I was actually wondering about this. If you don’t kill the garg yourself and go to the tunnel with him still alive and the outside shelling starts will it kill him?
Anyways I’m about to do an actual test run this time and check a few things. Will post results soon
Thanks for the bug report. Most of this stuff DOES look like errors on my part and I will work to correct them for the next version. I look forward to reading your “review” when you post it.
Though I will say, the jumppad in the bathroom is rigged fine as far as I know. I’ve certainly tested it enough times. Step on it. Stop moving. Always puts you on the roof. At least it did in my tests.
The bug with the LAV I actually encountered myself on a testrun, and I thought, hey that’s really weird, I wonder why he’s doing that! I never got it again, so assumed it was a one off. If you’re getting it to, there must be a root problem. I’ll see what I can do about it.
I didn’t remove the Harrier take off from C2A5G, it’s just way less glitchy now. As for the marine on the left building on C2A5H, I removed him for balancing reasons - he was HEAVILY biasing fights in favour of the marines. That, and when he wasn’t unbalancing the fights, he is often the first marine to start engaging the player, and he’s in an annoying and difficult to fight place. I figured just having one marine on the roof would be enough.
As to the crashing I don’t know what to do. I’ve had a few reports of crashes in the tank battle for C2A5H, but I’ve NEVER had one myself. I’ve had crashes that other people were reporting in other areas, just so you don’t think I’m saying that because I think my work’s perfect, but I’m going to take a guess that perhaps your computer is a bit weaker and doesn’t like the big fights? That would definitely cause more crashing.
For those of you reporting crashes, I’d just like everyone to bear in mind that Black Mesa is a generally unstable game AS IT IS. That’s fair enough, it’s a free mod! I’ve had plenty of crashes in other parts of the game too. I don’t necessarily need to hear about EVERY crash you have, as it’s very difficult to distinguish whether it’s BM crashing because it’s a little buggy, or the game crashing because of a flaw in my maps. HOWEVER, REPRODUCIBLE crashes, I am very interested in. As in, crashes that happen a lot in a certain area, or crashes which can be forced in some way. For example, the parking lot on C2A5G was a reproducible crash. Many MANY people were reporting it and I figured out how to reproduce it myself. That was clearly a map design flaw. That’s the kind of crashing I’m more interested in - where I can normally immediately tell if it’s my fault or not.
I’m going to redo the security area, I’ve already said that. I’ll redo it when the inspiration strikes me. A theme and an aesthetic are difficult to come by for that sort of area. Ceiling turrets doesn’t really make sense, I don’t see why a security office in a GASWORKS would have hi-tech defenses. Having a central locking system for areas of the facility is already a little implausible but still believable. The turrets and mines can be explained by the guards looting the M35. And it’s not a case of them “not having enough time” to set it up - the player doesn’t have any idea how long they’ve had to set up those traps!
As for the sniper shooting the barrels after they’ve exploded, I thought I’d already done the entity setup necessary to prevent this (the trigger which causes him to shoot the barrels gets killed when the barrels break). But, I’ve looked at it again and I’ve now forced him to start focussing on the player once the barrels are dead, so thanks for that report.
Don’t know why this would happen. Never experienced any serious issues with the Garg myself and didn’t really do anything to break him either. There must be a problem though as many people are having it. I’ll look into it!
As for the framerate problems, I’m afraid it’s a little par for the course. There’s just so many AI in play, and so many effects on the screen it’s difficult NOT to have a framerate loss. I consider it an acceptable loss, however. I’ve actually got the maps to a fairly well optimized point now, I’ve made very good use of areaportals and occluders now. Visleafing is still poor but areaportals and occluders mostly offset it. I wouldn’t expect much performance increase after this version.
EDIT: Out of courtesy I’ll address your minor gripes video, as you went to the trouble of making it. Thanks for taking the time to do that.
The ladder dropping down the pipe into the water has no collision, it is physically impossible to get stuck on it. Next time, try crouching and walking into the drop down. It’s the most reliable way of doing it by far. There’s no real way I can make that better.
It IS difficult to get out of the pipe, I know. In 0.80b (which feels like SO LONG ago), I had a little invisible ramp leading up to the pipe, but it caused more harm than good, often causing the players to go shooting up the top of the pipe due to Source’s funny water physics. I may or may not look into it. Flooding the pipe is a big nono, however, as that would be physically impossible to do without flooding the rest of the furnace room due to equilibrium, and the fact that there’s a boiling hot furnace on the other end of the pipe!
The phantom snarks are actually a problem I know about, and also a problem I have NO IDEA about why it happens. I’ll look into it. I’ve had it myself as well.
The lips on the pipes are a bit annoying I know. I’ll put an invisible ramp there but the actual visible lip is a necessary evil, to prevent it from overlapping visibly with the grate underneath it.
The shelling won’t kill him, though I could make it do so if people thought it was a good idea. The Garg has a damagefilter set which only responds to actual mortars, the mortars which start at the end of C2A5I are simulated mortars and not real mortars.
