Descent 1 1/2

LightWolf · Post by **LightWolf** » Mon Apr 02, 2018 4:03 am

We could use a Miranda-style level...

Xfing · Post by **Xfing** » Mon Apr 02, 2018 4:16 am

Alter-Fox wrote: ↑Sun Apr 01, 2018 11:22 am Puuma Sphere has more colours than green and white if you look closely. Especially if you take Descent Maximum as also canon since it was arguably textured better especially in the last third of the game.

About this... since most of these levels were made by the same guys that also did Vertigo, you'll notice the same patterns as there were in Vertigo as well. Whether these levels are textured better is indeed arguable, since the ones from CS were all brightly lit and had a lot of white in them, while those from Maximum were rather dim in comparison and looked more like Vertigo levels than Puuma ones in most respects. Immediately noticeable is liberal use of rock326, a texture very much liked by the Vertigo designers, but one that didn't really appear all that much (if at all) in canon Puuma sphere. They also wouldn't be themselves if they didn't stick rock356 into the levels (the "obsidian" texture), basically those guys' signature texture. They also threw in metl003 and its family in many places, another hallmark of theirs. And last but not least, they used a lot of greens more reminescent of Quartzon than of Puuma, those without that pistacchio feel. All in all, these changes and choices in addition to very sparse use of CS' trademark Puuma textures, make Maximum's Puuma levels feel altogether different, perhaps to the biggest degree out of all the systems rendered in Maximum. These would look great as Vertigo levels, since they do break the mold considerably, but I don't think they're Puuma-ish enough for Puuma proper.

Alter-Fox · Post by **Alter-Fox** » Mon Apr 02, 2018 8:48 am

Don't forget the BPER bots too.

Funny that the one that ended up outside its "home" system is the one that had that system in its name.

You got me thinking that we also haven't got many actual ice levels in Vertigo. I wonder... what do you think of putting the tycho brahe boss in an ice or water style level instead of Puuma?
Had an idea for another boss arena last night that forces you slip by the boss while "naked" through a maze before you're actually able to start the fight.
If I'm to build it, though, I need to know what his vulnerability is going to be. PM me?

LightWolf · Post by **LightWolf** » Mon Apr 02, 2018 9:33 am

Already tried an ice level with that boss. Didn't go through. The hybrid Ice-A2 retexture was even worse.
And you're forgetting about Dynamo Station.

Alter-Fox · Post by **Alter-Fox** » Mon Apr 02, 2018 9:45 am

-_-

Yeah, cause it was a bad level that didn't do justice to your actual skill.

Not exactly because it was an ice level. I remember that discussion about it in fact.

-_-

Xfing · Post by **Xfing** » Mon Apr 02, 2018 10:12 am

Well truth be told we do have two icy levels in the Vertigo portion. Dynamo station is one and Nyiea'kaa is another. Of course neither is entirely as icy as the typical Limefrost levels were (and Dynamo doesn't even use ice.pig), but they do fill the quota. In fact I think I'll change Dynamo's PIG to Ice, since it's almost entirely icy and uses those Limefrost textures extensively. That'll free up one more Descent 1 slot, but take up both the Ice slots.

I agree that Vertigo needs another icy level though, and I think Nyiea'kaa's choice of Ice.pig is rather arbitrary, since it relies on many D1 textures which look much better with descent.pig anyway. What I'd suggest is changing Dynamo to Ice, Nyiea'kaa to Descent, and creating another icy Vertigo level with ice.pig as its base, one to host the Tycho Brahe boss. Though for that boss, rather than it being entirely Limefrosty, I'd suggest something heavy on stuff like rock 331 and 332, as well as rock 285. These are textures that did appear in Limefrost, but also had heavy presence in Zeta Aquilae's level 3 and I don't think there's been a level made primarily with them in mind. Mixing those textures with some of those darker Puuma greens and obsidian could create a rather unique Vertigo level to host the alien2 boss. All of the required textures would be represented quite well with ice.pig.

