Enjay's Marine Assault: First Impressions

ReX · Post by **ReX** » Sat Oct 11, 2003 10:19 am

In a word: WOW!

1. Like the intro music (during the mission brief), but LOVE the main music.
2. Cool "animated" briefer, a la Strife.
3. Very nice story line.
4. Excellent Dehacked work (which goes without saying).
5. Terrific scenery, authentic-looking caves, believable base-techno architecture and layout. The shootable mushroom was a nice touch.

More later.

Zell · Post by **Zell** » Sat Oct 11, 2003 10:41 am

oh yeha, the t3(or was ir 2? ) music!

that made it more fun

Biff · Post by **Biff** » Sat Oct 11, 2003 11:07 am

Just editing perfection, that's all.

ReX · Post by **ReX** » Sat Oct 11, 2003 8:56 pm

I'm embarassed to say this, but I can't figure out how to use the freakin' grenades. I read Nigel's documentation, and I've tried pretty much every keystroke, but I can't figure it out. Perhaps it requires an RPG launcher (that I'll get later in the level)? I'd appreciate any help.

Post by **Kappes Buur** » Sat Oct 11, 2003 9:05 pm

.
@Rex

If the HUD does not display the grenades, use the key which is bound to inventory next or inventory previous,
usually '[' and ']', to select the grenades. Then press 'Enter' to make them available.
Then use the key which is bound to key=invuse in the zdoom-computername.ini file. Usually the 'Enter' key.
.

David Ferstat · Post by **David Ferstat** » Sun Oct 12, 2003 1:20 am

Woots, mon!

Enjay, that's a really nice piece of work, there.

What stood out, to me?

Well, I liked the very first, post-briefing, part of the level. The canyon area, and with it the custom sky, felt terrific; they matched, and gave a sense of a locale quite different from established doom environments.

The first assault on the base, with the enemy marines firing through, and shattering, the windows, and the exploding comuter screens, also had lots of Hollywood-like atmosphere.

Once outdoors, the ricochets with the bullet puffs were as I ran from point to point were icing on the cake.

Looking forward to the next test-drive.

Post by **Enjay** » Sun Oct 12, 2003 4:45 am

Thanks for all the positive comments.

ReX, yes Kappes Buur is correct. The grenades are inventory items (they are actually Hexen flechettes) so you use them just like you do in Hexen (as described). I probably should have mentioned it in the text.

I also find it useful to bind a key to useflechette

type

Code: Select all

bind key useflechette

at the console where "key" is the key you want to bind.

If you do that, the bound key will always throw a grenade, regardless of whether the item is "in focus" in the inventory. Although, that's the only inventory item in the mod, so I don't think it should ever go out of focus.

Tips for grenades:

Unfortunately they always fire straight forward. Looking up and down makes no difference.
You can increase the range slightly, or throw over barriers by jumping as you throw. The windows in the buildings are (mainly - if not all) set at a height where you can simply stand by them and throw through - no need to jump.
Throwing grenades is pretty stealthy. Using one does not wake up an enemy in the way that using regular weapons (even the fist, and other should-be-silent melee weapons) do. Even when the grenades explode, if an enemy was not damaged by the grenade, they will not wake up.

ReX · Post by **ReX** » Sun Oct 12, 2003 8:10 am

Many thanks to Kappes Buur and Nigel for the solution. Why it didn't occur to me that it's a HeXen feature, I don't know. And as a matter of fact I woke up this morning with the thought that I needed to bind a key to the grenades. (See what your level is doing to me, Nigel?) Of course I would have gotten it wrong, because I was going to use bind g grenades. Thanks again.

Doom · Post by **Doom** » Sun Oct 12, 2003 9:42 am

OUTSTANDING!.

It spurts a great "blood 2" feeling!, the labs plus those inoffensive walking scientists add a great touch to the already impressive level.

Everything deserves a 10 out of 10. Reality was never so real...more more more!!.

David Ferstat · Post by **David Ferstat** » Sun Oct 12, 2003 10:47 am

Enjay wrote:Throwing grenades is pretty stealthy. Using one does not wake up an enemy in the way that using regular weapons (even the fist, and other should-be-silent melee weapons) do. Even when the grenades explode, if an enemy was not damaged by the grenade, they will not wake up.

Dammit. This reminds me of something that I forgot to put in the recent Wishlist thread that Arcticwolf started:

http://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?t= ... sc&start=0

I want to be able to define a given weapon as "silent". If I recall correctly (and we're talking pre-v2.x code here) when you fire any weapon, Zdoom always calls function P_NoiseAlert, which wakes up monsters. Instead, Zdoom should check a table and see if a new flag say, "silent", is set. If so, it should bypass P_NoiseAlert, and go straight to the remaining code.

This new flag would be set in the MAPINFO lump, I expect.

Any thoughts, before we return to our regular programming?

Hirogen2 · Post by **Hirogen2** » Sun Oct 12, 2003 11:17 am

David Ferstat wrote:This new flag would be set in the MAPINFO lump, I expect.

I would vote for doing it in DEHACKED/DoomScript, to make uh a specific weapon silent, not every.

Post by **Ty Halderman** » Sun Oct 12, 2003 12:52 pm

Yeah, silent weapons like a dagger. The only way that should wake anyone else up is the gargling screams of your victim... if you don't do it right.

HotWax · Post by **HotWax** » Sun Oct 12, 2003 2:17 pm

Hirogen2 wrote:I would vote for doing it in DEHACKED/DoomScript, to make uh a specific weapon silent, not every.

Just FYI, he wasn't suggesting a single flag to make every weapon silent. However, I agree that it belongs as a new flag in a DEH patch/lump. Why? Because if someone makes a weapon mod designed to be used with any other levels, there won't be any MAPINFO lump to read from.

Post by **Enjay** » Sun Oct 12, 2003 3:13 pm

Although, I forsee a great many weapons mods importing Hexen/Heretic weapons into doom (until doomscript is a reality) - Like LWM's extra weapons, her Crushed mod and a few bits and pieces I have done for myself.

In those mods, it would be typical to use the cleric mace, fighter fist or Heretic staff as knives, boots, clubs, whatever. They work very effectively as such and still leave a full compliment of doom weapons, but would be even better if silent. However, with no support for DEHACKED style editing for Heretic/Hexen items having this flag as a deh only option would be no use for making such weapons silent. Mind you, I'm not sure mapinfo is the right place either, for the reasons given. Config options? maybe KEYCONF?

Edit:

Enjay wrote:Although, I forsee a great many weapons mods...

Heh, listen to me. What a pretentious sounding arse.

Help me master Yoda.

Difficult to see. Always in motion is the future.

Nanami · Post by **Nanami** » Sun Oct 12, 2003 3:30 pm

It's very creative; I especially liked the scientists. You also spent a lot of time on the whole thing, I can tell. I loved the grenades (we're using those same graphics in ZooM, and we're thankful to the example wad for that), and all the different enemies were well-drawn and looked pretty nice flying around the level.

Fortunately I already have keys bound to inventory usage, since ZooM has a lot of inventory items. My mouse has 8 buttons, so 2 are for scrolling forward and backward in the list and one is for using items. I also have a key to bring up the automap on the mouse and use it to change weapons.

One thing though, the new railgun graphics, are absolutely gorgeous. I wanted to know where you got ahold of them. Some people on the ZooM team thought it looked like a heavily modified ROTT weapon. I wanted to know in case it was anything we could discuss (whether you made it or obtained it), because ZooM desperately needs weapon sprites...