EDIT: In other news, partly because Dotard asked, and partly because I had the idea this morning and it seemed nice, is I’ll shoot a new video for 0.82b tomorrow, but with a bit of a twist from my usual endeavors. For each map “segment,” (road leading to parking lot, parking lot, street, garage, etc) I’m going to do a playthrough from Half-Life Source, and from my Black Mesa version, exploring and commentating on the differences and a few other critical points. I figure it might be interesting. So the layout would be as follows:
(All with commentary and edited footage) HL1 Road, BM Road, HL1 Parking Lot, BM Parking Lot, HL1 Street, BM Street, etc.
It’s a nice look at the evolution and lets me make some more critical points I reckon. Hope you guys like the idea!
0.82b critique
This might be my final critique as real life is calling and I feel that your mod is very close to final. 1-2 more releases should be sufficient as long as you don’t make any drastic changes…if I have time, I’ll stop by to critique the final beta. You are nearing the point of diminishing returns and quite frankly, if you really wanted to devote your energies to modding, it would be more worth your while to add a couple of loading screens of content to OAR, though you shouldn’t do this unless the devs give you due credit. ST is now a ridiculously long chapter and an addition to OAR would help create much more variety in chapter length plus reintroduce the element of rail switching and exploration that is absent in BMS’ version of the map.
If by chance the devs get you on the team to renovate other sections of BMS or if you decide to actually do OAR, feel free to shoot me a PM if you need some design input and a pair of critical eyes. As you are planning to do some touch-ups to ST outside of your sections, I’ll include my suggestions here, as I don’t plan on using these forums much longer. Finally, thanks for your hard work on this project…the community owes you a debt of gratitude and it’s been a pleasure working with you.
General impressions
Optimization and stability is much better and the bugs in the garage are fixed…nice work. Still numerous crashes during the tank battle for various reasons as well as crashes when using the bathroom jump pad in C2A5H. Balance needs to be adjusted for the LAV/Osprey courtyard, which favors the HECU, and the tank battle, which is tipped far too much to the aliens now…do NOT change the other battles. Health and ammo needs to be readjusted to account for the new spawns. You are still being too generous from the opening of C2A5G to the TOW courtyard but this may in part be due to your battery settings when spawing in C2A5G. The players should never be getting medkits when close to 100 health. Pickups need to be rebalanced/rearranged from gasworks to pre-garg in C2A5I (now a little too stingy). Green=ammo/health placement.
General
[COLOR=‘red’]In the readme, please use “Tian Wang” in the acknowledgements as opposed to “Wangman.” Thanks.
[COLOR=‘lime’]When spawning in C2A5G, you MUST use the following health/ammo layout to account for a realistic playthrough of ST on Hard. Otherwise, you are balancing only against your maps and not to BMS, which is bad.
There is a space distortion effect (similar to a strider shot) when hitting all jump pads in C2A5G-I w/the hornet gun. This looks incredibly stupid and doesn’t make sense. Remove this effect if you added it but keep if it was already in BMS (I suspect it might be because the FaF pad does the same thing).
C2A5G
.50 cal vort shootout
Add xenofauna by the silo door (just the moss).
Move the closest spawning vorts in wave 2 further back…they are EASIER to kill now because they appear larger and the .50 cal is more accurate at close range.
[COLOR=‘lime’]Delete at least one magnum crate by the dead HECU. You’re giving too much here and the player is maxed anyway.
[COLOR=‘lime’]Re-add the battery in one of the crates.
Garage
[COLOR=‘lime’]Replace the health kit by the zombie ambush on the 1st floor w/a battery. Players are already pushing 100 health from the 2 medkits in the vort shootout.
Dead marine by the jump pad should be impaled through the chest…currently he has a giant metal dick.
All parking spaces should be delineated by simple white lines as opposed to the striped lines you’ve been using. This is consistent w/real life and is the most aesthetically pleasing. You’ve really overdone it w/the striped design element here as the garage floor looks more like a crime scene or construction zone.
On the ground floor, there’s an overlap between the large striped section and the white lines of the street which looks very sloppy. The lines should be deleted when crossing over the striped section (images 1, 2).
Vending machines on floor 1 are illogically placed (downright dangerous so close to the roads). Solutions from best to worst: 1. Move them by the stairwell door (a more logical placement). 2. Delete them. 3. Raise the section where they are currently located to make it look like a sidewalk.
This section of the road on floor 1 is poorly designed (image 3). Delete the solid white line between the roads and connect the dotted lines.
Extend this section of the road on floor 2 into the garage to keep consistency w/the other floors. Delete the solid white line (image 4).
Fix the dotted lines on the spiral driveways…for some reason they look super squiggly now.
Replace the vortigaunt on the 3rd floor w/a zombie and/or headcrabs. Realistically, he should have been helping his buddies during the garage fight. This change also reinforces your zombie attack on the 1st floor.
[COLOR=‘lime’]Delete the medkit by the dead marine. Replace w/another grenade.
Tone down or remove the opacity effect from the windows atop the carshop such that they are visible from all angles. Add a frame/grid support to the windows as they are too new for the old buildings and don’t fit.
