> Theme reinforced, and increased the general flow of the map.
> Changed the ceiling in the southeast to match its neighbors.
> Shield was moved slightly inside to the playable area; it was easy to fail picking it up.
> Removed unnecessary vertices, details, and all unused texture alignments.
> Noticeably changed the layout of the ground level to be less frustrating in certain spots.
> Plasma switch removed; it was just a waste of time.
> Slightly increased the size of the map to compensate for the changes.
> Extra barrels were added to increase this feature that's unique to this map.
> Barrels are no longer glued on the walls.
> Added some extra ammo.
> Another area was added on the north side of the map, this have cells and a invisibility sphere.
> Improved some curves of the map to make the plasma room "playable".
> Skag was not in the same angles as the destination of the stop, also the door for it was removed.
> Reworked the west room making it more simple and real part of the action room.
> Main outside room was decreased.
> Removed unnecessary details on the map and enforced the theme in other rooms as well.
> Rebalanced the weapon placement.
This new map is more simple and linear, good for staring slots. There's no new monsters introduced, all monsters present there so far is present in episode 1. the secrets are simple but clever so players does not have to hunt for them so hard at episode start. Theme choosen is plutonia, and that fits for ruin introduction. Map can be beaten in around 1 to 4 minutes, if you hunt or not for secrets. and as final the map already has full deathmatch support.
- If you miss that *one* shellbox accessible from the start, the entire first 1/3 of the map becomes exponentially, inappropriately more difficult. While it is fairly visible once you're down that corridor, you basically have no other reason to go there if you don't have the yellow key, so if you're distracted the first time you see that area (or perhaps you miss it altogether) you might not think to visit it again until you have the yellow key. A small trail of armour bonuses visible from around the corner has been added.
- Moved the tripod gate opening switch a bit so that the surrounding textures align and the fake contrast doesn't make it stick out like a sore thumb.
- The tripod fight sucks. It'd be an amazing arena fight if this were Phase 2 and you had the SSG in those tight quarters, but (a) without the SSG it takes *way* too long and (b) since that door opens permanently like that and there's no wall to follow away from it, the tripod spends 95% of its time blocking your entrance into the arena. Now it's an instant-raise ambush jumpscare - which gives you a moment to take evasive action since it won't start shooting until you're well inside the room unless you intentionally back out.
- That all said, that tripod fight as is is *still* completely inappropriate for just the 5th map in the episode. Compare the equivalent in Map27, where you not only have the SSG and possibly the SKAG, and way more ammo either way, but the entire area is *much* more open and you can easily retreat to a spot where the tripod takes several seconds to reach you instead of one second. The monster blocking line has now been unflagged and you are now able to lure it out into the hall; even if it never leaves that juncture just outside the door, at least it gives you a lot more space and time to work with.
- Made the soul sphere secret just a little bit easier to find with the fake contrast, because expecting the player to figure that a *misaligned rock texture* is a secret when everybody accidentally misaligns rock textures everywhere else is totally unfair.
- The green T room with the teleporter leading to the red slime maze now has a door leading to the hallway going into the final arena, which opens at the same time that said arena does. This should cut back on some backtracking without disrupting gameplay too much.
- Gave the two corridors by the start different marbfaces.
- The cross on the platform by the blue key looks a bit janky even if we weren't trying to get rid of the real-world religious imagery here. It is now a glowing infinity symbol.
- Tekwalled up the back side of that weird not-door to the southwest.
- Mixed up some of that BRICK9 with some BRICK8 where things seemed adequately unexposed to the elements. Split up an over-1024 linedef in the process.
- Flipped a bunch of "ingrown" linedefs.
Fixed the mismatched lighting under the switch room rising pillars.
Simplified some of the light gradients to help reduce some visplanes. The ledge on the east side of the horseshoe is no longer lit.
The newly lit door next to the ledge now has a similar light texture trim to the other lit areas.
The four serp platforms never needed blocking lines of any sort, let alone totally impassible. They are now unflagged for blocking anything.
The nearby soulsphere secret has 2 flicker sectors sharing a common apparent light source that go out of sync. This has been simplified.
Removed some useless linedefs that seemed to be leftovers from when this map had more detail sectors.
Fixed the mismatched flat below the bars in front of the exit.
