================================================================================================= Archipelago (v 1.0) ================================================================================================= Author: Francois "Venomus" Barnes E-mail: MrMan@mrman58.freeserve.co.uk Website: http://www.mrman58.freeserve.co.uk/spawningtank File name: archipelago10.zip Zip contents: archipelago10.txt valve\maps\archipelago.bsp valve\maps\archipelago.res valve\sound\gibfnt\gf_plop.wav valve\sound\gibfnt\gf_sbig.wav valve\sound\gibfnt\gf_sprt1.wav valve\sound\gibfnt\gf_sprt2.wav Type: Deathmatch Number of maps: 1 Difficulty levels: no New textures/skies: yes (embedded in map, no separate files) New sprites: no New models: no New code: no New sounds: yes Story: The Xenians have been driven out of an important sector of the Borderworld wilderness. The route is now clear for advance into the industrial areas of their domain, and the valuable scientific stuff awaiting within. It is time to enter the wilderness sector, but you will not be alone. Rival corporations ready their own operatives for teleportation to Xen. Once there it will be the usual desperate fight for control of pathways and resources. As usual, supplies and munitions have been pre-teleported into the area. And you will have to find them, as the still imprecise science of teleportation will have scattered them over a wide area. One more thing: advance drones report that the retreating Xenians left some kind of warp-core device in the area, believed to be a weapon of mass destruction. The device is primed, but was never activated in time. Use at your own discretion. Intro/description: There aren't many Xen themed Half-Life DM maps around, but my hope is that Archipelago will be accepted as one of the best. I have not skimped on the eye-candy. In a way that was my main aim. I like mapping for Xen, but did not want to be committed to a whole single-player episode (if its not going to be crap, that just takes too long). But I think that I know enough of the concepts of DM to make a map that plays well (I'm pretty satisfied with how it looks :) . This map has lots of interactive stuff in it. You are advised to read the 'tips/play information' section of this readme, and maybe explore the map offline a bit. Installation: Place map "archipelago.bsp" in your Half-Life\valve\maps folder. Place resource file "archipelago.res" in same folder as "archipelago.bsp" (this is just for those who want to host a game with the map, I guess). Place the folder "gibfnt" in your Half-Life\valve\sound folder, (you may have to create any of these folders, but its unlikely). Run the map any way you like, but you will need to be in DM mode ('deathmatch' cvar set to > 0) if you want to start with longjump module, hornetgun etc. Tips/play information: -Before long, you will probably discover the portal, which takes you to the island with the 'warp-core'. Shoot the big yellow crystal, and wait for bad things to start happening. The first warning is a brief flash. Those who know the map will probably pick it up as the early cue to shift ass. The second warning comes 20 seconds later and should appeal to most peoples sense of urgency. The only good place to be about 50 seconds after that will be on the blue healing pad on the island with the doom device. Expect a bit of competition for a place on that healing pad because there ain't that much room on it :) . -In DM mode, you will find yourself equipped with different things to the usual, boring pistol/crowbar combo. You still have the crowbar of course, but if you run out of ammo you should not have to resort to it. That's because on this map, everyone starts with a free hornetgun. I made it like this because I love that weapon, it fits the Xen theme well, and it helps balance out a map where its possible to accumulate lots of powerful weapons quite quickly. Also, you start with a free long-jump module, because it is essential to utilise lots of high-speed long distance jumping, to get the most out of this map. -Make the most of the long-jump module and low gravity on this map. Use long jumps to fly around the map very quickly. Unfortunately lag is the enemy of fun stuff like this. If there is no choice, you can still use the 'lo-lag' routes around the map. Ladders (try climbing any of the chimney-spires) replace jump pads, and stepped short jumps replace long jumps. -'The tube' is the red-lit tunnel burrowing under the main part of the map. At first there is no obvious way of getting back up to the 'funnel' entrance. But you should find there is a mysterious wind blowing you up if you just try to run up the tunnel, Matrix style. -In the cave with the large healing pool, it's possible to long jump straight up to the tunnel above. You can also go up a narrow sloping ledge on the wall. -This map has a rather complex system that allows you (providing you are hosting the game, that is) to decide what happens when players fall in the void. Please read about it in the next section of this readme. Info for server admin/host: -There are a number of high drops on this map. It's probably best if the falling damage in DM is not set to realistic (ie: left at its default setting). -Low ping server physics are going to come in handy on this map, if you're running an internet game. So leave them enabled (default). -I am aware that falling into voids and dying causes chronic annoyance to some people. That is why there is an alternative option in this map. Instead of exploding in a thousand giblets when you fall off, you are teleported back to solid ground. This may be embarrassing (I hope) but at least you will not lose a frag. This 'teleport mode' has to be activated, as 'death mode' is the default. I wanted whoever was running/in charge of the server to be the only one who could change 'teleport' or 'death' mode. This was done by exploiting how they would be the only ones capable of 'cheating'. Somewhere in the map there is a secret area, accessible only by noclipping *. Finding it is itself quite a fun exercise. First go to the area of the map with the 'funnel', the upper entrance to the red-lit tube. There is an spiky island with a teleporter. Go to this island and carefully look around edge for a small spike pointing across the void. Noclip in the direction this spike is 'pointing'. Eventually you should see a tiny island with a yellow crystal. Land on the island, and shoot/crowbar the crystal. You should get a message saying what will now happen if you fall in the void. Unfortunately cheats are quite restricted in DM mode. 