You are correct, I have never tried to animate something but I do know my way around Newtonian physics. My apologies, in case you were really offended by my remarks. 
I don’t want to start any quarrels here and only wanted to point out that the semper fi problem does not appear to be a general issue…
[COLOR=‘Red’]Update: Released![/SIZE]
Latest Version: 0.83 Beta (Hotfixed). Download here.[/SIZE]
Please report any serious issues (seriously gamebreaking bugs, missing textures) to me immediately and I will work fast to get out yet another hotfix ASAP.
I am now going to shoot, record, and upload the video for 0.83. Once that is done I will reply in detail to every comment posted here. I just wanna get that basic work out of the way first.
0.83b Hotfix Changelog:
03/12/12
==083b Hotfix==
Assorted/General
-Quick patch to fix a couple of issues people reported that are not difficuult to fix.
C2A5G
-Fixed a weird error where only half the floor numbers I’d placed around the parking lot were showing up.
-Gave the fire in the car park a sound.
-Fixed an areaportal bug which made the aerial vehicles flicker in and out of existence as they flew away. Though this will reduce performance as the areaportals don’t close until a big later, it is better than before.
-Replaced the Osprey’s explosion with a MUCH nicer and more dramatic effect.
-Fixed the LAV’s entrance so that he moves out a bit further. Also implemented a preliminary fix which makes AGrunts/Slaves NOT able to attack the LAV from the front (they can only attack it properly from the sides, but before they would try to attack it from the front, fail, and just stand there looking stupid).
C2A5H
-Fixed an unreported bug where you could trigger the gruntwall scene while at spawn by crouching in the far right corner.
-Replaced the tank’s explosion with the same new effect I used for the Osprey’s death. Looks way nicer now.
-Added a second healthpack to the zombie room on the roof, so that players with very low health don’t get completely screwed over by the guy in the Satchel Pipe.
-Made a hurt barrier easier on the gasworks - you could still get clipped by it even when you were doing the right thing.
-Fixed the areaportal bug in the security office.
-Fixed an unreported bug with the door in security office where it clipped through the floor.
Hi!
I’m downloading now and I guess I’ll try it soon.
I’ve uploaded a bunch of videos of 0.83b.
c2a5g walkthrough: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-78kE9eRKkM&feature=plcp&hd=1
In this video:
[b]
-There’s a marine with a strange behaviour, he’s hiding and doesn’t shoot?(you can see it @ 10:00)[/b]
c2a5i walkthrough:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgX52092-FM&feature=plcp&hd=1
In this video:
- There’s a strange barrel in the sand, does it cause problems(path) to garg?
Can you remove it? It seems strange that is stuck in the sand(you an see it @ 4:00)
Did another quick playthrough and notice that while the new 3d skybox in
C2A5H looks fantastic and adds the fell your in a gas refinery, In the previous 3d skybox for the C2A5G; its the old skybox from 0.82, just thought I mention that.
I mentioned that barrel before… in one of my playthroughs the Gargantua became stuck on it and jittered uncontrollably. He moved off it eventually, but it sure looked freaky for those thirty seconds. Haven’t seen it happen again since then, but just to be safe it might be a good idea to stick the barrel back in the water where it belongs since it does look a bit odd.
Mammoth post incoming.
Fuck it, I give up on the video. My headset’s being screwy and it’s pissing me off, and when work like this starts to piss you off, it’s a good time to take a break. I’ll fire up a video tomorrow or something.
Right, onto the criticisms:
It’s a Black Mesa bug, though I have no idea what causes it. I actually got it for the first time ever on C2A5G while I was recording my video earlier, didn’t get it till near the end which was really bloody annoying. It made RPGs last forever and Hivehand projectiles too. I’m hoping I haven’t introduced an element which makes it more likely to happen because I have no idea what causes it and am not sure I’ll be able to troubleshoot it. For now, I’m going to assume it’s just Black Mesa being a bit buggy and hope for the best.
Thanks for the kind words. I don’t need to address much of what you said as there’s only 1 criticism, which I unfortunately don’t agree with. I like the Garg being able to follow you to FaF. It impresses onto the player the idea that it’s their own damn fault for not killing him when they had the chance. Their “failure” gives them the consequence of being hounded by the Garg.
As for the whole Barney saying stuff thing, I’m going to wait to see if Kevin Sisk contacts me about this whole voice acting thing, though it’s looking less and less likely with each passing day. I’ll add a line from stock Black Mesa eventually when you abandon him, but I won’t do that until I know that the voice acting thing is going nowhere.
That’s interesting. According to your findings the battles seem to be fairly well balanced on all difficulties. I like that.
