a firing delay, the grenades should be more visible, I dunno what the fuck was up with the blue flash when you fire a grenade, I think the stronger maggots and imps were just more annoying, the new archvile was cool, the new chaingun was cool, the new machinegun was ok but felt weak, the new Barons were pretty indistinguishable from the knights, and there was a new type of imp? I didn't notice.
<czg> oh and the three armor types was pretty useless in the time I played because I never noticed the difference between them really...
<czg> and the testboxmap was ugly. damn you lun for making ugly boxmaps!
<czg> I hated the cacodemons too but that's not your fault lun (unless you made the DMSP part on purpose to spawn only cacodemons 10 minuts in a row for me)
<Zwiffle> i didn't like the archvile second attack
<czg> shut up that was awesome
Bits
#10 posted by Lunaran [68.51.209.251] on 2004/12/15 21:16:31
Shambler, I agree about the reskinned monsters. If I had the time, resources, and ability to do high poly models, low poly models, animations, skins, and ragdolls for new monsters, I would. I don't though. :( New skins will have to do - unless you know how to model and animate living creatures amazingly well and haven't told anyone. :)
Archviles: I should have mentioned but you'll notice archviles have a pretty limited range on the new attack, so if there's one around you needn't constantly hide behind things. Should their melee attack be more dangerous?
Archvile spawning was a nice feature ... at least, when used when the mapper gave you enough ammo and space to deal with spawns >( ... but I removed it for story purposes. The monsters are your cargo in deep space, and couldn't rightly just summon more from the ether. (This is also why I omitted tech monsters - they just don't make much sense unless I start grafting even more unlikely things about biotech experiments onto the story).
What do you think of archviles being able to heal monsters though? I just thought of it now and it's growing on me fast. It would have a similar effect on the fighting when they were around (seeing one would mean you'd have to kill it quick before it made your life tougher) without the creation of new monsters.
Maggots: You don't like tough maggots because you prefer pinkies in that role, right? If there's certain changes that don't inspire you to say more than "this was pointless I preferred it the old way" you might want to play longer. I found playing cat and mouse or matador with these pretty fun rather than making them another two-shell-kill.
Regarding the armor, the protection percentages aren't that noticeable, I'll grant, but that's because they scale up along with the action.
If you'll forgive some math here, a player with 200 green armor and 100 health can take 142 points of damage before he dies, assuming no health pickups. The same stats but with red armor and the player will take 300, and that's only because the armor will run out first.
I tried playing this test with red armor swapped in for the green and yellow and after ten minutes of fighting I had lost just enough health to pick up a medkit without waste. I did the same with all greens (which I bumped up to a 150pt pickup for equity) and never lived past ten minutes.
Armor doesn't have to be denoted with color. I could always alter models instead (chestplate for green, torso and shoulder armor for yellow, plus helmet and crotchguard for red, for example).
Fucking Body Limit
#11 posted by Lunaran [68.51.209.251] on 2004/12/15 21:16:57
On weapons,
Shotgun:
This is meant to be your reliable fallback. Doom3's had such high damage they had to make the spread totally insane (45° - half the screen ffs) so that you couldn't take down Mancubi from two hundred yards. That meant unless your target was eight feet wide you could hardly scratch it unless you walked right up to it.
I changed the shotgun to make the damage a lot more consistent, so it works better across a breadth of ranges. The shorter firing time helps the effectiveness too - with less time between shots, a miss or a graze carries less of a penalty because your next shot is sooner. As long as you don't expect to treat it like a melee weapon like you would in Doom3 you might find it's a lot more useful. I could up the spread and damage a LITTLE to increase close-range damage if a lot of people say they want that, but I don't want it to be a gun you'll need/want to run up to stuff to kill. I hated that shotgun :P
Machinegun:
This change is largely pointless, but I kept it since the high ROF would stop maggots dead in their tracks. I found it was a great way to deal with them, and didn't have any solid reason to change it back, so I just kept it. If the faster rate is a problem for a lot of people, thrn I wouldn't mind seeing it go.