'Impulse 101' works (giving you all weapons), but as far as I know you cannot use the normal 'noclip' command, even when you are the host and have set 'sv_cheats' to '1'. You have to use the Admin Mod thingy (http://www.adminmod.org) which provides alternative equivalents of this cheat (and also 'god'). You may be familiar with running a server, Admin Mod etc. Most of the Internet servers seem to use it nowadays. But you might find it damned impossible, just want to host a quick LAN game, or you may not have permission to use cheats, whatever. The point is there is an alternative if you want to change what happens when you fall off, and you do not have the option of noclipping in DM. The alternative is just to use a different map, in which the default mode is teleport instead of death. But surely, if you are using a modified map, everyone who wants to join your game will need the modified map as well. Apparently not. As long as the maps are named the same, the minor differences will not matter because the host's map (yours) decides how certain things are in the map without consulting the clients (at this stage, it has not been tested online for real, so in fact it possibly may not work :( ). Obviously you will not be able to keep both versions of the map in the same folder all the time, because they have the same name. You would just keep the one you want to use in your Half-Life\valve\maps folder, and the other one somewhere else (or temporarily rename the one you are not using). The file archipelago10_televoid.zip can be gotten from http://www.mrman58.freeserve.co.uk/spawningtank/files/archipelago10_televoid.zip. It is pretty much identical to the .zip archive this readme came from, except it contains the modified map (still called archipelago.bsp). Make sure you don't accidentally confuse or overwrite one map with another, if you get both of them. For nothing more than reference, to myself as much as anyone else, I have included instructions about how to hax0r archipelago.bsp (death void version). It's not too hard. First get yourself a decent hex editor. There are loads of good, free ones such as Hex-editor XVI32 (http://www.chmaas.handshake.de/delphi/freeware/xvi32/xvi32.htm). Some text editors also allow you to edit the .bsp without corrupting it in the process, but Notepad and Wordpad are unreliable for this purpose. Make sure you backup archipelago.bsp, as the chances are you will corrupt it first time especially if you're using a dodgy text editor. I repeat: backup the map before you start screwing around with it. Then open the map in your hex/text editor and search for the following text: { "origin" "-1664 3232 1472" "initialstate" "1" "triggermode" "3" "globalstate" "void_th_gs" "targetname" "void_th_eg" "spawnflags" "1" "classname" "env_global" } { "origin" "-1600 3232 1472" "triggermode" "3" "globalstate" "void_tt_gs" "targetname" "void_tt_eg" "spawnflags" "1" "classname" "env_global" } Replace it with: { "origin" "-1664 3232 1472" "initialstate" "1" "triggermode" "3" "globalstate" "void_tt_gs" "targetname" "void_tt_eg" "spawnflags" "1" "classname" "env_global" } { "origin" "-1600 3232 1472" "triggermode" "3" "globalstate" "void_th_gs" "targetname" "void_th_eg" "spawnflags" "1" "classname" "env_global" } In many text and hex editors, all carriage returns will appear as a little rectangle, making it harder to read. It's probably better to look and carefully alter what has changed in the text instead of just copy and pasting. Then save the file, and try to run the map. You should now teleport when you fall in the void. If Half-Life fails to load the map, it has been corrupted, you have changed stuff in the file you were not supposed to, or you should try a different text editor. If the map loads but other stuff in it is not working properly, you probably changed things that should have been left alone. If you fail to get 'teleport mode' as the default, try again with another copy of the map that you (hopefully) backed up. You simply made a mistake somewhere. * noclipping, for anyone who does not know, is a form of cheating where you can fly around a map and through walls. Technical Information: Map size: 2.00 Mb Total compile time: 7h 15m 41.95s ** Construction time: 2 months *** Base: Scratch, some prefabs I had left over from previous projects. ** compiling on low priority. On high priority it would have taken about 3h 30m. 98% of the compiling time was on the LeafThread section of HLVIS. *** approx, if you include time for short breaks, long periods of inactivity, Real Life™ etc... Compile/main testing system: -AMD Athlon XP 1800 MHz -256 Mb DDR RAM -GeForce 3 Ti 200 (64 Mb) video card -Windows XP Home edition -NVidia Detonator XP drivers Software used: -WorldCraft 3.3 -Valve Hammer Editor 3.4 **** -Zoner's Half-Life Tools 2.5.3 -Spriteview 1.05 -Pakscape 0.11 -Wally 1.55b Compile specs for g33ks: Textures: 30 Portalleafs: 2325 Numportals: 9138 Average leafs visible: 333 G_visdatasize: 187248 (676575) Faces: 6303 Base patches: 21348 Area: 281772 feet^2 (40575192.00 inches^2) Direct lights: 461 Visibility matrix: 27.2 Mb Number of cheesecakes: 41 **** I updated WorldCraft some way through the map construction. BTW that new name sucks. Credits: -Usual stuff, Valve for making Half-Life and WorldCraft etc... -The authors of any of the programs mentioned in 'Software used' -The authors of the Zerstörer mod for Quake 1, from which the 'gib fountain' sounds were 'borrowed'. -Those who hang around the Rust forums, especially the old-timers (you know who you are :) -[WTF?]Snowdog and co. at the Department of Engineering -various dudes at the PHL forums for giving me info about cheats in DM -Anyone else who I forgot... You may distribute this map over the Internet as long as it is unmodified and you include this file with the map. If you wish to release this map on CD, DVD or any other media please contact me first and ask for my permission. If you wish to use material from this map or otherwise modify it, please give me credit, and preferably contact me so I can check whatever it is out. Half-Life is a registered trademark of Valve software.