Out on a distant dwarf planet beyond the solar system, the UAC subsidiary Vulkan Inc has been tapping a promising source of geothermal power. The planet's internal temperatures are far in excess of natural levels, giving it a breathable atmosphere and even liquid water despite its huge distance from the sun. The struggling corporation is ardent in their efforts to accelerate extraction of this energy and set themselves up to profit off the growing power demands on Earth - a huge set of extraterrestrial drilling complexes have been set up to extract every valuable resource the planet has to offer. The latest addition is Borehole SG3, a superdeep vertical tunnel currently under construction that is on the point of breaking through into the planet's mantle eight miles below the surface.
To defend their prize, the UAC has set up a heavy presence of their military security division throughout each complex - but today, a helicopter ferrying recruits from the lower outposts into the base surrounding the new borehole has been met with an eerie silence. One senior officer disembarks, signalling to the pilot to return while they investigate. As they venture down into the deepest reaches of the power station, they'll discover that the new borehole has hit a passageway to hell...
This is a completely reworked version of the WAD "Vulkan" from 2017! It's called "Vulkan Inc" now to distinguish it from the renderer - yes, I spent a long time making sure no other WADs were called Vulkan and I overlooked that it was the name of an entire upcoming graphics engine. This is a Doom-based semi-conversion that, time willing, will eventually comprise 20 or so maps across three episodes.
The game has been spruced up throughout, with:
- Reworked and polished maps
- More fully supported Metroidy upgrading
- An entirely Doom 2-less texture set comprising Freedoom and original textures
- Rewritten, smoother enemies
- A new HUD that's less of an eyesore
- Better balanced difficulty
- A new BDLite base, shedding Brutal Doom and making the custom and Doom enemies more consistent
In respect to the "1.5" version number, this new PK3 contains the entire first episode plus a demo of the second one, with two new maps that take place after the cliffhanger!
Spoiler: More screenshots
Thanks to all in the ZDoom and Realm667 communities for their help and resources!
Effects and weapons originally compiled by Sgt Mark IV
Music from the Doom Metal V4 pack
Textures from Freedoom
Monsters and code from resources by
DEVLOEK
ERIANCE
JOEYTD
OZYMANDIAS81
SCALLIANO
XIM
YURAOFTHEHAIRFAN
Z86
ZRRION THE INSECT
Very beautiful screenshots! Will play hopefully soon.
Re: Vulkan Inc. 1.5
Posted: Sat Jun 15, 2019 9:20 pm
by AL-97
I missed on the original release but excited to try this out!
What do you think about posting this on Doomworld as well? To improve visibility.
Re: Vulkan Inc. 1.5
Posted: Sun Jun 16, 2019 3:43 am
by _mental_
I didn't complete original mapset playthrough for some reason, so decided to play a new version because I remember that it was pretty cool.
Zero startup warnings is already a good sign Finished only two levels so far, and found only one minor issue.
V1M2 has inaccessible sector #736 marked as secret. It's so small that 100% cannot be achieved even with noclip.
Re: Vulkan Inc. 1.5
Posted: Sun Jun 16, 2019 6:19 am
by StroggVorbis
I just played the first three levels and I couldn't even find the 9th secret in V1M2 on the automap at all (had computer area map and show secret sectors set to always) but I noticed two yellow lines in the outside area, at the mountainous waterfall (actually I forgot if it was lava or blood, my short term memory's fuzzy today ) like locked doors or switches.
The barrel rolling lost souls gave me a good laugh
Edit: Would you mind if someone would make a "vanilla" compatible/mod friendly version of your map pack?
I don't know if I'd be up for the task, but personally I would:
-keep the custom enemies
-replace the Ragesphere with Berserk
-Change the extended mag powerups to more ammo pouches
-May or may not keep the flak cannon, if not then replace it with the rocket launcher and ammo maybe
Edit 2: there would need to be compatibility patches to adapt the ammo pouch and mag powerups to different weapon mods
Re: Vulkan Inc. 1.5
Posted: Sun Jun 16, 2019 6:34 am
by _mental_
Just some nitpicking: V1M3 contains a lot of small sectors which increase details of caves.