As for your comment on C2A5H needing more supplies - there are plenty of supplies, trust me. I made sure of that when I was making 0.83. But they’re not in obvious places. Look harder. I reward the inquisitive player. The two new side areas (which I haven’t had any comment on so far, much to the dismay of my feelings) both contain quite a lot of supplies.
I appreciate the time you’ve taken to write me feedback, and I also understand you pointing out that you aren’t terribly familiar with Black Mesa’s continuity, so I’ll clarify - 80% of the things you’ve listed as problems with my maps are either consistent with the rest of Black Mesa, deliberately made that way by the BM team, or are unavoidable problems. I’m not exaggerating.
I’ll reply to all of your C2A5G criticisms, for now. When I say “unfixable,” I normally mean “unfixable by me”. The devs can fix it by altering game code, but that’s not something I can do.
C2A5H
C2A5I
As for your more general criticisms, I’ll address a few:
The pillars in the garage I can’t do much about. There are only 3 models to choose from, the other 3 available are crap.
I didn’t use any colour for the gas explosions/barrels. That’s how they look in Black Mesa.
You’re disappointed with the new road layout? Would you care to explain that? Because as it stands that’s just a rude statement with no justification at all. How can you be disappointed with it? It looks better, and it doesn’t have the UNAVOIDABLE triangulation bug. Not only that, but the added columns and improved lighting for that area make it look a helluva lot better than it did before. Not just that, but the geometry is MUCH more optimized, I halved the brush count. I don’t see how any of that is disappointing. Sorry if this seems aggressive but I put a good 3 hours work into redesigning that bit, I don’t appreciate people being “disappointed” for seemingly no reason. As for your other criticisms, many of them are a bit…eh.
Repetitive blood decals? There are about 10 blood decals in Black Mesa, there is nothing I can do about it. And there are NO stretched decals, they all use stock sizes. I never resize overlays.
As for not being able to use the vending machines in the car park, I don’t really care too much about that, I’m afraid. A lot of work for little, little, little reward.
The ladder isn’t that bad. I may still yet change it, but it’s not that bad now there’s the invisible block above it.
No more holes in walls. They are very taxing as they require 30 - 40 brushes, and many models and decals. My entity count on C2A5H is now 140%, and it has a VERY long loading time as a result. It’s already overloaded as it is. The windows are staying. Just pretend they were frosted or something. It’s not that horrible.
Phantom Snarks I have no idea what causes this, but I’ll look into it.
You’ve got this idea that I’ve used excessively large numbers of lamps, which is, quite frankly, bizarre. It’s consistent with the rest of Black Mesa, which generally uses MANY dim lights rather than a few bright lights. It looks better that way. The Source engine does not, it simply DOES NOT do ambient indoor lighting well, AT ALL. The top floor of the car park in early versions had no lamps in it, and despite having the skybox DIRECTLY above the cracks, providing ambient environmental illumination, it was nearly pitch black because Source is piss weak at ambient indoor lighting. Again, take a look at the rest of the lighting in Black Mesa. It’s much the same as mine. That’s why I’ve done it like that, it isn’t my usual lighting ethic but it works.
The generator is weird. I’ll change the noise.
The railings being messed up is unavoidable because the railing models are frankly a bit crap. There are 2 - a double rise set of railings and a single rise. It’s a horrendously inflexible system to use because you can’t vary the rise and step on your stairs, and it RARELY, if EVER matches the height of the stairwells you use. So you nearly always have to resort to overlapping models, which causes the problems of looking weird. I can probably make it better but it will always look a bit odd.
Hope this clears some things up.
It’s precisely how the Source engine handles gibs impacting the floor from a height. The method I used for making the concrete collapse (invisible concrete block being broken by a trigger) is very cheap performance wise and was easy enough to implement. I could have actual physics objects dropping but it would be much harder to render and tougher to implement. It’s not that bad. ALL gibs behave like that on the Source engine.
As for me modelling Newtonian physics using that equation for determining the velocity of pieces of concrete falling 2M? Yeah, I’ll get right on that! I’m kidding, of course.
And Semper Fi my ass is still there. Didn’t do anything to it apart from increase the distortion and volume a bit.
Like you said, I reckon changing the Garg’s scripted sequence to account for the player running down that tunnel is much more trouble than its worth, interrupting scripted_sequences is a tricky business.
As for the truck by the TOW the explosion IS way too powerful. I will tone it down. I won’t get into the specifics but, I hadn’t intended for it to be like that.
Harrier take off? I’ll speed up the opening a bit, yeah. It’s probably too slow.
LAV bug? I’ll try to fix it. I’ve already done a lot to address it but more needs to be done.