Marines vs aliens
Place the blue crates between lots 2 and 3 such that they do not overlap the garage doors. This change not only looks better and is more realistic but also prevents the marines from using cover effectively (they still do, battle is about 50/50).
Turn off the light by the vent (on top of lot 1).
Vent drop/car shop
[COLOR=‘lime’]Delete 1 of the batteries the player drops down onto. The placement is too convenient and you don’t need so many.
Delete the flying sparks when using the lift w/the extensions. A functional piece of equipment shouldn’t be grinding against the shop’s floor.
[COLOR=‘lime’]Reduce health dispenser to 50 (never used the full amount, plenty of batteries in the shop, medkits in the courtyard).
Texture bug still present on destroyed concrete.
TOW courtyard
Delete the parking bumper where the old lamppost used to be and replace them w/a pair of highway bumpers (you used 3 of them in the garg scene), which will look better.
Delete the big ugly black mark on the Agrunt hangar door but keep the 2 little ones. Then, either 1) do nothing or 2) introduce some small cracks in the door and add a pounding effect (like the naked grunt in QE or the zombie in the opening of C2A5G, but more frequent/random) to show that the Agrunts are trying to break down the door.
“Semper fi” quote sucks…the voice acting is slightly subpar compared to the rest of the BMS dialogue. Recommend 1) delete the line and the radio or 2) if you keep it, have it go off when the player approaches the radio…having it go off mid-battle might make more sense as the marines are still alive to hear it.
[COLOR=‘lime’]Delete one medkit.
[COLOR=‘lime’]Move the deployable sentry to the back of the M35. This makes even more sense now as there’s too much shit cluttering the TOW which is confusing. The sentry also works more effectively when placed by the vehicle because it’s more accurate at close range, lasts longer w/the vehicle providing cover and diverts hornets when placed away from and off-sides to the player. Plus it prevents the turret from backfiring. Add some green crates on the vehicle and some undeployed turrets to improve believability.
Tapping the sentry lightly against a vehicle will destroy it.
Delete the cactus in the little garden. It’s abutting the rock and looks unnatural near the tree and other leafy plants.
Delete the metal railings on top of the hangar entrances. Functionally, they serve no purpose and are inconsistent w/the design in the rest of ST. Do this near the tank spawn in C2A5H as well.
Looks like you deleted the harrier takeoff…I didn’t see it on any playthrough.
Background textures surrounding the air traffic control tower are too orange and stand out. This is kind of an important issue as you’re using inconsistent textures around the landing strips. Solutions: 1) use the same textures in the courtyard for the background or 2) simply match the background color better.
Road leading to Osprey
Delete the plants growing on some of the rocks.
[COLOR=‘Lime’]Move the sentry from the M35 to the LAV courtyard and rest it on top of a green crate. As it can’t be controlled by the player and has limited ammo, putting it closer to the actual battle will give the player much more control over what and when it targets. This is very smart from a gameplay design perspective.
Osprey/LAV courtyard
Still favors the HECU 70-80/30-20 on Hard w/the LAV emerging victorious. This victory MUST favor the aliens to justify the evacuation. Solution: make the LAV fully emerge from the tunnel (looks better, allows Agrunts to kill it) and replace a vort w/an Agrunt spawn after the Osprey is destroyed. Balance from there.
Agrunts must be able to melee the LAV from ALL ANGLES. Currently they can only attack the SIDES of the LAV so when the grunts get into melee range, most of them will just stand there and look stupid.
Add a white light to the ramp side of the Osprey helipad.
[COLOR=‘lime’]Add a second battery within the same destructible crate (tank battle prep and paucity of batteries in C2A5H).
Destroyed Osprey debris causes damage to the player.
Delete the plants growing out of the pavement edge.
[b]C2A5H
Opening section[/b]
More alien corpses by the broken wall…a single Agrunt is not enough justification for an airstrike. Plus the corpse is easily missed.
Tank battle
Conti’s solution for the hut redesign and road door opening to C2A5I is a bad idea in its current iteration. What the hell is the purpose of the hut if the road door opens from the Barney security station and why would the door control panel be so far away anyway? Gameplay wise, these new changes also allow the player to bypass the .50 cal shootout by simply running away. Solution: make the hut locked from the outside (I mean it this time) and [COLOR=‘lime’]place the grenades by the .50 cal. When Barney flips the switch in gasworks, ONLY the traffic light on the hut turns green. This will force the player to fight. Afterwards, the player enters the hut and PUSHES A BUTTON to open the road door; its associated traffic light will then turn green.
Extend the swath of destruction cut by the manta beam to the tank. There’s a small segment missing.
Too many alien survivors now, anywhere from 4-8 on Hard mode which is a real pain to deal with. Solution: re-add the rooftop marine opposite the bathroom (not sure why you deleted him as he orients the player to a future script) and/or delete 1 Agrunt.
Rooftop
Explosive barrels are an incredibly stupid idea…this discourages using barrels for cover and the player is already hurt pretty bad from the tank battle previously and from the new bathroom headcrabs. Revert to 0.81b settings.
Fix the ugly hangar rooftop in the background (image 5).