If you want something entirely icy, maybe take one of the other slots? Though I think we'd be quite good with Dynamo and the boss level in the Vertigo section.

Xfing · Post by **Xfing** » Mon Apr 02, 2018 11:39 am

Ok, I've made those changes. I also made some minor alterations to Dynamo, mostly texturing stuff so that it doesn't look bad under ice.pig. Still, that means another level under ice.pig is ripe for the taking should someone want one

There's one water, one fire and one ice level left for that portion of the mission. And the final level, which will be under descent.pig.

LightWolf · Post by **LightWolf** » Mon Apr 02, 2018 12:19 pm

I've had an idea for a "Puuma Prime" level for a little while now. That might work for one of those?

Sirius · Post by **Sirius** » Mon Apr 02, 2018 12:56 pm

The thought came to me of attempting to recreate (probably more in spirit than form) one of my "lost" levels... does the Vertigo section have space for a red/black level or is that already too common?

(And yes I still have that secret level to work on...)

Xfing · Post by **Xfing** » Mon Apr 02, 2018 2:25 pm

Sirius wrote: ↑Mon Apr 02, 2018 12:56 pm The thought came to me of attempting to recreate (probably more in spirit than form) one of my "lost" levels... does the Vertigo section have space for a red/black level or is that already too common?

(And yes I still have that secret level to work on...)

No it doesn't in fact. I don't think Vertigo has any legit fire levels, though Reactor Ohm uses fire.pig and has quite a bit of red in it. How about the penultimate level? Fire + black sounds like something we'd totally like to have, and it wouldn't hurt in that particular spot.

LightWolf wrote: ↑Mon Apr 02, 2018 12:19 pm I've had an idea for a "Puuma Prime" level for a little while now. That might work for one of those?

If you find a PIG that displays all those textures somewhat nicely then why not? Maybe water.pig could handle the baloris textures alongside some of the more traditional greens.

Alter-Fox · Post by **Alter-Fox** » Mon Apr 02, 2018 2:52 pm

Actually I was still planning to mix the ice textures with some puuma textures and maybe others (since sirius did some of that puuma-ice mix already).
Rock 331 and 332 are two of my favourite textures to use so I should be able to find a good way to get them in there (and probably I would anyway). I don't know how well 285 will fit in with the rest.
Will still need to know the boss vulnerability cause it will affect the arena structure. And that is the first part I build.

As 46 goes, Vertigo itself has water levels that used Ice.pig, and other intentional mismatches to make things look a little different. That's nothing new, it's actually something kinda cool, and 46 is certainly not an ice level. As I said before, the duller greys were the whole point of using those moon textures, and the tones work better with the dark and creepy atmosphere.

Xfing · Post by **Xfing** » Mon Apr 02, 2018 3:55 pm

I thought I'd changed these two levels, 46 still says Ice, but I changed it to Descent, did the opposite with Dynamo. I'll fix it.

As for the boss' vulnerabilities, they're the same as usual. It's the Tycho Brahe boss with few changes, perhaps only its HP is tweaked.

I've marked level 53 for Sirius.

Alter-Fox · Post by **Alter-Fox** » Mon Apr 02, 2018 3:58 pm

I think a few mismatched palettes in the Vertigo section are a good idea, they certainly made Vertigo itself more interesting.
BTW I do have a briefing fragment I wrote for 46 that I'd like to be in there somewhere -- especially if you're gonna insist the moon rock textures look like they do on the lifeless rock that is the moon, I need to be able to make it clear that this planet is supposed to have life on it. Otherwise the name is just nonsense.

Xfing · Post by **Xfing** » Mon Apr 02, 2018 4:03 pm

Alter-Fox wrote: ↑Mon Apr 02, 2018 3:58 pm I think a few mismatched palettes in the Vertigo section are a good idea, they certainly made Vertigo itself more interesting.