This map has been notorious for being difficult to navigate. It's actually really clever in its layout but it's also a little too clever about trying to surprise the player by putting important things in places the flow of the map would naturally direct the player away from. There's no real curing this but at least the signposting could be better:
- The raised screens in the starting loop area now align with the bricks and can't be climbed by accident.
- The two big remote-only doors near the start now have different textures since BIGDOOR1 implies a directly usable door literally everywhere else. They also have those pump-piston thingamabobs that show they're affected by those switches.
- Made the courtyard secret a little easier to find (if not actually figure out), and made its panel different from the starting area one because that confusion after you teleport is fun only once. Lower unpegged those doortraks as well.
- Raised the window railings so they're more clearly not intended to let you run out.
- Brightened the area around that door with the underpillars since the flow of the horseshoe makes it very, very easy to run past and not notice until it's too late.
- The "door" pillars on the central switch hub are now opened by nearby switches instead of being directly used. As pillars they are coded very similarly to the remote-open pillars everywhere else and it's always this off-putting and demoralizing distraction to have to remember that they are not. The keyless door also gets the same treatment for consistency.
- The door leading to the teleporter out of the switch hub is now opened by the keyless switch, ensuring that you have to have done this at least once before you can proceed without backtracking.
- Exit bars are explicitly marked as needing the red key.
Prompted by the discussion [here](https://github.com/freedoom/freedoom/pull/1314#issuecomment-1923782305). After a couple runs it seems the big issue is the huge traffic jam after you hit that switch making avoiding the tripod much less feasible than it is on any other non-E2M8 level that has one.
- Changed the red switch arena to make it a bit more cyberdemon-fight-friendly. The switch is now flush against the surrounding wall so even if you run right into it to hit it you won't get stuck in an alcove. The space on the sides of the big green pillars has been expanded. The red skull pillar has been moved so you can move around it on every side. We also have 20 more rockets because hey why not.
-Lines 939 and 946, the two very ends of the red rock corridor leading into the red switch, are now marked as sound-blocking. This prevents the small horde in the star courtyard from creating a traffic jam blocking the player's escape even longer.
- Lines 931, 962 and 963 are also sound blocking. If you can manage to take on the tripod staying entirely within the "arena" part, after the initial wave of serps you can pretty much solo it.
- Added more texture variety to that arena (different marbles, more tekwall, etc.) and gave that very lonely serpentipede up there some friends.
- Made a couple doors look a bit better (taking some cues from the E3M5 doors) and added visible lights to the tentacle-star-side of the main red door to explain why it's lit.
- Prettied up the bridge courtyard a bit. Hopefully the stairs are a bit more visible now.
- Raised the hatchling fireplace so that you can't get inside without jumping. Reshaped a good deal of the rest of the room to get it to work.
- Moved those four shellboxes so it's not so easy to run into all of them at once.
- Restored the old rising-from-the-lava effect on the final painlord.
- Skewed some orthogonal lines in rocky areas to avoid unwanted fake contrast.
- Added exit signs as it's not universal for all levels that sky floor necessarily exits.
The less-safe stuff that I dared not suggest in #1289. (It's always a little scary to touch anything involving the lines of a sinking-stone sector that's attached to anything else.)
Checked with Visplane Explorer before uploading.
- The crumbling land has more linedefs now. The oddly straight geometric shapes especially around the SSG never sat well with me.
- The torches around the jump teleporter are green again, fitting the original theme of the map where they were all green. I'm guessing the red was intended to better telegraph that this is a special thing the player is expected to reach, so the platform itself has been retextured as to distinguish it from the surrounding rock formations.
- Gave the serps near the cloak secret more room to move.
- Moved the cloak powerup a little bit deeper inside the secret sector while expanding the wall to make sure there are no pickups from the other side.
- Realigned the metal textures inside the doors in the starting hub.
- Set the remaining 3 sectors in that teleporting window to the blood pool to non-damaging.
- Aligned the elevator and exit window heights with the wood textures.
- Used MARBLE2 for the backs of the face panels.
- Resculpted the crumbling SKAG path to make it look a little bit more convincingly like broken pieces of a path.
- Widened the butt end of the southeast arrow so it looks less like someone drew it with a shaky hand.
- Addressed #996.
- Adjusted the minigunner hut.
-- Main door switch is now slightly better lit, and is on the bright side of the fake contrast, while the teleport switch is hidden in the door-side corner on the dark side of the fake contrast. They're both visible objects at vanilla eye level. Textures are adjusted so it's a gradual fade of the bloodrust towards the cleanness of the switches rather than an obvious texture mismatch.
