Comments - poisonheadcrab

A large group backed up by voltigores could take out one gargantua but certainly not multiple gargs and race x would certainly struggle with manta ships as they don't have very good anti air capabilities. On that note, I'd actually like to see multiple skirmishes between race X and Xen to better highlight the strengths and weaknesses of both factions.

Throw some Gargantuas and manta ships in there and Race X wouldn't have a very good time.

A few things I'd like to suggest for xen, not any major overhauls just some quality of life improvements. I think it would be best to remove the rotating platforms in Xen map 1 and the interloper map you repurposed for Xen map 2, and replace them with small islands and floating rocks. I feel like those slow moving platforms just slow the games pace to a crawl and I think xen would be better off without them. I think some scripted sequences could be added to better drive home the fact that the Vorts are not hostile by nature but forced to fight against their will. There's an unused animation for the slave where he tugs at his collar in pain perhaps this animation could play when a controller is nearby indicating that they are being influenced by them to fight. Also I think there should be some extra models in Xens skybox that hint at the next level that the player will visit so Xen feels less disconnected and give the player a better sense of progression. In the first interloper map there should be something in the background hinting at the mines and even Nihilanth's lair so that the player feels like they are getting close to the being holding the portal between Xen and Earth open.

In both powerup and the closing of surface tension the gargs tend to get stuck easily. In powerup the Gargantua can get distracted when fighting the soldiers and stay facing away from the player when the power is restored making it easy to sneak past him and avoid the final chase unless you shoot at him. At the end of Surface Tension the garg tends to break completely, especially if the player runs out of the garage before he notices. In the original game if the player managed to allude the garg in the garage he would still come outside and peruse them after reaching the water tower and hearing the radio broadcast. This sequence is now broken and the Gargantua will be frozen in place, there seems to be no way to get him outside unless he goes through the car flipping sequence first. When he does actually get outside and smash down the door he no longer peruses the player like he is supposed to, he should be able to run up the water tower ramp to attack but now he doesn't bother unless you come down to greet him. Lastly I'd like to mention that the missing glass texture bug has been fixed for me since the 25'th anniversary update, not sure what caused it in the first place, possibly some corrupted files.

I'm using the most recent steam version and I didn't use the WON files- (the new release actually doesn't include them). As for graphics cards I have an NVIDIA. I've noticed that the issue temporarily goes away when I alter certain video settings that cause the game to restart itself like resolution etc, however the textures go missing again upon reloading a save.

Glass textures are still showing up as the purple and black checkered textures.

I installed it where the readme told to install it. This issue seems to be occurring with the steam version as when I tried it with Xash (which uses the files from the WON version) this issue was not present.

I'm getting a lot missing texture bugs, mainly with glass textures.

Most of the levels have this issue. Ambient sounds cut off suddenly once you leave their radius and music tracks/horror stings are way too loud. The volumes on them appear to be set very high and as for sounds cutting off I remember fixing that by not including a minimum radius value.

I'm not using a sourceport I'm using steam Doom 3.

I'm encountering a lot of issues with the sound. Ambience suddenly cuts off at way too short a distance and a lot of them (especially horror stingers and music) are definingly loud.

@TheMrBenpulido-You have to remove any other mod that uses that monster.

The skies look great but I'm having some issues with them. The 3D skies revert back to the default 2D skies when reloading a save. Also I cannot use the flashlight with the 3D skies but it works when they revert to 2D.

Awesome stuff.

Why am I not following this?!

After turning off smart edit and experimenting with different values I did manage to fix the issue. The values provided in the FGD were wrong so I changed them. I did try PrimeXT and while it looks interesting I ran into far more bugs than Xash. I'll wait with PrimeXT and see what further updates it brings but Xash seems to be more stable atm, even if it has some quirks.

I'm running into a bizarre glitch with the XashXT tools. Human grunts only use shotguns, even if their weapons are set to 9mmar.

This was a fun playthrough and also shows that remaking Opposing Force in BM is doable, even if poor Race X has to be left out. Some suggestions though. I felt like the scientist locking you in felt kind of Random, I think he should have attempted to open the door for you and maybe have a bullsquid teleport inside of him. Also using teleporters here kind of confuses me, I know you added them in to stay faithful to the original but using such high tech in this area just never made sense to me. Also the area where a gonome was originally encountered; you replaced it with an Alien grunt which just seemed a bit out of place, maybe add in more zombies and crabs, maybe even a few HEV Zoms.

odell lines from beta link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAmYqtXxsJA Come to think of it he does sound close to the leaked audio files. I still stand by my statements regarding the other voices though.

