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Myself imagining a HD Unreal 1 remake

For gameplay advice and broader discussion of single-player Unreal including custom maps, mods and mutations that alter the game.

Moderators: Semfry, ividyon

UB_
Nali Priest Nali Priest
Posts: 7960
Joined: 11 Nov 2007, 21:00

Subject: Re: Myself imagining a HD Unreal 1 remake

Post Posted: 17 May 2017, 22:57

Foundry Tarydium Plant
MUSIC: Found.umx
Found.umx will get a sound refinement and no big changes; the action songsection will get a full blown techno remix, with the last portion of the song being changed to fit the first one and to fit more as a battle song.
Now what's changed very much here (and also seen from Nagomi as well) is the texture pack used for Foundry and Toxic. It's not Mine.utx (it's not a fucking mine) but it's a mixture of SGTech.utx and richrig.utx (at least a lighter, less rusty version of the latter that fits with SGTech.utx). You may recall G59's Toxic conversion which underwent the same change with these texture packs; Foundry will undergo this switch as well, and both maps' architecture style will adapt to the texture edits with specific brush changes, alongside important key modifications that will fix all the layout issues that plagued these maps (which will be mentioned below).
Overall the industrial complex will look much more cleaner but that doesn't mean SGTech/Richrig are going to use the exact same textures - they might be modified or have new additions if it's necessary, if the theme redux requires. Any message will be also modified and they'll be read from electric panels only, no more throughout signs. The tidbit to know here is that the Skaarj built the place without the help of the Nali, unlike Rrajigar Mine (this was instead true in the original Unreal).

Foundry's enemies revolve in Brutes (and just Brutes), Skaarj Troopers/Infantries/Gunners/Officers and Skaarj Warriors/Assassins; don't expect Pupae. Item placement will follow again modern standards - no more shit hidden in every crook and corner. You'll find the first Rifle Ammo Box or two.
The first area has the right hand side door being locked until reaching a certain point in the game, while the left hand side door leads still to the electric generator chamber which turns on the elevator and the light system that's shut down in the early areas (map begins darker due to light sources being turned off). The elevator itself has now its own activation panel, below and above, near the lift pillars.
The upper floor is extended; do you remember that outside Foundry, above the entrance, you would see a part of the building with some windows that is never seen from inside? (the entrance is now different in this game but that upper section has been kept as part of it) Well, it's addressed here.

Now, the big U-shaped room got a complete makeover. Think of ONP's Prisoner map, where you're travelling through a bottomless cave over a moving platform. Take that concept and paste it here.
The whole area is now a massive metal cave (always of a similar layout shape), with lava at the bottom and with all the Tarydium treatment plants that can be seen here (falling down still kills you, anyway). A hi-tech visual showcase.
You cannot travel by foot this time but only through one of the platforms present here; hop on the thing, use the action command to activate the platform control panel and hold it -> now you can move around horizontally throughout the area. Stop holding the button to stop the platform and to go back shooting things around. Other platforms will show up, even moving vertically, and will have Skaarj Troopers/Infantries/Gunners that you have to fight. Note that it is possible to destroy these platforms with eightballs/flaks - and the Skaarj Gunners, armed with the Flak Cannon too, will try to do this for yours too, so you gotta position yourself and fight the Skaarj at the same time. There's one broken platform along the way you can jump on that has a Shield Belt.
Rather busy looking area overall, soundscape of the machinery also contributing.

The conveyor belt area begins with a locked door which leads exactly to the other side of the wall - where the large windows are, in other words. The conveyor belt section is also heavily redesigned (it's an expansion of the previous machinery cave) and the conveyor belt pathway is never discontinued, therefore more dangerous at first glance. However, you'll be dealing with different types of hazard rather than just crushers: there's a slower but larger variant of crushers, crushing pillars, flamethrowers, freezing vapor and outside of the conveyor belt itself there's just magma. Overall much less forgiving but at the end three will be a Brute who will annoy the fuck out of you and needs to be taken out asap (imagine a rocket blowing you right into something hazardous, resulting in your death).
From the window part, you can unlock the new shortcut door mentioned above. The outdoor part outside the windows is changed - it's basically now a whole part of the structure (with massive and working chimneys) all over a desert/jungle chain mountain. The sky however is getting less "Mars-y" and more "Earth-y" but we're surely past midday, full-blown afternoon now.

In the command room of the redesigned machinery cave, you can't do really anything except stopping some of the machines and the conveyor belts too (not that it matters much since you have a shortcut now) - so kill the Skaarj Assassin hidden here. Now the passage to the floor below is done throughout staircases instead of falling into a hole. Another note is that Foundry's area design will lead to massive layout changes that will impact the whole map (inevitable but better on the long run).
Below, there will be a Brute coming from the door on the left hand side - no more bursting down a wall. Here there's another pathway that leads to another closed door - it'll be a shortcut to the last section of Foundry (the area with the multiple floors), counting also as the only "legitimate/realistic" way to enter it.
This area isn't drastically changed but there's now a (locked, currently) pathway to the next area that you have to access through the pipe passage; the Skaarj Warrior above will just focus on you and there's no dynamite anymore (and the bridge will remain intact). The optional area will be accessible from both pathways this time around and the one with the hole has now an elevator. This area won't be actually optional: the panels found inside will control the temperature of the pipes that you will soon access; the pipes are super hot and of course you gotta turn this shit down BUT you have to do this after you increase the pressure to break an opening to the pipe itself, otherwise the pressure increase won't break anything. This area will also have an extension which leads to an open window where junk gets thrown down in the mountains; you can thrown your own self and die, too. You can see from there also those chimneys you spotted beforehand.

The successive area acts as a storage one, and the music will stop. The door shortcut which leads to the previous section must be activated in the chamber on the upper floor. Also, no more bars closing down gateway doors - they are just proper closed doors now. The successive area is instead accessed through a hole on the second floor, revealing a passage with another hole where you can fall in to get into the next room and unlock the shortcut door consequently.
This area will remain for just maintenance purposes, despite visual upgrades. This is where Skaarj Troopers will become more prevalent in the level.
If you didn't find the secret in Morose, you will find the first proper GES BioRifle there (same location as in RTNP/UBeta).
The chamber with lava is connected to the massive machinery area (here it looks like a cave) but now this time the entire pipe line appears to crumble when you run into it, not just a part of it. And by running, you GOTTA RUN because below there's a big magma pit and if you fall you won't survive. Every now and then a wake-up scripted event that's new and unexpected like this one is great to spice things up.

You access the last section, where you can unlock the pathway to the area with the broken pipe / pressure lever (clearly where that ambushing Brute came from). Music also starts again.
Few Brutes here and the Super Health chamber has been replaced with a new set of areas that's closer to the machinery pit - you can give a better look at the whole thing now but watch out at the Skaarj Officer (the action songsection will play here).
For the multiple floor area, nothing much changes; the water pool cannot be accessed and there's another locked door. This one leads to another set of water maintenance corridor that interconnects this multi-floor area, the entrance and the exit of Foundry (the entrance was the other door locked in the very first area of the level).
Water pipes will contain few regular Slith, who will patrol around instead of staying in one place.
The last elevator is redesigned to look like one of those typical large storage lifts, square-shaped instead of round-shaped. The entrance door won't be closed (and there's no more the secret coop chamber, just a regular panel to call the elevator) but the ride itself will be slower. While descending, Skaarj Assassins will continuously ambush you (the music will turn off, though).

You can now access Bounds of Foundry, which you can leave any time in order to return to Foundry and the locations before. Once you do that, Found99.umx will play in Foundry always but be careful that randomly appearing Skaarj Assassins will be now a thing.




Bounds of Foundry
MUSIC: Boundary.umx
Boundary.umx's ambient theme will now loop correctly instead of going to the action songsection. The horns will sound stronger, much more bassy. The action songsection will have more bass and lots more horn action - it'll have almost a tech-dance feel to it, very hypnotic.

If you played my Toxic conversion for G59, this will be easier to imagine as every change that's related to area connection will be applied here - Toxic is guilty of the very same unrealistic layout issues that plagued Foundry, such as areas being accessible only by swimming in slime tanks, the very strict linear approach without shortcuts, and more.
Regular Slith will be very relevant in this level, always hiding in the underground parts of the map or swimming in the slime tanks. One thing about the slime itself it's that it isn't that harmful at all: running on slime deals zero damage, swimming in slime deals 1 HP for every 5 seconds. There's however a secondary effect (this is Tarydium waste after all, who knows what are its chemical properties) which happens when the player is in direct contact with the slime - the player vision will assume a dark green tone will be slightly distorted. It's not dangerous anyway, plus the Toxin Shield will cancel both harmful effects of the slime when it is active (you can set this item to automatically activate when you are hit/exposed by anything slime, like how the SCUBA Gear turns automatically on when you go underwater and viceversa).
The Slith won't still be able to spit acid under the slime but compared to regular water, they'll swim faster here.

Toxic will follow Foundry's item style placement, with a focus on the GES BioRifle that is good against just about anyone except Slith. Enemy-wise it's almost the same as in the original Unreal version, with none of the spawning bullshit and with more Skaarj Troopers/Infantries/Gunners added into the mix. Pupae are once again missing, there are a bit more Slith and overall the drastic change of some of the new areas will raise the possibility of more enemy encounters.
Electronic panels replacing signs will also follow suit here. While you'll get to know this is just a central where all the Tarydium waste from Foundry ends up into, you'll become aware of the two Mercenary clans being located right after this map, including the mention of an absolutely massive Mercenary starship and a reminder of the plans of the ALFA62's Mercs that were in search of another fallen ship of theirs.

Music will be used like how it was in the RTNP version, with the action songsection heard three times throughout the level.

After the very first, enlarged first area, you'll access the outdoor area which is going to look jungle-ish like how it did in UBeta's Toxic (here: desert and palms); the sky is the Na Pali standard but relatively foggier than usual, likely due to the polluted location you're in.
There are small slime waterfalls around coming from open pipes but this time around you can drop below as the slime is 1 foot level over the ground (there are grates); radioactive barrels around won't harm, either. You can climb back to the bridge thanks to a ladder, and the bridge itself is fully static (no drawbridge whatsoever); lastly, the door to the successive corridor won't close down anymore.
For the record, if you played G59, don't expect the super secret slime passage to appear this time around; however, expect pretty much anything that has been done for the Toxic secret area and the access to corridors around the tower, and an elevator to go on top of the two towers (all in the first area). The corridor and room with the big explosive barrel found in G59 will be instead not added here.

As for the whole section with the slime tanks, there will be now a door in the second room which leads to the next area (the corridor crossroad), though the door can only be unlocked from the other side.
The slime tank event will work similar to the UBeta version: you use the control commands on the top floor to open the emergency panels next to each tank, then you operate these panels (you set the pressure to the highest possible on both) and run away - the tanks will blow up. When this happens, the action songsection of Boundary.umx comes up as two Skaarj Officers will teleport in to attack you. They'll be stay around forever and if you unlock the shortcut door they'll still chase you, so you better kill both enemies before proceeding.

The next area (the one with the corridors) will be based on the expanded UBeta one that had multiple corridors and a second floor; this crossroad has four directions:
  • One way leads to the unlockable door to the previous section of the map.
  • One way leads you to the upper floor of this crossroad (enemies, messages, items).
  • One way leads to the area with those sewer holes with Slith; here it will be redesigned like in G59 - the sewer below is extremely spacious and now to access it there are two dedicated elevator areas. Mind you that this area won't lead anywhere (like how it was in the UBeta), so it's still for optional content like described in point 2.
  • The last remaining way leads to the area below the landing pad.

Like in G59, the area below the landing pad is now enclosed and heavily illuminated by neon lights. There's a new dedicated elevator to go below the bridge (floor below has grates where you can see some massive sewer system), while the original Pupae pathway that would let you go back on the bridge in the original Unreal version has been replaced with a big elevator which leads to the landing pad - locked of course at the moment.

The room with the open windows has the music stopping now for a good reason. Every now and then, a randomized amount of Skaarj Assassins will attack you one by one. You'll never know how many of them will attack and in what frequency; sometimes you think everything is done for, then another one appears.
You can rocket jump outside the windows, revealing the exterior part of the complex which is just mountains, palms and slime waterfalls coming from the sewers seen in the previous area. There's nothing anyway aside falling to your death.
The crane panel activation area is re-designed like in G59: no slime, you go below, use an elevator to go on the upper floor, press button, go back. Skaarj Assassins will annoy you until you operate the crane, whose event will appear a bit more spectacular - no explosions but the crane will crash so hard at high speed that it will break the shutter apart. From there, action music commences and you'll fight some Skaarj Infantries; the action music won't stop until you enter deep down the slime sewer below the tank, in the successive area. Watch out at the Slith. Music will resume after the swimming ride.

Again, like in G59, the elevator to the landing pad won't have that underground explosive room; you can crawl your way into some of the vent conduits here: only one of them has an accessible destination and it's some outdoor piece of land with some palms and fruits. That's about it.

From the landing pad you can activate the elevator to go in the area below; the Skaarj Fighter shuttle is still broken and from the command outpost here you'll read the Mercenary-related stuff mentioned above in the Toxic description.
The area before the last set of corridors to the boss arena has no upper floor - as you enter, the door to the exit immediately opens, revealing a Skaarj Officer.

The path to the boss area is one way for now, and you'll only be able to go back once you defeated the boss itself. You still hear the Titan sounds.
The arena itself has been made massively larger - similar to the one of G59 but not as big (and not with the same design type) but there's also a shutter which leads somewhere outside the structure - you're in a storage area after all.
If you try to go to the exit, somebody behind it (a Mercenary?) closes it down, and shortly afterwards TWO Titans burst out from the shutter door, together with the action songsection. Time to test your GES against these big guys, or the Peacemakers too (you'll get one or two in the course of Foundry and Toxic). The shutter door leading outside has been broken in a way that you can't pass through.
Once they are dead, the exit door somehow gets unlocked (your "friendly" Skaarj from the Vortex Rikers did this - a dead, ripped apart Mercenary along the way implies this) and you can go reach the exit elevator.

Similar to Foundry, when you return to Toxic the Boundary.umx ambient theme will always play but there will be randomly appearing Skaarj Assassins throughout the whole location.

UB_
Nali Priest Nali Priest
Posts: 7960
Joined: 11 Nov 2007, 21:00

Subject: Re: Myself imagining a HD Unreal 1 remake

Post Posted: 20 May 2017, 23:15

Valley of Eelhandra
MUSIC: Gala.umx
Gala.umx's both songsections don't need any change, I believe.
The map is named after Chicoverde's custom one of the same name, as a likeness reference. "Outside Cryox" is just too generic and also too spoilery.

This remake of FHub6 will retain the same layout but the terrain will be remade from the ground up. Similar to G59's perditus paradisus, this map will come with a very strict tropical theme with a lot of palms - we're actually just next to the sea! The mountains around are this time tall, surrounding the industrial complex you've just exited out. The sky is now in typical Na Pali sunset mode - a very good looking sunset, especially when you'll reach the sea coast in this map; polluting smokes from Foundry are hardly visible. In the distance you may still be able to see a bit of the Sunspire but more definitely Na Pali Haven and the Haven's Fortress, alongside more Sky Islands around the skybox borders.
The large valley has now a massive pit in it where the small landed Merc ship is currently located - the ship that the ALFA62 crew was searching. There are circular pathways around this pits in order to reach the bottom or for getting out of it. The Cryox valley remains the same, with the lake being slightly bigger and deeper (which has just harmless fish).
Cryox itself has become immense, big like a mountain and filled of red neon lights around its exterior structure; however all you see of it is some kind of "shell", with the rest of the ship being hidden in the ground (from what you can see of the rear, there are just some large, curved pipes). The front of the ship, where the lake is, appears to be now a hangar shutter, while now on the side of the ship (on your ground level) there are several closed doors. The emergency duct, which was the entrance of Cryox in the UBeta canonized as the emergency exit of ALFA62, is accessible (mind always of the visual improvements done here) but it ultimately leads to a closed grate that you can't open, and you don't see anything interesting beyond. With Cryox you can't do anything at the moment and there are no Mercenaries around.

Valley of Eelhandra's beginning is mostly the same but it will come with new mini-locations very similar to the ones that were introduced in G59. These being a large pathway in front of the Foundry's exit which leads to an ancient shrine and two small Skaarj outposts built into the mountains, found before you reach the ultra large pit valley.
Enemy-wise in this whole beginning section there is just a group of Predators with two packleaders, with the interior of the ancient shrine being their home. The trick is that you can use the elevator to go on top of the Foundry's exit outpost and gun all the Predators from there. Or, you can hypnotize a packleader Predator, so you could take the group to the next valley and see what's happening (and you may want to know...).

The shrine will contain fruits and a Seed, while the Skaarj outposts will contain ammo and finally, the Skaarj Railgun, basically this game's Rifle which uses Terran-like bullets powered by ASMD tech energy (the model of the weapon will look more hi-tech/Skaarj-ish, all gray and unsaturated yellow with red lights coming out from the core parts of the gun. Ammo names remained of course the same, since you're picking up Rifle Rounds that the weapon can use - you will learn from a Skaarj log that the Skaarj Railgun's construction is inspired by Terran weaponry).

The Skaarj Railgun's primary fire remains the same in terms of functionality, except for the fact it will pass through any target.
In terms of visuals, the bullets will have a fairly visible red spiral trail and the shooting sound is different (and less loud, at least to make up for the trail visibility). The secondary fire comes instead with a proper zoom overlay screen; pressing the secondary fire just opens or quits the zoom mode, and you can change the zoom + or - by rotating the mouse' center wheel. Your accuracy while zoomed won't change but you can only walk or crawl around (walk replaces run with zoom mode on; jumping and dodging will work but will automatically turn off zoom mode). For the record, the primary fire deals a maximum of 140 damage with a headshot compared to the Razorjack's 220; the more intelligent enemies, like in the original Unreal, will still try to predict-dodge the weapon's shots during battles, making this weapon more of a sneaky initiator and rather used against large creatures like the Brutes.

