So much whining about Source. Are your guys' computers really old or something? The tools work just as well as they always have (there have been points in time where they were buggy but I've been working in CSS config for weeks with 0 problems. I work in the licensed version of Portal2 engine at work all day and we have more issues with that than we do the free SourceSDK)
Hammer crashes constantly and always has...especially if your hardware is old(er). Set autosave to 1 minute and hope for the best...
Saying goldsrc > src is just laughable....yeah, you arent having any crashes because you're working with an engine that's over ten years old
Compare the features of Source to Goldsrc as well and you can see why there are more problems - because there are plenty of additional entities, engine features, etc....Not saying the engine is without it's problems, far from it, but you need to work with it for a while and learn WHY it sucks before calling it horrendously broken or inferior
Regarding the competition I'm a little confused on how much I can deviate from the theme. I've tried to maintain some of the original theming of the map, but what exactly are 'coherent deviations' that remain within the contest rules? In terms of theme are you looking for a remake maintaining the same color scheme, visual elements etc, or are you looking for a remake that doesn't necessarily maintain the same color scheme, but is still generally recognizable as being themed around the original map.
(Basically, I've tried to maintain some of the same thematic elements and the feel of some areas from the original map, but have tried to tie them all together, to make the map feel more 'real') - I guess what I'm trying to figure out is what 'defines' the theme of the map and should be retained to stay within the boundaries of the competition?
I'm making a cs_backalley remake if it helps - as an example one thing I've changed is avoiding the use of red bricks everywhere and using different colors to help distinguish different areas of the map (compounding the layout problems in the original was that every exterior part of the map looks the same...)
EDIT: Cs_a380 isnt a bad idea if you're going to base the map around the entire plane. I was thinking of doing a cs
727 remake as well (note 727 so it focuses more on the airport as opposed to multi-level plane) but making a good-looking plane in Source, not to mention all the other assets required, is a lot of work....