I think it's worth hiding their two-sided lines from automap because it quickly becomes rather messy.
Sector #357 of V1M4 is set to damaging for no apparent reason.
Probably, it's just copied occasionally from adjacent sectors.
Re: Vulkan Inc. 1.5
Posted: Sun Jun 16, 2019 7:59 am
by Beezle
Love the HUD! Really looking forward to playing this, enjoyed the first version you made 2 years ago:)
Re: Vulkan Inc. 1.5
Posted: Sun Jun 16, 2019 8:39 am
by Rex705
Looks pretty cool. I never played the original so I'll look forward to this when it's done.
Re: Vulkan Inc. 1.5
Posted: Mon Jun 17, 2019 10:25 am
by QuakedoomNukem Cz
So I found this bug in Crater One:
Re: Vulkan Inc. 1.5
Posted: Mon Jun 17, 2019 5:22 pm
by DavidN
I swear, I should hire you all as QA I don't know how I missed those sector issues or how you caught them so quickly - I'll definitely post this on Doomworld after ironing out the small issues!
The V1M3 Crater One exit is weird - as far as I remember it goes by the player's Z position once the exit is open. But if that's the case, why didn't it fail in the same way in the original? Mysterious.
DabbingSquidward, you're welcome to pull this around if you'd like to make a vanilla-compatible version of it! You'd have to do quite a bit to take out all the customization, though.
Re: Vulkan Inc. 1.5
Posted: Tue Jun 18, 2019 11:55 am
by QuakedoomNukem Cz
More bugs:
*During the intermission script, you are able to move and shoot, until the prompt, which tells you to continue shows up.
*Final fight can get soft locked, if you toss all coolant kegs into the hole at the same time.
*EDIT: Unmarked secret at the start of V1M6, it should technically be the 55th secret:
[imgur]https://i.imgur.com/WLzTeui[/imgur]
*EDIT2: V2M2 has Unknown Script "LastLift", when pressing use on the brown wall in the elevator.
Re: Vulkan Inc. 1.5
Posted: Wed Jun 19, 2019 10:03 am
by Rex705
Oh turns out I have played the original I made a video.
Re: Vulkan Inc. 1.5
Posted: Wed Jun 19, 2019 6:55 pm
by DavidN
Aha, you went straight for the map secret - you've definitely played this before Thanks for the great videos, it's always amazing to see this being played in the hands of someone else! And that increasingly agitated shake of the head after you don't quite get the grenade secret is great - I was so happy for you when you got it What graphics mod are you using to get the metallic glow effect on those doors?
All issues above are now fixed and uploaded at the same place as before, looks like I must have changed the way I checked player Z height when I was changing all the scripts to at least shakily work in co-op. Thanks for identifying all those problems!
Re: Vulkan Inc. 1.5
Posted: Thu Jun 20, 2019 4:51 am
by Rex705
I use ReShade for some nice lighting effects like god rays and bloom. Makes everything look pretty and shiny.
Re: Vulkan Inc. 1.5
Posted: Sat Jun 22, 2019 10:07 pm
by Kinsie
Finished off the first episode on-stream last night. Pretty great stuff! I'll have to try the episode 2 preview, and I can't wait for more! A couple of things worth bringing up, though:
After killing all the Arachnotrons and opening up the exit in Crater One, the player's Z position is logged once a second or so. Presumably some exit-debugging stuff that never got turned off.
Throwing the coolant orbs is buggy on sloped surfaces - when thrown, it just immediately lands at the player's feet.
Weapons have a bad habit of switching players to their fists when they run out of ammo (or when they throw the coolant orb) whether or not they still have other weapons loaded with ammo.