It never had mismatched palettes, it just used textures that weren't considered typical for the general themes it was supposed to portray. The palettes are optimized for certain types of textures and more often than not these textures simply look plain bad in palettes not intended for them. Certain very particular textures do look presentable in every palette, only taking a distinct hue between the palettes, but it's rather rare. And some of the most generic textures look OK in every palette. But using a particular color scheme with an altogether different palette is something that should be done very cautiously, as some of those textures can look really wacky there. For example the lack of presentability of many D1 textures was likely the driving reason between Pumo creating the D1 palette in the first place.

Alter-Fox · Post by **Alter-Fox** » Mon Apr 02, 2018 4:20 pm

Hmph. I was sure level 4 and level 17 used ice and level 3 used water.
Looks like I was wrong about those, but at the very least, 13 has a relatively unambiguous baloris theme with a whole lot of sand and baloris rock (as well as the baloris reactor) and uses fire for its colours.

If you want to change 46 you are the boss -- I still think the creepy tone of the unknown comes across best when the textures look a little different from usual.

Xfing · Post by **Xfing** » Mon Apr 02, 2018 4:38 pm

Well, it does have Baloris sections in it, but those don't look distorted at all, plus there's plenty of lava and red bricks in that level, so guess Fire is justified. I'd probably use Groupa like in level 3, but fire is fine too. It's a very hybrid level all in all. As for the texture rock333, it was used in CS Brimspark too (levels 3 and 4 of the system), it's not exclusively a Baloris texture. I believe it was intended to be the D2 "improved" equivalent of rock224. Incidentally, Fire and Groupa are the only palettes apart from Alien 1 where rock333 looks good (Water's passable too actually).

Wouldn't really treat this as a palette mismatch

Alter-Fox · Post by **Alter-Fox** » Mon Apr 02, 2018 4:44 pm

Personally I always kinda thought it was Baloris + Mars.
Can't guarantee when I'll start 39 but I at least know how I want the boss fight to go.

See below as well -- I could have sworn you said you were switching boss vulnerabilities to keep things unexpected, and that you even said you had a list. :-/ I think it was in a thread in the Descent Development board, though I'm not positive which one. I could try to find it if you want.

LightWolf · Post by **LightWolf** » Mon Apr 02, 2018 5:07 pm

It seems like Limefrost Boss had an important tweak...
And I've found a good palette. Only issue is that the boss level is the only unnamed level and my level has a custom name to it that references a different game. Could Remote Tracking Station be renamed?

Alter-Fox · Post by **Alter-Fox** » Mon Apr 02, 2018 11:22 pm

Oh, there was something... big something... I wanted to point out about the Tycho Brahe boss. If he's using the "chink in armour" weakness and appears in the third level of the final section, we might have to start introducing earthshakers to the player before the second chapter is over. That encourages the players to waste them on the limefrost spiral boss which both makes that boss far too easy and risks unobservant players not recuperating their shaker count quickly enough to deal with this boss. Having the two most dangerous bosses from the original campaign so close together is not a good idea when one of them takes a superweapon to beat.
Even if you nerf his health by a ridiculous amount smart missiles still don't do much damage to boss-level HP and tend to miss him most of the time cause the blobs don't track very well -- and even a shaker was never a guaranteed hit. For phoenix cannon you have to get even luckier than that and that in an arena that was specifically designed to make it even viable (if you look closely the counterstrike version is absolutely designed for this, and the Maximum version is designed to discourage it -- probably because of the difference in aiming on the PSX controller). If it's done this way the fight will be a downright slog, and it will be stacked against the player even harder than the original level 24 boss was. I can't build an arena that compensates for all of that. I'm not sure anyone here has that amount of skill.
That's why I thought you would want to switch his vulnerability.

The alternative is either to downright flood this level with a supposedly rare weapon the player has barely encountered before, or switch its slot with level 44 or 45. I would recommend 44 for that since we already know what we're switching it with, and it gives us the same number of levels between one boss and the next that would have been between Frosted Minerals and this. What I'd really like to do is switch his vulnerability to energy-only (Vertigo 7, not Baloris), as well as reducing his HP a bit so that he's possible to finish with those weapons, because I think the surprise and oh-crap factor of having this guy show up after only two levels since the limefrost spiral boss is a good enough tradeoff.