Are there any plans on updating the 3D skybox features? So far it can only show standard brushes & item generic entities, making 3D skyboxes rather limiting.

I just recently played through the first part of this and while I like a lot of the ideas presented here I do have many criticisms as well.

-The starting ship actually looks nice and I like the strange visions the player has of different points in time it really gives the player an eerie feeling that they are not are not supposed to be there. Gameplay wise though it falls a bit flat. The combat encounters with headcrabs and zombies are not particularly fun or engaging and they are far too short to leave any lasting impression. Not to mention it seems a bit odd that the Odell and the combine aboard the ship are so nonchalant about headcrabs infesting the place, so much so that they even bring the ship to port. IMO I would cut out combat from the ship section, liven it up with more NPC's and possibly add more creepy visions.

-First impressions off the ship into city 17 were pretty good, I definitely like the way the citadel is designed. However after meeting Barney this mod starts to suffer from many of the same issues that Raising the Bar Redux suffers from. There is just too much walking and the combat in between is just not interesting enough to keep the player engaged. The two most egregious examples is the section with the vortigaunts and the short trip through a quarantine zone. The city 17 levels in general are rather devoid of life, very few NPC's are encountered and barely any will talk to you, but the two set pieces I just mention suffer the most from this. Why would the combine have an imprisoned vort out in the open streets unguarded? You'd think that there would be some metro cops patrolling the place no?. Second is the trip through the quarantine zone where you and another citizen fight off a hand full of zombies and crabs. The fact that this area is so empty it confuses me as to why the combine would need to bar off this area. A few metro police and some cremators could have gotten thigs under control easily enough. One more thing to point out with the C17 levels. I thought it was kind of strange how Barney warns the player that the combine are catching onto them, yet in the next area they don't even notice. I think a chase scene like the one through the apartments in HL2 would have been nice to add here to quicken up the pace a bit. So all in all the c17 levels really should be livened up and personally the vort section and the quarantine zone should be removed or significantly reworked.

-My last point of critisism is the voice acting. No nice way to put it, it's bad, none of the actors put much energy or emotion in their performances and Barney & Odell sound nothing like the characters they are trying to imitate. Kleiner sounds alright though, but he can still use some work.

Conclusion: The mod definitely looks nice and presents some good ideas but I think more work needs to go into fleshing out the gameplay as it is a bit rough in spots and better voice acting would certainly help too. I can't wait to try the later chapters where combat will start to pick up.

There is no ******* way I actually typed that.

Just agave it a play and it's good, however it also suffers from many issues that prevent it from being great, I'll list them as bullet points below.

-The beginning (train station - kleiner's lab) drags on way too long. It's just a bunch of walking around with practically nothing to do and not a lot of sense of direction, gets rather boring after a while. I would just pick the most interesting set pieces and cut out the rest.

-The voice acting in this is actually pretty good for the most part. Kleiner could use a bit of work though and Barney is just awful, the VA puts almost no effort into sounding even close to Barney. Definitely something to look into for future releases.

-The airboat section was fine but there were several spots where the boat would get stuck. The boat also controls a bit awkward, can be difficult to steer.

-the section when you are waiting for Alyx to open the doors to ravenholm pits the player against many combine soldiers in a rather small area making the fight frustrating. Why not have skitch help you take out some soldiers?

-the caves under ravenholm have kind of a poor sense of direction, mainly in the chamber with the gonarch, it is very easy to get lost there.

closing: So far this mod has a lot of potential, I felt as if I was playing Half-Life 2 from a parallel universe. Good, but flawed.

no, but it has been trapped in dev hell for while.

I haven't heard about them being stuck in dev hell. Where did you hear that from?

This looks very interesting. It's nice to see something akin to spirit of Half-Life make it's way over to the source engine. I've made maps in Goldsource for some time and would like to give source a try and this may have just convinced me. I noticed that the ability to add custom weapons is there, but would I also be able to script custom NPC's with mapbase?

Critique Part 2
Ground Zero: Overall a good Chapter, but there are some kinks to work out. For one thing there is too much going on in the ruined test chamber for a fight with a shielded controller and there isn't really any reason for it to be there in the first place so I'd just remove it. I think the killer portals in this area are challenging enough, I would however have a different effect for them rather than the standard portal, that way the player is less tempted to go into them on their first try. The part where the player has to put crystals into the little power pods is rather hard to figure out. The webbing covering the final pod is too hard to notice. Maybe have a more visible organic growth blocking it and have the pod struggle to open fully. Also I think xen crystals feel out of place here, maybe replace them with special power cells?