Satpipe and furnace
Place the blue pipe valve holder on the TOP floor, move the sign up and place the valve on the BOTTOM floor. This makes sense as the valve fell due to gravity and gameplay wise would make players hunt for it. This is also a better alternative than placing the red valve on the top level…how did it get there anyway, especially when detached from a bottom pipe?
Attached valves on the gray pipes also have locking problems if you attempt to turn them while standing on the pipes.
[COLOR=‘lime’]Have the health dispenser give 75 units (accounts for gasworks changes).
Gasworks to end
The giant flames in the room prior to the gasworks should damage the player. The pipes generating them will need to be moved as this section is very cramped.
Improve the crossbow collision issues on the blue door leading to the gasworks. This is the only other place where this is potentially an issue.
[COLOR=‘lime’]Add some destructible crates in the gasworks room which give a total of 2 batteries (accounts for new changes).
The new Apache crash looks unfeasible as both missile pylons are within the building even though the rooftop opening is super narrow. Quite frankly, it looks like the entire chopper should have fallen into the gasworks. Solution 1) revert to 0.81b appearance 2) angle the Apache such that one of the missile pylons is on TOP of the roof or alternatively destroy a missile pylon; you may need to adjust the rooftop opening as well.
While you’ve noticeably changed the black pipe and expanded it, it does nothing to ease the difficulty of the first jump in the steam puzzle and also slightly clips into the large drum. Either 1) delete the pipe entirely and adjust the opening steam jets accordingly or 2) just leave it as is and fix the clipping issue.
Consider swapping the position of the Agrunt and the vort that spawn during the steam puzzle. Agrunt is the higher priority target because it does tremendous damage so should be in DIRECT line of sight (also prevents pathing issues).
The locked blue door on the second floor should be unlockable from the inside once players get in. This is consistent w/the rest of BMS.
Tripmine spawns in the gasworks are still inconsistent…like the new changes though.
Delete the down arrow on the “security room” logo above the door and re-center the logo. Direction arrows are only used on signs if the destination is far away.
When you modify Barney’s animation, get him to push the big red button on the security access panel…that’s obviously the correct button to unlock the doors.
Replace the downed Apache script w/a 3 Osprey evac script once Barney opens the silo door. This reduces the problem of 2 downed choppers so close together and greatly reinforces the FUBAR/evacuation concept introduced in C2A5I and FaF.
[COLOR=‘lime’]Add a medkit on Barney’s desk by the uranium to prep the player for the .50 cal spawn (also accounts for turret damage).
Hangar door to exit the gasworks should either autoclose all the time w/a shorter time to closure or the button should be able to BOTH open and close the door to improve game performance.
Fix the asymmetry of the hangar door exit to the gasworks (image 6) and adjust the sidewalks accordingly. Note that the distinctly disjointed road will also be corrected (at least partially) once you fix this. Also, add a black line in the center of the arch to show where the door retracts to. Do this for the door in the TOW courtyard as well.
[COLOR=‘lime’]Delete the medkit in the destructible crate leading to C2A5I (should have been given earlier, see above). Replace w/2 satchels or 2 MP5 grenades (FaF prep).
[b]C2A5I
Garg chase[/b]
Snark placement is still a little too close to the entrance. It might work better if it were placed AFTER the 90 degree turn once you enter the pipe (midway between the long segment).
Give Barney a line of dialogue if he survives to the snark vent as it seems kind of stupid that he can’t just jump on the pipe. Something along the lines of “I’m gonna wait here and see if I can find any survivors” or “I’m gonna sit this one out” should do.
There’s a dead red light in the snark tunnel…not sure if this is intentional but it might look better if it actually illuminated.
The garg entrance should happen ONLY when the player drops on the pipe vent. Currently, the script can trigger when you are still in the pipe. You can hear the garg coming out and the marines reacting to it, but the silo door is still intact. Then when you drop down, the garg appearance gets really messed up.
Now that players can run into the garg’s entrance site, there should be a large hole in the wall that’s inaccessible to the player because of debris to show where he came from. This doesn’t need to be scripted if it’s placed really far back by the hangar door.
Remaining garg troubles: 1) garg can frequently pin the player in many places, forcing a noclip; perhaps you can get him to back up a bit when this happens 2) when standing on the pool walkway, the garg makes a small circular patrol path instead of patrolling the perimeter 3) when standing on the fence side of the long reservoir, the garg also patrols circularly; he does seem to patrol the perimeter when he’s not in this area though.
There are plants growing on a rock near the fence. Delete them.
Destroying the explosive crates by the radar tower should trigger it to fall if the detonation is near the tower.
Use simple white lines to delineate the parking spaces in the entrance to FaF. Rotate the handicap sign 90 degrees such that the wheel faces the parking space’s exit.
Add some occasional airstrike or artillery effects WITHIN the FaF tunnel as well. Some falling debris and a cracking ceiling would be nice. Consider making the garg killable with the artillery fire outside the FaF entrance.
At the very end of the tunnel to FaF, there is a distinctly disjointed appearance of the central white line in the road between the segment before the white stripes and the segment after. Fix it by extending the whites stripes to the garage.
