Deus Ex Machina Readme

Deus Ex Machina

# Quake II mission pack by Andrea Rosa

ilpinky@libero.itThank you very much for downloading "Deus Ex Machina" for Quake II. I'm a devoted fan of this game since its beginnings, however I've discovered Q2 mapping only in 2005, so this is my very first release. This game has been developed with the Lazarus engine, a popular modification for Quake II by David Hyde and Tony Ferrara. I hope you enjoy this small mission pack, and if you do (or don't) please feel free to email me your comments. Also bug reports will be higly appreciated. I've been working on this game for a very long time, so I'd love to hear your opinion about it…

Andrea Rosa, Cittiglio ITALIA
ilpinky@libero.it

CONTENTS

1. THE STORY

2. INSTALLATION AND GAMEPLAY

3. SPECIAL FEATURES

4. TECHNICAL NOTES

5. KNOWN BUGS

6. CREDITS

THE STORY

At the beginning of the Strogg War the Earth forces gambled essentially on two factors: the destruction of the Big Gun and the assassination of the Strogg Leader. While destroying the major planetary defense of Stroggos gave us a considerable tactical advantage, killing the Makron did not sort the expected results. We sought to drive the Strogg Warlords into internal struggles by eliminating their leading mind, however no turmoil happened. Instead of choosing a new Makron, the Warlords revolutionized the political structure of Stroggos, abandoning the old hierarchies and turning their world into a collection of feudal states. That way, they could continue to keep firm control over the strategic locations they were given and were able to organize defensive positions independently.

Operation Deus Ex Machina:

You are part of a small group of TCM marines currently scouting the region of Stroggos we refer to as Ishtar Chasmata. Headquarters have been monitoring this area for some days since evidences of anti-matter experiments were detected. If the Strogg can develop anti-matter weapons the equilibrium of this war could be drastically changed. They could even be able to restore the interplanetary gateway between Stroggos and Earth and launch a terrible counterstrike. We urgently need to know their plans, thus your primary task is to infiltrate the underground arsenal and steal whatever weapons designs or schematics you may find. Once you get the secret information, you’ll need to find a Com Center and transmit your data to the mothership. Intelligence will elaborate further strategy and orders according to your findings. You will be likely sent further deep into Ishtar Chasmata to find the source of that a-m relief and attempt to neutralize it. But beware, it won’t be easy. The local Warlord will surely track your moves. He has a loyal and well-trained army at his disposal, and he’s ready to deal with you with his own hands, if necessary. We wish you the best of luck in accomplishing this mission.

INSTALLATION AND GAMEPLAY

First of all, make sure Quake II is already installed and that you’ve patched it to version 3.19 or 3.20 (you can check your version number by pulling down the game console with the tilde key and looking at the bottom right corner). "Deus Ex Machina" will not work properly with the retail version of Quake II, so download the patch if you haven’t done yet. To install "Deus Ex Machina" follow these steps:

Create a new folder named dexm into your Quake II folder, and extract all files of dexm.zip in it

In the same folder you must put gamex86.dll, which you should have acquired as a separate download

Make a shortcut to Quake2.exe and modify its properties as follows: Quake2.exe +set game dexm

Enter the game via the newly created shortcut and select the skill level as usual

"Deus Ex Machina" is a single player game. It doesn’t support cooperative nor deatmatch gameplay. Gameplay is linear, meaning that once you leave a particular level you cannot return, so make sure to collect all useful items before entering a new location.

Unlike the original Quake II, several monsters attributes (aim, rate of fire, rocket speed, splash damage radius, etc.) are affected by the skill level. All enemies have enhanced pathfinding and A.I. thanks to the Lazarus support, for example they no longer walk among unexploded grenades, nor fire rockets near walls, nor suicide themselves against active lasers. Apart from these general enhancements, you will find some specific monsters to be smarter compared to the original game. Gunners, for example, are much better grenadiers than ever: if a grenade can hit the target, they use the correct elevation angle to get the grenade there.