As for objects in the sand on C2A5I, I’ll say something I’ve been saying a lot in this post.
[COLOR=‘Red’]BM DEVS.[/SIZE]
just a note I entered both the new rooms, they are good rooms… you have done well with ammo and health its armor that is lacking, only point I found with armor in the second map is the charger near the end no other batteries… at least that I could find.
Edit: Nevermind…
I just finished playing through the hotfixed version. The maps are certainly feeling like they are moving past the beta soon. The only things I found were extremely minor issues that I will list, but keep in mind I really don’t care if you fix most of these or not as they are very trivial, but you did say to list everything this time before the last beta release so here you go.
https://i.imgur.com/yqXtp.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/BofX8.jpg
On the garage floor of the parking garage there is a car on fire. The smoke goes through the ceiling and can be seen above that spot on the second floor. Easier to see in game than in the screenshot.
https://i.imgur.com/93kCE.jpg
The snack machines on the parking garage first floor can still be pushed around. The soda machines on the second floor don’t have this issue.
https://i.imgur.com/3tMTX.jpg
On the parking garage second floor if you jump on this truck and then jump toward the window you will trigger the spawns for the battle in the alley outside the parking garage. You may be able to trigger it just by walking against that wall in the corner I didn’t check.
https://i.imgur.com/ZieIo.jpg
Walking up the ramp to the second floor of the parking garage you can see this crack which sticks out rather easily if you’re walking up there. I noticed it just walking by. The pillar isn’t properly aligned with the ground. This isn’t the case with the ramp up to floor one.
https://i.imgur.com/iRyLs.jpg
If you look out the window on the second floor of the parking garage you can see what looks like red arrows pointing down in the vent in the mechanic garage. This just looks unnatural.
https://i.imgur.com/5YAk8.jpg
Clipping piece of reinforcing bar into this garage door in the alley outside the parking garage.
https://i.imgur.com/bL22A.jpg
Clipping issue outside of the mechanic garage on the wall where the trap was set. Really this whole trap debris just looks bad with the texture issues and considering you can toss barrels/cinder blocks/monitors or any other objects right through it. If there’s really nothing you can do to make it look better then oh well.
https://i.imgur.com/llEdu.jpg
When you go to squat in that corner with the LAV battle you’ll notice the rpg ammo is floating above the crates, the health packs to your left are doing the same.
https://i.imgur.com/7YcFN.jpg
If you walk up to where the destroyed osprey is you’ll find this clipping issue with the ammo crates and the catwalk. The first one is inside the catwalk and the one behind that is floating in the air.
Other things.
Add the sound of the denied door access that you hear on the red panel for the next area when trying to press it at the tank battle to all of those sorts of panels in the maps. Maybe you already did this I dunno.
Did you decide not to have the garg get destroyed by the falling mortars if you somehow run back out there and he gets hit by them?
Count in another person that hears the phantom snarks. I usually kill all of the snarks at the zombie/snark encounter with a grenade and then wait until I hear/see any of the surviving ones pop and die. However, after walking into the next bathroom and using the jump pad I still hear them popping and yet they are no where to be found. If you stand around the jump pad in that bathroom you will hear them for a good minute after so something is definitely funky there.
Final thoughts on the maps as they are now.
I agree that it’s about time to move out of beta. These maps have come so far and almost everything left is trivial enough that people can overlook it. There were tons of tiny issues with the original half-life and in BM as well so don’t go too crazy being a perfectionist. At some point it’s healthy to just call them done. Also I really like the new parking garage ramps and the two new small room areas that you added.
However, if you asked me to point out three of the worst bits of these maps in comparison to the quality of the rest of the parts and the mod overall it would be these:
The bullet holes in the vent at the mechanic garage when the marines shoot it. I know I know the BM devs made this. It still looks awful when compared to the graphics of the rest of the mod. There are clearly no holes in the vent where the light is shining through. Anything you could do to touch up this scene would be great.
The awkward looking debris of the trap in the mechanic garage. Again, I know you’ve said this is a model made by the devs used elsewhere that you’ve used for this. It still looks bad and functions badly. The trap itself is awesome, the debris afterward isn’t so much.
The sniper. I know I know… you probably hate hearing about this guy by now. I will just say that the issue isn’t a lack of cover on the roof or that it’s difficult to open that hatch and skip him (it isn’t). The issue is that actually fighting him simply doesn’t fit with the rest of BM in terms of sniper encounters.