ST Touch Ups
Hydroelectric dam: Just have 1-2 Agrunts spawn and be taken out by the Apache. It’s nice to preserve the sense that the area is firmly under military control. This adds to the player’s surprise once they get to your sections. If the aliens spawn by the cracked area of the dam, it will make sense why the Apache targeted this section for destruction (this was unclear in BMS).
Apache harass: Use a variable accuracy model for Apache attacks similar to the HL2 chopper chase. Something like 80% when the player is still, 40% when walking, 15-20% when running.
Tentacle scene: I submitted these changes to the devs and while most fixes revolve around interactions w/3 tentacles, some of this still applies to you:
Tentacle-Unfortunately, the most problematic AI in BMS because it is missing several scripts from HL. This video highlights some of what’s missing (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkeKfqRo2Uw). The following should help fix the tentacle and make it behave more realistically:
A. Needs the idle animations back after it does not hear sound for a prolonged period of time (tentacle sits up and growls or gently taps at the floors).
B. The two closest tentacles need to focus on the site where an explosive has been detonated; the third tentacle can also attack or idle as seen in the video. This adds far more purpose to their movements compared to them always clacking away 120 degrees from each other.
C. Greater independence between tentacles until it is stimulated by sound (e.g. one tentacle idles, another clacks away at a lower level).
D. As in HL, tentacles should retreat into the ground when their base is hit with an explosive or when the neck area is hit with firearms. This is a good emergency tactic when the creature is agitated.
Osprey courtyard: I would also like to add this area to your to-do list. The design here is sloppy for several reasons but the main problem is that the Osprey drops infinite marines. Not only is this extremely unrealistic but is also confusing for first time players, who may not realize that the Osprey needs to be killed. Several players, including myself have brought up this issue before. The simple solution is to have the Osprey drop 6-8 marines and then fly away. This will give the player sufficient time to kill the Osprey but is forgiving enough that the player is not punished w/death if he fails to realize that it can be killed. This area is also sloppy because the 2 vorts and Agrunts that spawn initially are meant to divert the HECU’s attack on the player so he can kill the Osprey but they usually end up attacking the player anyway. Once the player deals w/the aliens, they are stuck trying to kill wave after wave of HECU and their extreme accuracy prevents the player from running out of the tunnel and actually seeing the Osprey.
Just a small thing I noticed- when starting a game from map C2A5G, you spawn with all the weapons available to you up to that point. However, if you start from C2A5H, it spawns you with no weapons at all.
Extensive testing play-through of the latest version finished. I spent a good three hours going through looking everywhere and doing everything I could to break your maps.
I only had ONE crash the entire time I was doing this (sometimes reloading and playing the same area again and again). The crash happened in the street outside the gasworks area with the tank and lots of AI. It happened when I ran outside of the blown apart wall as soon as it opened up and was in the thick of the fighting when hitting quick-load. I crashed to desktop when attempting to load and got this: “Can’t load lump 53, allocation of 8487281 bytes failed!!!”
I tried and could not reproduce this crash and other than that I has zero performance issues or crashes. Like I said I spent a lot of time on the maps and they simply played like butter for me. That said, here are the issues that I did find.
https://i.imgur.com/NQbhZ.jpg
Someone else brought up that this marines left arm looks weird floating like that. I agree. It’s not a big deal at all, but if it is possible to make it hanging down with gravity go for it.
https://i.imgur.com/WrXr5.jpg
I think this completely smashed flat car looks out of place here. There is clearly no debris around it and the ceiling above it is completely intact. How did it get there? Remove it or put some explanation as to why it is a pancake car. Maybe put it sticking out of a pile of the debris somewhere in the garage.
https://i.imgur.com/CEEJn.jpg
In the mechanic garage you can throw the barrels, tires etc. right through the trap debris and it clips through acting funny. Probably nothing you can do about this. Also you can stand on a barrel placed right there and kill one of the outside marines. I also noticed that the wood debris from the explosive crates can sometimes continuously jump around making strange sounds after this explosion. If possible you may want to make the boxes have no debris after detonating.
https://i.imgur.com/EoWja.jpg
Again in the mechanic garage. You can take a tire, coolant barrel, or computer monitor etc. and put it on top of this truck and then press the lift button and then easily jump up to this vent area.
https://i.imgur.com/qkeBG.jpg
By doing so you will find the other side of those vents have no texture.
https://i.imgur.com/9P56D.jpg
Same area. Not a big deal, but a crafty player exploring can easily find it.
https://i.imgur.com/A4Q9p.jpg
I looked and looked for the jet taking off that everyone talks about and I couldn’t find it. I replayed from before you drop down into the garage several times and finally found it way over there stuck in the sky when I no clipped up to look around. I believe it may be bugged with this version and not take off at all.
https://i.imgur.com/EyUre.jpg
Possibly make this truck destructible when hit with the TOW missiles. It seems strange that you can shoot it with a huge explosive and it takes no damage. Not that important, but could be cool if it is easy to do. Also it would make laying waste to the grunts a bit more interesting.
https://i.imgur.com/AcThm.jpg
important
Right outside the door you blow open with the TOW there is this large rock by the supply truck. The player completely no clips through this rock and can stand inside it. All other rocks on this road don’t have this issue. This one should probably be fixed.
