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SPQ2: Defensive Measures v1.02 -- 9-3-2001
=================================================================================
This add-on unit requires Quake 2 -- version 3.20 recommended
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"--Please report to the briefing room."
You're lurched out of your musings by the sound of Sergeant Sparks over the
ship's intercom. Being on the special-operations reserve team, you weren't
part of the first drop. Your involvement so far in the Earth-force assault on
Stroggos has been somewhat benign, involving ship-side support and gathering
intelligence from relatively safe areas on the surface. But even so, the
catastrophe that befell the squads that never even got the chance to engage in
their mission is still fresh on your mind. You wouldn't even consider refusing a
mission no matter its possible outcome, but trepidation lingers nonetheless.
"Yes, sir," you respond as you hustle into the briefing room.
"OK, good. Listen up," Sgt. Sparks turns from the communications console at
his desk and faces you. "We've been running hi-res surface scans in the big-gun
area and according to that along with intel from the surface teams in the
logistical sector, there's bad news. As you know the security laser grid was
just taken out a few hours ago. Problem is, there were a lot of laser towers
that appeared to be offline or already dead but we're getting power signatures
from them. They didn't go completely dead like the others. And we just got wind
of some major power signatures not far from the big-gun reactor, centered around
two buildings, apparently a complex of some sort -- right in the middle of these
towers. If those towers are a backup grid like we think they are, we got a
serious problem. There's no way we can drop teams for reconnaisance in the big-
gun area with something like this in the way, not after what happened during the
first drop. Big-gun is next on the agenda which means we need to take this thing
out as soon as possible."
Before you can think over this, Sgt. Sparks continues.
"We have a mission and you're one of the lucky ones. The complex is possibly
the control center or power distribution center for this secondary grid. I know
it's a risk but there's no other teams anywhere near this area and we need this
dealt with now. What we'll be doing is dropping a small team of you just outside
the far end of the complex, in some canyons that should be good for cover. We
want this to be as covert as possible, for obvious reasons."
"What if this thing wakes up on us--"
Sgt. Sparks interrupts: "J.C. and the techs have been down in the hangar
cooking up some improvements to the drop-pod shielding since the, uhh, first
drop. What we've come up with is a sort of active electromagnetic-canceling
field -- stealth, if you will. It also acts as a kind of EMP that projects an
in-phase field in the direction of an incoming energy-weapon and tries to repel
it or drown it out. Basically an on-demand forcefield of sorts."
"And I get to test-drive it."
Sgt. Sparks nods. "And right away too. We want to get this started right
away, before this thing DOES decide to wake up. If it does it's gonna be ten
times harder to take it out. I called on you because I know you've had training
in covert ops, and if anyone can make this happen it's you. But I do need to
know," Sgt. Sparks looks directly at you, "are you up to this?"
"Yes, sir, I am. That's why I'm here."
"Thought so," he smiles. "Get suited up and report to hangar deck in one
hour."
You turn to leave.
"And good luck, soldier."
You arrive at the hangar deck to the sight of techs stowing data discs and
other gear in the drop pods being prepared. You wonder yet again at how an
element of technology as alien as the Strogg could be so incredibly similar to
Earth technology. The truth was that these Strogg discs were so similar to Earth
CD's that making them was a trivial matter. In the short time the Earth forces
had been here, malicious programming had been repeatedly used to successfully
corrupt computer operations in the logistical sector. Obviously you would be
attempting the same thing.
"Everyone get ready to board," Sergeant Torres says, walking up. You board
your drop-pod, the cover is closed and you wait for launch. You've already been
on the surface twice, but this is your first drop-pod landing.
Sgt. Sparks comes on the radio: "You've been briefed on what's at stake here.
To recap, you're to infiltrate the complex, link up however possible so you can
send and receive intel, eliminate resistance as necesssary, and take whatever
defensive measures are necessary in shutting this thing down and securing the
facility. And, meet up with the teams at the reactor site ... in one piece.