To be fair, there is no other part in BM where you are on an even plain of height with a sniper like this and that is what makes it so awkward. You can shoot with the magnum/crossbow/gausgun directly into his red sights where he is and not kill him. You can waste all of your rockets shooting directly into his hole and not kill him, you can shoot the mp5 grenades in there and still not kill him. You can literally empty entire clips of any weapon directly at him and it has no effect. This is a very awkward encounter unless you get a money shot. Maybe you could make it so there’s an actual marine in there and when he dies it triggers the sniper thing to die as well. This would probably fix him being godlike as you would actually be shooting at a guy.
Again these are all small nitpicks that I really won’t care too much if you decide they aren’t worth addressing, but take from it what you want. You’ve done some excellent work with this Uncut and I really hope they get integrated into the mod. If the time comes where you need community support to help rally for them to be included I will be there.
Responding to your comments on my 3-post feedback of v0.83b release.
Thanks for your quick response. Currently playing through v0.83b-Hotfixed. Will get back to you with my comments shortly.
Feedback on v0.83b-Hotfixed. Some of these issues may have been present in previous map versions, but not observed by me during a previous play-through.
To be continued…
Sorry if I upset you with my comment about the parking garage, I was just looking at things from a subjective aesthetic point of view. I liked the curved slope more than the more angular ramp is all, just kinda felt it looked nicer. Thanks for clarifying a few things, I understand why some of the suggestions were a bit much.
Anyway, don’t mind my nitpicks, you’ve done great work. Anyone who makes maps for Source games is a bloody hero to start with, and your remastered Surface Tension areas are up there with the best of Black Mesa.
Nice changes, good flow, some bugs and suggestions:
Level I, garage:
Bugs:
On first floor there is a soldier floating in air, when u open the big door, u see him in front of u.
in garage u can jump on those jumppad and open door, there is zombie behind which spawn, a nanosecond to late, he just flashes on screen when opening door
Suggestions:
U have two candy machines together and on other floor two soda machines, maybe just one candy and one soda on each level, not two sodamachines on one level and two candy machines on other level, so u can choose candy and soda on each level 
Workshop
Bug:
As suggested before, maybe not possible:
Part where Manta destroys chopper:
Bug:
Tank keeps on shooting on a pilar, so not on me, not on enemies (cause they are all death)
Second level:
Not really remarks.
Possible to give Barney a static model, like Kleiner and Eli, cause now I have a black one, and good he needs to push a button, light goes green and then he opens door, possible to add an eyescan for him aswell?
Good he needs to open the big door, but when I go through it, HL2.exe crash, so was not able to continue my testing, so I posted this already
The things you listed here are mostly bugs, and as always, I will attempt to address as many of them as possible for the next update, which I’m hoping to roll out by Thursday (don’t quote me on that!)
I’ll go over some of your more subjective points, starting with the 3 things you list at the end here.
Yeah, it’s bad. I’ll probably change the particle effect so the light is white and more translucent, and maybe even smaller, but in terms of other repairs to the scene there isn’t much else I can do. Adding ACTUAL holes to the vent will be expensive to render if I do it well (because of all the holes in BRUSHWORK there’ll be a good 6 brushes per hole, which over the course of…25ish holes is a lot of brushes to render. And if I do it not quite as good looking it will look even worse than if they weren’t there in the first place. It’s a tricky one. I’m hoping with the greenlight update the devs use a model for this vent rather than a brush - a model with cinematic physics (WAY beyond my capacities as a mapper) would be 100X more effective than the brush func_physboxes they use now.
I’ll see what I can do about it, but again, it’s gonna be a tricky one. I’m not sure there’s much I can do about the funky texturing on the debris, but I may be able to fix the bad clipping.
I’m probably going to end up caving and filling the gaps behind the sniper’s nest.
One the other stuff: the access denied beeps are present on all usable keypads, I think. I do not allow the Garg to be killed by the falling mortars for a number of reasons (I want to punish the player for not killing him sooner, it’s tricky to implement and a little too random).
And the phantom snarks? Hell if I know what causes them. I’ll look into it but a fix seems…unlikely. I have no idea.
I should probably apologize for being a bit touchy, I was pissed that I wasted nearly an hour on the video only for it to turn out shit. The first take I suffered the physics bug that everyone’s been getting and it ruined the video. The second take crashed and had screwy audio.
The curved slope may have looked nicer if it hadn’t had the triangulation bug. May have. However, the rest of the ramp looked pretty horrible and the brushwork was sloppy. Though the ramp itself may, perhaps be a little less aesthetically pleasing, the walls and ceiling around it are MUCH, MUCH better, from a technical AND aesthetic perspective. Hopefully that makes up for it, a bit.
