Black Mesa Scavengers Created 10 years ago2014-07-09 15:02:17 UTC by Rimrook

To continue this discussion officially from this journal.

It's beginning to look like a mod or map pack that is based around finding, killing all of, or collecting whatever within a detailed and exploratory environment.

Some of the ideas which arose so far are:
Headcrab Hunt
Rat Hunt
Zombie Hunt
Collect the Keycards or "Red Coins"
Probably more if Source gets involved.

Whether Spirit of HL needs to get involved is a matter of how far you want to take the idea. Personally I don't see a need for it unless someone really makes a breakthrough map that requires it.

I'm going to attempt to make some kind of rat-grenade map because that sounds ludicrous and fun. Don't let me stop you if you want to do the same thing. I also like the idea of collecting "Red Coins" and having to scavenge for 20 of those in a map.

Continue thinking, this will only fail if we give up on it.

This also reminds me of a map I made for target practice years ago.

It started in a room "armory". You proceeded down a hall way that T'd to another hall way with doors. Each door lead to a room "environment" with a button stand.

One was Xen themed. When you pressed the button a head crab fell from a hole and you shot it.

Another was an office where scientists would appear.

And another where H grunts appeared and so on.

I will experiment with SOHL and see what I can come up with.

Sounds applicable to this mod. Could add it to the bunch if you still have it.

My mouse wheel just broke so that renders sledge and max and any 3d program useless until i get a new mouse.

That map is long gone. So your mouse broke while contemplating a rat killing mod.

Btw, did you notice the rat in my last xmas gift map of my house? It's in the attic. I had added some humor to when you shoot it. No big deal.

http://twhl.info/vault.php?map=5051 heres one for coins i think.

Out of all the mods I've played, I don't think there was one with 'headcrab hunting' in a more scavenging manner. However, there is one for soldiers, a map where soldiers are randomized to several areas in a map and you have to kill them all to finish the map.

I made a lambda coin to use, it doesn't seem to really work well as a w_security, it wouldn't play its spinning animation. Same thing happens as the cycler_weapon but it acts more like a custom item pickup, and the model can be set to anything.

EDIT: omg fuckin goldsource man. if you pick up a cycler_weapon, you can't pick up another one. I guess it's back to the security cards then. Better than nothing and with a bit of finesse, they'll work.

Funny how hard it is to do something this simple. >:[

Whether Spirit of HL needs to get involved is a matter of how far you want to take the idea. Personally I don't see a need for it unless someone really makes a breakthrough map that requires it.

Custom code would allow us to fix the rats and make the coins a proper weapon.

...And by saying us instead of you, I guess I just signed up to help out, lol.

Custom code is a step too far and unnecessary for our means. Though if we seriously, like, fucking why so serious seriously, then we make a mod of it and really stick to the theme and make a huge effort to make something interesting for people to play.

Fixed rats (perhaps fixed cockroaches too) would be the biggest thing. I noticed in their QC that their dying animation is looped, and it shouldn't be. I can fix that much and redo the hitboxes and IDs.

Dimbark brought up Viscera Cleanup Detail. I gave it a try and I'm addicted. Some of this reminds me of that.

EDIT: Does anyone else think rats should run away from the player like scientists do when they're afraid? Would be an interesting part of the hunting experience, especially if they had a significantly different set of passages from the player.

That's a tricky one. I suppose if they were already somewhere relatively safe, they wouldn't move, but if they knew you knew where they were and were coming after them...

I'm casting out my knowledge of actual mice here. The cat doesn't always finish the job >.>

Of course that might be difficult to code. I dunno, I guess it would depend on how it comes together.

speaking of which, unquenque made this mod where he hid 3 spinning lambda logos in each map of vanilla HL and a reward for the amount of lambdas found in each map. is that what you were thinking of?
also, i have code for a chumtoad weapon that can basically keep count of how many you found. i can change it so that its not actually a weapon aNd if you click the mouse you can simply tickle it or something

Coding would make everything a lot easier for you. Animating w_security, for example, is more or less one function call.

StudioFrameAdvance( );

Coding would make everything a lot easier for you. Animating w_security, for example, is more or less one function call.

StudioFrameAdvance( );

Well it looks like coding would clean up a few things. That's all on you guys if you want to do that. If you are going to do coding, would you code spirit or vanilla?

