BMPD: Pre-Disaster Questionable Ethics

[Admiral_Sakai]

The rebuilding of parts of “Map I” that were lost when I moved computers is going extremely well:

However, I’ve run into a bit of a problem going deeper into the labs. Those areas are supposed to be very similar to the laser labs also on the second floor of the QE complex, which canonically are lit with yellow-orange lights. I try to keep the general colors of the lights in pre-disaster maps the same as they were beforehand, but these areas look much better lit with blue lights instead of orange:

[CatzEyes93]

I honestly cannot tell the difference.

[Tuc0]

It is really weird to see dead-zombied human even for “Questionable Ethics”.
I don’t think scientists would transport recently dead human corpse to test headcrabs body-controlling effect.

[RedEye9]

Scientists experiment, it’s what they do.

[Pauolo]

Looks like a safe working environment.

[Defacto]

I would go with the blue lights. It looks better and I don’t think anyone notice the difference.

[Apler_Indoraptor]

Its been a while, things do get the better of me. But going through the maps, I noticed 2 things I can report. The first one is that the airlock from the tram station to the upper levels of the lobby don’t connect yet, Idk if this is intentional or not, or if a means of connectivity hasn’t been found yet, but I thought I would bring it up. the other issue is while in the lobby part of the map, the screens for the main entrance to the lower lobby vanish, this is for both sides of the airlock.

[Centurion]

Looks lovely with the blue lights.

[Tuc0]

Has somebody already thought about pre-disaster Xen chapters while playing “Tech Beta”?
Like working science labs, geo-teams surveying, HEV scientists hunting and capturing creatures/plants/samples, etc.

[Admiral_Sakai]

I was actually planning to start work on this as soon as the demo dropped, but decided to wait a bit in case the source maps were significantly changed by the developers later on.

[Admiral_Sakai]

Just pushed a new update to Maps H and D with some changes to lighting and additional documents, and bugfixes surrounding the level transitions.

Also pulled in these guys from the xen technical beta to improve the decontamination sequence:

I think next I’ll be working on the all-original “I Map” and getting at least the first section of it ready to publish and show.

[Pauolo]

I love what you’ve done with the place so far, but that tram/freight station still irks me as an impossibility. Imho both train systems should not be intermingling with each other. A company like Black Mesa would surely restrict accesses to personnel based on their profession. Scientists being simply able to approach and hop on the freight trains is odd.

[CPU]

Perhaps it helps to remember that you can’t disembark at any secure location without being allowed to exit by a security guard.

[Admiral_Sakai]

You will note that there are security doors blocking every freight rail exit from the hub; without whatever security clearance is needed to open them there’s not a lot that a scientist wanting to mess with the freight rail system could do.

[Admiral_Sakai]

Made my first ‘custom’ prop, pieced together from fragments of other props. This took me about a day total to do, but I am extremely happy with the result:

[Pauolo]

I’m still not convinced that having both freight and personal transport at the same station is a good design, especially for a sector that’s relatively new. But eh, it’s just my 2 cents on efficient industrial design. I usually tend to pay attention to details regarding security and such, for example drawn floor zones to help discern which freight is coming in and which is coming out.

On another topic, why is there a cow (?) carcass hanged in that laboratory in the last screen? That looks quite extreme as testing equipment for weaponized Zen fauna. Those geeks at the Advanced Bio-Research Labs must be having fun with their budget. xD
Jokes aside, it does look fleshy and quite a contrast with the cold aesthetics of the lab. Also kudos for animating those blinds.

[Admiral_Sakai]

So after putting in some additional effort and polish into this whole “hivehand firing range” area and getting it really cool-looking, I’ve come to the uncomfortable conclusion that there’s not really a way to actually fire the hivehand. If it was a bullet-based weapon I could use an env_gunfire, and if it was something like a snark I could spawn an NPC version of the projectiles, but the hivehand projectiles are not in the FGD and do not even seem to appear when spawned in the game. They do have a model so I suppose I could send them along a func_tracktrain or just launch them as physics props, but then they wouldn’t have their particle effects or sound, would all travel along the same path, and wouldn’t be able to home in on targets like the real projectiles.

[Pauolo]

Holy slaughterhouse, Black Mesa!

[Admiral_Sakai]

The first part of Map I is now out, along with minor fixes to D and H. Going to be working on updating F next, which shouldn’t take too long. Not really that much to say about it other than that I’m still trying to get the hivehand to work and not having much success.

[Apler_Indoraptor]

Loving Map I so far tho 2 issues to report. 1 more issue than the other

Missing textures on both male and female HEV lockers.

This door is labelled as accessible, but doesn’t open, I find more a nuisance that a issue but eh I thought I would bring it up.