2TextFAMGUY1:
Please do not be upset because of the headset. Shit happens, and the video can wait. So. I almost get home, but could not stand it, download your maps and stand alone version of the BMS (without Steam, yep) to conduct tests on a relatively weak laptop. Graphics settings were dropped and i ran with only two places where there were problems of optimization:
1. Exit through the window of the garage after the explosion, if you make the approach to taking off AV-8 (without approximation of view, frame delay insignificant).
2. The famous battle with Abrams (this is not a secret for you.)
I, frankly, was expecting more performance degradation in such sluggishness laptop. Great job!
I must say that was not able to calculate the drop in FPS specifically. My fault.
All found problems that i have seen, had already been set out above respected testers. I want to draw your attention to only two things that i was hoping to clarify for themselves after your video. But, because the video is delayed, i will say it now.
First, I could not resist a few times intently watched taking off AV-8. It’s cool! But not without a little problem. Strange and ridiculous leap AV-8 on takeoff when the nose goes into the sky. Looks completely unnatural.
I think it can be fixed. The fact that the latest revision of this aircraft can produce a short run-up and subsequent takeoff, using an engine for vertical takeoff. AV-8 can float at low altitude 90 seconds, until he runs out of fuel (sorry, but I do not remember whether considered with additional outboard fuel tanks). Would be logical if we’ll see it slow going down the runway and the beginning of recovery in the air when the body of the aircraft is parallel to the ground. We can not see how he takes to the skies dramatically as buildings obstructs our view. We have the fact of his take off, but no problems with the animation.
Second, after the destruction of V-22, when there is an armored transport Vorts surround him and fail to respond to me, and APC is trying to shoot them (funny that he does not come out). Of course, i can just walk by this strange picture and do not destroy armored transport, but it looks strange. In my case (it happened to repeat three times) three or four Vorts stand around APC and start shooting at him, but could not blow it. Is it possible make an alternative method of destruction of APC? This is something that will only work under certain conditions. For example, a group of surviving Vorts discharges into the wall above the arch and the roof collapsing at APC. I really waited a long time that a group of aliens finally explode APC. Even had time to go and carefully inspect your wonderful hangar, and then go back and wait for another 20 seconds, until it was decided by a pair of remote controlled demolition pack and a volley from a particle accelerator on transport.
Forgive me if you have somewhere to report these things. I just have difficulty in processing large amounts of information in a foreign language. In any case, my efforts to explore your labors were not in vain. As it is really nice to play! Many many thanks for the work, mate!
Continuation of feedback on v0.83b-Hotfixed. Some of these issues may have been present in previous map versions, but not observed by me during a previous play-through.
Concerning pipe clipping problems throughout gasworks, I have no idea what’s involved or how difficult it is to correct these issues. I’m not asking that they be corrected, just making you aware of them. I suspect someone as thorough as you are may already be aware of them. Obviously, it’s your call as to what action you want to take, if any.
Once I entered the vent, the game crashed repeatedly at the point where I jump down onto the grate above the battle that’s taking place. I began playing starting with C2A5G using a console command to load the map. I did not use a savegame.
It’s now time for bed. Talk to you later.
More power to you!
0.83b+hotfix critique
Guess I’m a sucker for critiques. Again, no need to reply…use this as food for thought.
General impressions
No fixed crashes anymore…good work. Only the LAV battle needs major re-balancing. Tank battle balancing is optional but still helpful. Still several aesthetic issues in the garage. Between the end of C2A5G to the start of C2A5H, you’ve given a total of 20-25 crossbow bolts, which is way too much of this ammo type in such a short span, so I’ll adjust accordingly. Regret vort is very cool. Like the 2 new areas as well and the new furnace valve placement. As most bugs are now squashed, I will focus on gameplay and aesthetics.
[COLOR=‘Lime’]Green=ammo/health, [COLOR=‘Red’]Red=bad
General
[COLOR=‘Lime’]When spawning in C2A5G, at least for the FINAL release, either 1) delete all health/ammo settings and make the player use impulse 101 to keep consistency w/BMS or 2) use the following health/ammo layout to account for a realistic playthrough of ST on Hard.
You can now have some medics drop medkits when they die like they do in BMS. If you implement this, you MUST DELETE an equal number of medkits in the vicinity to maintain balance.
There are several sections where you’ve added (or failed to delete) solid white lines that are perpendicular to the direction of the road. You can see this in the garage, TOW courtyard, LAV courtyard (where the bunker roads intersect the main road), and the tank battle (tank spawn road to main road). This is entirely inconsistent w/BMS as well as real US roads and is aesthetically displeasing. Delete them all.
[b]C2A5G
Garage[/b]
Note that the door to access the garage does not retract fully when used. If this is your intention, ignore this comment.
