Suggestions for the final Steam BM version

Black Mesa Archive The Cafeteria
#161

You must excuse me for I am a dreamer. I just had this thought of a few things that would make the game even that much cooler (for me rather):

  1. Imagine that each time the vorts charge their zap that all the lights closest to them starts flickering and then returns to normal after they’ve released their zap. Things like lights and vending machines could flicker each time they ‘drain’ the energy around them to charge their zap.
  2. That each time the Houndeyes charge themselves up all physical objects around them start floating in the air and the moment they release their shock wave all the objects in the air flies in different directions. It would be like they have psychic powers and can use any physical object to their advantage. Electrical stuff must also flicker after the blast
  3. 3rd person view for Gordon and the ability to see him actually climb the ladders rather than glide up and down them with just his feet.
  4. Each time Gordon is zapped by a vort or blasted by a Hopundeye that the HEV suit must quickly reboot because of the damage or surge.
  5. Beautiful modern lens flares of the sun and interior lights.
  6. Lights must also flicker and objects be shocked away when xenians teleport in. I always imagined the teleporting to be much more powerful.

I know this is a useless list to put on this page but it’s just a thought. I am no Source expert and don’t know what the engine is capable off.

#162

Color changes to the superportal to Xen and the beams locking the portal open. Blue/Blue Green when it is still starting like the current. Change to green when almost ready then yellow orange or orange when it is ready. When about to explode orange - red orange and finally when the explosion happens change it to red.

It’s pretty much like Half-Life at the same scene. May be beautiful to look at because of the change of the hue of the portal as well as the lighting.

#163

Very cool idea.

#164

I haven’t read all the suggestions yet, so feel free to rip my ears off and shove them up my ass if someone has said this already.
How 'bout a tick-box-thingy on the options menu that can give you a jump boost, to not need to crouch jump, like Half-Life 2?
Or maybe just one to enable that automatic couch-jump script that’s been floating around areas that I don’t give a shit about.

#165

For all you guys haten’ the crouch jump just look at this forum:
https://forums.blackmesasource.com/showthread.php?t=13013&highlight=crouch+jump MasterShadic2, that script that’s been floating around, I hope it’s not the one I posted below :smiley:

I am currently using it because it allows you to do a crouch jump with your spacebar if you hold it in for a split second longer. I’ll quote what mgr.inz.player did:

EDIT: O yeah, is there anybody who knows of a console command or something that needs to be changed to remove the ugly blood and alien splatter on the weapons and hands. I really don’t like it.

#166

I’ve probably said this before (or some iteration of it), and it probably won’t happen, but a guy can wish.

I want Ichthyosaurs to be more…interesting/diverse/better. I mean, AMAZING models, they make me scared of any and all water in the game, even when I know there isn’t one in there, but they’re so boring at times.
I liked in HL how they had a more ‘relaxed’ swim when they weren’t going hostile. In BM they’re always hostile all the time, and if you’re not in the water they still swim like they’re chasing something. They also don’t swim at water surface level, only if they do a mini ‘leap’ or something, but that’s it.

I’ve edited their HP so they’re more beefy (not too much) because they were too weak by nature. If you jumped in the dam carefully, youd easily be able to shoot it down, and the first one you encounter is easy enough, they’re only semi-challenging in the second room because there are 2, but the second only activates once you swim down anyway.

Don’t get me started on the one in FaF. That one is just blatantly boring, but also its incredibly inconsistent. In general its easy as hell to avoid, but the enclosure is so small and the monster so big, it just seems awkward.
Half the time it’ll be swimming around once you get there, and the other half it’s in ‘stasis’. That is, sometimes you can find it sitting perfectly idle in the water, doing nothing. It’s as if you’ve spawned it whilst ‘notarget’ is on. The ‘activation’ occurs once your’re fully submerged in the water for 2-3 seconds, which switches the inactive one on, but since you can just sprint+Jump the gap from the ladder to the platform, you can avoid it altogether.

I’ll be honest, I don’t know exactly what I want them to do. I just feel like as wonderfully scary and monstrous as they are, the gameplay around them still feels dull.

#167

The ichthyosaur can never reach the surface of the water because the surface acts like a force field for them in BM. I’ll suggest that they must be staying more on to the surface of the water. They’ll act like controllers without that force field. I wish they could at least make it swim in the surface making some of its red part in its head and top fin visible and they must be fast enough too .

#168

Honestly this one scared the shit out of me. My first playthrough I ignored the water. Second one I explored it and found the batteries (or was it grenades? can’t remember) in it. Third time I decided to go grab those supplies, easy pea- OH SHIT OH GOD WHAT IS HE DOING HERE WHAT THE HELL. After his apparent absence the first two times, I was positive the water would be empty. That was definitely the nastiest surprise Black Mesa has ever given me.