The big pit valley will be indeed, filled of Skaarj Snipers, which is why I mentioned using the Artifact on the Predators to lead them here and see what happens.
Skaarj Snipers are hidden in a few spots of the valley and their placements are completely fixed; there are six of them. Visually, they are thin Skaarj Gunners without the body armor, and their skin is white/green instead of blue. Skaarj Snipers are always armed with Railguns and have 140 HP (enough to be killed by a single Railgun headshot).
Skaarj Snipers have incredible accuracy, so if you decide to just run into the pit valley, you'll probably die almost instantly. It's like in Xidia and 7Bullets, where you get alerted of sniper presence (there's a decapitated Merc Elite body here who has a message), meaning you have to stand still and use your Railgun to snipe-kill all the Skaarj around. If you shoot anything at the Skaarj and they are alerted of it regardless of the results, they'll retaliate by shooting around your location very quickly. The trick is to crawl behind some kind of covers, and here there are a lot of rocks you can hide behind.
Skaarj Snipers will only move to the nearest cover, forcing the player to slowly crawling onward in order to possibly snipe another Skaarj. It will considerably take some time but one way to "cheat" through this is to use the Dampener. With the Dampener you are fully silent and you can snipe all the Skaarj Snipers in one go before they react. Opposite story for the Invisibility, which is always an useless item against any Trooper type Skaarj.
Note that Gala.umx's ambient songsection will always play no matter what.

Now you can go down the pit to reach this Mercenary ship, or you can go to the sea coast - which is located right on the other side of the big valley's entrance.
It's down a cliff you have to descent through a Nali-made pathway (there are a lot of Ancient-style ruins around). Reaching the coast (a very tropical looking one), there isn't much you can do as it's enclosed by the mountains around. You can swim until reaching an invisible wall and besides, the sea only has fish and seaweeds.
However, the real treasure here is some sort of crashed submarine-like, "thing", on the shore. It uses the Starship.utx's "submarine" textures and there's a lot of moss, meaning this structure has been here since a long while. There's a door but it requires a code you don't have, so whoops; the lock appears to have been put in place by Mercenaries. Also, Gala.umx stops when you approach this submarine.

Your only objective is the Mercenary ship in the middle of the pit, the one that was likely going to be rescued by the ALFA62 Mercs (even if it isn't mentioned, players realize the larger Mercenary ship is Cryox due to logs describing the size of the dreadnought). So go for it - otherwise you can go back to Foundry & etc to waste time; mind you that the current day time will carry over to the previous locations, so if you want to see how they look like post-midday, that's the time. Be careful still at the Skaarj Assassins roaming the entirety of Foundry.

As you reach this landed starship, there's nothing except an elevator below the belly, waiting for someone. With Walking.umx fading away, you climb up into a storage room but it seems like there's no way to go back anymore...




HΔL
MUSIC: Dirt.umx
Dirt.umx will get a drum'n'bass remix (in the Cybernetika neurofunk style). It will only play in the battle section.
At last, here's HAL, the Merc ship with the crew that was going to be rescued by the ALFA62's one, uniting then for a full-blown attack against Cryox and afterwards conquering it.

So far it's very silent and dark, and you can't go back to Eelhandra now. Time to explore this rather average-sized ship. Devoid of enemies, you will find a buttload of ammo and armor/health (through the game, you'll never feel like being fully filled of resources, especially on higher difficulties; this is one of the few cases where there's an overload of items).

HAL looks identical to ALFA62 in term of theme, though of course the layout is completely different and the standard areas are way smaller. There's a lot of walk in the dark where you read logs of the Mercs planning attacks against other Mercenaries and new info on Skaarj's resources and experiments; the bridge appears empty and you can't do anything.
Most of the ship is just storage, storage and storage. It's an equipment/crew transport ship.

Then you climb up to this upper part of the ship which is eerily similar to Deck16 (it was presumed that DM-Deck16 was originally made for Unreal SP, so there you go); compared to Deck16, it has an additional fourth floor, a much more non-DMish realistic layout, the portal thing is gone and replaced by a strong lamp and instead of the slime pools there's just solid floor with suspicious large enclosed doors (which are quite all over the place in this section of the ship).

After wandering around for a long while in this area, suddenly all the lights will turn on (and this will come with a loud alarm and a temporary flash in your face) and the remixed Dirt.umx commences. All exits from this "Deck16" will lock down. You'll be swarmed by Alfa Mercs and Alfa Merc Elites that you have to kill in a very DM/LMS esque battle. There are a lot of items around so have fun. It's rather though, however not as RNG-ish as the Marine battles from RTNP. It will take around 20 minutes and the way the Alfa Mercs appear is completely randomized: they will come from those aforementioned big doors which you can't access, at least 25 Alfa Mercs will appear, and 10 extra more that can be either Alfa Mercs or Alfa Merc Elites. A maximum of seven Alfa Mercs will come to fight at a time in the battle area, anyway.

Once this is done, the alarm turns off, Dirt.umx stops and the Deck16 lockdown is lifted. Apparently, a hack from a Mercenary scout group sent by Cryox is the culprit; you'll face them along the way back to the beginning of HAL. This probably suggests that one passage of Cryox could be open and you can enter it.

As you go back to Eelhandra (HAL can be always accessed), you'll face more Mercenaries from Cryox. Walking.umx will resume and the action songsection will play whenever you face an enemy.
The Cryox's side doors are still locked but if you go into the emergency duct, you'll discover that the grate is semi-broken and you can push it down - implied here once again it was the rogue Skaarj to do this for you. It's a long fall from the grate hole and mind you that you're forced to play Cryox until you find a way to go back to Eelhandra. Let's see what this massive ship got.


ID lists updated.
Last edited by UB_ on 27 May 2017, 21:49, edited 1 time in total.

UB_
Nali Priest Nali Priest
Posts: 7960
Joined: 11 Nov 2007, 21:00

Subject: Re: Myself imagining a HD Unreal 1 remake

Post Posted: 22 May 2017, 01:42

Cryox
MUSIC: Inoxx.umx
The ambient and underwater songsections of Inoxx.umx will be reduxxed to sound better and more creepy/unsettling. Expect a lot of loud ambient noises for the underwater songsection, and with psychedelic bass/synths too.
The action songsection will be changed with a new one that's neuro/psytrance in nature, something that would feel like the dark archetype of K_Vision.umx, yet still dancey in nature; an "ambient" version of this songsection also exists.

Cryox as a whole will feel more rough and darker, a not-so-alien huge planet-destroyer starship interior with a very cold atmosphere (and literally, the Mercenaries enjoy the low temperature and you'll notice a constant white fog around and various frozen details), while Mercenaries are monotonously walking around, doing their job.
Regarding Inoxx.umx, the ambient songsection will always play unless mentioned exceptions, the underwater songsection comes up when you go deep underwater (e.g. in places where you are just stuck swimming for a while), and the battle songsection comes for the boss fight. The location should have a defining military creepy feel.

Cryox will take a note or two from the layout changes seen in G59, especially the first main new corridor with access to the hangar. You start out in some kind of prison area (prison is a theme in Unreal) and very quickly you'll get into this main corridor patrolled by Mercenaries, which has access to engine rooms, research labs, crew berths, the hangar, a storage full of stolen Tarydium, more weapon rooms and access to the areas of Cryox from the UBeta through elevators. There's going to be Z-axis, with some of the areas located on an upper floor and viceversa.
The hangar, which is heavily filled of enemies, has a quick way out from the Cryox - you can open the hangar shutter door to the lake outside. Nothing much but expect a group of Mercenaries to come to the hangar quickly for a check out. The alarm apparently doesn't seem to work in the ship, which is extremely helpful for you.

You'll get to know that Cryox is one of the Mercenaries' strongest dreadnought ships they have, a monster capable of glass planets in nothing with a weapon capable of shooting a piercing ray of supernova-tier temperature, having an impenetrable energy shield like the one seen on Mercenaries, having unpleasant looks that compare to a gigant grotesque squid-like space creature. It is impossible to teleport or hack into the thing when it's fully functioning, it has a crapload of missile turrets, EMP blasters, infinite hyperspace tech, a weapon currently in the works that can create a vaporizing wormhole. And it's strong enough to easily challenge Na Pali's atmosphere - everyone believes that Cryox is just crashed and buried into a mountain but the reality is that it can fly up any time.
Power-wise, this thing could fight against a bunch of Mass Effect's Reapers before going down, giving more mystery on who really are the Mercenaries. A mystery you'll never know the answer for but for sure you'll feel like they're about as dangerous, if not more, than the Skaarj. Just less overall interested than anything happening around them (Mercenaries are still primarily after bucks rather than conquest and destruction).

You'll fight the Mercenaries here, including the two Turret pawns seen in ALFA62 (which have a different skin here). Mercenary Elites are often encountered, usually alone or talking with other Mercenaries, and there's a special boss enemy in this map too.
Your objective here is to find a way through this maze to reach the commander room; you'll be forced to explore every possible area in order to find which panel to operate to open door x and what's the correct underwater passage to go in. Mid-level, you'll fight much less and run (and swim) around more, until you finally make a step forward in terms of progress. Mercenaries are mostly located in the more important areas, while the less key ones will be guarded by Turrets (even underwater with no drawbacks!).

The research lab is where all the info about the ship is located; you'll be also reading about your weapons, Skaarj weapons, stuff regarding Terrans and Krall and something about an experiment to employ more different creatures as part of the Mercenaries after a "successful Nali experiment" - not the first time you hear this, as it was mentioned in Terraniux. This lab is sort like the one seen in G59's Cryox conversion which had a lot of messages regarding weapons and such. Expect a lot of panels, possibly holograms or even the damn solid tools locked on pedestals (you can't pick them).
The crew berths are self-explaining - you use an elevator to access a rather gloomy lifeless corridor full of chambers. Some are locked, some aren't.
The engine area is a full-blown section with all new areas that were never in the original Cryox. It's divided in various parts that run throughout all the ship, and some of these parts are accessible only later in the level (and these parts become unlocked, so the whole engine section will work as one big shortcut path through Cryox). Don't expect any environmental hazard - the water will dampen your vision a lot but it's harmless and there's no Slith whatsoever (you'll face Turrets though).
The weapon storage and the Tarydium chambers are for items only. You'll find these distributed throughout all the ship, generally as "secret" rooms reached throughout underwater passages; the Tarydium rooms will contain a lot of ammo for the Stinger; a new feature introduced here is machines that are able to convert your Stinger ammo into GES sludge: insert a number of ammo of your choice and convert. You can't do the opposite conversion.
Later in the map you can also access another new part of Cryox, located on the uppermost floor (similar to G59), a massive chamber which contains panels for the use of the starship's own planet-glassing weapons. Everything is on lockdown there so you can't do much; however, since the access to this area is very well hidden, you'll be rewarded instead with a Power Shield and a "secret code" which will be explained later.

Cryox contains a DNA based teleport pod system for fast travelling (and let it say: the ship is really huge now, there's a lot of walking that tops distances even seen in outdoor levels). Each teleport pod location requires you to input your DNA so you can use it and teleport to the other DNA-secured spots.

The original UBeta Cryox section will be vastly redesigned to look huge and yet claustrophobic at the same time. The "three-pools" section won't be changed much on the other hand, and the elevator at the very end won't lead you underwater anymore (that room below wasn't likely supposed to be flooded but there were probably engine issues), and from there you can access additional rooms related to ammo storages, engine section, teleport spots and forcefield controls (the panel in the "three-pools" area cannot be destroyed anymore now). Overall there are multiple new pathways, mostly all to connect areas each other (as usual, some doors can only be unlocked from a certain side).
The way to the commander room is locked with a forcefield but there are other ways to access it - either through underwater tunnels or through emergency secret pathways. It's pretty non-linear and this is usually done to dodge Mercenaries as much as possible. Watch out though that Mercenary squads can move from one location to another, so if you skip certain zones, you may eventually find these guys roaming around.
The underwater section is greatly expanded and now it's even easier to get lost, and you also need to take in mind your SCUBA Gear charge. The underwater way to the rear (the really long tunnels to Cryox's exit) are currently locked. On the bright side, there are now lots of hidden areas you can access through these underwater tunnels, and from there you can unlock doors that quickly lead back to the central areas of the ship. Fans of Cryox will recall the room accessed in the first "three-pools" area that had a tunnel in the ceiling that you couldn't reach and that it didn't lead anywhere; in this version, there's now a legitimate way to reach that pipe through a new area (the one with the aforementioned secret code), and it's the only way to access that room (it contains panels to unlock the secret pathways to the commander area, the most safe access).
Another thing about the underwater tunnels is that the small pipes have sections with "watery walls" (like in the old Cryox) -> these propel you to the direction you were swimming. When swimming in these tunnels where the central zones of Cryox are far away from you to go back quick, the Inoxx.umx underwater theme plays; this theme keeps playing even when you get out of the water and walk around these side areas that are generally populated by very few Mercenaries. Once you return in Cryox's main areas, Inoxx.umx's standard theme plays again.
Invisibility is an awesome item to sneak through the ship but you have to be careful at how the Mercenaries patrol and most especially at the Turrets that can see invisible units. The Artifact is great as well for remote exploration but be careful that some Mercenaries aren't allowed to enter certain areas, and if you do (you'll get warned by other Mercenaries in a clear rude way), you'll be shot dead.
The massive amount of rooms that you can explore in Cryox will likely take the player a hour if not even more, since the enemies are many, navigation is nerve-wrecking (mind you that there are still panels around that tell what place is this and where you are, like in Terraniux - except for the underwater sections where you're left alone on your own), sometimes you have no idea where this underwater tunnel leads you and how to go back, etc... There's a lot of ammo but there isn't much health, making this map to be one of the hardest, if not the hardest in the game so far.

Oh and yeah, don't expect breaking panels that open up door-walls like in the UBeta Cryox. Those are gone.

Almost all of the commander area section got a complete re-design - it literally looks nothing like how it was originally. Expect a lot of elevators, long passageways, huge areas with cameras that show what's happening outside, more mission briefing and shit, and an even bigger entrance to the supposed command chamber. And of course, lots of opposition. Mind you, it's literally 5x times bigger than before but at least there are multiple ways to access. This is where the Deus Ex or modern gaming standards kick in again (Mercenary theme isn't hardly different from human stuff, they have just a really stifling architecture style that makes people feel "lost". And bright lights with a weird low illumination radius, sometimes even pulsing).

So the commander room is here, and like in the UBeta, there's a clusterfuck of panels everywhere. It's similar to ALFA62's bridge, with all the major seats positioned over long staircases. The Mercenary Elites (that's what you'll find now) will come toward you instead of waiting in the commander area.

That's because the Mercenary boss of Cryox is something.

Indeed, you'll see a very alien figure alone in the command room who will let out loud breaths, who will shut down all the panels (with beeping flashes as they turn off), who will lock you inside the room, who will turn most of the lights off and then turn a lamp on that illuminates the commander himself (due to his position from this lamp, you'll see him as a shadow). The new Inoxx.umx battle music commences and a HP bar appears.
What you're seeing explains all these logs since Terraniux about a "Nali" experiment: the Cryox commander is an enormous, semi-robotic, four-armed Mercenary whose head resembles XanMK2's one. The upper arms have the cannons, the bottom two arms will use instead Miniguns. Color-wise, the commander appears dark gray and any light from eyes, etc, is white or acid yellow. Yes, he was originally a Nali.

The name of the pawn is just the Cryox Commander. He has 2000 HP and Corroded/Burned damage types hardly do anything against him (so the GES is out of the question, and the Eightball/Flak/DP/ASMD/Peacemaker and anything else explosive you have will be either very weakened down). This is also a boss unit and will keep all the special features that boss units have (it also counts as a mechanical unit).
The Cryox Commander is just a really strong Mercenary Elite who has access to two Miniguns other than double arm cannons (Mercenary Elites are never seen with double arm cannons); he has no TRANCE STATE mode but the GOD MODE shield is there and it works exactly like the Elite ones (except it's colored milk yellow instead of blue). The commander is quite as tall as a Titan and he just only walks really fast, and likes to strafe a lot (don't except jumps or dodges of any kind though). All he does is shooting you pretty much constantly, forcing you to take cover and escape. Indeed, after the battle commences, the commander room is unlocked again and you can retreat back, however you can't exit the whole commander section of Cryox. The battle will basically occur there, with the Commander chasing you around relentlessly; this isn't the best of news since Mercenaries and Turrets that you haven't killed/destroyed can still be around, and the Commander decided to turn off most of the lighting (the Flashlight is almost required). His voice is mechanical and low-pitched, his steps are loud and he has a built-in huge flashlight on his face that is more annoying to look at when he's far away.
He has two special skills:
  • A fourth energy shield mode other than the three that Mercenary Elites already have; this is almost always used when the Cryox Commander is down 500 HP. He surrounds himself with a gray glowing shield and from his chest, energy is charged-up into a huge stream of almost hitscan white beams that are extremely damaging - 80 per hit, fully pierces any armor except the Shield Belt and the Power Shield, 10 to 20 beams are shot rapidly in 5 seconds, the Commander will stand still but can turn around normally while shooting beams. The white glowing shield, compared to something like the Force Field item, will act like a wall surface, so something like a Razorjack blade will bounce away (either way, that means he's totally INVULNERABLE).
  • Teleport. He might be now the Cryox Commander but he was a Nali, and he still remember the Nali's most trademark spell. If the Commander can't chase you fast enough, he'll teleport very much next to you, and very very fast. You'll see him appearing as engulfing black smoke with yellow lights converging on the eyes height. Can't telefrag but this is used so randomly and suddenly that every time this teleport is used, it'll be used as an ambush. If you accidentally face Mercenaries, the Cryox Commander will always immediately decide to teleport next to them if he's far away.
The Miniguns are used without stopping and the grenades are used only from one Minigun, while the other Minigun keeps having the primary fire on. If you shoot with the Razorjack or the Railgun accurately on his arms, said hit arms won't be able to use the related weapons for some seconds or so, though this doesn't happen always.
Melee-wise, he'll do a four-hit combos with all hits four arms that most probably spell death (250 HP in total of damage dealt). His head is still the weakest point and the Dampener works. Exploit the environment because you have a massive section of rooms and long corridors for hit and run strategies! If the boss is far away and doesn't have his sight on you, the battle songsection of Inoxx.umx will use the calmed-down ambient variant.
When his HP reaches zero, the Cryox Commander will load up for self-destruction, an ice explosion blast capable of killing instantly anything around (1000 HP of damage, like the Redeemer blast). One note when the boss isn't killed yet: if you try to use his command panel, the boss will teleport behind you and kill you instantly with a special fatality move (literally a missile straight in your mouth).