Godspeed."
"Launch in 10 seconds," Sgt. Torres says.
After a burst of intense acceleration, you begin to descend, slowly at first,
then more rapidly as though on a cosmic roller coaster. Weightlessness turns to
turbulence as the rapidly-thickening atmosphere takes its effects.
"Heads up, marines! The laser grid just activated -- get ready to dodge!"
"Oh, great. You guys better have got this new shield right," you mutter.
"Incoming, six o'clock. Pull hard left!" You pull left, faintly hearing a
laser fizz by off to the right, out of range of the viewscreen. You check the
altimeter: almost to ground level but still too high to fall and land in one
piece.
"Incoming--!"
Ssszz-ffow! The unmistakeable sound of a laser blast screams as the pod is
slammed to one side. So much for the repulsor-shield idea--either that or this
was a helluva hit. The readout reports damage to thrusters and attitude control
as you struggle to maintain course.
"Crap--one more hit like this and it's over--"
Sszzz-POW!
Showers of sparks -- spinning -- smell of burnt circuit boards -- a roar --
vertigo -- then blackness...
You come to, lying face-down on the ground. Despite the crash-landing and
having been ejected from the pod, you seem to be uninjured. It looks like you
can still carry out the mission. Your focus falters, still dazed from the crash.
At once you're jolted back to your senses by the angry sizzle of a nearby laser
bolt scorching the ground, followed by a muffled explosion.
"The laser grid ... at least I got down here alive."
Then silence -- nothing but the wind. You look around, trying to clear your
vision, trying to make out your surroundings and get some sort of fix on your
position.
The pod is nowhere to be seen.
"The disc..."
Alarm turns to relief when you see the disc and a weapon nearby. At least I
can try and pull this off, you think, assuming I ended up near the planned drop
zone. You check your field computer, which fortunately you had in your pack to
begin with, to see if any updates were able to be transmitted. Nothing. There
must be some sort of communications link failure. No matter, you think. The
ground-based com link should work through the Strogg communication network which
was hacked into just after the first drop. Just a matter of finding out what's
going on, you think as you gather your things and prepare to set off down the
ravine.
Toward what, you're not sure.
HLR Productions presents:
*** DEFENSIVE MEASURES ***
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Unit Information *
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Title: Defensive Measures
Author: HLR Productions
Homepage: http://www.netxn.com/~poinsettia/index.html
Current email: poinsettia@netxn.com
Permanent email: hlrsierra@yahoo.com (use this if the other one ever dies
sometime in the future)
Archive filename: defens.zip
Files: defens.txt
defens.html
defens.bsp
defens2.bsp
defens3.bsp
Game: Quake 2
Single-player: That's what it's all about
Cooperative: Supported - 4 starts (but untested)
Deathmatch: Fully supported in defens and defens2, and highly
recommended
defens.bsp (16+ players) (defens and defens2 are a series)
defens2.bsp (16+ players)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Installation and Play Notes *
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Move defens.bsp, defens2.bsp and defens3.bsp to \quake2\baseq2\maps\
The beginning map is defens.bsp
Those of you playing Q2 should know how to do this by now. But if you don't...
To start, set your skill level if necessary: At the Q2 console, type (leave off
the quotes) "skill 0" for Easy, "skill 1" for Medium or "skill 2" for Hard.
Begin playing by typing "map defens".
There's nothing important (no secrets, etc) in the elevator shafts. If you do
get into one, go to the contrasting-colored square on the floor and you'll be
teleported out.
For best results, turn off gl_clear if it's on (type "gl_clear 0" at the console)
if you're using a 3D card (which you should be). It won't break anything but
there's a special effect used that won't look good if the gl_clear color is
anything other than black or dark gray (especially 3DFx cards and their hot-pink
gl_clear color) if it's on.