[COLOR=‘lime’]Between the garage and the vent drop, 1 medkit needs to be deleted (too generous). Either 1) 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) or 2) just delete this medkit and reposition the battery (best medkit to delete gameplay wise).
Impaled marine is still unrealistic. Best fix: 1) curve the pipe impaling the marine UPWARD 2) rotate the marine’s body 180 degrees such that he’s facing AWAY from the player 3) impale the marine through the CHEST 4) add blood around the impaled site and on the pipe section protruding from the marine. These changes make sense because if the marine is using the jump pad he must be facing away from you in order to be impaled w/the current pipe placement. The marine mis-jumped and on his decent, his chest collided w/the upward curving pipe, with the bloodied pipe segment coming out of his back. Also no metal penis.
All parking spaces should be delineated by simple white lines as opposed to the striped lines you’ve been using. The design of the parking spaces at the FaF entrance works well if you subtract out the stripes.
On G floor, there’s still a lot of overlap between the large striped section and the white lines of the street leading to the spiral driveway. The street lines should be deleted when crossing OVER the striped section.
The parking lines on one side of the garage are often disjointed when compared w/the lines on the opposite side (image 1). You also see this problem w/the columns, which often do not align properly (image 2). Adjust car placement as necessary once you fix these problems. There’s also a major consistency issue w/how you use the parking lines. Generally, you place two striped lines close together to indicate one side of a parking space but will open them up to accommodate a column. However, sometimes when you open up the lines, you do not place a column there or you place it outside the lines, which is weird. All of these problems are the worst on the G floor but they also exist on the other floors so look carefully. Realistically, the columns supporting each floor should be in exactly the same position if they have not been destroyed.
The color of the spiral driveway road should match that of the roads in the rest of the garage. The spiral driveway was better in 0.82b because the level transitions were smoother. It currently feels like it has too many ramps, which creates an extremely abrupt appearance when the player approaches another floor. The new walls are nice though.
Swap a food vending machine on floor G w/a drink machine and vice versa on floor 1. Drink machines should dispense soda. This isn’t really important for health balance, just to maintain consistency w/BMS.
The stripes underneath the floor 1 vending machines should no longer be there as you’ve elevated this section. Replace w/a light gray color to reflect the new sidewalk appearance.
This section of the road on floor 1 still needs a correction (image 3). Delete the solid white line between the roads and connect the dotted lines. Fix the color discrepancy between the roads as well as all roads w/in the garage.
Delete the solid white line in this section of the road on floor 2 to keep consistency w/the other floors (image 4). There’s actually a serious problem where the spiral driveway is completely disjointed from the floor 2 road which is caused by the basic layout of the garage. You can fix this by curving the driveway into the road, though I think this will end up looking shitty. A much easier fix would be to coat this part of the driveway and the segment leading into the road w/debris.
Opacity effect still creates disappearing windows atop the carshop when viewed from certain angles. If you can’t fix, don’t worry about it.
Vent drop/car shop
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.
Destroyed window debris should be more yellowish to match the original window. Delete the explosion effect in the window as it looks like water is gushing into the room.
[COLOR=‘lime’]Reduce health dispenser to 50 (never used the full amount, medkits in the courtyard).
TOW courtyard
Delete the big ugly black mark on the Agrunt hangar door but keep the little ones. You used this already and the grayish clay textures w/in the mark are inconsistent w/ the hangar door material.
[COLOR=‘Red’]If the player recklessly uses up all of the TOW missiles, he’s fucked as there is no way to leave the courtyard! Thus you must either 1) make the Agrunt silo door destructible w/conventional explosives 2) script an Agrunt to bust down the door if the player has expended all of his TOW (best solution).
Since you made the M35 destructible w/the TOW, the large vehicle adjacent to it should also be made destructible to keep consistency as it can be targeted as well. Otherwise, delete the destruction effect.
Tapping the sentry lightly against a vehicle will destroy it.
Harrier is still tilted prior to takeoff. After fixing, smooth out the angles of ascent, add an engine trail and some jet sounds. Or just delete it completely if it gives you trouble…it really adds nothing to the game.
Road leading to Osprey
[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
Once the evacuating marines get on top of the helipad, they should be shooting at the aliens. Currently, they just wiggle around w/o firing which is weird (the player doesn’t need to noclip to see this). This actually makes balancing easier as the marines should be able to kill off all of the pursuing aliens, which reduces variability. Simply re-add the dead aliens w/the next spawn.