When the boss is dead, Inoxx.umx goes back to the ambient songsection and you can go to the commander's panel, open up all doors, turn on the light. Additional Mercenary squads may try to take you down along the way back but not much of opposition is left.

Now, you can swim to the rear of Cryox... or you find out what that "secret code" you found in the Cryox's weapon control area does? Seems like it can't be used anywhere in Cryox but last time you were required to input a code was that weird submarine at Eelhandra's shore that was locked by the Mercenaries themselves.

Get out of Cryox and check if it works.
It does! But it doesn't look friendly at all since it's all dark inside and Walking.umx stops abruptly.

We're now going to go through an optional quest which involves some locations that couldn't be accessed beforehand. These can be all skipped but there's a point in the map after Cryox where you can't go back anymore. So mind that.

To the abandoned submarine.

UB_
Nali Priest Nali Priest
Posts: 7960
Joined: 11 Nov 2007, 21:00

Subject: Re: Myself imagining a HD Unreal 1 remake

Post Posted: 22 May 2017, 22:11

The Unreal birthday special.


Nemo
MUSIC: UnrCirc.umx
UnrCirc.umx will get a sound clean-up to fix most of the rough aged synths; it will have a new songsection which is a slow but powerful heart beat bass (a really dark variant of Vortex.umx's second songsection that is more action in nature). For the record, UnrCirc.umx was apparently not made for Unreal but for another unreleased UE1 game whose assets were leaked alongside the more recent Unreal alpha leaks. Well, might as well still use unused stuff anyway.

You can exit Nemo any time but there will be some areas where you will be stuck in until you do some stuff first.

The map utilizes the unused textures (sort-of, they were used in ISVKran 1 in the original Unreal but not in this version; no one knows if Nemo was really made but alpha levels and early screenshots did use these textures) from the Starship.utx package that have this submarine style; a lot of these textures are pretty crude and don't have much variety, so a lot of new ones will be likely made, considering this map will have a rather complex architecture full of ultra hi-poly brushes.
Nemo has the submarine feel, steampunk-ish, claustrophobic, with a layout that clearly seems like bipedal creatures aren't made to walk in; the few messages that you'll find in this apparent starship, talk about how it was indeed completely filled of water (explaining the weird layout) and the biography behind the alien race that was piloting this ship - the same history described in the old Nemo's level briefing: an aquatic alien race that was escaping from their home planet as heavy pollution was evaporating their oceans. One of these ships just crashed in this Eelhandra sea on Na Pali many years ago, and over time it traveled near the shore and got stuck in it. What happened to the aliens inside though and from which planet they clearly came from? You also won't know the race name until a certain point within this level.
Not much far into the map and you find two dead Mercenary Elites (!) on the ground (with their bodies on large puddles of water) which makes you think why this location was locked down with a code that could be only obtained from fucking Cryox. Something is definitely wrong.

Next to these dead Mercenary Elites, you'll find the Jumpboots replacement, the Anti-Grav Boots. You'll be forced to pick them up due to a mini-cutscene.
The Anti-Grav Boots work very much differently from the original jumpboots. First, it's an infinite item and can be used indefinitely; second, when it's on, your regular jump is slightly shorter; third, when it's on, to use it, you have to basically double jump like how it was done in UT3 (though in this case, you can jump ANY TIME when you are in the air, and not just after a regular jump).
The downside to this is that the double jump reaches "moon" heights only in certain indoor locations - which is always a thing in certain starships that have modified indoor gravity due to their technology; and that is this ship, another location you don't know yet and part of the Skaarj Mothership. This jump height varies on these location you're in. Here for example, it's your regular jump height being tripled, which isn't really much.
In any other location, your double jump will have the height of the regular jump. It's still an improvement but the game doesn't encourage you to have the Anti-Grav Boots constantly on because the double jump skill has shitty momentum and covers an extremely small distance, which is absolutely awful in fights. Since Nemo is pretty narrow and dodges are good enough, it's ok to have the item on (considering you'll use it quite a lot because the layout will be weird for what it is 100% of the time).

Alongside the Anti-Grav Boots, there's a crapload of Minigun and Flak Cannon ammo near the dead Mercenary bodies. Mind you that, aside this hefty amount of ammo here, there won't be any other ammo to be found within Nemo. Health-wise, there will be some sort of shining blue machines that grant you up to 200 HP by interacting; each machine contains 500 HP and there are only few of them inside of Nemo (the rest are already completely consumed). Item-wise, you'll find an Amplifier later on, and an item upgrade as the level's reward.

Nemo's architecture and atmosphere will resemble a lot the more abandoned/darker Fallout 3/NV vaults (though with a completely different, alien layout with a lot of Z-axis). For the record, since the way the ship crashed, the whole thing is tilted which adds more fuel to the claustrophobic navigation.

You will usually see some liquid fading away inside walls.
UnrCirc.umx begins once you are deep enough into the structure (which has been so far just corridors and empty broken rooms. And you'll go deep a lot - you'll be aware that only part of Nemo is underwater (and since the suns are still in the sky, there will be some solar illumination coming inside, still nerfed heavily due to the sea), while the majority of the ship is stuck underground. That means you'll need the Flashlight turned on all the time, however there will be a bit of illumination in some of the areas, be it from some working light or panels. The panels are steampunk in nature, with various Atlantis-like shit when it comes to decorations and the more particular brushes inside the ship. Expect tons of circular geometry.
The first key areas you will come across are stuff related to the ship engine and the bridge itself. The bridge itself is a clusterfuck of old computer panels scattered anywhere, even on the floor and on the ceiling. Most of them are turned off or shows static, while some can only be reached with the Anti-Grav Boots. Mostly all messages regarding things already mentioned above.
But nothing weird so far aside this fading liquid. And a loud thumping noise that plays irregularly, and more aggressively the more you go down - only to suddenly stop playing. If this is the bridge and the engine section, this means that all the living rooms (mind you, this was a transport ship made solely to carry these water aliens from a planet to another, so it's obvious it's going to have areas for the innocent population. And they had some tech built to carry themselves during the journey).

Everything seems fine as UnrCirc.umx keeps playing. You'll eventually end up in a flooded section of the ship: there's seaweed here, Fish and in terms of hostility, a bunch of Devilfish who are really hard to see in the darkness.
After a bunch of twisted underwater tunnels, you'll end up in another section of the ship; who knows how much deep you're in the underground now. More liquid seems to be moving around.
There's this panel that appears to be static but as soon as you get close it blows up and kill any light around. Now it's you and the Flashlight only and the music stops.

Thumping noises are heard again as you access a corridor with various doors. Mind you that the textures used here come with submarine-like windows and whenever possible you can see through them a bit (this is how the sunlight manages to illuminate the first few areas of Nemo).
Some doors are shut but there's a large one opened at the end of the corridor (the atmosphere is getting closer to Silent Hill standards almost) and it leads to a larger room which seems some sort of empty warehouse. It's pretty spacious.
Suddenly in this room you start to hear those noises again, which become increasingly louder. You'll soon find out that from a dark tunnel here, a robotic creature that in appearances looks like a yellow/brown steampunk version of the Drakk boss from Unreal 2 (it feels rusty, has searchlights, blue energy coming from inside and a computer panel sticking out on the side), will slowly float out very fast. The pace at when this happens make the situation quite scary because you never expected this thing to exist, ever.

It's named Cyborg because that's what it is, and it's large. You won't figure out at first what it can do (you can seemingly see weapons attached to its body and whatever else is the rest it's unknown) but currently all the Cyborg will do is stare and stalk you. It's sorta like the "Threatening" AI mode we all know from Unreal but if you get close to the Cyborg (the creature is a mechanical unit so the Artifact won't work), all it does is slowly moving a bit away then resuming stalking. If you shoot it just once with something that sucks against metallic units, like two or three Minigun bullets, nothing still happens; if you start to unload any potential hazardous shit on him though, it will turn hostile.
This thing basically hover around at a rather moderate speed - shitty acceleration but the maximum movespeed matches the player's one; the turning rate is crap but the thing can bounce off walls instead of fully crashing. It can also float to reach unreachable tunnels when stalking/chasing, so it's not purely a ground unit only. It will hover on water surfaces, also.
The searchlights it has serve to keep track of its enemies. If the searchlights aren't pointing on you immediately when it shows up, that means it's not seeing you. It also can't hear stuff that aren't close, or more precisely can't hear sounds that come from two rooms away.
The Cyborg has 1300 HP and has the same resistances that the Turret pawns have (massive resistance against Minigun, Razorjack and Railgun), plus Stinger and immunity against DP bolts (basically the DP damage is reduced by 98% - there's possibly a story explanation for this). Any other weapon, especially the GES, will work wonderfully.
The enemy's weapons are:
  • Something that resembles the UT Minigun and works like an enhanced version of this game's Minigun's primary fire (higher ROF which no accuracy decreases whatsoever). Muzzle flash and other effects are white-colored. Strong but generally simple to dodge, and the Cyborg has to aim with its arm cannon at you first.
  • A bunch of smoke grenades scattered around. Do no damage but the smoke coming out of them will literally DESTROY your vision (full-own cataracts over your eyes) for seven seconds since the last time you were exposed. These are used always to initiate, sometimes shot even randomly if the Cyborg is searching for you. The smoke on ground will last for several seconds - when this smoke doesn't glow light blue anymore, that means it has become harmless.
  • A cannon which shoots a charged-up ice beam which has a large splash radius on impact. Maximum damage is 40 HP. Secondary effect is the target being heavily slowed down for a while, and this slow lingers (but not at the same strength) until the target itself gets out of the large ice puddle the ray created (a dark cyan puddle with ice smoke lifting up from it). The ice puddle is harmless damage-wise but if you dodged the ice beam completely and still walk on this puddle, you'll be obviously slowed down, and in the meanwhile the Cyborg can use any other attack. The ice beam is used whenever the Cyborg feels like - more common in large rooms, at least.
  • The Cyborg spits out from the bottom three small bots (smaller than Pupae) that resemble the Mars reconnaissance orbiter; they're fairly visible due to their violet camera light. If one of the robots spots you, all their lights will become red and will go full kamikaze on you (damage is max 20 HP). They are rather fast and handle themselves greatly enough to avoid pointless crashes, almost never losing your traces; plus, the Cyborg will also precisely know where you are thanks to these bots. You can destroy the bots (they practically die in nothing but will still try to dodge incoming hazards, especially GES blob mines) but the Cyborg will always know your position if you do so. The bots will stop functioning after 1 minute due to gameplay balance (one Cyborg can let out one wave of three bots at a time). The bots are considered "projectiles" and not "pawns".
  • The melee attack which is a shockwave that blows you miles away. Short ranged, deals 45 HP and has EMP properties (your ASMD will become useless for several seconds). Usually the Cyborg will try to ram you with this.
  • Not exactly an attack but the Cyborg has HP regen capabilities that depend on its current health, and can only be used when he isn't actively searching anyone. When its HP is between 1000 and 1300, the HP regen is 3 per second; when its HP is between 500 and 1000, the HP regen is 2 per second (max HP that can be regenerated is 1000); when its HP is below 500, the HP regen is 1 per second (max HP that can be regenerated is 500). So if you don't want fight the thing, deal as much as damage as you can and then escape.
Cyborgs, even if kind of fast, have terrible chasing skills which is why they need the bots for searching. They can see Invisible units (bots also can), while the Dampener works wonders.
They aren't clearly your enemies though; even if they stalk you, they won't attack and won't bother going after you that much if you move around the areas a lot.

There are several Cyborgs in Nemo. The majority are just patrolling, otherwise you'll find some of them doing random things like repairing stuff or... drawing. They feel sorta earth-like. They have their own resting chambers that come with logs that explain what went on the ship - and given this is about an alien race going insane for the possibility of their permanent death, they won't be a nice read. Dark Arena's messages are likely kindergarten in comparison. Cyborgs doing questionable things don't help either.
Be aware though that Cyborgs won't definitely like you if you enter certain section of Nemo that are used to house alien species' chambers; confrontation is better to be avoided.
When a Cyborg dies, it just explodes, hurting a bit anything around. The energy coming out of them is almost identical to the DP's blue bolts - and considering they are almost immune to the DP, and that the DP is a human weapon, are these Cyborgs made by Terrans? Note that, sound-wise, all Cyborgs do is a constant loud hum, sometimes with a random high-pitched robotic sound that feels "depressing" to listen to.

Note that after the first Cyborg appearance, UnrCirc.umx will be playing again. In these areas you will also locate the Amplifier.

In the later section of the map, when you're about to unravel the mystery of this ship and where it comes from, you'll be seeing again the liquid. This time it isn't fading away but it's converging itself as a Bloblet! How the ISV-Kran managed to have them so?
The Bloblet will attack you. In the incoming area, you'll see instead a crapload of Bloblets and they will now try to converge again like how they did in the Kran (and failing). This time however, they are converging in some sort of red/yellow armor and it's now successful - the liquid becomes crystal glowing blue, turning into a medusa/squid of sort within an insect-like hi-tech armor. This is an alien of this aquatic race, which is named Shian. Yes, it's based on the same Shian from Unreal 2, and they'll look exactly like how they were conceived in the concept art (just search Shian Unreal 2 on google images, you'll find one quickly).
The Shians here HATE YOU, for some reason. Immediately, UnrCirc.umx's tense songsection starts up and you'll be surrounded by Shian from every direction - don't even try to go backward, go forward. Shians have 200 HP and can only be damaged by explosives; anything direct-hit solid will solely stun them briefly (including a dead-center Flak Cannon primary fire). All they'll do is high-pitched sea noises, chasing you, shooting you with energy orbs that resemble the ASMD's secondary fire (no, you can't do shock combos with those but the damage and momentum are the exact same), attack you with their claw (20 HP per hit, as fast as Mercenaries, and mind you there are many of them).

You have to find an emergency room that's located at the end of Nemo, with these things constantly spawning (they are infinite) and relentless in taking you down. Even the Cyborgs will join them.

Eventually, you'll find this area after a long tense chase. Activate quickly the panel which will do the following in a scripted event / cutscene:
  • Turn off all the Cyborgs.
  • Turn on a special light generator which makes the entirety of Nemo a bit less dark.
  • Temporarily increases Nemo's inner temperature very highly that causes all the Shian on the ship to evaporate and die. Congrats killing them all!

The panel also reveals a last message which tells you that the Shian's homeworld was in reality the doomed oceans of a Terran planet, and they all escaped with these ships built by stolen resources - including the Cyborgs themselves that were made to aid Terran kids. The Shians did a crime by stealing these resources and Cyborgs, and the planet's Terrans managed to destroy all of them except this one you're in.
As a proud Terran person, you honored your race from another planet and ultimately finished the job.

UnrCirc.umx begins again now; in this same area, you'll find an upgrade to the SCUBA Gear: now its charge is almost infinite. Where this could be useful?
You can now exit Nemo without any issue (returning there will be useless, though the music will still play); one location where the "infinite" SCUBA Gear would have helped was the massive deep lake in the Resistance Lake location, just where that weird-looking, alien tower ship crashed. That's your next objective so make all your way back there (and that's a lot of walking, so be sure to get all the shortcuts you can).

Swim all the way down to the bottom of the lake, which is quite the long way down, and search around the alien ship. You will locate a hole that you can enter. What this ship hides now is unknown, yet you don't know yet the final objective of this optional quest.

User avatar Xanious
Skaarj Assassin Skaarj Assassin
Posts: 105
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Subject: Re: Myself imagining a HD Unreal 1 remake

Post Posted: 23 May 2017, 04:57

Getting reminded of things from the books right now. Neat!

UB_
Nali Priest Nali Priest
Posts: 7960
Joined: 11 Nov 2007, 21:00

Subject: Re: Myself imagining a HD Unreal 1 remake

Post Posted: 24 May 2017, 18:40

Jupiter
MUSIC: Opal2017.umx
Opal2017.umx is an extended remake of Opal.umx. The original short song will be breathing a new life here in a form that's seven minutes long; it is supposed now to strike anxiety and the weird feeling of the "unknown" onto players, now much more convincingly. Even though the song got heavily extended and it comes with a lot of noise and ambient music gimmicks (it's really more of a proper, full-fledged ambient song now, and those are almost always very long), it will still follow the original melody - you'll be eventually hearing all the parts of the original Opal.umx, though probably changed. Opal2017.umx also comes with a second songsection that's more for action purposes: it's a loud, unnerving, roaring alien engine noise.
Opal2017.umx will be heard constantly when you are within the location.

So, here's Jupiter, the starship-looking thing that crashed in the Resistance Lake and it's shaped like a very tall and somewhat large tower (it's bigger than half of the Sunspire, maybe even more). The location itself is for the most part, an empty cylinder full of walkways and minirooms suspended all over the way to the top. Textures here are the unused red/insect-y ones from the DecayedS.utx package, which you probably saw in my G59's Cryox conversion or in Mercenary maps made by Cardiologist in Project Zephon and Skaarj Tower II.
The textures, while never used in the original Unreal (it's not known if the original Jupiter was ever made), come with a great variety, so it's likely the texture package doesn't need new additions aside possible redesigns.