If you can't let me do one of these two things (I don't think that flooding level 39 with twenty earthshakers is a real option if we want to keep the level pack's progression going the way you'd like it -- the players aren't even supposed to have fusion at this point because it's too strong) then I can't take this level. There's no point in creating an interesting and scary arena if I'm not good enough to make it fun.

Sorry I didn't have time to write this earlier. Busy evening.

Xfing · Post by **Xfing** » Tue Apr 03, 2018 12:19 am

Shakers probably won't work tho, since if I remember correctly, I switched the limefrost boss' vulnerability to energy only. Fusion should start becoming available come the Vertigo section too (only the hulks will come later, as usual). As for shakers, they'll totally be appearing in that level, otherwise there's no way to beat the boss. Most of them should be in hidden compartments in the arena itself, though. Like 2-3 in the outer sections of the level and like 6 in the arena, easy enough to get to make sure you can do the job. Also, there ought to be lots of cloaks and invulnerabilities, so you can just get behind the guy and Helix his ass to oblivion. I remember finishing him off that way at least once, it might have been on Ace though. Still, quite viable.

I agree it would be nice to postpone the level one or two slots though - didn't really notice there were 2 bosses in 4 subsequent levels.

Oh, and as for the list of changes to the HAM, I don't think there is one, it's all in my head. The first three bosses are unchanged, the D1L7 boss is immune to energy and has player smarts back, the D1L27 boss is immune to particle and got its player megas back, the Limefrost boss is immune to particle instead of energy now, and the final Vertigo boss now has player megas and shakers. Also their HP has been modified to increase by come every next boss, so every next one is tougher than the last. I think I didn't forget anything, I might be wrong tho. Feel free to play bosstest to find out for yourself, I should have uploaded it to dropbox. If not, I'll do it later today too.

Alter-Fox · Post by **Alter-Fox** » Tue Apr 03, 2018 7:31 am

Well, never fear about cloaks. The reason I wanted this boss in the first place is he's the only one besides vertigo 20 who's pretty much impossible to take on without either a cloak or an invuln, so it's the only time I can have a section where he's there but you can't fight him. And I have an idea how I might create a moment that'll leave you shaking and yet completely unharmed... but there will be plenty of both once the fight actually starts -- this one needs to be tilted heavily in favour of the player considering how ridiculous the boss is alone.
If this is 39 I think all the shakers should be in the boss room and this could be the first time the player will encounter them outside of maybe a secret level. Keep in mind for levels after this one though, because the shaker isn't a guaranteed hit there will have to be a few extras, and that means a not-totally-unlucky player might have a few to spare going into the next part of the mission.

And this being a not-final boss the ones that are hidden will at least be simple to unlock. Real secrets should not be required to complete a mid-game level anywhere below Ace at least.
I don't exactly know when I can start but I do know how I'd like the fight to go so I'll take it. 39 is mine.
If you let me know what his HP is going to be that'll be super-helpful.

Xfing · Post by **Xfing** » Tue Apr 03, 2018 8:30 am

And this being a not-final boss the ones that are hidden will at least be simple to unlock. Real secrets should not be required to complete a mid-game level anywhere below Ace at least.
I don't exactly know when I can start but I do know how I'd like the fight to go so I'll take it. 39 is mine.
If you let me know what his HP is going to be that'll be super-helpful.

I agree entirely, the player needs to have a comfortable supply of shakers (and supplementary Smarts) for that boss. Running out of the only types of ammo that can actually enable you to defeat the boss is no good.

The HP is probably going to be somewhere in the range of 5-6k. Get Haxmed32 and see for yourself, that would be the easiest.