Xen: Overall pretty neat little xen section. I would make the cave entrance near the end smaller because the giant leaves don't cover it all the way and there are large gaps the player can get through, being stopped only by an invisible wall.

Suggestion, add race X into later levels: This may not even be doable but I'll just throw it out there anyway. I think in the mods later chapters Race X aliens should start appearing in some form, if possible. I noticed you were able to add the HL2 fast zombie in the part after meeting Gordon so maybe there's more left over code for HL2 monsters that can be used. If not than Race X may have to stay absent, unless there's a way to implement them somehow by modifying the base game enemies. Lastly you could probably make some form of Gonome if HL2's zombie code is available.

After playing through this mod I have to say while it looks good with very well detailed levels the gameplay needs a lot of work, because right now it tends to range from ok to downright frustrating. I'll give a list below of all the major issues I've had. I'll try not to sound overly negative, the mod isn't all around bad but it does have lots of major flaws that ruin the experience.

Critique Part 1
Voice Acting: There's no nice way to put this, the voice acting is terrible. The Voice actors express no emotion or effort in their performances and talk so softly that you can barely here them over the music and ambient sounds; this problem is especially present during the Kate sequence near the beginning.

Beginning, after disaster: The player needs a better indicator that they have to climb up to the security guard. Maybe have him tell you to find a way up or just make it more clear visually

Other bad indicators: Overall the mod does a better job at guiding the player than the previous version but there are still areas where it isn't clear where to go, and sometimes super bright lights are added that draw the player away from what they should focus on.

Battery puzzle: I'd just remove this one or maybe only require their usage once. The constant backtracking is boring and not fun at all.

Fight scenes/HECU: The combat is all over the place, while some of fun and engaging many are just cheap and unfair, mainly battles involving the HECU. Also some of the soldier A.I is just bad in parts. I know Black Mesa overhauled the soldier A.I for the 1.0 update so I'm guessing they were just not well placed in the levels. Also I think the marines appear way too much after their orders to pull out. This mod seems to go on long past Half-Life's chapter forget about freeman, so I feel like the presents of the marines should be reduced during the later chapters.

The Sniper Rifle dilemma: The part where the player has to get the sniper rifle from the truck took me quite a while to figure out. In fact I only found it by luck. There needs to be a better way of telling the player that this is what they need to do. I also just recommend re-doing how this plays out because the poor direction aside it just feels too scripted. Maybe have the Black Ops killing HECU soldiers upon entering the area and have the sniper placed elsewhere in a room that the player eventually has to enter.

Gargantuan problem: The Gargantua fight needs a significant re-work. The first phase with the T.O.W cannons is just a boring slog. You are literally doing the same thing about 10 or so times over and over until the sequence ends, all while running straight through giant piles of rubble. Also the Gargantua using his flame jets to launch itself into the ceiling looked rather silly to me. The second phase is more mixed. I do like the part where it's climbing up onto the wall trying to get after you. Although I'd make him shoot his flames more often to make this area more challenging. Having to place the mines on the bridge just felt way to scripted and contrived. Also I'd like to point out that the Gargs stomping ability seems inconsistent. In one area it's powerful enough that it can take down an entire structure yet for some reason it can't destroy a vehicle. Now for my reworking idea. Phase 1: Remove the T.O.W launchers and turn this area into a free for all between black ops, soldiers, and Xenians. The Gargantua shows up later to crash the party forcing you to flee. This will lead into the area where the Garg is climbing up the walls trying to get after you, in which the player overloads the pressure on the pipes and knocks the creature into the water. The Gargantua is out of the picture for the time being but shows up again later to confront the player directly. This final phase of the battle should have no gimmicks or overly scripted scenes, just a large arena with plenty of explosive ammo so the player can fight it. I think having the player fight and kill the garg themselves will have way more impact than some scripted event. Also if you decide to go with my suggestion here you may have to significantly rework the map layouts during this section.

@-Qwertyus
I managed to successfully implement the op4 entities into the fgd but I don't know the properties of the newest entities added to xashxt (spawnflags etc) so I can't add them in, is there an rmf somewhere with these entities included?

It's been edited a bit in this mod and the sprite has been scaled down. The original version of the overlord was almost the size of a cyberdemon and had about the same health.