If you're one of those wanks who likes to noclip around outside looking for
secret areas, hidden logic rooms, func_train-lighting areas and stuff (I do this
all the time), you'll see a bunch of closed-off stairways and a couple other
closed-off rooms in the first map. These are open in deathmatch mode. (To run
in DM mode, type "deathmatch 1" before starting the map.) See below for more on
this.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Construction *
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Basis: None -- all original
Inspirations/ideas: Confidence Lost (lighting), Chemical Plant (transparent
floor), city2[id] (multi-part doors), The Powersphere
Quest (lighting), On Sacred Ground (textures), Waiting To
Die (decorations), reactor2[id] (reactors), Magic Lamber
Forever (find this on your own:-) )
Skill levels: Implemented. (More health in Easy, more monsters in Hard)
I designed this mainly with Hard skill in mind. These are
about the same difficulty-wise as the id levels, but
without as many big health powerups everywhere (except for
Easy skill).
Q2 textures used: Mainly e2u3 reactor, some e2u3 sewer, some e3u3, some e2u2
New textures/images: No
New sounds: No
New/replaced code: No
Editor: QERadiant 1.47 -- nothing but the *BEST*
(and Wordpad for minor entity tweaking)
Build time: About 5 months spread over nearly 3 years(!)
Compile tools: [GDD]QBSP3 by Geoffrey DeWan
Enhanced QVIS3 by Steven Boswell
Arghrad 2.0 (Yeah, baby)
Build/compile machine: P133, 64MB EDO, fast/wide SCSI HD's, 12MB voodoo2.
State-of-the-art :-)
Map: defens.bsp defens2.bsp defens3.bsp
Brushes (world/total): 4472 / 4836 4419 / 4927 2090 / 2366
Enemies (easy): 57 68 25
Enemies (medium): 57 68 25
Enemies (hard): 78 92 31
Compile time:
QBSP3: 8 min, 14 sec 24 min, 50 sec 1 min, 28 sec
QVIS3 (full): 36 min, 34 sec 2 hours, 13 min 2 min, 31 sec
Arghrad: 3 hours, 33 min 5 hours, 18 min 2 hours, 21 min
(Arghrad using -extra, -bounce 100, -chop 64, -chopsky 256, -chopcurve 64,
-maxlighta 240)
Bugs and quirks: The first two maps are a bit jittery on slower computers,
probably because of all the active monsters. This goes
away as you clear them out. Interestingly the second map
isn't as bad even though it has more monsters than the
first one.
High r_speeds in some places. If you're playing in
software mode, go down to CompUSA and get one of their
house-brand middle-of-the-line accelerators for $49. OK..
seriously, there's quite a bit of grayouts in the big
laser room in map 2 if you stand in the corner (r_speeds
around 1400 but the room makes it worth it--trust me).
Also some areas are bit on the dark side, even with a
Voodoo2 whch normally are bright compared to most OpenGL
setups (TNT accelerators and so forth).
Occasionally the bad guys at the end start fighting each
other after they see you collect the rockets. I know it's
amusing to watch but it isn't what I had in mind.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Notes *
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cooperative: The nonlinear and multi-tasked nature should lend itself well to
coop play. Unfortunately I have no way to test and play coop so i don't know if
or how well it will play. If you do get a chance to play this in coop, email me
and tell me how it went -- I'd like to know!
Single-player only in defens3. It would probably make a good rail or rocket
arena map but I didn't want to bother with it at the time. If enough people
whine about it (and I'm not anticipating this) I *might* add DM support in a
future or separate DM-only version.