For both new players and veteran Unreal ones, Jupiter will feel a new and unsettling level, probably even moreso than Nemo considering Jupiter in theme is much more incredibly alien, while Nemo is just based on the abandoned steampunk setting. Plus, Opal2017.umx is way more fucked up than UnrCirc.umx (the latter is about loneliness and sadness, the former is plain eerie).
Jupiter is illuminated inside though, with gray and red lights - for the most part it's all reddish; the starship's lamps are fairly weird, as it's basically glowing cores or red energy flowing within the walls. It's like a hellish version of the Unreal 2's Drakk theme, almost. While the layout is relatively simple, the architecture quality is off the rails.
The first part of the map, the very bottom of the ship, it's a basement location that's all enclosed and contains the (small) engine stuff of Jupiter. Clearly it begins with a bunch of underwater, mega-claustrophobic tunnels, until you reach the long cylinder section of the ship which is... basically the entirety of Jupiter.

Similar to Nemo, Jupiter crashed in a way that is tilted, so prepare to probably puke, especially since this map is basically all about Z-axis. If you look above, you'll see the entirety of the interior of this bloody red pylon and the only natural light you see it's brightness coming from the very top (which is, as seen from outside, destroyed); between this hole and you, there's this clusterfuck of circular pathways, elevators, platforms, lamps, RED SHIT and other unidentified things that look like nests. And you have to climb all of this. This is also where Opal2017.umx properly starts playing.

Compared to Nemo, Jupiter is just less friendly. There's absolutely no lifeform to be encountered at the moment, and in the whole level you won't find a single item. Lastly, there will be almost no messages recorded to be found; you'll find one of the very few right at the beginning - it mentions about the status of the population being 28% alive (you assume it's for something inside Jupiter) and a warning that there's a leak of an hallucinogen substance in some parts of the place. That's it, nothing else.

So the climbing part begins. This is where the Anti-Grav Boots show their best in the whole game - it appears the gravity in this ship is so fucked up, your double jumps are massive, as massive as the original jumpboots' jump height. You'll use the Anti-Grav Boots constantly here as in order to climb, you have to jump on a lot of platforms and pathways. While it's not very hard for the most part (you have to figure out where to jump, as Jupiter's architecture is quite convoluted and for sure the ship being heavily tilted doesn't help much), falling quite down with the Anti-Grav Boots will still damage you somewhat, and since there are NO ITEMS here, it's up to you only to what you currently have. If it's too problematic, remember that you can exit Jupiter whenever you want from the entrance side again; on the other hand though, it's a really slow and long trip and if you climbed already much if Jupiter, you have to make your way down which isn't simple.
There's a long elevator that connects the very bottom to the top but can only be activated when you finish the level.
Anyway, you just jump and climb; that's the experience of the level. Except few cases.

All of a sudden, you enter one of these rooms that look like beehives, and they glow weirdly from inside. Suddenly, your vision becomes less and less clear, until the screen becomes completely bright opaque.
You regain control of yourself shortly after but in what appears to be a completely different area... which greatly resembles a reworked version of Glathriel Village from RTNP, a straight-to-earth HD conversion of the original map without major key changes (outside of the more illogical stuff, if there were any). Your vision is still very foggy and disorienting, and you might recall Jupiter's first message which mentioned an hallucinogen substance.
In this Glathriel you have free roaming and the first part of Glathriel is also accessible; however, the catacombs are locked and the final cave is closed with a gate - to access the first part of Glathriel you have to jump on the roofs (easier now as the Anti-Grav Boots will be forced on).
Seems like you'll be beating on Skaarj Scouts and Skaarj Troopers armed with the DP. All Nali are dead except for Rabbits and Cows. Your objective is to kill the Skaarj but there are two catches: all damage dealt to you is reduced by 80% and you cannot use any inventory item. Quite a lot so if you play your cards right it'll be impossible to die - there are still quite a high amount of enemies though, usually going past 20 of them roaming around but this is where explosive weapons go ham. After you seek out and kill a certain amount of enemies, you lose control of your character like before and afterwards, you wake up outside of the beehive chamber (going inside doesn't trigger anything else).

Jupiter resumes normally with another long climb. There's another message that's like the first one, except it mentions now a % of population (the first panel will also say the same thing). There are two more "visions" in the course of the level and every time you play them, the second songsection of Opal2017.umx plays (once you go back to "real life", the primary songsection resumes). Also, all the beehives that had these visions, will have black liquid on the ground and walls after you're done with them.

The second illusory vision puts you in what appears to be Approaching UMS Prometheus, again from RTNP as a direct HD conversion (it's way darker this time though); as differences, the mountains are designed better, the cave to Glathriel is blocked by crumbled stones and the wooden rails on the edge over the pit with the Prometheus is fully blocked and cannot be surpassed in any way - you also don't see anything in the pit as it's full pitch black.
Unlike Glathriel where you had to kill a # of Skaarj, here you just have to reach the end and kill whatever you encounter - in this case Brutes and Lesser Brutes blocking the way. Nali & co. are all dead.
Once you enter the final cave, the vision ends. Back to Jupiter, along the way you'll encounter two panels: one of them says the same damn thing but the % of population being again lower than before; the other panel mentions something new: the ship seems to have crashed due to Na Pali's gravity pull - what a surprise. The grammar of the messages is very basic as it's all short sentences, one after another, that end with a period.

Climbing becomes harder and overall more dangerous because if you fall down, you have a long way to go (unless you die by fall damage which wouldn't be surprising).

The third and final illusory vision pits you inside the castle that's on Gala's Peak from RTNP. Unlike the other two RTNP places, this one is heavily redesigned, with all the rooms being different from each other, much better connected and larger. It also takes in account that the location was never used as a storage, so you won't see random boxes and barrels around but proper castle decorations (feels more like an old century rich Earth house/villa interior). You can't get out of this location as the exit doors are locked. The Anti-Grav Boots are automatically turned off here.
You'll be fighting a lot of Spinners, their first appearance since Tezcatlipoca. In the center area of the castle, which now looks like a medieval King's throne room (and in an abandoned state), you'll be facing two giant Spinners who have 1500 HP each and deal 30 HP per hit (mind you that's the reduced damage - in the real world the damage would have been higher). Compared to the regular Spinners, these are set to be more aggressive; they'll relentlessly chase you and will go full spiderman with their web in order to cover distances (you are faster if you dodge or jump backwards). Simple battle if you use the Flak Cannon.

After you're done, you're back to Jupiter and you'll hopefully begin to reach the very top of the ship. As the architecture gets weirder, you'll ultimately find a central panel of sort which says that now the population of Jupiter is 0% and that "the race who had to find a new home is extinct". You don't get to know who this race is (you assume it's insect-like though) but you'll begin to think that during those "visions", P849 was still in those beehive rooms killing Jupiter's aliens, and that the two giant Spinners represented the queen and the king of these people (and also explains the low damage dealt to you all this time in those battle sequences).

Well it seems like you've accidentally put down another innocent alien race in this optional quest that doesn't have a defining objective yet. What more terrible thing you could do now?

As you climb to the very top, you'll activate the shortcut elevator (do it!) which makes possible fast travelling between the bottom and the top of Jupiter. Afterwards, you reach the roof of the ship, broken to the outdoor.
Neve.umx begins now and from here you can see Resistance Lake from a new high position - you'll see around you a better view of the Sunspire and ALFA62, a bit of the ISV-Kran in the far distance, the roof of Acerack and a bit of the pillars seen in Tonatiuh, and part of the Soledad's exterior structure. Remember also that there's a waterfall that goes into this deep lake? Seems like there's another part of the canyon above there which you can see. Right next to the top of Jupiter, you can jump on a cliff edge that leads exactly there - YOU HAVE ONE CHANCE NOW, if you fall down you have to re-enter Jupiter and climb up with the elevator (provided you've turned it on, lol).

So, let's jump on this edge. There's a narrow pathway inside the canyon mountains leading up to what where this river comes from.

UB_
Nali Priest Nali Priest
Posts: 7960
Joined: 11 Nov 2007, 21:00

Subject: Re: Myself imagining a HD Unreal 1 remake

Post Posted: 25 May 2017, 19:26

The Seeker
MUSIC: Starseeker.umx
Starseeker.umx will receive a sample cleaning and a 2-minutes extension in the form of a re-loop with various changes here and there. Typical music extension stuff, I felt like the original song was just way too short for what it was.

The Seeker is an all-new map, a location next to Resistance Lake which retains the canyon theme, however with a more jungle or classical Na Pali approach the more you proceed. Neve.umx stops the moment you get far from the cliff edge you just jumped on; some mile afterward and Starseeker.umx begins. It's not a very long level.

For the most part you'll be walking in a huge canyon that has the Resistance Lake's river; there are mountains and crypt ruins around, however you will also start to see vegetation and possibly fruits. Don't expect any corpses or messages, except a sign that says "...to the Gala's altar".

Enemies you'll come across are Mantas, a Giant Manta, two Predator groups and also a Giant Gasbag. There's a Titan as well but if you want, you can skip him instead of fighting. In terms of decorations, expect fireflies (note that fireflies are Horseflies with a special property on, and are stuck flying around a certain location).
You'll eventually reach a zone that resembles Neve's Crossing a lot, lacking the whole lake part of the terrain which is here replaced by the river - which you'll see until a certain point: it comes from a group of waterfalls out of a tall mountain that you can't reach. Good view, though.

You'll meet some new friends... Nali Monks. A Nali Monk is a Nali dressed completely with black robes and have iron masks (basically living versions of the monk statues you've seen so far in Na Pali; they're inspired by the "Wizard" pawns found in the Unreal 95 alpha). These monks seem like good guys and will talk to you through translator messages - they greet you to their home, they introduce themselves, they tell you that's all peaceful and there are no dangers here and mention a big shrine they guard that's probably better for you not going to. Interestingly, unlike the other Nali, these monks don't think at all about you being a savior. They think you are another regular human.
When you are in this location, also, you won't be able to use any of your weapons; P849 just doesn't show them - this is to avoid the player to force random confrontations, not to mention there are Gasbags flying around. There's a total of 12 Nali Monks in this village.

You can explore all of the monks' huts (item-wise, you'll find ammo and armor), including their library, where you can read stories about the infamous Nali prophet and messiah related stuff. You'll learn that what remains of the most vicious army that the Skaarj used in their first Na Pali invasion has been locked down in an underground dungeon that resembles hell itself, and that, for the best of the planet, said lockdown would never be broken so these creatures won't be out again; only the Nali Monks wield the key to open this gate. The player will very much assume it's for the demonic-looking underground tunnel in Nagomi Passage, locked in an unknown way.
What P849 wants is this key, and it's apparently in this big shrine where you aren't allowed to enter. Past the "Neve" section of the level, you'll access an extremely large canyon - an abyss that somehow resembles Gala's Abyss, with a peak in the middle (the peak itself is more like DM-Peak than Gala). Remember the theme is still very much like Resistance Lake; the abyss has waterfalls that go down (a loooong pit) and there are details everywhere, so take it as another visual showcase. Of course if you fall, you'll die.

After a long walk over a suspended rocky pathway, you'll reach this shrine. It's your lucky day apparently: there's no Monk here! So you make your way in this, pretty ruined small castle thing that's about to crumble apart; Starseeker.umx stops. There's a passageway going down, inside the peak the structure is sitting on. You'll end up in an eerie cryptic room which contains the key that you ultimately wanted (the shape is the same). Upon getting it, a small earthquake occurs and the lighting around slightly darkens. Go back outside, where the atmosphere appears to be less welcoming (the colors around are unnaturally more saturated, however it's temporary until you leave this village).
You'll eventually meet again the Nali Monks who aren't happy at all about what you've done and want you to put down the key. Prisoner 849 won't comply and will bring out his weapon instead (Minigun is forced in) and the Monks will attack!

The 12 Nali Monks won't be defeated all at once, you'll fight them in groups or alone as you go back to the village's entrance. They'll be supported by the Gasbags they had around.
Nali Monks have 140 HP but have incredible running speed (it almost like they're floating, probably a visual illusion since their robes are very long and cover their feet). They are amazing at dodging non-hitscan projectiles with fast dashes. Their main methods of attacking are sending Gasbags onto you and teleporting in random spots, including unreachable ones over the canyon mountains. The most dangerous thing they are capable of doing is telekinesis: it acts like a variant of the Titan's ranged attack method, in which the Nali Monk uses the power of the mind to take control of big decos around like rocks, crates or any other brushes, and throw them right at you. Now the damage by the thrown stuff isn't nowhere near as dangerous as stuff thrown by Titans - it's simply not thrown at the same strength. We're talking about between 20 and 50 damage per hit? The issue there is that the Nali Monk can thrown multiple stuff at once (and in a spread way to make sure they hit you while you are strafing - they have definitely better accuracy than Titans), and it gets worse if multiple Nali Monks fight you, let alone when one of them teleports into a random spot you'd never expect to (and then you'll be like, somehow bombarded by things coming from a mountain above you). Doesn't help you're fighting Gasbags too, who are likely even more dangerous.
Thanksfully hitscan weapons, especially amplified ASMD bolts, destroy these Monks very rapidly. They initiate fights horribly, so play this at your own advantage. When they die, their bodies disappear, leaving the robes on the ground.

You won't be aware of the fact that all the Nali Monks are killed, probably until Starseeker.umx suddenly begins again (and plays permanently from now and on except inside the peak shrine).

So far in this optional quest you sure had fun committing questionable acts: you brought down one race to extinction by evaporating it to high temperature, you finished down another innocent race without realizing you were doing so, taken some key from a shrine dedicated to the great Prophet which opens a forbidden place, killed all the ancient Nali guardians who protected the planet in the many last years.

It's literally time to go to hell, so head back to Nagomi Passage and use the key (it's not an inventory item, everything is automatic and hidden) to open the door to this underground dungeon. You'll descend down into a long cave that goes further in the direction of the Resistance Lake than the original Nexus did. No music plays and you hear sounds of unknown sources.
At the end, you'll enter a large cave chamber with some lava lake and a door that clearly feels like the gateway to hell - Crypt.utx theme but massively more gritty and burned-looking, with bright red torches.
One Fire Slith and two ambushing Kraal from the darkness will defend this entrance. Accessing the next location will force you to complete the map, as the entrance door will be locked.

UB_
Nali Priest Nali Priest
Posts: 7960
Joined: 11 Nov 2007, 21:00

Subject: Re: Myself imagining a HD Unreal 1 remake

Post Posted: 27 May 2017, 21:44

Nexus
MUSIC: Newmca12.umx
Newmca12.umx should sound as good as possible in terms of samples, the synths have to be otherwordly when coming out of the speakers; if required, a remake of the song is in order (the map might be too dark even for the current music theme).
Newmca12.umx will have the second songsection finally complete. The original one seemed to be an intro to something and had a really eerie, Castlevania-like feel to it - and then the song became stuck due to an error within the file. After the intro a completely new action theme begins, which will sound like a mix of UTemple.umx's second songsection and Warlord.umx. This will play for the fight at the end of the map.
The music file will also contain one-off music samples for specific events.

Nexus is the last map of P849's optional quest to fuck shit up on the planet. Basically, you don't even know what you're doing at the end of the day but it's the result of the player's curiosity to enter certain location that he could've as well skipped. Killing down innocent alien races and brave Nali guardians, P849's next step is to go in hell to atone for his sins - and to kill proper bad asshole aliens from this planet. Won't be simple.
Nexus is this game's top dungeon-style map, a survival gauntlet against some of the most powerful enemies P849 encountered, alongside new ones, in a place that takes all the negative atmospheric aspects of the Crypt.utx theme. There's really no space for story here: as you know from The Seeker level, this location is a prison to many creatures who assaulted Na Pali in the first Skaarj invasion, locked down by the greatest Nali warriors of the past (which you've just killed, lol). As one would expect, you'll be fighting here Crypt-themed enemies exclusively - Skaarj Hunters, Broods (with Pupae), Fire Slith, Kraal and more that you've never seen yet (which will be solely found in this map). Some parts of the map will also have Tentacles and Cave Mantas. Don't except any other regular enemy. Plus, the map has its own exclusive boss creature at the end, who goes under the familiar name of Droth.

The unusual UAlpha/UBeta-like enemy selection will make Nexus different from the other levels in terms of gameplay, even moreso than Soledad ever did - we're taking the highest potential of the ancient invaders in one go. Other than that, Nexus is a very evil-looking place: compared to Soledad and Morose, the place looks extremely organic, the architecture having surreal, skeleton-y shapes, with the bricks being ruined or burned, saturated red/pink-ish torches, big use of the "satanic" Crypt.utx textures (demon symbols, the demon faces), the sounds that you have no idea what they are and where they come from from, and the overpresence of lava. It doesn't really have to feel like a Quake 1 style level though, or another representation of Hell - just a burning crypt built literally next to a volcanic area. What you won't see though is anything related to torture scenes; there's simply no one to torture inside, no Nali in; the place has been locked for so long and no one entered it. If anything, the monsters inside are just waiting for somebody to free them once for all, and in the meanwhile they make sure the Broods and the Pupae are treated decently despite the high temperature.
Doesn't help the fact that it's easily the hardest map thus far encountered by the player (and likely the hardest one in the whole game barring maybe Dasa or Mothership). The one thing that goes on in Nexus is the lava. It's in almost every room, it's easy to fall in and it's lethal; note that, at least, the design of certain rooms will be completely different compared to the unfinished UBeta version, so it might not be as bad in terms of frustration. Another thing about Nexus' difficulty is the items. You get a massive amount of ammo at the beginning of the map, alongside a Shield Belt, a Power Shield and a Super Health but besides those, there will be very few ammo and items to be found in the dungeon - almost always relegated to secret areas only. You cannot exit Nexus, too, so if you entered it, you won't be able to go away until you finish the map; upon finishing Nexus, you can enter it any time afterwards (though the entrance will be forever unlocked by then).