-- The doors are fully repeatable and fast when opened from outside, and their tops are lowered just a little bit (mostly to match the wood texture) - you should be noticing the minigunners just in time for the doors to close.
-- The minigunners are marked as ambush for good measure.
After the lights come back on in the blue room the lights in there appear to cast darkness instead of light. A bunch of stuff has been rearranged slightly so that the brightest adjacent sectors to the affected ones are not brighter than these light sectors.
As a side effect, this means that the gradient of the big techpillar light by the entrance is less affected by the in-game shutoff than it used to be. Unless the player has enough minigun ammo to camp there on purpose I don't think it'll affect gameplay for most people.
I've also simplified that room to use much fewer sectors - none of the lines between them were sound blockers and there were no changes in floor height or texture or lighting.
It was overwriting the existing id BROVINE2. Both are now available.
All levels have been converted to use BROVINE3 with a script. There are a few spots where BROVINE2 actually looks better but we can presume the brown wall green vine was the original authorial intent since that one has been the only one available since who knows how long, and it's not like we can't update these later anyway.
Also incorporates the Map11 edits from #1318.
Change the sofas to resemble actual sofas instead of flesh, using COMPTILEs with texture offsets to emulate chair legs without having to make new textures.
Restore Ralphis' old E1M1 track as E1M5 - taking Matt's suggestion here into heart: https://github.com/freedoom/freedoom/pull/1292#issuecomment-1913358481_
"The Raging Sun" - although I like it - is quite bland. Ralphis' old E1M1 track is a fast-action-styled track that fits the shooting gallery aspect of E1M5.
Also addressed #996 for the crate area and simplified a bit of geometry (no visual changes, just merging sectors), as well as giving more internally consistent lighting to the basement red key area.
Old green slime bricks preserved as SLIME13A and BRICK13A.
Map11 tweaked slightly to take advantage of both; also fixes the torch light effect in the octaminator zombie ambush and adds a big vent grate to that blank wall.
Halved the damage of the damaging floors in the map.
Made the double-barred shotgun platform do no damage.
Made the blood pool in the green marble chamber do no damage.
Moved the torches around the first teleporter to enter the red key arena to make running into it a lot easier.
Replaced the pain lord on the initial lift with a pain bringer on hard, a few serpentipedes on medium, and nothing on easy.
Replaced two of the matribites in the cramped blue key room with trilobites.
Made the blue key platform larger and not lower when you step on it.
Removed the damaging floor in the blue key room.
Ran past this and got lost again.
The grey of the pillar just blends in too well with the wall behind it, while the height takes it out of the player's visual area of attention.
The pillar is given a texture that stands out and looks like something that should possibly move, while its base has been given the same markings as the switch that lowers the pillar. The pillar is also extended so that the yellow key is visible from the blue key (and if you can somehow jump to reach that key then more power to you - it should be an even harder jump than the old one.)
See #1253.
For E3M6 I've also rearranged the SP_DUDEs on those two columns in the hopes that the only instantly obviously repeating one is the one that should be non-humanoid.
Also addressed #996 for E3M6.
Closes#1245.
Fix that bridge to look a little less awkward and #996-compliant.
Add a decorative door to the starting area monster closet, implying the monsters are coming in from another, inaccessible part of the facility. It does, however, make the floor match the main area again.
Make the freestanding AGM logo bolder, simpler and stronger.
Adjust some textures in and near the big skylight hall to lean into the quasi-outdoors aesthetic while also replacing the grate floor textures with something a bit easier on the eyes in low-res.
Includes replacement demo.
While fixing some issues Inuk had found, my dumb ass removed the secret green armor, which resulted in the secret near the blue key being empty on uv. This has been fixed along with a few misaligned textures I found during gameplay (Linedefs 1259 and 1290).
Addresses #1230. Includes replacement Map03 demo.
Map03-4
- Map03 exit is now very clearly marked as one. The lift is given an appearance that implies that it is what you're standing on at the start of Map04.
Map09
- The entryway switch into the ruined storage administration area is gone and the "inside" switch now opens the bars directly.
Two small issues that Eureka flagged:
* Sector #133 the flesh worm and the stealth worm were overlapping.
Moved the flesh worm back.
* Sector #100 removed unused tag #8.
After some experimenting with different explosion sequences I think this one strikes the best balance while being compatible with both vanilla and limit removing.
