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- Title: Rings 2.00
- Author: Jon Barnhart (aka Kilroy)
- Dave Bielawa
- Email: jon@inmind.com
- Other: Conversion and rework of my first Descent 1 level.
-
- Description: Three rings set at right angles, set around a large fuel
- sphere. Due to its nature, there are no robots, since
- adding them would guarantee the player getting swarmed the
- first time he did anything. The main goal of this level
- is to support 4-8 players on an office LAN. It has also
- been shown to run well on Kali. (At least as well as
- anything runs on Kali.) Team games and flag are definately
- supported.
-
- Gameplay: When the level starts, there are missle-ainous items
- strewn in the rings with all available primary weapons
- stacked in the center. Note that whoever flies into the
- center to get all the weapons will get stuck briefly and
- give everyone a free shot at them. It is best just to
- brush the edge and get a few items instead of all of them.
- This gradually disperses during normal gameplay until it's
- gone.
-
- All D2 items exist on the level except for the omega
- cannon, which was causing the game to lock up. To get the
- more powerful items you must shoot a switch in the reactor
- room. This will unlock a door and allow you to get an
- item. To pace the game, every item you get will allow you
- to shoot one more switch in the reactor room. Once an
- item is available, all occurrences of that item are
- available (e.g. when the helix room is open, all helix
- cannons are in that room for everyone to get.)
-
- Getting into the reactor room requires afterburners. You
- must go to the "top" end of the water pipe (Where the
- water is coming from) and afterburn to the door, which
- will open when you enter the pipe. Avoiding the items in
- the middle of the level would be a good idea while doing
- this.
-
- Kali setup: For larger games (5+ players), the following parameters
- seems to work best for 28.8 modems. 5 packets/sec (Yes,
- 5.) with short packets engaged. More than 5-6 packets/sec
- can cause severe packet loss which raises havock with the
- game play. For smaller games, more packets, or non-short
- packets should work fine. For players with faster
- connects, or with better ISPs can try higher settings, but
- for most this seems to be the best compromise among lag,
- packet loss, and playability.
-
- (The main reason for the few packets/sec is when several
- people start firing weapons, the number of packets
- increases dramatically and will cause loss and/or lag.
- Thus that missle you fire may very well may never
- be seen by your target, or by the time your target
- gets the fire weapon packet, it's moved too far to be hit.)
-
- Another solution to the loss/lag problem is to turn off
- the rapid firing weapons in the game setup. The Omega,
- Vulcan, Phoenix, Helix, and Plasma all send lots of
- packets and can create trouble. This is true of any D2
- Kali game, really.
-
- Level Info:
-
- Single Player: You must be kidding
- Coop: You're still kidding, right?
- Anarchy: YES!
- Team Anarchy: YES!
- Flag:YES!
-
- Editor: Devil 2.1f
- Time: 35-40 hours (This version only)
-
- This level MAY be used as a base for other levels, so long as credit is
- given for the parts used. Note that I customized Devil slightly in
- order to do the lighting so don't expect the "mine lighting" command to
- reproduce the lights as they appear in this level.
-