## SPECIAL FEATURES

Monsters variations

Iron Maiden - Beta Class

These enhanced Iron Maidens are much more powerful than their sisters, since their rocket launcher fires homing missiles which pursue you up, down and around obstacles. Homing rockets are destroyable, though, so all is not lost if you find yourself in an open area and hear the "lock-on" sound.

Elite Gunner

Equally as deadly as a Gunner, but outfitted with a power armour, more strenght, and more hate for the Earth people. It is impossible to distinguish this variation from a standard Gunner, so you won’t know which kind of opponent you are facing until you see the green flash of the power shield.

Daedalus Prototype | Enhanced version of the Icarus, it wears a power shield and can endure massive attacks. The Daedalus Prototype is very effective at depleting your ammo.

NOTE: None of these monster variations appear in the first level.

New Items

Homing Missiles

When fired, homing missiles track whatever monster the player was aiming at. If your inventory includes both standard rockets and homing missiles, you toggle between them by pressing '7'. You cannot fire a homing missile while a previously fired missile is tracking a target, thus you can fire only one homing at once. You won't find much of these goodies, so use them wisely. Homing missiles can't track "cold" entities such as turrets and batteries.

Jetpack

It allows to fly around. To use the jetpack press 'M' (the same goes for deactivating it). Once the jetpack is activated, you may take off by jumping. Release the "jump" key and you'll fall back. Check fuel consumption. The Jetpack will shut itself down if you drop into the water. If you fall into lava or slime, it will explode. At one point this item will be necessary to proceed in your mission. Hint: save your game before using the Jetpack for the very first time, you’ll likely need some practice before you can handle it correctly.

Other Features

Turrets | Placed on the ceiling, turrets can be destroyed only by hitting their breach.
Ride-on Batteries | Traditional floor batteries may be controlled and fired by the player, complete with unlimited ammo. You'll need to kill the remote driver, first. Hop on the battery to take control, jump again to abandon it.
Sniper Zoom | Press 'CTRL' to smoothly zoom in/out between the default FOV and 5 degrees. Your Rail Gun has never been so deadly...

TECHNICAL NOTES

Build time | About 7 months
Compiling time (in seconds) | 5870, 2470, 6533, 1398, 7041, 1520, 769, 1773
Build/compile machine | Pentium 4 @ 1800 MHz
Polyhedrons | 1159, 913, 1430, 2040, 1988, 1134, 2276, 2251
Editor used | QuArK v4.07
Additional utilities | QBSP, QVIS, QRAD, Adobe Photoshop
Single player | Yes
Cooperative | No
Deathmatch | No
Difficulty settings | Yes
New sounds | Yes
New graphics | Yes (skins based on id Software skins)
New code | Yes (Lazarus code)

KNOWN BUGS

r_speeds

Level 3 is flawed by high rendering speeds (1000-1800). This happens when you enter the huge room with the rocket battery. With recent processors this doesn't sort dramatic effects, however playing with older computers the game may slow down. Sorry for the fun-killing factor.

Enemy count | Actually that's not a bug, but a Lazarus side feature. The F1 computer lies about the number of enemies because it doesn't consider of newly spawned monsters until they actually pop into existence. Since this is annoying for most players (including me), here you have the real body-count for each level:

| Easy | Medium | Hard |

### Hydroponic Lab

44

53

58

### Greenhouse

21

26

32

### The Arsenal

63

74

81

### Terminal 2

45

65

71

Spare Parts Factory | 46 | 56 | 63 |
Factory Engineering | 27 | 32 | 44 |
High-Tech Academy | 56 | 78 | 105 |

### Inner City

100

136

155

#### TOTAL ENEMIES

401

516

602

CREDITS

id Software for making Quake II

Armin Rigo author of QuArK

Geoffry Dewan for his compiling utilities based on code from id Software

David Hyde and Tony Ferrara for Lazarusid Software for making Quake II

Armin Rigo author of QuArK

Geoffry Dewan for his compiling utilities based on code from id Software

David Hyde and Tony Ferrara for Lazarus

"Factory Engineering" was inspired by "The Dead Zone" by Scott Kraus

"Terminal 2" is based upon "Supply Station 2" by Dan Noumov