- Made E1M1 more beginner friendly (keycards is optional for secret)
- Upper starting area door opens consistently from both sides. Switch is gone and that corridor is shortened
- There is a little trail of health bonuses guiding the player to the least damaging way to reach the armour
- Soul sphere in upper area is now red armour
E1M8
- Crosses replaced with windows into tenta-tech paranoid pareidolia.
E3M5
- Final room changed into a generic, secular meeting hall. Pews are now large... brain... tentacle... things... slightly dressed up to match the classic brown decor.
Map12
- If you look out the window from around (672,1056) there's another visplane crash. That entire corridor has been greatly simplified, as well as a few things visible from that window and some nearby items.
- The switch lift is now activated on the lift itself. Computer panel stuff replaces the switch so that wall doesn't look so empty (which I can only infer was what motivated this unusual setup).
freedoom1.wad
E2M1 Fix non-visible missing texture after exit with GRAY1
E2M4 Fix missing texture before start with GRAY1
E2M7 Fix missing upper texture for linedef #4431
freedoom2.wad
MAP05 Removed unused tag #16 in monster closet on sector #137
Made upper case incorrectly lower case texture "fwater1"
MAP12 Removed non-visible Medusa texture on linedef #7219
MAP24 Fix missing texture on linedef #1636 in monster closet
MAP25 removed unused tag #31 and type on linedef #2741
MAP31 removed unused tag #9 from sectors #17 and #71
e2m1: end portal updated to use the same projectile-eating effect as elsewhere in E2. [X]
map03: (linedef 1129) Misaligned texture.
map08: (linedef 1782) W1 blocks door until spent, you have to faceplant onto the door to reach it. [X]
map15: (sector 492) Can grab items by slamming into the cover. [X]
map17: Very early finish by just running from the walkway to the exit (SR40); the exit platform was also raised to avoid a harmlessl but annoying projectile explosion visual glitch in vanilla. [X]
map22: (sector 189) Thin secret sector, can run over without tagging. (sector 134) Secret can be robbed by slamming into the cover [X]
Note: Fixes marked by X means that the map structure was a slight modified in someway, it may break demos.
Removed unused textures.
Fixed missing textures alignment.
Fixed 2 ceiling using wrong flat.
All liquids sectors near techwalls now damage properly.
All secrets now appears on automap.
Fixed one of the DM closets near rockets launcher opening in singleplayer/coop.
E1M1
- All the monsters in the trench are now +ambush, so they don't move until you're down there. On easy the zombieman even faces away from the start.
- More monster blockers added to prevent invisi-blocks jumping into the starting room trench or down from the cliffs in the outdoor area.
E2M7
- Armour bonuses still floating on sector 599. They now adorn the side pillars instead.
- The minigun is comically easy to miss - pretty much every passage into that area is designed for you to look the other way or overshoot it jumping in there, and you might go through the next 80% of the map before having any reason to go back into that part of the room. Its platform has been moved to the lower area, with the upper platform being ostensibly a shotgun but the shotgun guy now standing there took it.
E3M4
- Stealth worm 16 stuck on overlapping ledge.
- Changed the St. Pete's cross into a sealed-off fireblu portal.
- Extended the stairs up from that long bridge so that it's more obvious from a distance at low resolution that those are legit stairs up and you're actually expected to backtrack that way.
- Redecorated the exit room.
E3M5
- Jump down into painlord courtyard in the west would be invisi-blocked by said painlords. Monster blocking line added to keep the way down clear. Moved the tree out of the way too, for good measure.
- Addressed #996.
E3M9
- Fixed numerous tutti-frutti textures and unstraightened some unintentional fake-contrasts in some organic areas.
E4M2
- Got rid of the flat bleed trick in that slime tunnel. It's just a big steady spotlight now - and it doesn't mitigate any nukage damage.
- The secret exit room multiplayer contingency entrance is now opened immediately after the trap-bars are triggered. The trap-bars themselves are no longer crushing, preventing a possible immobilization softlock.
- Said multi-contingency entrance area is remodeled to make it clear it has been jump-proofed.
- Aligned hex textures in secret exit room.
E4M9
- Flagged line 1765 as monster blocking. It's possible for a monster, while that platform is descending, to step right onto that window ledge and get stuck there as the platform continues its movement.
- Added glass to the sides of sector 230 to prevent the player from falling in under certain circumstances.