[COLOR=‘Red’]Current fix to prevent Agrunt meleeing the front of the LAV is bad, as they will often just stand in front of it and hornet. This means that the HECU (really just the LAV) still wins ~70/30 on Hard. Numerically there should be enough aliens to take down the LAV (you may need an extra Agrunt or vort) assuming you can address this problem. One good fix might be to delete a couple of vorts in the initial spawn, then add a SECOND spawn consisting of 1 Agrunt and 2 vorts shortly after the LAV emerges and the marines start dying. Script the Agrunt to run directly to the SIDE of the LAV. He should almost guarantee an alien victory assuming the marines don’t kill him.
Swap the position of the bunker medic w/a rear soldier. Medics are the MVPs and would not realistically charge into battle in front of the other soldiers.
Didn’t realize this before but these are actually extensions of the bunker roads (image 5)…gotta fix them.
Delete the AC unit on the bunker as it looks really out of place.
The positioning of the camera does not correlate w/the image on the Barney monitor in C2A5H (see below). One or the other must change.
Move the second bunker (the one w/o the LAV and soldier) the same distance out as the first bunker. Again it’s kind of unusual to have them at different distances.
While standing on the helipad and jumping (or just standing on the now fixed Osprey debris), you can easily see the lightly colored bland metal plate sitting atop the bunkers and the adjacent regions. This plate should be deleted or at the very least recolored. You can also see these plates atop many of the buildings in C2A5G-H so if you decide to change, look carefully.
[b]C2A5H
Opening section[/b]
[COLOR=‘red’]Like the zombie, the security camera has a nasty habit of disappearing when loading directly from C2A5H.
The stairs in the dead Barney room should now lead to a DOOR, as players can now see w/in the room.
The placement of the wooden crates is really awkward. Either delete (better for performance) or add more crates to reinforce the idea.
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
Usually getting around 4-5 alien survivors…use the following tips if you continue to rebalance: 1) BEFORE attempting rebalance, have the alien spawns closer to the tank after it is destroyed. By creating space between the marine reinforcements and the aliens, you reduce the chance of alien melee, decrease HECU accuracy w/minimal effect on alien accuracy and minimize spontaneous focus fire. All of this works in the alien’s favor as well as makes the battle more PREDICTABLE for balancing. Plus it also makes it easier for the player to snipe them. 2) if you spawn the rooftop Agrunt a little earlier, he will contribute to DPS throughout the engagement and thereby decrease your need for so many additional aliens. 3) gameplay wise, it’s best to place the rooftop Agrunt and his associated marine on the BATHROOM side. That way he can orient players to where they need to go should he survive. However, he may not have as clear a shot of the marines in this position.
Extend the swath of destruction cut by the manta beam till it is slightly UNDER the tank. There’s still a small segment missing.
All of the sidewalks look like they’re completely littered w/crap now. As BMS is a secure facility and scientists are conscientious people, I don’t think this would likely happen. 0.82b appearance was better.
The heat blur effect on one of the ACs near the tank spawn is a bit excessive. It looks like it’s distorting space-time, like the bounce pads. Consider deleting or toning down.
[COLOR=‘Lime’]The dead medic trapped near the gasworks exit gives crossbow bolts (unrealistic) and his placement looks really dumb. It’s as though he tripped and fell to his death as the other marines ran out to fight the aliens. Replace him w/some destructible crates, one of which yields 2 tripmines. Delete the bolts.
[COLOR=‘lime’]Delete the crossbow bolts in the new room by the hut and replace w/1 crate of uranium (or a pair of MP5 grenades or satchels). You can delete 1 crate of uranium by the Barney station or just keep as is.
[COLOR=‘lime’]Delete the RPG launcher by the dead marine, as you’ve given more than enough on the sniper rooftop.
[COLOR=‘Red’]The destroyed tank has a nasty habit of disappearing once players exit the gasworks.
Rooftop
[COLOR=‘red’]I still maintain that explosive barrels are an incredibly stupid idea…this discourages using regular barrels for cover, which limits gameplay diversity, and the player may already be seriously hurt. Revert to 0.81b settings. If you are serious about keeping it, here’s how to do it correctly 1) replace the explosive barrels w/explosive CRATES…these barrels are too new for the area and were only meant to be introduced in LC. Plus the flammable logo can’t be seen in the far barrel, even if rotated, because of the obstructing pipe and there is also color confusion w/the normal gray barrels 2) place a crate near the player and w/in his line of sight. Once he gets to the rooftop, script the sniper to destroy the near crate as a warning shot to orient the player (think HL2 where the sniper is gunning down crows). This demonstration crate must be positioned such that the detonation does NOT hurt the player. 3) move the good barrels CLOSER to the player such that they may be picked up earlier and used defensively.
Fix the ugly hangar rooftop in the background.