https://i.imgur.com/BjBDi.jpg
When you jump on top of this dead tank the flames do no damage to you.
https://i.imgur.com/aB2lX.jpg
Right behind the tank the door has this bar that clips out the wall. This happens on BOTH sides so if you fix it remember to check both sides of the door.
https://i.imgur.com/iSjXY.jpg
In that same area where the osprey was destroyed when you walk up the first part of the catwalk and look up you see these two AC vents that seem to be almost floating. Move them against that wall.
https://i.imgur.com/Z8LdI.jpg
Same area. If you open the door to the next level and then run back up top you can see that the door clips through the top of the wall. The door doesn’t auto close either so anyone exploring might easily find this.
https://i.imgur.com/BVa5G.jpg
important
This is the snipers nest seen by no cliping up there. Please, please fill in those two back windows with the wall. This is what is making him so awkward to kill when the player shoots rockets perfectly into his window and he doesn’t die. It isn’t clear from where you are why he isn’t dying so it just comes off as glitchy. Filling in these back windows would make him die from the first rocket you get into his nest. Almost every player WILL try to kill this sniper and like I said it does come off as glitchy when you seemingly get a perfect shot into his bunker and he doesn’t die.
https://i.imgur.com/GUjaA.jpg
These flames in the janitors closet before the gasworks did no damage to me. I think it did initial damage when I first came out of the pipe, but then I was able to stand in it and walk around in it with no damage at all.
https://i.imgur.com/4uzDU.jpg
This is the pipe in the gas works with no texture. You fixed the same problem on the other end of this pipe, but this side still has no texture. (accessible without using any cheats, you just simply crouch down there and see it)
https://i.imgur.com/GJ6nc.jpg
When I played this part the turret was often already destroyed when I got to the window. As you can see there is a chair clipping into it. I believe what is happening with this room is that chairs or other objects like computer screens are awkwardly spawning and having the chance to bounce around the room killing the trip mines and the turret as soon as this map is being loaded so that when you get to that room they are gone. Try removing the chairs/other extra props in there? I played this part several times and it was about 50/50 chance that this would happen. It could also be possible that sometimes the broken glass from that window is setting off the tripmine, but I dunno if that’s possible.
I also noticed that the sound of the glass window breaking for this area that’s supposed to draw your attention to that window played several times for me when exploring the room. It even played once after I was walking out with barney. You might want to take a look at that sound trigger and make sure it can only play one time.
https://i.imgur.com/NKgeE.jpg
Nothing to see here, just kind of funny to do. If you go up the stairs and load the next map whatever you prop these doors open with will be gone anyways with the door properly shut, so no issue here.
https://i.imgur.com/ejVmc.jpg
IMPORTANT
This snark trap nest thing in the start of Forget about Freeman is broken. It’s the one right when you go down the little slope and then look to your right. There is one on the left that works perfectly (you walk into it and the snarks come out, or hit it/shoot it and the snarks come out. The broken one simply does nothing. I believe it wasn’t broken in standard BM and may be an issue caused by your additions.
edit: Nevermind I looked at it again and this is how it was normally, which seems odd to me because if you take only the right route you won’t hit any other snark fauna traps at all so it just seems glitchy and odd for nothing to happen with this one, but I guess that’s how the BM devs designed it.
https://i.imgur.com/BlhHe.jpg
When you climb up the antenna to drop into this area the big box thing in my cross airs in this picture does a strange clip into view where it’s invisible until you drop down there and suddenly it appears.
---------OTHER NOTES------------
You should double the close timer delay time on the parking garage door. The player opens the door and sees the fighting and most of the time will stand there observing the fight, but the door closes way too early and it just seems weird to have to open it again in the middle of the fight. Double the auto close time or adjust it such that it doesn’t close again at least until this fight is over. I realize why you have this door close, I just want it to wait longer before doing so.
Put an invisible player-blocking wall ceiling right above the vent you must climb into after the parking garage street area. This would solve the issue of the player jumping up above the vent awkwardly and seeing the mechanic garage windows. This is a possible fix if you end up not changing the ladder out for boxes as a way of entering this vent.
If it isn’t a lot of work consider having the glass panes in the mechanic garage shatter when the trap explosive goes off. Also consider increasing the environment shake as it’s very little currently. Both of these things would make it a bit more dramatic.
If possible raise the volume of the radio transmission that you hear next to the TOW. It needs to be about twice as loud as it is now.
The destroyed tank in the osprey/manta area makes a vehicle running sound indefinitely after it is destroyed. The sound comes from a few meters in front of where the tank currently dies. I believe this is because you used to have the tank drive out further than it does now. If possible remove this sound after the tank dies, if not at least move it back to where the tank currently stops.
6_ You can use sprint to rub against the dead tank and easily push it around. I pushed it way down the road. Probably nothing you can do, but if you can make it UN-movable or too heavy to be pushed at all.
8] The explosive boxes by the antenna you must hit with the mortar can be killed without mortaring them by simply shooting them. If possible make them indestructible to anything except the mortar OR make them being destroyed at all trigger the antenna collapse. This would make more sense.