I reverted my w_security back to the card and found that something smaller would require more looking rather than seeing a big obvious icon and grabbing it. My thoughts for this is to provoke true searching. Running through the environment, you should see nearly nothing. It's when you start opening cabinets or drawers, looking under and between things that would begin to find things. That was the appeal of the cockroaches in the first place being so tiny. Scavenging for a tiny little security card requires that you try and search for it, and you won't find it until you're basically on top of it. That's my philosophy at least, and it doesn't have to apply to everyone, or to the general design of this project. Of course, a map would be an example, and I'm sorta working on one.

The reason I said vanilla assets was because I'm putting all of my custom content energy into Zeeba and I's map. Again, that doesn't have to apply to anything, but Black Mesa themed stuff just makes sense.

Prop hunt (G mod) popped into my head after i had read the OP.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnuRW1KZRXM
(fail embed player link)
I think someone tried making something similar for CS 1.6 and abandoned it:
https://forums.alliedmods.net/showthread.php?t=154622

yeah i don't see prop hunt working well for 1.6

I'm honored to have my map remembered =] Thanks 2muchvideogames

Funny how hard it is to do something this simple. >:[

That's my favorite part about working with goldsource - using the restrictive tools to do something simple. Definitely shaped my brain to be a good troubleshooter / engineer.
In Crowbar of Time, all I used a multisource triggering a multimanager.
I wanted to implement a coin counter, but I had no way of displaying it on on a HUD.
If one wants to display a count, you can have a central display showing how many enemies remain, and have the same number of multisources as there are enemies to be found....
Each multisource will have the same name, but a different trigger number (from 1-number of enemies) to toggle visibility of the "enemies remaining" counter. The final multisource triggers a multimanager to do the outro sequence.

Simple in theory, complicated and tedious in execution.

so far...

Damn impressive that you JUST made that.
/slowclap

Does anyone have a link or the file of the complete halflife.wad lights.rad file? Mine isn't complete and there are SO many lights that don't work.

I don't think one exists of them all, unless somebody made a custom one.. Maybe search on Sven Coop Forums?

I've always scratch-made mine.
Seeing as how I've not used more than 10 different tex lights in a map, I'd end up tweaking them anyway.

I'll just wing it. If I use a texture and it's not lit, I'll add it to the rad file.

I'm going to make rat hunt and keycard collect versions of this map. I don't see why not really. It's good testing grounds.

Rim, those images are dead sexy.

They're also dead dark.

Given the content, nice and dark would be the way to go. Perhaps employing some Core-style tricks to make the lighting interesting without actually making too much lit up.

Thanks! But to be honest, I think my sense of construction is better because of Minecraft. Is that weird?

Only if everything is prefabbed, textured cubes that you're splicing together

yeah... good luck finding the rats...

I can see one!

...

I'm sorry, I feel bad. I was lying just now when I said I could see one.

I think I'm being kinda assholish with this map...Also lit and updated the first area.

Very interesting idea. Especially if to make some non-standart ways to wipe those damned things. I mean, not with normal weapon, for example (or with specific weapon). Or if do some crazy tricks / use some special machines / solve some puzzles to reveal a target, or make it accessible. Also, bullsquids or someone else may help you sometimes. And if you are looking for small monsters, there are also chumtoads or leeches (I'm not sure, that you can trigger them though).

Rimrook I love you and respect all your work, deliberately citing it as an influence for my entire mapping portfolio.

With that in mind, that tram station is terrible, haha!
Careful you don't go over 50 wpolies, my PC might melt.

Get some Rimrook charm in there!

I'm not sure if you really mean it's bad or not...

EDIT: HL2 has pigeons, doves, seagulls, and crows. I'm sure they can be used in a bird hunt. Anyone want to figure that one out?

Any NPC has an 'on death' trigger and math_counters are way more flexible than multisources.
There's really nothing to figure out after that.

You can always tie a trigger to the birds that make them fly away if you get too close Just to make it more difficult

So its pretty similar, that's nice to know. The flying aspect sounds crazy. A big warehouse and tunnels would be a sort of nightmare to find and kill a bunch of birds. I recommend shotguns for it.

So, who wants to test the bird hunt idea, would be my next question?

As soon as i'm done with this 15 page monster final paper
[270 pages in a book was rough, but writing papers is still difficult]