Deathmatch: Although these maps were designed primarily as a single-player
mission, I found that their nonlinearity and connectivity allowed for pretty
decent deathmatch support. A considerable amount of work went into the
deathmatch aspects of these maps. I borrowed a trick from the original id maps
that I never noticed until I started using Eraser bots: having passages and
platforms and stuff present in DM mode but not in SP mode, and vice-versa. (Take
a look at base2, bunk1, ware1, jail1, fact1, cool1, waste3, strike, city1, city2,
and city3 for the most noticeable examples of this.) In defens.bsp, the lower
elevator is covered up and there are stairways connecting those three floors
instead. Also there's a bunch of custom teleporters (used in both maps) in front
of the other elevator (to go to other floors) and at the beginning and end to
provide connectivity. In defens2.bsp, lots of teleporters, ladders in place of
the elevator, and check out the overhead platform on the second floor. I
eliminated all the things needing smarts to use (elevators, etc) because I
designed these for Eraser-bot play, and bots generally don't know how to operate
things and I don't want to give an unfair advantage to the player. To make extra
things in DM mode and not SP and so forth, just use func_wall's for your
platforms and to cover up passages and inhibit them in the appropriate modes (set
the appropriate spawnflags). For example, to hide the elevator, the frame around
the button is a func_wall that's inhibited in DM, the button is inhibited in DM,
and a func_wall covering up the door is inhibited in Easy, Medium and Hard. Try
this sometime in your SP+DM map -- morphing-maps are a lot of fun.
Advanced lighting: I use point lights to give custom colors to lights that I
can't get with texture lights (at least without making custom textures). The
_falloff key-value is key here. If you want a realistic light source, using
_falloff 2 (or 1) is absolutely necessary anytime you're using a point light as a
sourced light (in a custom fixture for example) and for mine_lights (which are
point lights with models associated with them). Using _fade by itself won't look
nearly as nice. In the caves and a few other places (the "black-lights" for
example) I used a point light 4 units in front of each texture. Also I used a
bunch of point lights everywhere outside near the top of the sky with _falloff 1
and colored orange to make the orange diffuse sky light. (It was a pain but this
was before Arghrad 2.0 and the _sun_surface feature which allows for proper sky
lighting combined with sunlight.) The point_light custom-color method can be
replaced (to better effect) using bmodel lighting instead. But Arghrad 2.0
wasn't out when I did most of the lighting.
Geodesic dome: If you want a prefab of this, email me. I have two spheres --
one for external (used here) and one for internal. I meant to (and was asked to)
post this on a prefab site after I made a pic-of-day on Rust, but got sidetracked
and didn't. Sorry about that.
I started this in September 1998, wanting to finish and release a smaller SP map
or unit before continuing work on a presently-defunct big multi-map unit that I
had started, but this hasn't exactly been "almost 3 years in the making" -- it's
been sitting unfinished for way too long now and the actual total amount of time
I've spent actively working on it is more like 4 months or so. I had almost all
the architechure done by April 1999. Afterwards I was messing around with making
some DM maps and other stuff but a lot of my interests were on things other than
mapping. In the past couple months I've been sorting through my collection of
SPQ2 maps so I could rate and archive them and figured it was high time I got
this out and finished it.
If you review this unit on a level-review site, thanks! If you want to know what
my name is for the "author" space, it's HLR Productions. If you want a "real"
name instead, too bad. :-) Also, I request that in lieu of a clickable email
address on any webpages, you post a link to my Defensive Measures page which is
currently at http://www.netxn.com/~poinsettia/defens.html. The reason for
this is for spam control (avoiding spambots and such) -- I'm on too many spam
lists as it is, thanks mostly to <beeeeeep> ebay when they had clickable email
addresses (fortunately those are a thing of the past) and I stupidly didn't use a
proper username. Your cooperation in this matter is much appreciated. Also, if
you want to add this to your local file download site (3ddownloads.com, etc) as a
local copy or mirror it anywhere, please do.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Acknowledgements *
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
id Software for one of the Best Games ever. http://www.idsoftware.com/
Robert Duffy for The Best Editor Hands Down. http://www.qeradiant.com/
Tim Wright (Argh!) for Arghrad, which made the advanced lighting in this map
possible. http://www.planetquake.com/arghrad/
Steven Boswell for the great enhanced QVIS3. (Whatever happened to his site? It
used to be at http://yyz.com/~whatis/Quake2/bspvis.html)
Tony Ferrara and David Hyde for Mapspy. http://mapspy.gamedesign.net/
Lazarus and its dev team for keeping Q2 not only alive but kicking. This unit
doesn't use it but any future ones I make will. If you make SP maps for Quake2
you owe it to yourself to use the essential SPQ2 mod.