[COLOR=‘Lime’]Delete the new medkit on the rooftop…it’s really unnecessary given the 2 batteries and 3 medkits (one from a dead medic) by the hut/.50 cal. Plus it defeats the purpose of the furnace charger.
Satpipe and furnace
You created an inconsistency by deleting the red light on the satchel as the satchels in the car shop trap have red lights. As red is an important warning color, you should re-add it to the pipe satchel to avoid having to delete them in the car shop. Or do Chickenprot’s fix, which is good.
Delete these tiny vein like pipes and the abnormally orange pipe, as it’s feeding the satchel tunnel, which is weird (image 6). Remove the water droplets spontaneously popping out of the walls opposite the furnace. Aesthetically, the furnace room looked much better in 0.81b even w/the clipping and I think you should revert to those settings but keep the new valve placement. You can keep the water droplets if you do revert, as there was a water tower thing nearby.
Gasworks to end
[COLOR=‘lime’]Add a pair of batteries on the shelf in the janitor’s closet. The sentry and new spawns can be pretty brutal and previous battery power has been burnt up by now.
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.
The curved pipe of the steam puzzle clips slightly into the large drum. Consider fixing this.
Move the flame separating the Agrunt and vort more to the player’s left and reposition the vort accordingly. This is because Agrunt is quite mobile and has a tendency to run into and out of the flame, which is unrealistic. Perhaps you can prevent both he and the vort from doing this.
Place the second floor gun rack at eye level.
[COLOR=‘lime’]Now that you’ve added an empty health charger, the medkit in the Barney room seems too convenient. Delete it and add 30-35 health to the charger instead.
The view of the LAV courtyard as shown on the monitor is incorrect (camera is facing the opposite direction). All other monitors are fine.
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 viewed from the outside, the hangar door exiting the gasworks is still far too close to the left to be realistic. Adjust if possible.
The downed Apache script is problematic. After exiting the gasworks, you can still climb onto the rooftop and see that the chopper is PERFECTLY positioned on the opposite rooftop. Realistically, the momentum from the Apache’s crash landing would have made it fall OFF of the rooftop. Solutions: 1) delete the script and replace it w/the 3 Osprey evac instead 2) have the Apache crash INTO the rooftop walls and shatter into debris (e.g. the Apache’s tail is closest to the player or the player views the crash from the side).
The 3 Osprey evac is difficult to see. When the player is by the .50 cal, have the Ospreys fly TOWARD (or away from) the player from a distance and be more PARALLEL to the road. This guarantees it will be seen as the player addresses the alien spawns.
[COLOR=‘lime’]Delete the medkit in the destructible crate leading to C2A5I and replace w/2 satchels or 2 MP5 grenades (whatever you didn’t use in the new room by the hut). FaF prep > health, as there’s a medkit by the charging vort and plenty more in the garg intro (as well as batteries).
Once the road door opens, delete the first white door you see. Note that this door is supposed to lead to the new area behind the hut but when viewed from w/in the hut, there’s just a wall in its place.
[b]C2A5I
Garg chase[/b]
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.
[COLOR=‘Lime’]You can see the new snarks spawn from nowhere. Move the snark ammo pickup closer to where they spawn and use some moss to directly cover the spawn site.
[COLOR=‘Red’]The garg entrance should happen ONLY when the player drops on the pipe vent. The script STILL triggers when you are in the pipe.
The .50 cal by the garg does not fire and appears to be suspended in midair.
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.
Garg issues: 1) garg can frequently pin the player in many places, forcing a noclip 2) garg does patrol a little better now in both the pool and reservoir; however, he still occasionally makes little circular patrol paths.
Destroying the explosive crates by the radar tower should trigger it to fall if the detonation is near the tower. Note that the garg can also do this.
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 (it’s currently inconsistent w/your garage signs and also unrealistic).
The dotted lines on the road leading into the FaF tunnel turn into a pair of solid lines which is unusual. Give the tunnel road dotted lines instead.
Either 1) revert the door opening rate closer to .82b speeds as it feels way too fast now when using a valve or 2) replace the valve w/a keypad. The rear door sorta auto-opens as well which is weird.
Add a cracking ceiling effect in the FaF tunnel. Consider making the garg killable with the artillery fire outside the FaF entrance (not a big deal because this can realistically only be done w/god mode). BTW very nice work on the garg scripts when he enters into the tunnel. This easter egg is turning out far better than killing him w/the artillery!
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.
I’m sorry, but with the amount of TOW missiles there is, if you run out of them its your own fault. Especially when the missile launcher is pointed right at the door
maybe have one of those ‘Subject: Terminated // Failed to utilize blabla’ messages if you run of tows before destroying the door
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