Alter-Fox · Post by **Alter-Fox** » Tue Apr 03, 2018 9:19 am

Eeeh, I've never been able to get that to install on any PC of mine.
I'll set it to 6,000 for testing.

BTW I was thinking of streaming playthroughs of six or seven levels from various spots in the campaign for the Discord Descent crowd to see if I can drum up a bit of interest, especially since there are a bunch of designers there working on their own projects. A picture is worth a thousand words and a video is literally a gazillion pictures.

LightWolf · Post by **LightWolf** » Tue Apr 03, 2018 9:49 am

You can boot up RBoTEdit and check the HP as well.

I may also be able to record something, just not sure what. A speedrun of the demo (when out) maybe?

Sirius · Post by **Sirius** » Tue Apr 03, 2018 11:05 am

Yeah rbotedit is the easiest option since it works on almost any version of Windows... maybe not 3.1 or earlier, but that's a sacrifice we're probably willing to make.

Xfing · Post by **Xfing** » Tue Apr 03, 2018 11:10 am

Alter-Fox wrote: ↑Tue Apr 03, 2018 9:19 am Eeeh, I've never been able to get that to install on any PC of mine.
I'll set it to 6,000 for testing.

BTW I was thinking of streaming playthroughs of six or seven levels from various spots in the campaign for the Discord Descent crowd to see if I can drum up a bit of interest, especially since there are a bunch of designers there working on their own projects. A picture is worth a thousand words and a video is literally a gazillion pictures.

I wouldn't spoil the stuff to people, especially since populations are still provisional in many of the levels. I think we've been enjoying enough interest as it is, plenty of talented designers chiming in all the time. Let's not rush it

Oh, and this boss' HP is actually 7500 after the changes. I think I went with a linear +500 curve for every next boss. Still, several point-blank shakers to the rear do him in just fine

AlexanderBorisov · Post by **AlexanderBorisov** » Tue Apr 03, 2018 12:58 pm

As I remember, CS L24 boss has 6500 HP, and one direct shaker hit takes away 1000 HP or slightly less - so it takes 7 shakers to kill, 7500 would mean 8 direct hits - quite a lot, further increasing boss HP could create smth like AF L9 monster (static Mega missile turret with 32000 HP - you need to unload 4 full laser batteries to kill it!). Smart missiles do only around 160-200 damage IIRC, not very useful agains those bosses, especially when one starts spamming shakers or megas at you... And if you have relatively large arena where hitting the boss from the back is not trivial, you can usually only unload 2-3 shakers per cloak+invulnerability on average into its ass. Even TEW L25 boss (5000 HP or so) is nontrivial to kill with 2 cloaks/unvuln given...

Xfing · Post by **Xfing** » Tue Apr 03, 2018 1:22 pm

AlexanderBorisov wrote: ↑Tue Apr 03, 2018 12:58 pm As I remember, CS L24 boss has 6500 HP, and one direct shaker hit takes away 1000 HP or slightly less - so it takes 7 shakers to kill, 7500 would mean 8 direct hits - quite a lot, further increasing boss HP could create smth like AF L9 monster (static Mega missile turret with 32000 HP - you need to unload 4 full laser batteries to kill it!). Smart missiles do only around 160-200 damage IIRC, not very useful agains those bosses, especially when one starts spamming shakers or megas at you... And if you have relatively large arena where hitting the boss from the back is not trivial, you can usually only unload 2-3 shakers per cloak+invulnerability on average into its ass. Even TEW L25 boss (5000 HP or so) is nontrivial to kill with 2 cloaks/unvuln given...

Well, I've just redone tests and the final boss of the game with 8500 HP (the Vertigo boss) takes 7 shakers up the hindquarters to go down. That means the Alien 2 Boss should only require 6 shakers in the arse to meet the same fate. Not so bad in fact

Don't be so quick to underestimate a point-blank shaker, they're wicked.