Chaingun:
Byzantine has a smaller weapon set since it's shorter, and because the story wouldn't really support the player's character having super prototype plasma guns and such lying around his freighter. The chaingun was originally just sort of a big machinegun, so it had to be specialized a bit.
It does more damage than the GL at full speed, but you can only really use it in a situation where you'll be able to spin it up to full speed and keep it there. When you save it for such a situation, though, it's terrifically effective. The spread's the same as the shotgun, and it ramps up from zero as the gun accelerates, but I do kind of agree that a lot of the ammo feels like it goes to waste when you're picking off the incidentals between toughies. I'll see how it works with a smaller cone.
Grenade Launcher:
Hm, I didn't think the 200ms was that noticeable. It's not really necessary, so it's easily removed, unless I hear an outcry in favor of keeping it (I know shambler mentioned he liked it).
I had the idea a while back to let you scale up launch speed if you held the trigger down, with the tradeoff of the fuse shortening while the grenade was in the barrel, but never bothered with it. Does that sound attractive to anyone, or just silly?
Lun...
#12 posted by Shambler [82.38.194.13] on 2004/12/16 04:50:44
Archvile healing would be better aye. It's cool to have them as a monster with special features rather than just funky attacks.
Denoting different armour types by having different armour sections would be good too, that would be more convincing and thus preferable.
The grenade charge would be okay, I mean that's standard for hand grenades in most games. I wouldn't mind either way.
Can't you get a modeller to help you with changing some monsters to make the sergeants etc?? That guy who did the Skaarjbler did a pretty p1mp job....
Lun
#13 posted by nitin [138.217.6.26] on 2004/12/16 05:41:23
just post on the polycount forums once you have some funky level content ready. Those guys are a good help when you have something to show them.
One Sentence
#14 posted by megaman [141.26.64.5] on 2004/12/16 06:54:20
dont sacrifize gameplay for story reasons.
A Half-serve Of Waffle
#15 posted by BlackDog [202.72.148.102] on 2004/12/16 07:08:15
Yeah, I agree about the D3 shotgun. The effectiveness of that thing was more dependent on your distance from target than the quality of your aiming, which is NOT a good path to go down. I do think the Byzantine version is much better, but I can't see it being a "reliable fallback" as is. The much more effective MG takes that honour, because it's faster at killing pretty much everything.
I get the feeling that you are going for a reliable workhorse of a weapon, something like the original Doom shotgun (or perhaps HL2's, which I liked). IMO the current shotgun is close, but not it.
Regarding those arch-viles. I remember in Doom 2 the flame attack would die down immediately if the monster couldn't see/hit you. That would be very valuable feedback to have. Having them heal stuff would be cool (with a differently coloured flame attack?), but keep in mind that would make them a quite complex monster. They already have three attacks. That's not really so bad, but it might make other monster's behaviour seem overly simple by comparison.
One more thing: bombadier imps (er, the red ones). The splash damage of their attack pushes the player around far more than that of any other monster, in fact far more than the *direct* damage of their own attack! This is clearly very wierd, even if bombadimps are meant to have more pushy splash damage. Given the sound and view shake it does make sense for a bombadimp attack to be a bit more physical than other monsters', but not by that much.
...
#16 posted by Shambler [82.38.194.13] on 2004/12/16 08:23:33
The effectiveness of that thing was more dependent on your distance from target than the quality of your aiming, which is NOT a good path to go down.
OMG, a shotgun weapon with effectiveness that depends on range!! That will never catch on in every FPS game ever made, no way hose!
:o
#17 posted by R.P.G. [24.136.230.101] on 2004/12/16 09:12:44
no way hose!
Yeah, I don't wear hose either. My leg hair gets in the way, and I can't be bothered to shave my legs.
Oh, wait, you meant Jose, didn't you?
Spanish-learning Pedant...
#18 posted by Shambler [82.38.194.13] on 2004/12/16 09:36:38
Suck my chorizo.
Hey, That Bler Fella
#19 posted by BlackDog [202.72.148.102] on 2004/12/16 09:48:52
Read my post again, Sham. The bit where I talk about "aim", read that twice.
???
#20 posted by Shambler [82.38.194.13] on 2004/12/16 10:18:32
I read your damn post already thanks.