Map02
- Changed the multi-wallpart elevator so that the middle is the "rungs" that the side "pulleys" are lifting up the platform against.
Map04
- Numerous cosmetic fixes to the starting area.
Map05
- A couple lines on the edge of the stream used the surrounding brown rock instead of the zimmer brown.
- Made the helipad symmetrical and made it look more weathered, including adding a small tree where there would once have been a light.
Map11
- The walk line to open the yellow door switch is now south of the minigun, so those who "know" how it works (without knowing the exact location of the line) don't have to go all the way up to the door to intentionally trigger it.
- Removed some hard-only monsters from the eastern branch, removing some matribites and octaminators and replacing one of the former with a formerly easy-only trilobite and one of the latter with a stealth worm.
- The dock area is now opened up by the same switch that lowers the two platforms, which are now lowered permanently.
- The red skull shootable switches are now located so high up that it's impossible to gamble on a stray SSG shot hitting them from below.
- Addressed #996 in some small gaps in the final arena.
Map23
- Moved all health bonuses around the broken teleporter to look less like mushrooms.
Map26
- Blue skull door trim was misaligned, obscuring the shape of the horns.
- Zombieman 130 stuck inside a monster blocking line.
- Moved all health bonuses around the starting area corpse to look less like mushrooms.
Map29
- Addressed #996.
Map32
- Added a way to climb out of the lava pit.
That corridor that got the big reshape was originally using the dark grey flat large brick pattern, with lights inside it.
I can't risk the lights but the darker ceiling definitely looks better.
Also fixed some other textures here and there.
- Centered the edge rivet of every one of those green panels, then moved all of their alignments down by one pixel to fully hide the bottom rivets.
- Marked the smaller yellow door from both sides as a yellow door.
- Changed the fronts of the shiny steps to an aquatext pipe similar to the bronze/brown ones on the other side of this area.
- Fixed the misaligned textures on the big train gates.
- Extended the corridor in front of the main yellow door and made it open instead of a dead end, then extended the windowed building by the tracks to the southwest. This cuts off the view from the corner to the northeast where all that HOM is. Since there's nothing back there for the player and most of the activity is going to be eastwards, the technospiders that spawn in hard generally will not get stuck, though the player does have quite a bit more cover. (Meanwhile, opening up that corridor makes this fight a lot less claustrophobic.)
- Added yellow key indicator on both sides of the main yellow door.
- Simplified the geometry of the northern corridor leading out into the southwest crate area.
- The green panels used to have a big SUPPORT3 section where they touched the lifts. Only some of these remain and they look like accidents. Replaced all of them with warning stripes.
- Made the crates on the southwest near the elevator full height again. There does not appear to be any visplane issue resulting from this.
Map25
- The eastern door of the first hub has a gap large enough that going there will always force you to touch the hurtfloor. I can see the rationale in theory for making this visually distinct, but frankly I never even noticed the difference until getting hurt just now while testing it. That door now has the same platform in front of it as its western counterpart and is marked with skull poles instead.
- On the topic of marking the doors, both shells are now by the door leading to the SSG and both health refills are by the door leading to the surge.
- The stairs leading down to the painlord ambush no longer have anything to the right that can snag you as you try to sweep up all the bonuses (which are now placed slightly closer to the edge of each step so you can't accidentally jump over them).
- The switch lowering the red key now has the player facing the red key. It's nowhere near as visible as I'd like but it's better than before. The same switch also opens the rescue suit closets.
Map12
- Added a secret behind the train. Just a little guy hangin' out.
E1M3
- Floaty health boosts near sector 74.
Map12
- Moved corpse 653 out of being exactly on the lift boundary.
- Miscellaneous texture alignment fixes.
- Many, many attempts to address #996.
Map14
- Moved armour boosts inside minigun secret door into the chamber itself.
Map15
- Thickened the lowering panel with the pump shotgun to prevent possible grabbing through the wall.
Map17
- Floaty shotgun on pillow.
Map18
- Floaty missiles around launcher.
- Floaty clip 100.
- Addressed #996 in the courtyards.
Map19
- Restored the original shape of the lower platforms and added the catwalk only as a narrow pipe.
Map21
- Disambiguated "sinky" ripsaw position.
- Deleted sectors representing the pillars around the soul sphere platform as there was no reason not to use 1-sided lines here.
Map27
- Floaty diagonal armour boosts around red key pillar.