AlexanderBorisov · Post by **AlexanderBorisov** » Tue Apr 03, 2018 1:35 pm

Not sure, never killed it with just 6 in any of my attempts, and Calmarius run also uses 7. Could be that some of the hits were not counted or few bomblets flew after a spawn robot - don't know. Same thing with TEW boss, never seen it killed with less than 5 shakers (although it has 1000 HP less).

Alter-Fox · Post by **Alter-Fox** » Tue Apr 03, 2018 1:46 pm

I don't think scaling numbers really makes sense for a boss that's pretty much only damageable by the superweapon.
Focus on the number of shakers it would take.

If he's not the final boss of the set he shouldn't take as many as he does in CS level 24-- that fight is long enough already.

Xfing · Post by **Xfing** » Tue Apr 03, 2018 2:10 pm

Well, that of course depends if you fire those shakers at the wall behind him and only have the bomblets damage him. I was thinking more about a situation where you face shaker him in the buttocks, which does require both a cloak and an invulnerability to do, well at least the latter. But we're planning on providing plenty o' those, so don't you worry fam

EDIT: Technically you could do it with just the cloak if you fired the missile from far enough away - he'd only cloak after the entire payload hit him. Doing that would require a particular type of boss arena though - that goes without saying. Since we have two bosses of this kind, care must be taken to provide very different types of arenas for them to encourage different tactics.

Sirius · Post by **Sirius** » Tue Apr 03, 2018 5:21 pm

You kind of need both to avoid frustration. Without the cloak you won't have an easy time getting directly behind it, and without invulnerability you won't be able to get close enough for the missile to hit before it turns around.

Edit: Well, I guess you could do kamikaze runs. That would stretch out the cloak too.

Edit 2: Also, due to HP scaling, you need to test on - I think - Insane to get correct number-to-kill-the-boss reports.

LightWolf · Post by **LightWolf** » Tue Apr 03, 2018 11:40 pm

Fun fact: Tycho Brahe boss has a hardcoded immunity to matter.
Why can you still damage it with shakers? Likely the blast damage counts as non-matter damage. I actually used a modded shaker that unloaded gauss that unloaded vulcan and took down a boss using Baloris Prime AI with it. No energy anywhere in the equation. Odds are that it was made more vulnerable to blast damage; I never saw that part. Just the immunity flags.

Xfing · Post by **Xfing** » Tue Apr 03, 2018 11:57 pm

Of course I did the testing on Insane, how else?

Also, Shakers do not affect robots immune to kinetic weapons such as the baloris boss. It must be a separate flag or something.

Sirius · Post by **Sirius** » Wed Apr 04, 2018 2:24 am

What's going on is kind of funny; yes, it is flagged as immune to matter, but the code for the "weak spot" invulnerability mode ignores that flag so it doesn't actually have any effect.

P.S. Although the "non-matter" theory is also sort of true. Immune-to-matter bosses do indeed take damage from blasts, but at a reduced rate (1/4 if I recall correctly) compared to other bosses. I can't remember whether that also applies to spot-invulnerable bosses like #24 but it probably does.

Xfing · Post by **Xfing** » Wed Apr 04, 2018 8:09 am

Really? Are you referring to shaker blasts only, or blast damage in general? Does that mean I could off a matter immune boss with a big enough supply of missiles?

LightWolf · Post by **LightWolf** » Wed Apr 04, 2018 10:27 am

Blast damage in general - I got a matter-immune boss to spew energy blobs at me with a proxy mine.

Sirius · Post by **Sirius** » Wed Apr 04, 2018 1:01 pm

I'll try to do a proper analysis when I have the code in front of me again... there are a bunch of tweaks applied to balance stuff that aren't terribly obvious to the player on the face of things.

TRUEpiiiicness · Post by **TRUEpiiiicness** » Wed Apr 04, 2018 6:06 pm

Can fusion hit the back as it pierces through or do you have to hit it from the correct direction?

18 lvls left btw lol

LightWolf · Post by **LightWolf** » Wed Apr 04, 2018 6:39 pm

I think you have to hit from the correct direction. Never been able to fuse him from the front.