It's a shotgun, it's got a wide spread, WTF do you expect??
Aiming Is Good
#21 posted by BlackDog [202.72.148.102] on 2004/12/16 10:39:44
What I expect is a weapon where aiming is more important than proximity. Getting real close and pulling the trigger is repetitive, stupid behaviour that gets boring real fast. Having to aim well and use the weapon at different ranges (yes, with a reduced effectiveness at range) is far preferable.
If you prefer shotguns to be useless beyond a short distance, well and good. I think it fucking sucks.
.
#22 posted by necros [66.185.84.80] on 2004/12/16 12:22:04
mmf, the whole point of a shotgun is that you get big damage with the limitation of range.
if a shotgun wasn't completly useless beyond short range, it would be overpowered and render other weapons useless.
...
#23 posted by necros [66.185.84.80] on 2004/12/16 12:22:47
i think rather than making the shotgun be better at longer ranges, you make it more difficult to get into shotgun (short) range.
Blackdog
#24 posted by megaman [213.6.36.154] on 2004/12/16 14:29:33
thats the worst aspect of q3 gameplay: aim > tactic (which getting near your enemy certainly is part of)
funny, i liked the d3 sg, tho you have a point bout just spreading too much to require ANY aim :)
To Make A Better Shotgun
#25 posted by HeadThump [65.141.73.129] on 2004/12/16 15:39:37
you would need to create or emphasise a penetration value for the type of object being hit.
A shotgun blast will knock quail out of the sky from 100 yards of course, but it isn't nearly as effective used against reinforced glass (ie. your typical junkyard BMW) at the same range.
BTW, thanks, Lunaran. The mod made a boring afternoon a bit more interesting.
Small Question:
#26 posted by necros [66.185.84.80] on 2004/12/16 16:22:43
why does doom3 crash when i load byzantine from the mod menu?
Probably Because
#27 posted by czg [81.191.27.124] on 2004/12/16 16:25:19
The byzantine dll is for version 1.1 of the exe and you're running the unpatched version.
Oh Right.
#28 posted by necros [66.185.84.80] on 2004/12/16 16:33:43
hehe, i only patch games when i play online or if they don't work right at first. :P
thanks. :)
High Score 418
#29 posted by Zwiffle [69.210.49.54] on 2004/12/16 16:44:05
418. anyone beat that?
Necros Small Answer:
#30 posted by ProdigyXL [216.111.202.25] on 2004/12/16 17:07:21
It's probably because of your small penis. :/
Zwif
#31 posted by ProdigyXL [216.111.202.25] on 2004/12/16 17:17:11
What settings, a preset or custom?
Thank You All Verily
#32 posted by Lunaran [68.51.209.251] on 2004/12/16 17:32:43
just post on the polycount forums once you have some funky level content ready.
Ah, true, I could always try that. Still, I won't mark it as a sure bet until a model is done.
I do think the Byzantine [shotgun] is much better, but I can't see it being a "reliable fallback" as is. The much more effective MG takes that honour, because it's faster at killing pretty much everything.
True, but you'll not get as many bullets as shells. Other weapons will always be better, but the shotgun ideally would almost never be something you wouldn't want to switch to. (if that made sense.) I'm having a go with a slightly wider shotgun spread and a slightly weaker MG to see how it feels to play up the accuracy tradeoff a bit more.
Getting close enough to your target to do something is a rather tactical thing - in Quake3 when your target is moving quickly and unpredictably. With loping monsters it becomes a dry exercise. Shotgun's staying more or less as is simply because I found it unfuriating to stand ten feet from an approaching fat zombie pounding away at him with the shotgun and watching every pellet go past him.
418. anyone beat that?
You are teh king. Now, try it on g_skill 3. :D
Actually, I never really touched the nightmare settings (aside from reducing the 350% damage modifier), so the ticking-health and soul cube combo are both as they were. It actually makes for quite an interesting round of DMSP.
One more thing: bombadier imps (er, the red ones). The splash damage of their attack pushes the player around far more than that of any other monster
Noted, agreed with, and fixed. Trites knock you around pretty hard too, so I've brought that down as well.