Possibly make some debris falling from the ceiling in this tunnel when you are about half way through and add in a few large and noticeable environment shakes (caused by the shelling).
Normal.
@jessiestorm, on the snark trap that’s not his problem and its not a problem at all the BM devs set that trap up that way to show that they are traps and spawn snarks(its a hint)
@textfamguy1 still think you should make the sniper nest armored in some way, it may annoy players that tehy can’t kill the sniper but it would show that they shouldn’t try and kill it.
I am doing speed-runs of the maps now for fun and I did actually crash again in the area with the tank outside the gas works building. I got as far as the rooftop with the sniper before I crashed. This was with ignoring every AI and simply running through as fast as possible. You might consider toning down the number of AI on this part and doing some re-balancing. There is simply so much happening at once and too much AI is bad. I will run it again and see if the same thing happens
Edit: Okay no crash the second time doing the same thing, but I got an obvious slow down in frames. I still think this part has a bit of a ridiculous number of AI all spawning at once and if this is a common part people crash at you may want to tone down that battle. I would guess that the hivehand grunts are what strains the game the most and this part has something like 6-7 grunts and they are all firing multiple hive hand bees at the HECU, also all the marines, the guys on the roof, the zombie guy and all the snarks makes for a ton of AI. If you’re running through all this as fast as possible it gets a bit nutty, but it’s up to you if you want to account for that type of play I suppose. Still I would seriously consider removing a few grunts from that street battle and re-balancing or looking into what else might cause that part to have bad optimization.
I don’t like the air duct shooting scene. It shouldn’t be so obvious.
I say the broken vent should be at the end.
You go forward a bit, they hear the noise, and shoot the air duct. You reach the grate and see them. Then the thing gives way, and you fall behind the van.
At the point the player destroys the tower and runs across it, i would then trigger the mortar strikes as they hit the ground and start running towards the doors. Also agree 100% the crank should be replaced with a button, it would be so much better. It will allow you look back and see the garg comming after you.
The tunnel to Forget about Freeman is protected by 2 doors right? an outer door and an inner door. To make it easier on the player and better on the garg ai, you should have the outer door open all the way when the player hits the button and the inner door already open to a predetermined amount so the player can just sqeeze through. This eliminates the problem of not opening it up all the way and dieing right there on the spot, and may help the garg not to just walk through the doors like they wern’t there.
After he chases you down the tunnel, maybe at the end you can have some dibre fall, preventing the Garg from chasing you. When you go to open the door to the next level, he’s back there roaring, that would be great!
LAV sound source still at the old place(center of battlefield)
review of the current build(0.82b)
C2a5g[/SIZE]
As I stated before this map is way more stable than before,I played it on a notebook and I had no crashes at all, no percievable framerate loss(…and I played it on my notebook that isn’t brand new).
You have optimized this map well.
This poor chap!
Fight on the last floor[/b]
I like the new fight on the last floor of the parking building.
I used one of the destroyed pillars as a cover, you’ve designed a good battleground,
even though I’d love to see a fight against a pack of houndeyes on this floor.
2nd Scripted fight(courtyard)
I played twice and the aliens won both the skirmishes.
Radio Semper Fi my ass
I love this new addition,it communicates well the frustration of the Hecu.
I tried to gib it,but It seems that Devs did not implement this feature(it was possible in HL).
Just a last thing about it:
Is the radio the source of the audio?
The sound should be more directional,use as references when Dr.Breen speaks at Gordon via Alien Computers(it happens in the last chapter of HL2).
The last scripted fight of this map seems more stable.
C2a5h[/SIZE]
New Hole in the ceiling
Massive scripted fight
It didn’t change in this new build but, as I said before, it would be better if you reduce the fog
for these 2 reasons:
-Reduce the weird effect on the body of the aliens(especially if you use the scope of the crossbow)
-Have a better view of the fight.
2 birds, one stone [/SIZE]
I’ve already expressed my concerns about the jumppad and that headcrab yesterday.
New addition in this pipe
Furnace Room
aha!
You’ve changed the position of the Valve. I like its new place.
Steam Puzzle area
In the fight against the aliens on this area I tried to fool their AI and, as you can see, I’ve reached my purpose.
I guess you can’t do much about it:
it’s the way they are coded and the way they interact with BM assets that could use an improvement.
C2a5i[/SIZE]
That new feature, that cost you hours of work is well done,I like it.
I end this post with this lovely pic I took
Keep up TextFamguy1!
Your work is heading in the right way.
It won’t take too much before you’ll ship a “Release Candidate build”.
Sooner or later you’ll must decide a feature freeze:
-no more additions
-no more community requests
Just keep on polishing and tweaking your maps
I don’t really see why the rooftop sniper is necessary. You already want to get inside the building, you don’t need any additional pressure to get in. Killing/dodging the sniper is just irritating.
In the security office, some monitors would be great so we can see the courtyard and those door u open on the backside…
In Blueshift we have such monitor room aswell where u can have a look in the facility on several monitors
Alright, another big post incoming. Stand by!