Nexus is a big bad bitch to clear. Every room, every corridor, has enemies. You'll beat down almost 100 major enemies, plus Pupae that will come out from their nests or from the Broods. Kraal and Skaarj Hunters are the main enemies and they do like ambushing you rather than simply patrolling around; given the high quantity of lava lakes around, expect a lot of Fire Slith.
Like in Morose, the Kraal here will fight till the end and won't retreat in smoke form into a corner. Expect them to ambush out of the darkness as much as possible, and these patrolling/ambushing sequences will be completely randomized per playthrough.
Nexus contains sarcophagi like in Soledad, so expect Skaarj Hunters to get out from some of them; these ambushes will be randomized too (e.g. sarcophagus x might contain a Skaarj Hunter or not in a playthrough), though the amount of Skaarj encountered will still be the same.
Nothing to say about Fire Slith expect the fact they'll still be annoying.
In a surprising twist, considering their status as legendary cut Unreal enemies, the Skaarj Hawks will not appear there. Not that they can't fight that well here but in this version of the game, Skaarj Hawks are creatures that are nowhere close to being extinct and are actively working together with the current Skaarj - a status way different from the Crypt creatures who are literally ordered to never get out because they are the last of their kinds. For the record. Na Pali has more crypts than just the ones you've been going through, however Soledad/Morose/Nexus are the most important and biggest ones.

The Artifact won't work in Nexus. Something something about the enemies being too angry or powerful for the player to control.

Two new enemies will be encountered here, exclusive to Nexus. One of them is a variant, the other is a full-fledged new monster that wouldn't fit in any other place except this hellish crypt.
  • Kraal Master: the Elite version of the Kraal, and one of the biggest fuckers you encounter in this level. While they are slightly more common than Broods (there aren't many Broods in Nexus - like, five of them?), they are the strongest regular enemies you fight in Nexus, and overall one of the strongest regular enemies in the game. Indeed, the Kraal Master will be the very first enemy you face in Nexus, who's patrolling the pathway over the lava in the first set of corridors of the level.
    Kraal Masters, compared to regular Kraal, are much taller but still thin, somehow they feel like they are stretched rather than being bigger. Their armor is steel blue, their body is mostly burned black with tints of very noticeable brown parts; they also have rather long horns coming out from their shoulders and legs, and a small one sticking out of their head (tilted to the back). Their eyes are lava-like, orange, and their blood is like magma almost. Their concussion staff is different too: it's wider, it ends with four spiraling horns and there's red glowing smoke coming out from the tip.
    Kraal Masters' animations are also different. They're edited in a way that it feels even more apparent their bodies are deformed; they also have unique facial features - they like to look down a lot (they feel like half-sleeping or just too overconfident) and when they don't, they like to look at you "very happily". The most noticeable animation aspect is how they use the staff with one hand only, which means a lot of the regular Krall animations are totally replaced with new ones.
    Sound-wise, same as Kraal, except they stay generally silent and the voices themselves are slightly pitched down.
    Kraal Masters have 700 HP and have high resistance to burned damage. So if you throw them into the lava don't expect them to die quickly (if anything, they'll just escape in smoke form back to a safe place, lol). Their walking/running speed being slightly higher than regular Kraal doesn't really matter, same with their complete lack of jumping and dodging moves: Kraal Masters enjoy their smoke form a lot, and will use it solely to dodge projectiles; they go full action game here by turning into smoke on the spot to dodge a very predictable attack like rockets and flak shells - this is their main way of dodging attacks, and what makes them frustrating to fight against. However, Kraal Masters will always stay in their designated patrolling area; if they chase you too far away from it, they'll retreat back there in smoke form. Kraal Masters are always found patrolling a zone and don't use the smoke form to actively ambush you. They are usually found with other enemies and it is very rare to see two Kraal Masters together (and if there are two together, don't expect any other monster nearby, aside maybe Tentacles).
    Regarding attacks, Kraal Masters have their own general ranged attack: they quickly point the staff at you, charge a red glowing attack in less than a second and let out a red lightning bolt (imagine UT2k4's Lightning Gun primary fire but red and BIGGER). It is hitscan and goes through enemies (more like, the lightning zig-zags around them - if you know DC's Darkseid eye beams, it's similar to that); deals 45 HP per hit, including the red eye-killer effect that regular Kraal bolts can also do (the Masters' lightning has a stronger effect on strike, of course). Kraal Masters can relentlessly charge these bolts one after one in their attack stance but they are unable to shoot while moving - and this is why they like to focus on their smoke form to change their positions (and their attack animation stance will be saved when they go back to solid form, to quickly restart firing).
    Kraal Masters have two, unique melee attacks:
    • The regular one that occurs when you are close to them. With one hand, the Masters smash the staff to the ground (similar to the Krall's regular staff stomp melee attack); while doing so the staff charges up energy and upon impact, it lets out a red (+black smoke) shockwave that damages you for 40 HP and also causes the eye straining effect to a great amount. The range of the attack is rather large and always deals 40 HP no matter what, so you better stay far away (which is hard considering most of the time, you aren't in large rooms).
    • A special melee attack that's done when the Kraal Masters are very far from you (only done when particular requirements are met regarding the room they're in, if it's large enough and if it's inside the Masters' patrolling space). If you played the DMC action series and know the Stinger move, this is basically what this is: the Kraal Master gather energy in the staff and prepares himself in a crouching position and staff pointed at you. After a short while, he'll dash onto you ready for an impale at immense speed. Only by dodging, and with the side-dodge move only, this attack can be avoided when there's no cover around; the Kraal Master is even able to fix his direction during the dash. It deals 90 HP, causes maximum eye-straining effect and blows you away - and the chances that he might blow you into lava or into more enemies are sure high. This is the reason why Kraal Masters should be always focused first, and they can do this move as much as they feel like (when it's possible, of course).
    Kraal Masters have also a last trick: Force Field items. You can see always them carrying one, two or three of them attached to their waist, and the Masters will use these items until they run of them (with a specific animation in which they quickly pick one and use it). It's basically the Force Field item effect, however it's used as a "shield" in one spot, not as a carrying body barrier; so you'll see Kraal Masters just using the item in a hot spot and stay behind the barrier while they shoot you with red bolts alongside their allies. They'll never try to go past the barriers they've just put. It's rare for a Kraal Master to carry three Force Fields but it's common for them to use them frequently (which makes them mini-boss fights more than anything). The good news is that if they don't use them all and die, you can get the remaining Force Fields - massively helpful in this level and for its boss fight.
  • One of the regular forces of Nexus alongside Kraal and Skaarj Hunters, and exclusive only to it: the Minotaur enemy. You don't get to know almost anything about Minotaurs due to Nexus' lack of messages. From what you can understand, Minotaurs are not aliens and are native to Na Pali but was a very hostile and aggressive race, the most intelligent one there was besides the Nali. The Nali managed to kill most of them but when the Skaarj invaded for the first time, the Minotaurs didn't think twice helping them and the Kraal but by that point they were almost all dead. The few left are in Nexus and here you are going to end their lives once for all.
    Minotaurs are as big as Brutes and their appearances are identical to the UT3's Krall (which supposedly that's where they were based off, from the Minotaurs aka the predecessors of the Krall), coming with unique skins/items (with skull mask or without, with armor or without) that's randomized for each Minotaur every time (it's visual changes only). Their animations from UT3 are slightly edited to look more angry and serious and less gorilla/monkey-like.
    Minotaurs have 320 HP and are usually found in groups or with other enemies. They're seen just having the time of their lives in Nexus, sitting or walking around. They are equipped with a chakram disc on their right arm - some kind of weapon created by the Skaarj, as you might guess. They run and dodge rather fast, about as good as Krall. Their melee attack is a combo of chakram slashes at you, 30 HP per hit, 0.75 delay between attacks.
    However their specialty is the "chakram chain". If you played Timbersaw from Dota2 you may know what is this: the Minotaur aim with his chakram arm on a direction (e.g. where you basically are), shooting the disc itself which will hit anything it encounters and sticking to whatever surface it ends up. This chakram is connected to the Minotaur's arm with a chain. Afterwards, the Minotaur may decide to pull the chakram back to their arm, or, more commonly (at least in cases where there aren't hazards around that the Minotaur doesn't want to fall into), pulling himself in the direction of where the chakram got stuck. This means a very fast dash that will damage anything the Minotaur bumps on, and it's also an excellent method to travel through rooms - this is all done very quickly and can be done in any direction the chakram is shot, so even diagonally instead of horizontal shots only. The chakram disc deals 40 HP, the dash deals 10 HP and will hit only the player. Minotaurs can stop the self pull mid-dash if anything goes wrong, likely to happen if two Minotaurs cross their path during this move. And they love to use this skill a lot and constantly position themselves to do so. Expect to fight groups of Minotaurs just blazing around the room trying to get you. Fun!
    Sound-wise, it's all UT3 Krall voices too but only the grunts and the unintelligible words.
    Minotaurs are found throughout the whole map pretty much and since in Nexus it's impossible that enemies will fight each other, of course Minotaurs will follow suit. Flak Cannon's primary fire and the Stinger's secondary fire shot right in their faces during the dashes (followed by a side-dodge)
    is the best way to take down these guys.

Nexus strictly plays like an evil-looking secret dungeon map, sorta like a Quake 1 level with shittons of enemies and a very standard level progression and secret areas. There are many enemies that you hardly fought in the course of the game, it's very hard to survive, the items are only found in secret areas (in the classic oldschool FPS way), the location is quite a maze, there are lava hazards and what else. There aren't many messages either.
To clear Nexus, the player has to kill every enemy in the map and then he can access the final zone. The final door (which is always the same one that separated Nexus from the boss area) will only open after you obtain a key which requires all enemies being dead. Note that Pupae are not counted in the enemy list because some of them respawn infinitely until the nest area's related Brood dies. This is the same for Cave Mantas and Tentacles as well, who are innocent creatures that don't have anything to do with the evil of the place; they are encountered in a new cave system area that connects several rooms of Nexus (Tentacles can also be found in the dungeon itself though, usually in small rooms or corridors, isolated from the rest of the regular enemies). The underground cave system is found below the dungeon and yet it's devoid of lava lakes - compared to any other cave you'll see in the level: a lot of Nexus' areas stick out into a massive volcanic magma cave (and it's huge - graphic time boys!), the same one that you've seen in Morose and Acerack and that's located beneath Resistance Lake's more volcanic side.

Nexus is, like Soledad, serving as a Skaarj breeding area for the Broods here. With the presence of Pupae nests, expect again the purple substance that leaks everywhere - and you'll see it a lot in the bricks that are in a poor, burned state. The few water pools you see in this map are completely filled of this liquid as well, though unlike in Soledad there are no lifeforms inside, probably due to the high temperatures of the location and the Fire Slith rather prefer staying in the lava.
Lava leaks can also be seen from some walls, plus all the demonic symbols glow orange (similar story for the demon faces = bloodshot eyes).
Some areas of Nexus can only be opened until you do specific things first. The first part of the map, for example - in the UBeta there was an empty room with just lava, which only connected two corridors. Here instead it's a normal room and has a third corridor leading to a shrine area with a bunch of enemies you have to kill and a lever. Meanwhile that area with the "pit" you can't get out without boots, now has staircases.
Don't expect this Nexus to have changes I've done to my conversion of it for G59 - this is a different theme entirely.

The secret passage in one of the prison cells is no more. The room that connected from it has now instead an access to the new cave system area - and from that room you still have to unlock the elevator which leads back to the beginning of Nexus.
The round-shaped area with all the circular bridges over the lava lake is now much more sensible for everyone to walk on - pathways are wider and you are less likely to fall down. Weird, tentacular rock formations sticking out from the hole at the top of the area go down here in the middle of the room, in the center of the lava pit.
The giant cross that gets brought down into the lava is kept as it is (the Minotaurs who hate Nali probably are just playing with the cross for the sake of it); that other shrine room with the smaller cross (next to the room with the big enclosed tomb) has a button behind the stone where the cross is being sticked into. It unlocks the nearby area which leads to the upper pool section and the large cylinder chamber (which is where you have to go eventually).
The tomb room, which has a bunch of items, is now accessed after a long staircase descent this time around and it doesn't contain any enemy. This tomb is what keeps track of the enemies killed in Nexus (a message just says the tomb is capable of "absorbing" souls, or so it's imagined); when all the required enemies are dead, this tomb will open and inside there's the large key that you have to put in in the final door of the map, leading to the boss area.

Pretty much any area that in the original Nexus was supposedly set outdoor (e.g. had openings to the skybox), will be basically replaced with views of the massive magma cave that practically surrenders the whole Nexus structure (Nexus itself is a crypt sitting inside this enormous volcanic cave - the same one seen in Morose, except here you're closer to the cave's core and there's just more exposition). Even the long cylinder area is a bunch of stone and iron brushes sticking out from the structure, and from there you see the majority of the cave - DON'T TRY TO GET OUT OF THE PERIMETER OF THIS AREA - and this time there's an elevator that can bring you down or above, so no more falling bullshit and no taking damage.

Overall, Nexus is definitely wider and longer compared to the original version which was narrow as fuck. This is to make sure that Nexus is placed nearby the entirety of Morose and below the Resistance Lake; the reason for this will be explained at the end.
In some parts of Nexus (the area next to the round-shaped one mentioned in the paragraph above, which also has that wooden elevator which was also in the UBeta version) has new additional prison cells that are completely devoid of light; you cannot access all except one which has a passage to the new cave system. Nexus will also have few new additional shrines and corridors where you have just to kill stuff, or are just secret locations altogether with items.

Newmca12.umx plays for the whole duration of the map until you cross the final door. When you cross the final door, it closes behind you (there will be a coop passage though but it's made in a way so you cannot use it to go back either - like falling through a hole).
There's now a really long set of tunnels until you reach the boss area, that are hardly illuminated and where no sound is heard.
The NexusEnd area lacks the first chamber (the one with the Pupae nests) and goes straight to the boss area which is now cross shaped: there are now two big side-corridors (as big as the main one) on both the left and right hand side, in the center of the chamber. Both corridors ends with a door, the main one ends with a massive sarcophagus on the wall. At the beginning there will be enough items that will help you in the following fights.
If you approach the very center of the boss area (there's a demon symbol there), an earthquake occurs and two Skaarj Berserkers will come out, one from each side-corridor door. The new songsection of Newmca12.umx plays but only the initial ambient part (which is an "interlude" of sorts). Like in the original UBeta version, these two Skaarj Berserkers don't attack each other.

Once they are dead, all the candles in the room will go off at once after some kind of loud scream. Afterwards, two blue torches magically turn on near the big sarcophagus.
Somebody is opening it from inside, or literally, burning and disintegrating its door. The boss comes out, with an attire that resembles the winged Warlord drawn in one of the Crypt.utx tombstone textures.

What you are seeing is Droth. HP bar up, Newmca12.umx's action songsection starts, dark magenta colored torches in the arena light up at once. He also removes his biomask and throws it away, revealing his ugly ass nightstalker multi-mouth face. Soledad had a statue of this gargoyle right at the beginning of the level, and this boss is definitely that gargoyle.
Indeed Droth is based on the Gargoyle creature that was made back in the day for Unreal in the alpha era, which is this http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/evilgrin ... iginal.png
That old model will just be used as a base, cause it's been completely changed now. Droth looks like a mix of that and of a Warlord. The story goes that Droth was a unique breed of a Skaarj Warlord from the ancient era, and was Jrath's greatest disciple - or so everyone believed him, as he said he could see and talk directly to Jrath himself. So any legend regarding Jrath is all due to Droth's bond with him.
Compared to the old gargoyle, Droth definitely appears in form: very muscular, has an impressive standing stance and elegant and lean animations. What sticks out of unnatural about him is, like the Kraal Masters, his very long legs and arms; same with his wings that are short horizontally but insanely long vertically - he could pretend being dracula with a mantle and cover his entire body with both wings (which is how he appears inside his sarcophagus, also done for an attack and lastly as a taunt after he kills you, where he then teleports away). His eyes brings out fire, the head horns are still there and his mouth is flat-out disgusting to look at (he was always supposed to live with that biomask). He has no tail.
Droth's body skin is gray overall (you can't tell much because of the torch lighting here); he still has the chest leather cape and some, iron-looking Skaarj things on all his body. It's implied that Droth had many technological advancements done to his body, the only Skaarj capable of undergoing these experiments and surviving afterward, which is why he was seen as the "chosen one" of Jrath. He apparently creates and manipulates fire.
He's overall as big as a Warlord but taller. He also has no blood.