Shamb> I do see what you mean about damage feeling less serious now. I still don't like the idea of losing control of my own crosshair when I need it most, but I'm going to have a go with the double-vision feedback reeeenabled to see if I can strike a happy medium of painful-feeling pain that doesn't ruin your aim.
NO NO NO
#33 posted by Jago [81.197.201.94] on 2004/12/16 18:07:55
I refuse to play *ANY* game where you can't have your crosshair set firm. Visual damage feedback like screen going red and stuff like that I can tolerate, but if I can't have my POV standing still while I am being attacked that game immideately gets the delete.
Jago.
#34 posted by Shambler [82.38.194.13] on 2004/12/16 19:41:13
Guess you didn't play Doom3 then.
You suck.
Shambler
#35 posted by Jago [81.197.201.94] on 2004/12/16 19:48:32
I didn't play past the part in the very beginning where you get to follow a security bot due to hardware issues, correct. I guess I won't be playing it when I solve those hardware issues then. Is there REALLY no console variable of some kind to disable screen going all bollocks when hit?
G_kickAmplitude 0
#36 posted by Lunaran [68.51.209.251] on 2004/12/16 20:55:02
but then you get no feedback whatsoever. You could try 0.2 or so.
and jago, calm yourself, the crosshair's not going anywhere. Doublevision is something else entirely.
Changes
#37 posted by Lunaran [68.51.209.251] on 2004/12/16 21:16:24
Archviles will heal nearby monsters, opting for the one that has lost the most points, accompanied by a big obvious effect.
Shotgun spread up 2°, number of pellets up by 2. Still feels the same at the midranges but extremely close up it makes the difference between three shells and two, or two and one.
Machinegun firing rate restored, dmg/sec proportionately lower. Clip is now 60.
Chaingun spread reduced a tad. Sounds better as well.
Bombardier push reduced a lot.
GL damage reduced from 175 to 150, firing delay from 200ms to 40, and clip size down to 4.
Archvile melee damage up to 20, from 12.
Trite health is unchanged as it hardly reduces their feasiblity as a horde monster.
Contemplating: crosshair with dynamic outer radius to illustrate spread. Nice but not necessary.
Prod:
#38 posted by Zwiffle [69.210.49.54] on 2004/12/16 22:24:26
Monsters per Minute: 15
Total Monsters at once: 5
Everything else was left alone. I shall try on skill 3, see how that goes.
Version Two Available
#39 posted by Lunaran [68.51.209.251] on 2004/12/18 02:31:37
Same link as above, but if you can't be bothered to scroll all the hell back up, here's the url:
[ http://www.lunaran.com/files/byzan... ]
Give the second version a whirl, and let me know if I've managed to make an overall improvement. A lot of what was said in the thread was acted on, so I hope I've managed to please all of you at least a little. :)
Yup.
#40 posted by Zwiffle [69.210.35.222] on 2004/12/18 21:26:37
Still like it.
But I believe it can get old fast... without new maps.
So post on how to make maps for this so someone can start making new little arenas to play in. Good stuff so far, it seems a little bit tougher to me becaus I HATE those damn archviles, and with the healing abilities it really makes it difficult to kill off a Hell Knight.
Yes
#41 posted by ProdigyXL [66.188.47.26] on 2004/12/18 22:15:35
The healing bit that the Arch Viles do now is annoying as heck, if not understandable. I think it's a cool and all, but it makes the difficult as hell to talk down Barons.
More feedback to come.
Maps
#42 posted by Lunaran [68.51.209.251] on 2004/12/18 22:42:16
Well, the .script that's included is fully commented, and you can open the .map and look at that for an example.