#169

FaF?
Forget about Freeman?
Well shit my pants and call me something southern.
I didn’t even know there was one in that chapter.

#170

It’s in the ‘pool’ before the gears. Like I mentioned, it doesn’t seem to show up all of the time. That’s why it scared me so bad when it finally did, I never expected it to suddenly be there.

The exact location is after you go down the pipe and leave the guard, swim down a small tunnel, at the end of that is a reasonably sized ‘pool’ of water that you swim over to get to the area where the gears are. That’s where it is… sometimes. :fffuuu:

#171

I shot it from the other side of the fencing.

#172

Assassin’s voice to be filtered. Restore it the way it was - commander’s gruff voice, grunts and medics - younger voice. Grunt’s voice must be filtered. Keep their gasmasks on.
Gargantua’s roar’s pitch of sound must be lowered.

#173

I think they should revert to the “Go! Go! Go!” voice the trailer.

#174

Or they shouldn’t speak at all besides scripted sequences, sometimes less is better, especially in case of BM’s HECU ._.

#175

This is what I’d like, definitely. Just to see it poke it’s head around a bit so I’m not only seeing a shadow under the water every now and then.

Another thing I just thought of/remembered - The sounds. I wish they’d be just a tiny bit louder, or implemented better.
In the first chamber they, uh, ‘moo’ or whine (whatever you call it), and that’s fine and kinda creepy, but you never hear it ever again, and underwater they don’t make much sound. All you normally hear are the effects when they’re hit, when they die, and the kind of burpy “imaeatyourface” attack animation.

The only reason I ‘knew’ it was there the first time was because of 2 reasons.

  1. I had played Half Life for the first time that week so the maps general shape was familiar to me (it’s one of the maps that retain a very very similar look rather than entire revamps apart from the pool size).
  2. Any and all water seen after the first ichthy encounter made me paranoid, especially since it was pitch black.

Apart from that, yeah, it’s not very obvious and can definitely be a frightening experience. I watched a Let’s Player after I had done the section. I saw them jump in cause they figured “eh no ichthyosaur”, and nearly screamed their face off as they looked to their right slightly, and there was this giant monstrous face.

As Someguy said, it’s in that location, but not that obvious if you’re not as game-water-phobic as I am.

The problem isn’t that it’s ‘sometimes there’. Like I said in the first post, it sometimes isn’t active. Sometimes you’ll see it swimming up and down the pool, other times it’ll be ‘static’ (or so I call it) in the water, and doesn’t ‘turn on’ till you’re submerged for more than a second.
I’ve noted the locations where it does this. It usually appears near the ladder (just to the right in the water of where the ladder is), meaning if you look you can see it. Typically you’ll see it’s eyes only, but a flashlight lets you see the red spot better. At other times, it’ll be slightly further down the tank, though I’ve only personally observed 3 other locations, all further than the first one I mentioned.

Unless it genuinely wasn’t there for someguy, then my theory goes out the window.

#176

Make cockroaches killable to make the player realize that Gordon has legs. :stuck_out_tongue:

#177

That can’t happen as it is, unfortunately. In order to get cockroaches working in those numbers without losing performance over Source’s built-in AI optimization (or lackthereof) they had to be turned into particle effects. IIRC, It was a choice between cockroaches and steppable cockroach.
It’d be nice, though.

#178

Operation Black Mesa (Opposing Force remake) has cockroaches.

#179

Particles are infinitely cheaper to deal with than full blown AI. Remember, Black Mesa is an extremely detailed Source mod. We are frequently close to blowing through Source’s 2048 max entity limit in virtually all of our maps. This is why cockroaches were made to be particle effects. They don’t use up valuable entity slots which we need for actual game play entities (such as AI).

#180

#1, #2, #4, #6: Don’t believe these are possible. Lights are very expensive. To have them ‘flicker’ would mean we’d have to make them dynamic with lightstyles which murder performance. Very little benefit for such a massive tradeoff. In regards to the HEV suit, this would be incredibly annoying (imo). What if you get zapped multiple times in quick succession? Your suit would be rebooting constantly and you wouldn’t be able to see your health or armor (huge no-no). For #2, cool idea. I’ll put this on my plate of things to look into, but I need to ensure the team is behind me on this idea. #6: Cannot do. See point about lights above.

Founded in 2004, Leakfree.org became one of the first online communities dedicated to Valve’s Source engine development. It is more famously known for the formation of Black Mesa: Source under the 'Leakfree Modification Team' handle in September 2004.