Droth has 4000 HP and is immune only to all his regular attacks. He counts as a boss creature, so the Razorjack and the Rifle won't be much of a use aside additional damage.
Droth only walks and do basic big jumps; the wings are only used for special aerial attacks and not for flying (that said, those longass deformed spiky wings are definitely not made for flying). However, Droth can teleport around, though only in specific points in the air so telefragging is impossible (unless you cheat fly in the air right in those spots, lol); Droth teleports around fairly frequently and it's not rare that all of a sudden he doesn't decide to spam teleport just to play with you.
The boss arena, similar to NexusEnd, is larger but some of the attacks require you to use cover, which is in the case here of four large pillars. Droth is like an asshole from a Souls game that might require many tries to take down; being a completely unique new monster, the game's secret optional boss, a huge health pool, a boss appearing after dealing with a duo of Skaarj Berserkers, Droth will come with a huge variety of skills, posing out as the greatest challenge. The player must take every chance possible in order to hit him, otherwise the battle goes for too long and the player will eventually run out of health and ammo.
Droth is very heavy and cannot be stunned, except in only one part that's only possible in coop.
Here are all the things Droth can do aside walking and taunting:
  • The aforementioned teleport move. When Droth appears in a spot, he might decide to just bait you and immediately teleport again to another place.
  • A forward-dash just to cover a certain distance (Droth can decide the dash range but there's a limit to it). Droth has super swag animations when he does this, and he also laughs. If he bumps onto something (including players), it just gets blown away with no damage.
  • Stomp shockwave. Every time Droth falls from the air, it creates a pretty visible, broadening blue ring (+gravity wave effects) on the ground. Deals 10 HP and has a rather limited range, and you can dodge it by simply jumping/dodging (don't stay on the ground when the ring passes below you, that is). This is super common since Droth falls on the ground almost after every teleport.
  • His melee attack is a special grab move; it's insanely scary to the point that it basically reminds you every time to stay the fuck away from Droth. Basically, he grabs you with both his arms (the grabbing speed isn't that fast, it's noticeable enough for you to dodge out of it but be wary of him surprising you, especially after one of his dashes), jumps really high in the air and then throws you on the ground from there. Afterwards, he lands on you with a ground pound that breaks your body apart - the player experiences this like a cutscene and he can't do anything in the meanwhile. It's instakill but there's a catch - if you have a Power Shield or a Shield Belt, this melee attack will consume one of them instead. So with both of those items it requires three Droth melee grabs to kill you for good.
    In coop, this is the only time where you can stun Droth: if the other player manages to deal a lot of damage to Droth during his grab move, Droth will be stunned and the player that was grabbed will fall down, freed from the attack sequence.
    If Droth is pitted against another enemy, he won't use the grab move but a stylish straight punch that deals 200 HP.
  • A huge orange energy shield that Droth creates with any of his hands. You'll see this shield turned on a lot, every time you try to attack Droth when he's just walking around, and the boss can use it while standing still or while moving. When projectiles hit the shield, their damage is either completely negated or reduced by 95%, so don't bother wasting ammo; there's no way to turn "off" the shield so your best bet is to wait Droth to use one of his offensive abilities and then attack him, as he won't use the shield when he's doing a different move that isn't his melee one. However, hitting Droth's exposed body parts out of the shield doesn't negate or reduce any damage, something that is only possible on coop. There's a SP example: drop a Peacemaker and Droth will be (very likely) forced to defend himself from all the mini-missiles with the shield on, and the player can run around him and shoot his vulnerable parts; not recommended really, since the Peacemakers are rare items.
  • A firewall. Droth will create through his hands a wall of purple fire that extends through the whole arena passing through his body, aimed in the direction Droth wishes. Droth cannot use this attack in certain parts of the arena (e.g. behind the pillars). Firewall deals 20 HP every half second and its damagetype is unique, not of the burned type. Droth can pass through the firewall as much as he wants, the player can't (you get slowed more and more down when you get near the center of the firewall and by then you're probably already dead); the only exception is when a Force Field is used, and the player can pass through the firewall freely. It mostly serves as a mean to Droth to block the player in one portion of the arena, and Droth can do this in the most annoyingly way possible - he can create up to three firewalls on the field, and they last forever: they disappear when Droth's HP reaches 0 or more commonly, used for two other attacks, one described right below.
  • Firewall to flamewave. Droth turns one of the firewalls on the field into a moving one that goes in the direction where the player is, and it is rather fast. Droth has him handwaving pretty clearly when this happens. The flamewave does the same damage as the firewall and it depends how the player passes through it - the player has to run perpendicular to it in order to be damaged less (if you successfully dodge through it, you'll lose only 20 HP). Run diagonally or worse, parallel, to it, and you'll get harmed more. The only way to fully avoid this flamewave is to hide behind any of the pillar (and you might as well guess that Droth will create firewall that will prevent you from going behind them) or through Force Field usage. Jumping or double jumping won't help. Firewalls and flamewaves in general are very random, Droth enjoys using them whenever he feels like and between any of his other attacks.
  • Droth put his hand on the ground (rather gently and quickly) and creates a series of fire columns that erupt below the players - from two to four and it is casted on all players simultaneously. The fire here is still purple and non-elemental and deals 60 HP per hit. The trick to dodge them is that you can at least simply outrun two columns, you can dodge a third one and you can jump off the fourth one; this is all better done in one single direction unless there's something that's blocking you, like a solid wall or worse, a fire one. The problem here is that you can never tell how many fire columns erupt (Droth's attack animation will play for the same time period every time). He also likes to do this twice in a row. Generally this is the attack where he is the "most vulnerable" and exposed to damage.
  • Droth pretends to be IronMan and shoots from both his arms a big beam of purple/red flames while on ground (can't move). It is big and used only horizontally, goes at a very fast speed that requires a well-timed side-dodge to avoid. Deals 80 HP. This is a common attack too but it's one of the most dangerous to exploit as a bait to hit him. It does splash damage upon impact and leaves large burning flames (non-elemental, again) for several second, decreasing rapidly the HP of anyone who stays in there.
  • The same as above, except it's done in the air after having teleported. Dick-ish attack. Droth can clearly be seen standing in the air for a bit too long and that's the sign he's charging this beam. What makes this annoying is that it targets always the ground, which means the player might be hit by the splash damage. The best strategy here is to run toward Droth, as he's somehow worse fixing his aim to a downward direction.
  • This is the other attack that makes use of the firewalls but in a non-harmful way - and it's a twice-in-one skill. Droth teleports in the center of the arena and cover his body with his wings a la dracula. He first absorbs every active firewall, recovering 200 HP for each, and at the same time he charges up an explosive blast that engulfs everything in the whole arena (the attack has a radius that is big enough to cover the arena's size, that's how it works). It is insta-kill (well, sorta: it deals purely 800 HP) but it is very clear what he's trying to do as the environment around becomes darker, burned, dangerous. Throw all your shit on him during the charge-up and then run behind any of the pillar to stay safe.
  • Another AOE-type of attack that Droth does by charging fire in his arms that he waves upward. Simply put, explosions around him in a circle occur in two waves - one closer to him, the second slightly far away (it resembles Deus Ex's Typhoon ability). The attack is summoned rather quickly but all the players have to do is to simply dodge backwards. The damage is sorta random and ranges from 30 to 70 for each explosion series. Mostly annoying when Droth corners you to a wall - the explosive ring waves' radius placement takes note of the area around, so if you are cornered you might eat two explosion chains right in your face and that isn't cool. You better stay always close to the center of the arena, anyway.
  • If the player hides in any of the areas behind the pillars for too much time, flames are erupted in almost the entirety of said area damaging whoever is there over time. Not very damaging overall but the flames will be kept active until you get out of your "hideout". This attack seems to be casted automatically - which doesn't really matter as you won't be able to look at Droth himself while hiding but the boss will definitely say something with a raging tone.
    The attack is triggered through a pre-placed special event sequence; without it, Droth can't do this attack.
  • A burning red aura that Droth casts on himself when his health goes below 1000. Happens always. Standing near Droth damages you (you can see some kind of distortion effects around his body) and all his movements are 10% faster; the drawback is that his resistance to all damage will become 10% lower. This is where the battle turns into a "who is now going to get killed first" one.
  • Droth jumps and stay mid-air, charging a huge continuous purple beam at you. Deals 10 HP per tick, therefore MOVE DODGE JUMP as much as you can, go behind the pillars etc etc. Droth can fly around with this beam on, can teleport in another spot and resume this attack and can suddenly turn the beam off and switch to another target (coop only). Very unpredictable.
  • The final attack on death: when his HP reaches 0 (the HP bar disappears as well), Droth gets pissed off and breaks his chests with his own hand, revealing a glowing orange device built in his heart, which he activates. At this point his body starts to glow all orange and purple and the boss begins to chase you; you'll definitely assume this is a last resort kamikaze attack - and it is, and it's scripted to kill any target. The player has to run backward while shooting him with his best weapons (Flak Cannon and the GES Bio Rifle, or even the Peacemaker, do the best job) because all Droth will do is walking at a very fast speed toward you. If the chase goes past 1 minute, Droth stops, tremble madly and then explodes in pieces in the flashiest way possible; if you damaged him enough, he'll self destruct more rapidly. If he's near you enough, he'll suddenly blow up: your screen flashes completely white and then becomes completely black. Game over. No matter in what situation Droth explodes, a special ending gong music from Newmca12.umx that sounds something out of an oldschool FPS game is played. This attack might be less dangerous on coop because Droth can only follow one player. The explosion range overall isn't really big, so one of the players could get caught by Droth and the others still survive because they were far away.

As you can tell facing Droth is all about good positioning. The arena will still have some additional item (behind the pillars) for you to fight with. Use everything you have! If you managed to get as many as possible Force Fields from the Kraal Masters in the map, that is good: use them.
Droth has an all unique new voice-set that's very Skaarj-like, similar to the Warlord. It is made to sound swaggy and arrogant, especially the slow laugh sounds.
Droth's death animation will be made great enough as a reward for killing him.

Music stops. You can now exit the NexusEnd section by going either backward or forward. More of the same from now and on but after you use the elevator, the level will keep proceeding in what appears to be a sacred altar that is separated from Nexus itself, as it looks more clean and peaceful compared to the crypt you've just been in.

There is a weapon used by the Prophet according to the legend here. It's the Impaler.
The Impaler is one of the two secret weapons in the game; secret weapons' number is the "\" key (or whatever you have to the left of 1) and the Impaler is the only one of the two that you'll be able to use in a much greater effect in the course of the game.
If you played Unreal Resurgence and know about Unreal cut content, you'll know the Impaler is a magic staff with a pink Tarydium crystal on top, full of energy (it comes with a new unique and extremely detailed model).
The Impaler uses rechargeable ammo only; up to 300, there's no way to increase it except waiting it for regen slowly like the DP does. This makes up for how strong and useful it is.
The primary fire is the Pulse Gun's beam fire: the Impaler shoots a streaming, flexible, purple lightning beam that homes on nearby targets. Consumes 3 ammo per second and deals pure, massive damage; for a calculation, the damage would be 60 HP dealt per second.
The secondary fire consumes 30 ammo per shot: throws a glowing purple orb that will home to the nearest single target and sticks to it (bouncing inside and outside his body like an annoying horsefly), damaging until it's dead or until the orb itself dies. The orb itself lasts 30 seconds before it dies off. If a target is killed, the orb will home to the next nearby target that is actively in attack mode against you or that you're just lying your eyes on; if you don't see any additional target, either because there's really no one at all or because somebody is around but you have no idea it's there, the orb dies, so make sure it's used against an enemy group (unless you're facing a boss). The orb deals 60 HP per half second and the enemy has no way to dodge it - the only exception that comes up in the mind is the Mercenaries' GOD MODE shield (and from now and on, you won't see many of them in the game). The homing properties of the orb are completely automatic, you can basically shoot one on the target and switch to another weapon so you can deal additional damage. Awesome! Note that the orb also won't home on targets that the player considers friendly (use of the Impaler is attached to the user's mind, somehow). The Impaler's fire modes have infinite range.
The Impaler regenerates slowly: it'll regain 1 ammo after every 3 seconds.

Time to finish Nexus: proceed to the next corridor which is now some sort of a cave. You'll eventually spot an elevator that will bring you very up. You find yourself now behind what looks like the back of a bookcase; there's a lever nearby. Operate it and the bookcase opens. This leads to the dining room that was located in the entrance tunnel of Resistance Lake - just where you did land after the Sky Islands map, the room that had the first Rifle Round you ever picked up in the game.
You have to make your way back to Cryox now. If you want, you can go back to Nexus any time (and this time its entrance will be open forever, even if you enter it) but there's little point to do that unless you missed some items.

BACK TO CRYOX.
Basically just swim in one of the long rear underwater tunnels. Your SCUBA Gear is now infinite so it doesn't matter which tunnel you pick (if you skipped the optional levels, you had to choose the correct tunnel - the one that was shorter, because the long ones were way too much for your SCUBA Gear to handle). In the very rear of the ship (the engines are all shut down, so there's nothing hazardous), you'll swim out of water in what appears to be a special emergency section of the ship.
There's a door here: it leads outside to a new outdoor area located behind Cryox. It seems also like it's not a canyon but something that is closer to the classic Na Pali style (e.g. Nyleve).

Few steps onward and you have to fall down into a small lake - this will be a point of no return. One last chance to turn back and do those optional levels. Otherwise go forward.
The "Unreal Beta" section of the game is over, and the last third of Unreal HD now begins.

User avatar Xanious
Skaarj Assassin Skaarj Assassin
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Subject: Re: Myself imagining a HD Unreal 1 remake

Post Posted: 29 May 2017, 07:31

Goddamn. Nexus was even better than I imagined. Actually this entire optional side stuff was just great in general. I really want this remake to be a reality now. It's pretty much everything that I would want out of a Unreal 1 remake, and more. I think the only things I'd probably add are like a couple ideas that I think would actually be pretty cool, like maybe 1 or 2 maps or maybe a couple touches/a boss fight, but nothing too big.



(seriously though having a merc cybernetic titan fight with moves inspired by the Omega Pirate from Metroid Prime would probably be awesome, but that's just my stupid shit. :) )

UB_
Nali Priest Nali Priest
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Subject: Re: Myself imagining a HD Unreal 1 remake

Post Posted: 29 May 2017, 09:54

Nightmare Kitteh wrote:Goddamn. Nexus was even better than I imagined. Actually this entire optional side stuff was just great in general. I really want this remake to be a reality now. It's pretty much everything that I would want out of a Unreal 1 remake, and more. I think the only things I'd probably add are like a couple ideas that I think would actually be pretty cool, like maybe 1 or 2 maps or maybe a couple touches/a boss fight, but nothing too big.


The thing is that we aren't even done lol. As you can see from the ID lists in the first page (I renamed "enemies" to "pawns" and added P849 and Terran entries for consistency) there's still quite a lot missing. What I've in mind for the last third of the game is definitely different enough and it's going to keep introducing new stuff.
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User avatar salsaSkaarj
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Subject: Re: Myself imagining a HD Unreal 1 remake

Post Posted: 29 May 2017, 10:57

UBerserker wrote:
Nightmare Kitteh wrote:Goddamn. Nexus was even better than I imagined. Actually this entire optional side stuff was just great in general. I really want this remake to be a reality now. It's pretty much everything that I would want out of a Unreal 1 remake, and more. I think the only things I'd probably add are like a couple ideas that I think would actually be pretty cool, like maybe 1 or 2 maps or maybe a couple touches/a boss fight, but nothing too big.


The thing is that we aren't even done lol. As you can see from the ID lists in the first page (I renamed "enemies" to "pawns" and added P849 and Terran entries for consistency) there's still quite a lot missing. What I've in mind for the last third of the game is definitely different enough and it's going to keep introducing new stuff.

Initially I wasn't inrested in this but I've been reading this and I don't really consider it a remake or a revamped Unreal but a whole new project built on the foundation Unreal itself laid. But I really like what you 're imagining and I now consider it worth the effort (more than worth).

I gather there are no plans to actually make it, seem pointless anyway since you've basically written the walkthrough already?

UB_
Nali Priest Nali Priest
Posts: 7960
Joined: 11 Nov 2007, 21:00

Subject: Re: Myself imagining a HD Unreal 1 remake

Post Posted: 29 May 2017, 13:16

Thanks! Yeah it's more of a re-imagination of the original game that would make a bigger impact in modern gaming, making use of a lot of Unreal's scrapped concepts that couldn't be implemented for various reasons (mostly for technical issues).
Seems like the "gaming meta" of long lonely adventures is fully back. Anything sci-fi setting always works, especially after the massive amount of hillbilly-themed horror and dark fantasy games that are plaguing everywhere (and the System Shock remake is looking incredible).

One of my favorite things in gaming, especially long ones, is when enemies and items are spreadly introduced throughout the whole game. You keep playing the game and more new shit comes up to replace the old; somehow it gives the effect of the whole journey being longer and you're more satisfied of what you've passed through so far.

salsaSkaarj wrote:I gather there are no plans to actually make it, seem pointless anyway since you've basically written the walkthrough already?


Of course no, it's just a "script" draft. It's impossible to be done on UE1 and for UE4 it would require a very dedicated developer team with A LOT of money.
I just really REALLY hate copy-paste remakes because they offer absolutely nothing (this varies from game to game however), if anything even less value because it'd be just an Unreal HD without all the old mods and old custom packs, so might as well giving the bew retail thing more value and make it differ (and improve) from the original one.
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UB_
Nali Priest Nali Priest
Posts: 7960
Joined: 11 Nov 2007, 21:00

Subject: Re: Myself imagining a HD Unreal 1 remake

Post Posted: 29 May 2017, 22:16

Outside Cryox
MUSIC: Sacred.umx
Sacred.umx as a whole might just need a better bass; or maybe not. The action songsection should be remixed to sound like a proper action songsection however - faster tempo, strongest bass and more presence in general. Most of the time it feels like the songsection is full of silent filler.

The level name and enter text won't show up until you cross the lake you fell into from the cliff where Cryox is sitting. And falling from this cliff is basically a point of no return - you're ending the "second act" of this Unreal game which comprised the classic Unreal Beta locations and the game's optional quest, and you begin the "third act", the final one which contains some new maps (that were going to be made in Unreal but never got leaked, if made at all) and the final section of the original Unreal. You will NOT get warned that this is a point of no return, because doing so kills immersion and makes you feel "forced" about clearing those optional levels; you have to find them out by yourself.
This map is a complete new one made for this game solely for connecting two locations. It's an outdoor terrain one in the vein of Noork's Elbow and the Trench: it's not a hub one therefore there's one exit point, and there are enemies. The theme feels very close to a late-game ONP map like Rostivelt Lake, more than classic Na Pali; it still feels very much like a jungle but the warm/exotic atmosphere that you saw in Valley of Eelhandra is pretty much worn out as sunset is about to come (suns can still be seen in the horizon, right above the sea). The place is relatively mountainous with various palms around and the size of the pathways you're going to take are on par with Neve's. You are currently in this small lake over a cliff; behind yourself you can see the mastodonic Cryox sitting on the mountain, very visible from almost every point of this level (ironically, you'll barely be able to spot the Sunspire at all - there are still Sky Islands in the skybox of course and you're getting closer to the ones that aren't Na Pali Haven). The middle part of Cryox was indeed buried into a mountain. It's more noticeable there, and it gives a better illusion of Cryox really looking absolutely inoperable from the outside after all.