But I'll be nice and explain anyway:
o Build map.
o Place entities you want to act as spawnpoints (I used target_nulls but any entity will actually work), and set their angle. Make a trigger_relay (or anything really) named "monsterSpawn" and target it to all of your spawns, and nothing else.
o Place items. Items are hidden at map load and shown in batches at the same interval as the monster rank increases, so decide what you want shown when. Set "respawn" to the number of seconds between spawns on each item. Items you don't set to respawn will act like normal SP items and disappear forever once picked up. In my map, health, ammo, shards, and the RA (being the last one) respawn, and weapons and YA/GA do not.
o Create trigger_relays named archiver0 through archiver7. These should target the items. All items targeted by archiver0 will be revealed when you push the big button, and 1-7 will all spawn at the respective interval marks. Any items not targetted will never be hidden, but ideally any items you want as 'starters' should be spawned at warmup by archiver0.
o Put a dummy trite, imp, and hellknight in the map somewhere, and set "hide 1." They will cue the compiler to create the appropriate AAS files.
o Put byzdmsp.gui on a gui object somewhere, set its name to "dmspcontrol".
o Create two "speaker"s named buzzer and buzzer2. The first will play at every rank increase, and the second will play when monsterCount is reached (which you won't hear without a finite monsterCount).
o Place a trigger_relay named monsterKill and set "call byzdmsp::monsterKill". Otherwise the script won't know when a monster is killed and will stop after monsterCap monsters are spawned.
o Set "call byzdmsp::main" on worldspawn and add a player start.
o Profit.
A few notes:
o Presets are not map specific, but I will update the .zip with an altered map and byzdmsp.script so that they can be. I'll post here with info about how that works once I do so.
o If you place weapons that aren't in Byzantine you won't get far. The PG/RL/BFG haven't been balanced for the new gameplay, and with the GL using the PG model there'd probably be confusion even if I took the time to reenable/rebalance them. There is also the chainsaw and pistol, the former being untested but probably fun and the latter being rather useless under the circumstances.
o Monster mix is hard-coded in the script. I considered adding a zombie-rush mode but taking the time to create a nice well-rounded zombie set and balance it would take time that I'd be better off spending on getting the maps started and/or doing any of the ten jillion things I needed to have done by the end of November, so you're stuck with my set.
o You can take the script, modify it, and apply it to a regular D3 map if you want to create a DMSP independent of Byzantine (if you really want to play that dumb game :) ), but the item spawns will not work. Hidden items in Doom3 can still be picked up, and it's only through a Byz code change that they're skipped until the script unhides them. If you try this anyway, please credit me.
o If you don't place the two speakers the script terminates because it can't find them. I'll also fix that and post here about it when the new zip is up.
...
#43 posted by necros [66.185.84.80] on 2004/12/19 00:59:18
i dunno how much you changed it, but the shotgun feels much more powerful now and generally more effective. i liked that a lot.
agree with prod -- the archviles are evil when combined with powerful monsters like hellknights. i think in a regular sp map it wouldn't be as big a deal, but in an arena combat like this, it is. :D
so far, i like pretty much all the changes.
Word
#44 posted by Lunaran [68.51.209.251] on 2004/12/20 00:02:48
I reduced the heal frequency on archviles. I guess that's about it then.
/me starts mapping
I updated the zip with a modified script and map. Here's how it works if you wanna make your own.
Set the following keys on monsterSpawn:
preset1_monsterCount, preset1_monsterRate, preset1_monsterCap, preset1_delay
Self explanatory. There are corresponding preset2's. These define the presets on easy skill. Set the following keys to set how much each one is increased per difficulty level:
monsterCountSkill, monsterRateSkill, monsterCapSkill, delaySkill
These can be zero or negative. (So, on nightmare, all the presets are increased by 3 * these four keys.)
Set the "warmup" key to # of seconds the warmup should last.
Lastly, buzzer and buzzer2 are now named rankBuzzer and endBuzzer for clarity, and won't stop the script if they're missing.
wheeeeeeeeeeeee
Yeah Lun, Go Map
#45 posted by BlackDog [202.72.148.102] on 2004/12/20 05:28:48
Sorry for the lack of feedback the last few days.
Work is busy with the December rush and these 15 hour days don't leave me much time to muck around on the net. Pretty much all my quibbles seem to be sorted now anyway.
#46 posted by gone [195.208.123.213] on 2005/06/08 23:55:52
Is this project still alive?
Yeah
#47 posted by Lunaran [68.255.24.197] on 2005/06/10 12:58:23
Kinda.
Look, over there!
So...
#48 posted by Tron [202.7.183.132] on 2005/06/11 09:30:06
...this is going to be CF2 right? ;)

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