http://lazarus.gamedesign.net/
Rust: News, tutorials, general goodness--need I say more?
http://www.gamedesign.net/
Special thanks go to:
David Hyde and Argh! for playtesting
The Mighty Jihn, partner-in-crime and designer of superb Q2 deathmatch levels,
for inspiration and playtesting and making me get this done, and being a pal in
general.
http://jihn.8m.com/
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Permissions, trademark acknowledgement and usage terms *
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Defensive Measures: Copyright ⌐ 2001 HLR Productions.
Quake 2« and related marks and indicia are (registered I assume) trademarks
and/or property of id« Software: Copyright ⌐ 1997 id Software. For more
information regarding Quake 2, please visit http://www.idsoftware.com/
Those (non-commercial) level authors who want to use portions or ideas from this
unit as a basis for other levels may do so as long as you give credit (and not
take half of this level and call it yours--obviously that's uncool) AND Extend
This Same Courtesy to other authors that I have extended to you. (I am serious
about that last part.) Map source in its entirety won't be released, but I'll
make small portions available if you want a mapping example or to make a sequel
map. Although I'm not an uppity
punk about this issue like far too many authors are (who can eat rockets for all
I care), and I don't at all mind reasonable "sampling" by hobbyist level authors,
it's commercial users who are most likely to abuse it and cause problems and
that's where my concern is directed. I've had other property misused by
commercial entities before. By way of example: When I say "let me know" if you
use my pictures, LET ME KNOW.
This means you, http://www.bagit.com/highsierra/highsierrasportcompany.html
If they had done as they were told I would have made a proper picture for them
and helped them implement it. Instead they net-scraped and more or less
slaughtered my picture. This is why I quit allowing commercial use without
explicitly asking me. (I'm not really concerned about this incident--this was
way before I made my terms clearer. But my point is made I hope.)
THIS LEVEL MAY NOT BE DISTRIBUTED FOR COMMERCIAL PURPOSES.
IF YOU PAID IN ANY WAY TO GET THIS LEVEL, YOU ARE BEING RIPPED OFF
AND SO AM I - PLEASE REPORT THIS TO poinsettia@netxn.com or hlrsierra@yahoo.com
This file (defens.zip containing defens.bsp, defens2.bsp,
defens3.bsp, defens.txt and defens.html),
or any derivative works thereof, may not be sold or redistributed for profit
in any way without express written permission of the author. This includes,
but is not limited to, mass archival as on a cd-rom and inclusion in commercially
published compilations (books and/or magazines).
You are free to copy this file for personal use, or to make it available for
redistribution in its electronic format, provided that:
(1) it remains wholly unedited and unmodified,
(2) no fee or compensation is charged for copies of or access to this
file, and
(3) this copyright notice and the following disclaimer remain attached.
Disclaimer:
This file is provided by the author "as is", and any express or implied
warranties, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of
merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose are disclaimed. In
absolutely no event shall the authors be liable for any direct, indirect,
incidental, special, exemplary, or consequential damages (including, but
not limited to, procurement of substitute goods or services; loss of
use, data, or profits; or business interruption) however caused and on
any theory of liability, whether in contract, strict liability, or tort
(including negligence or otherwise) arising in any way out of the use of
the information herein contained, even if advised of the possibility of
such damage.
Basically, if you want to use this unit commercially, 1: read the Quake2 licence
agreement regarding compiled Quake2 BSPs, and 2: ASK me. Your cooperation in
this matter is greatly appreciated.
Quit reading this and go play some Q2!
[Version 1.02 (8-7-2004): Links in readme updated. Any *.ncinternet.net links
will still always work.]