In this lake there are random Fish and Tarydium Slith chilling in a corner, using the bright cyan light camouflage skill that the first of his kind you've encountered did at Resistance Lake.
Sacred.umx will start to play after you get out of this lake, at the same spot where the level texts show up. You will fall then into another large terrain pathway, which seems to be another location which connects the inner land to the sea.
The sea zone doesn't have much: there's a hut with a dead burned Nali inside, and some items. The shore is pretty rocky and you cannot walk past the "invisible wall" but you can barely see the shore from Eelhandra from there, including Nemo (the horizon is relatively foggy).
However, if you look closely at the shore rocks you can see something semi-invisible... it's a Chameleon!

The Chameleon is the last of the "flock" pawns introduced in the game and it is rare for a very good reason: upon death you can scavenge its body to get its heart (which glows green on death, probably because its power is constantly used when the creature is alive). When you pick up this heart, your Invisibility item will be completely regenerated, even if it was zero as in disappeared from your inventory - however, this only occurs if you have picked at least one Invisibility in the whole adventure (which is extremely likely you've done so), something that's problematic in Coop if you start from this location (only few maps come with the Invisibility as a default item on spawn). This heart concept came straight from the UNBIBLE.
The Chameleon itself now come with a detailed model and skin but it still looks like "mechanical" - more of an artificial animal alien than a real animal (probably due to its gray-ish and red skin and the Merc-like face). It can stick himself on any solid safe surface and is very fast (faster than a Pupae) and it can also jump from wall to wall thanks to its big leaps. Its reactions are huge and if you lose sight of it, it's very likely it has become invisible again (it's not full-invisible - you do see just distortion but remember that it's small); if you take too much time to kill the thing, it might disappear - and it can also swim and hide in water (but still can't cross the "invisible walls" for fairness). Chameleons die from any single projectile and do the tck-tck-tck sound randomly that real life chameleons do.

On the other way, you just go inside this mountain pathway which has a very ONP-like layout, and atmosphere even. There are some Gasbags along the way - and a Giant Gasbag, too. Since the latter hates you always, you'll have to fight them all.

You'll go through some kind of large medieval gateway protected by no one, including a doorway in the mountain that's locked; it's just for decoration - it's the "legit" access to the valley you're in and this door leads to the map found after the next one. You still won't be able to use this access because the passage beyond the door is destroyed.

As you proceed, you will see in the sky green clouds that smell of pollution - perhaps actually toxic because you'll begin to notice around the vegetation is looking dead and more dead by the time you reach the end of this location.
Apparently, there seems to be a huge fallen space station here, which uses a black and thematically different variant of the DecayedS.utx set - it is huge and dark enough that it feels like one of those menacing, futuristic industrialized structures in a corrupted cyber era that never promise anything good. It looks about as big as Cryox at first glance but it doesn't have the military feel: the thing still towers mountain and appears that it drilled its way into the ground. Nearby the structure there are pools of acid and they hurt. Be sure to have the Toxin Shield on if you want to walk on them.
You're looking this thing from afar as you proceed but a battle commences between one Skaarj Officer and two Skaarj Hawks against a Mercenary squad led by an Elite coming from the mountain. The outcome heavily favors the Skaarj side unless the Mercenaries use their GOD MODE shield at the right time - seems like they don't fight really well against the Skaarj Hawks. When this battle commences, Sacred.umx's action songsection plays.
Be careful and kill them all because whatever happens, another Skaarj Hawk will fly into the place, and it's only you against him. Once the last enemy is dead, the music completely stops.

Now that you are next to this... ship thing, you can see it's a tiny slightly tilted (like, around 5°?) and the structure itself is in a poor state with the walls that are ruined and broken - hardly anything like the polished exterior shell of Cryox. With green smoke and acid leaks all the over the damn thing, you'll have to cross the big bad doorway, with the ship's LARGE inner entrance hall being all empty and in decay, and quite dark due to the poor illumination. You also hear loud sounds from the far distance, something that seems like explosions and mechanical clangs.
As you enter, the doorway behind you closes and you can't exit anymore.

UB_
Nali Priest Nali Priest
Posts: 7960
Joined: 11 Nov 2007, 21:00

Subject: Re: Myself imagining a HD Unreal 1 remake

Post Posted: 01 Jun 2017, 00:43

The Dissent
MUSIC: Moroset.umx
For Moroset.umx:
  • First songsection will have a tiny BPM decrease and you won't hear the bassline constantly. The song is too action-y for an ambient one and when you hear it in this level, there aren't many fights.
  • Second songsection will stay as it is. The last part of it can be removed since it seems to be absolutely unnecessary.
  • Third songsection introduced; it's going to be the "creepy" infiltration-style one. It's going to feel a lot like Deus Ex-ish or System Shock-ish; it'll still include some key sounds from the other two songsections. Shouldn't be very long since it's going to be played for a short while at the beginning of the map.

This is Dissent, another level that was made for Unreal but cut at the end of the day. It was never leaked but it's pretty much assumed to be that black DecayedS.utx level seen in one of those Unreal trailers.
If you've read the trivia thread, the story of this structure won't be that different, and you'll get to know it pretty clearly through messages in the first third of the level. The "Dissent" (it's just a given name, the real codename is typical numbers and letters of a different language) is a massive corporate structure that can secretively act as a transport space ship. The story goes that this ship was located in an alien planet that was once colonized by Mercenaries as a mean to create a new "civilization", and when that was done the Mercenaries decided to leave it. So the greatest minds of this planet (derived from the same great minds that created shit such as an impossibly impenetrable body/ship shield) created a substance that was capable of proportionally extending the life of any organic being, possibly even forever. It was kept as a secret for a long while by the planet's highest and strongest governance corporation but once it was known, the general population started to riot against the idea this liquid would exist, between people who wanted it for themselves and other who thought the corporation's highest members would make use of it so they could stay in charge of the planet for eternity. All this dissent is what caused this building to be called like that.

This riot appeared too massive to be secured down and this potentially screwed up the planet to the point of self-destruction. But the liquid was too good for it to be lost, so the corporation members, before a possible death, decided to activate the structure's emergency space-travelling engine, setting it on auto-pilot to coordinates sent by the main Mercenary army who was asked as a last resort help for this matter. It's not properly mentioned but the coordinates were indeed supposed to be Na Pali itself - an idea for the Mercenaries for both taking control of the thing and for using the ship as a bait for the Skaarj. The Skaarj would surely be interested in anything unusual, especially if hitech-looking and the Mercenaries would send their troops there to take the lured enemies down. Too bad P849 had to fuck up their plans, sorta. It's implied that the Dissent crashed on Na Pali not too long ago, perhaps for just one year by now.
Sadly, the liquid of eternal life had a massive drawback that was never known: when exposed to certain atmospheres or when is not consumed by organic lifeforms (the "life" effect worked only if the liquid was consumed, bathing in it didn't do jackshit), it turns into extremely toxic acid - a very strong one. This is why the acid leaks so easily out of the building and even in the nearby surrounding. If something isn't done quickly it will poison the natural surrounding and possibly the sea. Skaarj of course don't give a shit and are trying to use this goo as a weapon they're building (which is not in this map, for a clarification), meanwhile the Mercenaries are just trying to seize the location and kill the Skaarj inside, and possibly trying to figure out if there's a way to convert the goo back to its original state.
This map is going to be pretty big on the Skaarj vs Mercenary matters, and the player will finally see both races clashing each other like in Strangeworld/ONP (more like Strangeworld since the Mercenaries will be AGAINST YOU too); it'll also be big on the matter of Nali slavery: Skaarj are using them to work on gathering as much goo as possible. Nali will be risking their lives due to Skaarj guarding around and due to how it's so simple to fuck up with this goo - one wrong use of spell (they're gathering goo and also slightly purifying it to make the liquid at least "usable", all thanks to the use of magic) and shit will go kaboom on the pool Nali's faces.

Prisoner 849, and also the Mercenaries, are disgusted by this. However, the Mercenaries have a plan x: trying to ctrl+alt+delete all the acid. Mercenaries won't be able to do this ultimately but Prisoner 849 will read of the method and will do it by the end of level. Overall a very story-oriented map.

The Dissent, as mentioned in the previous level description, uses a black variant of the DecayedS.utx theme, containing unseen textures and some original ones that haven't popped up yet. As seen in that trailer, this map will be very industrial, rough, dark, metallic, with crapload of neon lights everywhere of classic Unreal colors. The architecture should be very overdone (it already looked good enough in original Unreal version), same with the texturing. Very, very detailed, and the areas should be rather large (larger than your average Unreal indoor location).
Industrial soundscape surrounds every room, always noises of lights, machinery, panels, goop and what else. There's a very clear ONP vs Project Xenome feel in Dissent.

Dissent is divided in three distinct parts like how it was described in the leaked level document.
  • The first part is where you begin, basically the corporate section of the structure that the public could clearly visit. The new, third songsection of Moroset.umx plays there right when the level starts.
    This part is more of a relaxing infiltration style one. It's all devoid of life there, night is coming closer and the illumination here is shallow, and you explore; kinda scary for the most part but it's that "scary" feel where you can easily hold on taking a shit and going anywhere you want because nothing terrible will happen.
    Your objective is basically finding where the fuck you have to go. There's free-roaming, almost every area is open but there's one huge shutter that's closed down and one access corridor which seems to lead to an elevator is also blocked. All the areas are crew rooms, office rooms, restaurants, bathrooms, the "parliament" - pretty much all stuff you'd see in real life structures; seems like the alien race behind the Dissent was very much like humans after all. This is where you'll get to read all about the story of the Dissent, whereas in the next phases of the level it will be all about action and objectives. Be careful that there will be goo leaks already in this section of the ship, so turn on the Toxin Shield any time.
    After a long while exploring side areas, if you go back at the beginning, the huge shutter door suddenly opens, revealing an outdoor garden: lots of Mercenaries have jumped in it and now they're entering the Dissent. You don't want to be spotted, of course, and you can't simply fight all of them without taking huge doses of damage. Some of the Mercenaries will go around the first section, the others will go to that locked elevator access - and one of the aliens will operate the door's panel with a code. If you use the Artifact on one of the accompanying Mercenaries from a safe spot, you can see closely the inputted code - when they are gone, the door locks down again but if you saw and memorized that code, you can do the same! You have one chance at getting that code and your input will be permanent compared to the Mercenaries' one which is temporary. The code is random for every time you start this map, by the way.
    However if you use the Artifact on the Mercenary who has to input the code -> oops. You don't know the code, therefore you can't input shit. And if you don't input shit, Mercenaries will kill you for failing at doing the easiest of shit you were supposed to do (as a Mercenary). Afterwards the Mercenaries will be stuck roaming the first section of Dissent trying to find another way out, and it'll be very annoying because you'll have to do the same.
    Indeed if you don't take the elevator route, you'll be forced to find another way. In the outdoor garden where the Mercenaries came, there's an entrance to another part of this first section which has even more rooms (and some health related items like Bandages, and also a hidden Super Health). You'll have to find a vent shaft, entering it and find a way through this vent maze so you can go down below. Watch out at the moving fans and possibly acid leaks. Definitely a dangerous route you don't wanna pick.
    Note that when you access the vent shaft or the elevator route, the music stops.
  • The second section of the Dissent is where Morose.umx's primary songsection finally plays, and permanently until the end of the level save for certain battles. What the first section was akin to Deus Ex, the second section is more akin to standard Unreal (or Strangeworld Unreal).
    This is basically the emergency zone of the structure... or at least that was only what people thought. It's where the first deposits of the liquid of life were located, something that became public knowledge and was eventually shown to all. There is a plant here for this shit to be treated very well and indeed, the Nali are there to work. You'll find them all here, either alive working or dead because of goo accidents. The reason why they are forced to use spells is because the Dissent's crash on Na Pali pretty much wrecked all the equipment of the ship.
    The second and the third sections, compared to the first one, appear evidently more destroyed and broken in comparison: lots of crumbled zones everywhere, lots of acid pools around (and the Nali have to be careful not stepping on them), Skaarj guarding from secure spots, Mercenaries popping up to fight everyone etc... Turn on that Toxin Shield, people!
    The player will find a lot of Tarydium Sludge ammo and will generally either fight a lot or stay in the backline to see Skaarj vs Merc battles, though there are cases where P849 has to deal with each of the enemy factions for himself only. The Mercenaries come from other access points from the first section that P849 could never really unlock, including goo-filled passageways that only Mercenaries can go through thanks to their GOD-MODE shield. They'll also be coming from the same way P849 took! They are usually quite the winners against Skaarj Warriors but against the Trooper caste they never come out as sure ones.
    The quite huge number of Nali here proves a bit difficult saving them all, considering also Skaarj will be probably almost always around where a Nali is located. Thanksfully, in this game the Skaarj will focus on you solely and they will not attack Nali that they deem "helpful" (if anything, Mercenaries might be more likely to kill them). Just be careful where you will shoot. There's just a lot of action there, and you'll go across rooms after rooms, jumping also over fatal goo pits, watching out at possible crumbling parts and random Skaarj Assassin ambushes.
    Every time there's a Skaarj vs Mercenary battle, the action songsection of Moroset.umx occurs, and it'll keep playing until certain points within the level.
    One area is huge: it's a giant corridor that's guarded by Skaarj Snipers you have kill in a similar way like how it was done in Eelhandra: advance, search, kill, hide, rinse and repeat. What's even worse is that Skaarj Hawks will join the fray in the same area once you're midway through it but Mercenaries will also do the same.
    There's a lot of chaos in this section: the gist of it is just fights, fights, and fights and story-wise, you'll get to know the Mercenary's plan x to get rid of the fucking goo: water.
    You access the next section through a large storage elevator which contains hiding Skaarj Assassins.
  • The third and final section of the Dissent is the one in most decay and overall most dangerous, as lots of acid is leaking there; a lot of the rooms are literally flooded of this acid and falling in is death even with the Toxin Shield on. There's a lot of jumping to be done - now compared to the previous two sections, this one will feel very like Xenome/HalfLife in a nutshell because there is much less fighting (and the fights will be about very tense ambushes from Skaarj Assassins) and you have a clear objective now - which is engulfing this structure full of just water. It appears the liquid had this strange property that fully normal non-salt water can delete all its effects; it might be goo but it's of a different kind you've seen so far in the game.
    Seems like the Dissent is sitting right next to a large body of water, close to the sea but underground. This might be the reason why the sea, even if it was close to Dissent as you've seen in the previous level, seemed untouched by the acid because water quickly dissolved it.
    This section's story is pretty simple - turns out the Dissent had a fucking lot of this liquid hiding inside, more than anyone thought. It might imply this liquid could've been actually the planet's own "oil" recovered somewhere rather than an artificial creation but no one will ever know.
    The Mercenaries are unable to reach this place and most probably by now they are in extremely low numbers after the devastation you've done on both Terraniux and Cryox. So it's up to you fixing this issue. And you should, because the Skaarj here are apparently packing all their toxic stuff to be teleported into a location named "Underflow" for the creation of a super weapon. All the tools are brought over there with the use of a teleport pod (the typical Skaarj one seen in the original game for the SkyBase -> VeloraEnd transition) which you can't use here. You'll also know that all the resources (Tarydium, etc...) they're getting from Rrajigar, ISV-Kran and whatever else they can find in the canyons, have been also of use for the creation of this super weapon; everyone is at the order of the Warlord (this should be the first time you read his proper name in this game, most people won't likely assume it's the winged demon they've saw in the mountain border of Nyleve after exiting the Vortex). Sadly, the Skaarj might have enough recovered goo, so if the Dissent is destroyed or not it wouldn't matter much at the end of the day - you'll eventually have to stop them from finishing that weapon later before you get out of the planet, because who knows if Skaarj suddenly get the idea of attacking Earth out of pure revenge.
    At the very end of this section of Dissent, you'll have to turn on some pumps to cause pressure explosions, and possibly breaking the bottom part of the structure apart so that the water all leak in - and there's a lot of water just outside the thing, underground.

After the first section, the Dissent is overall linear. It's easy to figure out where to go, there are maps attached around the walls and such. This is to make up for the fact that it's a really dangerous place from the second section onward (and also the vent shaft maze between the first and second sections should count).
Weapon-wise, the late game tier weapons of Unreal will come into play a lot - Minigun, Razorjack, GES BioRifle and the Skaarj Railgun. There's ammo for these (especially for the GES) all over the place (some of these are also the weapons of choice Trooper caste has).
Enemy-wise, you will encounter Mercenaries, Mercenary Elites, Skaarj Warriors, Skaarj Assassins, Brutes (who will get shitted on by the Mercs), Skaarj Troopers, Skaarj Infantries, Skaarj Snipers and a Skaarj Officer duo at the end of the second and third sections each. There is also a Skaarj Hawk encounter (the one mentioned above, alongside the only Skaarj Snipers found in the level).
Despite the location type, you won't find Slith of any sort here. There might be Tentacles, however.

When the walls at the end are broken, a giant wave of water engulfs the place and drags you into a cave at very fast speed (it's some sort of cutscene); the music also stops. You won't see with your eyes as you are dragged away but eventually, the Dissent's structure, in the decaying situation it's found at, won't be able to stand on its knees with all that strong current and it'll fall apart, crumble completely, and the goo will dissolve immediately upon touching water (there will be massively loud noises to be heard during this event). If all the Nali were saved or at least, gone from the place in the living or dead way, that's cool for them.
Prisoner 849, during the water ride, will manage to take a safe detour through another cave. After regaining control of him, you'll swim through this dark cave which is devoid of enemies.