I won’t address your points 1 by 1 as I’ll be here until 3, but take my word for it that I read them all and took them in. There are still some that I disagree with (you’ve probably figured out by now - they’re the ones you’ve been posting since 0.80 which still haven’t been addressed), and there are some which are just plain wrong - there are at least 3 where you criticize me for changes from the previous version which I didn’t actually make. But aside from that, there’s lots of good feedback here and I’ll certainly take it on board for the next version. I’m sorry to hear you won’t be around anymore, I’ll miss your blunt, heavily opinionated but highly critical feedback. It’s been useful, and has been a pleasure working with you too, if a little painful for my feelings! (Kidding). Thanks for your help.
I’m going to try and make 0.83 the biggest new version yet and I’m hoping by that point to have everything truly “locked in”, as in no more new features or major changes - bug fixes from then on in. Depending on how my progress is, I may even brand it 0.9.
I know about this. Having the weapon spawns requires placing about 20 - 30 entities, and with G and H having about 118% entdata each adding it to H might be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. You’ll just have to use impulse 101 if you start from H, I’m afraid. Black Mesa’s maps are like that too, actually. Start on any map other than the first of a chapter and you won’t have any guns either.
First of all, thank you so much for your extraordinarily detailed feedback/bug report. You’ve raised an awful lot of issues here which haven’t been reported before/I didn’t know about, so I will work hard to fix them for the next version.
As I can’t really argue with bugs, suffice to say I’ll fix as many of them as I can. I’ll address your other notes, however, as they are more opinion based. It’s the least I can do!
Can do. Again it’s for optimization reasons, however. Leave the door open for too long and eventually you end up losing the performance gain you’d have from making it close, anyway. But I can probably stand to make it longer.
There is already one here, actually. It doesn’t work too well. Will try and fix it.
It’s not too much work, but they are supposed to be “unbreakable” glass, I figured it would be best to keep it that way. I’ll look into it - it probably needs a “dirtier” texture anyway.
It’s at volume 6 currently whereas on my first few tests of it, it was at volume 10 (max volume for ambient_generics). Trust me, volume 10 sounded bad, for a whole number of reasons - the largest one being you couldn’t make out the directionality of the sound at all at volume 10.
Can fix this.
Can’t fix this. It’s a standard gib from Black Mesa, same as the Osprey pieces doing damage.
Can fix this, but not sure it’s worth it. Again this is a standard gib from Black Mesa, it’s a problem in their code.
8 ) Fair enough, though that’s the way it was in Black Mesa. It seems a little counter-intuitive to have explosive crates behave the same way throughout the entire game, except there where you can’t destroy them.
Will do.
Will do. I just left it the way it was in Black Mesa but it would probably be better with a button.
It’s a delicate balancing act. Low numbers makes the fight end much quicker, which of course would ruin everything else about that scene. I’ll try and address it, but I’m not sure there’s a whole lot that I can do. If I tone down the scene too much, however, it will lose a lot of its impact.
Take it up with the Black Mesa devs. I left that scene how it was in Black Mesa. I’m getting a bit tired of hearing criticism for it when it’s not my design. All I did was add a loud thump as you drop down into the vent, so it makes sense as to why they knew you were there.
Thanks for the feedback. I’ll address it point by point as there isn’t too much.
The guy impaled on the rebar, well I can refute your objection to that with a picture, actually:
From Half Life 1’s C2A5F. It’s not there in Half-Life Source, for some reason.
Semper Fi my ass’s audio is directly sourced from the radio. Pick up the radio and throw it to the other side of the courtyard. The sound will go with it because it’s sourced directly from it.
C2A5H’s hole in the ceiling has been there for a very long time, but I never noticed the floating rebars. Will fix it.
Reducing the fog isn’t really an option. The fog helps optimization and it also adds to the mood. Reducing it would also make it inconsistent with the Black Mesa dev’s maps for Surface Tension, which I don’t really want to do. The effect on the bodies of the aliens is a game bug, nothing to do with me.
As for the AI getting confused on doors, not sure there is much I can do about it short of removing the door.
Most people on here have said they like the Sniper. He’s supposed to be irritating. Irritating is good. Surface Tension. Tension.
In the car garage on your first map, when the booby trapped door breaks the glass, how about having the glass fracture in the way that it does in half life 2 when you shoot it. Its might be a better visible indicator.
Uh, what? That makes zero sense. You could add in any sort of pointlessly difficult obstacle you wanted, and could easily justify it with that logic.
Irritating isn’t good. Irritating is irritating. Don’t get me wrong, I love your work, but it’s really not good practice to add things that are just supposed to piss off the player for no reason.
You should make it fun to get through your maps, rather than annoying. Fun is good. Video game. Game.
the sniper is to be a pain, something you aren’t to kill… though most people will try and kill it… why I keep suggesting he put some sort of armor around the nest to explain why its almost impossible to kill the sniper. also people grenade launcher it has the range to kill that sniper with ease.
I see no problem with the sniper, what about he or BM devs remove the other 2 from this chapter, because it’s not fun being shot while jumping on mines ;D
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.