After a long swim, you'll eventually reach a huge water cave, with aurora-ish lights from the large opening at the top, fireflies around, medieval ruins everywhere, a destroyed drawbridge of sort that you can still walk on somehow and at the very end, in front of you, a huge sunken castle that feels something straight out of Dark Souls. This is your only way out.

UB_
Nali Priest Nali Priest
Posts: 7960
Joined: 11 Nov 2007, 21:00

Subject: Re: Myself imagining a HD Unreal 1 remake

Post Posted: 03 Jun 2017, 00:24

Triton - Sunken Nali Palace
MUSIC: Mountain.umx
Mountain.umx will be kept the same as it is. Probably some samples require a cleanup but it's good enough. It'll be played for almost the entire map's duration, with the action songsection popping up for a specific event.

This is the sunken castle of the massive Triton's water cave system; Triton here will refer to the entire cave location itself, not the castle.
The location was originally both a great palace and fortress of the Nali. In terms of a palace, it was one of the most important in the whole planet as it housed the highest known Nali noblemen and much of the top decisions regarding the life of the planet were all taken there; the palace itself was massive, possibly thrice as large as Nali Castle was - it had a bit of everything including courtyards, dormitories, baths and all sorts of decorative halls, most of them excessively wide. As it was sitting above the Triton cave, the Nali of the castle had access to an almost unlimited amount of water and to also a secret escape route that led to the nearby Nali locations - Velora and Bluff Eversmoking (and on the other side of the Bluff there was a "market hot spot", a dungeon of sorts and the Nali Castle, forming a big connection between all these old Nali places).
From a fortress' point of view, this castle had everything in terms of defense. Tons of Nali guarded it, there were cannons shooting blazing magma and overall it was pretty easy to trap intruders once they were inside. The Skaarj were so done trying to conquer this place that they did decide to blow it up altogether with special bombs, brought in by sacrificial and invisible Skaarj Assassins.
This terrible method proven extremely effective, destroying the whole fortress in the process and causing part of it to fall underground in the Triton cave. Most of the Nali were killed, some managed to escape to Velora. The fall of the Dissent in the neighborhood was the last nail in the coffin and of the fortress itself there was hardly anything of it on the overground. What you will see now (and cross) are the remains of this once-great castle now all shattered in the Triton cave.

You are currently outside the fortress entrance, in the cave. There's a deep pool of water below the broken bridge to the main door - swim in it and you'll finally find a new underwater enemy, the Stingray.
Stingrays, another one of Unreal's long lost enemies, are the "water" counterparts to the Mantas (note that Mantas can also easily go underwater, unlike the Stings who can't go on land or fly). Stingrays are very similar to the real life Earth ones: here they are quite big, have multiple spiky wings on their tails, an undulating skin which resembles the Mantas' one and two moon-shaped eyes that glow red when they are closer to their enemies. Lastly they have some sort of front "teeth-horns" next to their faces, which are used for one of their attacks.
Stingrays have 200 HP. They aren't attacked by Devilfish and Squids and they don't attack them (all underwater creatures are friendly to each other, including Slith). Stingrays always lay at the bottom of a water zone and attack solely invaders who get close to a certain radius around them, so in a way you can dodge them as long as you swim on the water's surface - unless the water pool is that shallow and so there's no way to dodge encounters. They hide in clear sight on rocky surfaces but in a water pool with a sandy bed, they'll be hiding beneath the sand, something that truly works wonders.
Stingrays have simple attacks. When they get out, they just charge at you with their front horns; while they do this, their swimming speed is improved but their turn rate is garbage. If you see them from a mile away, you have enough time to side-swim away. The charge move is done just once per encounter however - after it, the Stingray will swim to you normally and attack with their long tail. This still requires the player to dodge by swimming sideways as their tail attacks are fast and vertical. Their swimming speed is as fast as yours. Tail melee damage is 32 HP per hit, charge melee damage is 50 HP per hit. When you get out of their range, Stingrays will go rest once again to the water zone's bed, in a randomized different spot; when you encounter them back, they'll do the charge move again.
Stingrays have some unique sounds made for them but you won't hear much overall. They'll be present in almost all sensible water zones from now and on in the game (Triton cave houses the majority of Stingrays, still).

When you get near the castle you'll hear wolf howls, and you'll also experience the first earthquake. Obviously, after all the shit that has happened, the stability in this zone isn't definitely the greatest (you're also way deep underground) and this isn't good news: the castle is about to fall apart, and all the earthquakes will cause floors to collapse, pillars to fall and more annoyances. Mountain.umx begins the moment you step in the castle; given the song, the location will imply "known" danger to the player. It's not creepy - but you are perfectly aware of how dangerous this castle is to stay in currently.
This location's most important point of notice that makes it stand apart from the rest is the unique use of NaliCast.utx textures. Remember those ones in the package that were used for levels in the old alpha era of Unreal? They appear here. This is to show how old the castle really was, compared to all other Nali medieval locations that were built afterwards. The architecture will also be generally different than usual, due to these textures. Expect a lot of archways.
The textures are also rather dark, which makes the overall visibility quite low. Expect also a lot of fog.

The areas of the castle are large, all destroyed, and the whole location is tilted because of the way it fell. It will feel a lot like Chicoverde's stuff, especially Soquatre's temple (but not as massive, and definitely much more wrecked up). Some of the floor crumbles into pools of water that you can get out, while other (later in the level) end up into long pits where you die. There are also parts of the level that are flooded and you have to swim through.
The castle interior will be very Souls-ish in terms of presentation and layout. People who played games of the Souls/Bloodborne series will know what I'm talking about, and you can bet the visuals here will be extremely detailed and so the surrounding cave system. If Soquatre was that impressive back then, then that has to be improved 10 times more for nowadays' standards. Following real life medieval castle layout with an overly bit of dark fantasy theme/imagination should be fine, I suppose.
The linearity is on par with classic Unreal levels - the way you have to go is pretty clear but there are a lot of side areas that you can explore, you'll read messages and get items. Classic Unreal exploration with no big threat in sight.
The messages from the Nali notes will explain what happened to this place from their points of view. Definitely not stories you'd wanted to be part of.

In terms of items there isn't actually much considering this is an abandoned place. For sure there are many fruits and few Seeds; ammo-wise you'll find stuff for the Stinger only (the cave has Tarydium, so the ammo presence is self-explaining) and armor-wise there's just an Assault Vest.
On the other hand, the enemy roster here is nothing too dangerous. In this part of Unreal, for some levels, you'll be going through places where intelligent alien species have no wish to stay in because there's likely nothing of worth. So, no Skaarj/Merc/Krall/Brutes but you'll fight few Tarydium Slith and critters - critters being Tentacle, Devilfish, the aforementioned Stingrays, Spinners, Cave Mantas and Flies. Spinners will be located in a single set of areas and most probably they'll be the most annoying foe in the map, especially due to the confusing, wrecked architecture of this level where it's really easy to hide around. You won't know at the moment the source of the wolf-like howls that are often heard (reminder that Unreal had a wolf Call sound). The map itself is not that long (due to the fact it's divided in two parts that are quite different from each other in terms of gameplay), especially if you skip all the optional stuff.

This map has a special gameplay feature: there are randomized events where certain things fall apart like floor, walls, pillars etc... This can occur for almost every castle spot and it might result with yourself getting damaged by debris or worse, some staircases falling down and therefore causing issues with navigation (don't worry - it'll be impossible to get stuck).

At the end of the level the earthquakes become stronger and stronger; bad luck has hit you again.
Mountain.umx's action songsection begins to play and you'll become aware of the fact that the castle is right now about to completely go down. Something that sounded like the Skaarj Hawk's regular battle call (way louder and pitched down) is heard and quickly after you'll hear explosions - so it seems like somebody has figured out where you are (definitely Skaarj did) and are intentionally accelerating Triton's castle demise as a way to finally kill you for good. Time to run!
This is where deadly pits come into play much more; you'll have to watch your steps because some of the floor bricks will definitely collapse. The crumbling is scripted but some pillars might fall before others, and these fallen pillars (or whatever big falls down) might block the way and you have to take a detour. The randomization element in this escape will make things different every time (not by much however). Over time, areas will go completely down and become inaccessible and if you waste too much time inside them, you're done. Doesn't help also that all the Tarydium Slith will be panicking and roaming around and these bastards' projectiles are accurate and will slow you down.

At the end of the escape, you'll access the core of Triton's cave system, fully exiting from the castle. Mountain.umx stops and eventually, a massive earthquake will occur, burying the fortress even more underground under giant fallen rocks.




Triton - Subterranean Lake
MUSIC: Newmca2.umx
Newmca2.umx, also known as New2.umx from the beta, was the "Secret Area" unused song, a short one of two minutes that no one will ever know what it could've been used for (Myscha said there were going to be secret maps in Unreal). The song will receive a full extended remix in an aboriginal tribal style, still trying to keep the original melody and especially how dissonant it is with the rest of the OST (i.e. it's clearly made for a super secret, easter eggy optional area).
Indeed you have to find the zone where this music plays; otherwise, this is one of very few Unreal locations (this one and the next level are the only ones I believe) with no attached main theme. This will pave the way to an awesome set of ambient sounds in this level, fully inspired from the style heard in Hourences' mine levels in Xidia Gold.

This is the second part of Triton and just like how it was going to be in the original Unreal, you'll be exploring a massive subterranean lake after the castle. Compared to the previous level, this one is even smaller as it is just a transition between it and the next one (generally, this section of levels that come before Bluff isn't long - they are just visual showcases with a lot of story background. Exploration is the key but you won't meet any intelligent enemies aside critters).
The cave, which is definitely in better-looking conditions compared to the fortress you've passed through, is greatly illuminated by many, huge Tarydium crystals sticking out of the rocks (which kinda makes you question why the hell Skaarj aren't there with all this Tarydium - something bad happened?) and by aurora-style lights coming from two huge, long holes on the ceiling. Another one of the Skaarj Hawk screams is heard but with no action to follow. Wolf howls are also still heard every once in a while.

The map is basically one huge cave with a lake that's in front of you. You are currently on land and if you look around, you'll see stuff! There's a Nali galleon sitting next to some sort of hidden underground dock. The lake continues through a long cavern that you can't access - it's locked by an immense gate and beyond it you'll only see a long tunnel filled of Tarydium and more Tarydium.
The dock itself is nothing too exceptional, typical Unreal Nali style; it's decently decorated and there's a small cave which leads to a bar, which contains some health and Minigun ammo. No Nali around, of course. At the main dock there's also a door leading to a crumbled passageway which hides a Chameleon - if you remember that locked Nali-built door I mentioned in the Outside Cryox level, that was where it led, to this dock.
Then there's the galleon, like the original Triton was going to have. It's huge like Koos Galleon but the indoor section is different, something less made for deathmatch and something that looks closer to Shinigami's own galleon. It's nothing absolutely exceptional, it's just a galleon - Unreal is knocking another unexplored theme off the list.
This part is NOT optional, by the way.

When you go on top of the galleon, two Giant Mantas will come into the cave through those two giant openings. They'll come one after another, with some delay in-between. Shouldn't be too hard to defeat with all the weapons you have.
The inside of the galleon shows signs that it's been visited recently. Lots of doors are opened and there are items like Bullet Boxes, Flak Boxes and even a Shield Belt. The strangest sightings however will be Nali Ghosts dressed with pirate-looking attires (the original description mentioned it was a "ghost ship" so here's to that). After Acerack you are no stranger to Nali Ghosts but these ones act differently - they just constantly roam around the ship, either alone or in groups and once you get near them, they fade away or go inside the walls. They'll still look at you shortly but there won't be any other iteration. What a weird feeling - were the Skaarj afraid of this?
A little funny note: the Impaler has a hidden feature where it's capable of killing ethereal beings. You can kill these Nali Ghosts too if you want - nothing surprising will happen, they'll flee away like regular Nali.
Find the captain's room. You'll pick here a key. There are multiple keys to be found in this ship.

Back to the lake, it seems like your only option is to swim to the other side. And it's going to take a while. While swimming, you'll be probably attacked by Stingrays if you go down deep but they can be easily dodged.
What you can't dodge however, is something big, tentacular, coming from below, popping up right in the direction where you are swimming. And there isn't just one.

The Kraken, alias Squid's original name, is here, and is massive and more frightening (especially with a better model and animations), plus it's gray/black instead of green.
Krakens have 600 HP but are slow. However, all their melee attacks deal from 50 HP to 100 HP and some of these attacks involve fast and multiple tentacle slashes. If they use the dragging attack, you cannot set yourself free and the only thing you can do is to use something like the Flak Cannon to kill the Kraken before it kills you (but it'll win if it grabbed you when it was at full health).
Their AI is technically the same but are prone to roam around you much more frequently (they can also turn around better than before, too) and now the black smoke they release will fully dampen vision for a huge radius. You don't want that to happen and it's fucking creepy when you are attacked by a Kraken from load of black mist you can't see through. And they will chase you every-fucking-where when you are in the water.
Another thing they can do is rotating like a vortex, becoming some sort of "living missile" who will crash-bump all onto your body. This melee attack deals 100 HP and can only be stopped if the Kraken is damaged good enough during the entirety of the vortex move - causing it to get stunned. The vortex move is too fast for you to dodge away. This will force you to keep a close eye to all the Krakens there (there are three) and possibly swimming back to land as fast as possible. One Kraken is easily doable (yet still dangerous if he's accompanied by Stingrays or Devilfish - not Slith thanksfully, this meet-up never occurs in the game) but three will definitely fill the water of black smoke or randomly go vortex mode if left unchecked.
Their sounds are also edited to be more menacing.

After you have dealt with them, you can continue swimming to the destination or doing something else.
See, this lake at one point becomes really fucking deep but at the bottom you see some lamp turned on. If you finished Nemo and obtained the SCUBA Gear upgrade, you'll be able to swim down there.
There's some sort of Ancient.utx buried temple of sorts at the bottom of the lake and its door can be opened with one of the keys you've got from the Nali galleon.
Inside you'll swim through flooded rooms (watch out at Stingrays) until you get out of the water and enter a part of the temple that isn't flooded. You need the Flashlight turned on as it's all dark.
There's a door at the end which also requires another key found in the galleon.

Entering this large, ancient arena-like chamber, illuminated by giant torches, turns on Newmca2.umx and you definitely smell a weird situation going on. A Nali Ghost inside a forcefield (fuck you Impaler users) want to speak with you through messages. Seems like he want to challenge you at some game - battle between monsters. You're given the option to accept.
You and the Nali will stay behind magical stones that supposedly summon monsters in this large chamber (if the monsters are real or not, no one knows, and you can't find out because your weapons are turned off here).
Monsters you can summon are all the ones from the Pawns ID list except the following: P849, Terran, anything that has yet to appear at this point of the game, Skaarj Berserkers, Skaarj Snipers, any Nali and flock pawns, Flies, Blobs, Shians, water creatures, Predators, Tentacles, Turrets, Cyborgs and all bosses barring the regular Titans.
Titans and Giant Gasbags can only be summoned once in the arena, so only one side will have access to each one of these two creatures.
Up to 10 monsters can be summoned per side and each one comes with a summon cost. So you have to choose carefully your picks (you'll know how much you can summon anyway and the cost of each monster, as all is shown in numbers). You can fail math hard enough that you end up with less than 10 enemies and in this game, multiple enemies are better than few strong ones always.
Monsters are picked one by one and the contenders must wait the opposite choice every time - so you pick, then the Nali picks, then you pick, then the Nali, etc... Whoever gets the first pick is randomized (and the first pick should be always the motherfucking Titan whenever you have the chance, and the Nali knows this very well).
Once the choices are made, the battle starts. Sit down and enjoy. The side that defeats the entire opposite team wins. It's a best of five so you have to win minimum three times. If you lose, you can re-do the game again. Most of the time it boils down to AI RNG.

Your reward for winning the game is the Relic, a completely new item. It's based off the popular Relic mutator that has been a mainstay in the Unreal Tournament series.
This item, upon use, consumes 25 HP (regardless of any armor you have, including Shield Belt and Power Shield) to give one of the following random bonuses:
  • DEFENSE: 60% resistance to all non-instakill damage for 30 seconds.
  • REDEMPTION: upon death by enemies in a regular place (e.g. something that isn't lava or pit), you will respawn on the spot. Will last for 10 minutes.
  • REGEN: you regenerate 5 HP per second, for a total of 125 HP, with 300 HP as the max reachable cap. Process breaks if you take any sort of damage or when 300 HP is reached.
  • SPEED: ground, air and water movement speed are tripled for one minute. Your jump height remains the same.
  • STRENGTH: your weapons deal double damage for 20 seconds.
  • VENGEANCE: completely different, as here it's something like the Firestorm Generator from EXU2 - a flaming aura that will deal Burned damage to anything close to you for 40 HP every second and can possibly deviate projectiles. Lasts 2 minutes.
When you use the item, a small text on the upper center of the screen will show the bonus' name like written above, plus a "lore" text which tries to explain said bonus' effects. The Relic can be used again when no bonus effect is currently on. It cannot be used when your health is equal or lower than 25.
The Relic is not available in Coop mode; the secret area itself is also locked in coop and if one players joins you when you are inside that area (even when the monster mini-game is ongoing), you'll be teleported on top of the galleon.
When you exit the arena, Newmca2.umx stops.

Back to the lake, swim to the end of the place where you'll reach another piece of land.
There's an opened Nali medieval castle door in front of you, which signifies you've probably reached Velora. However, once you get near, the door suddenly closes and you can only open it with the captain's key from the galleon. Even weirder there's a disfigured Nali right outside this door. Somebody is probably inside.

Once you enter this cellar-looking place, the door behind you closes again and this time you can't open it anymore. You have one option now, which is going forward into Velora.


ID lists updated.

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