"Shrapnel City 2096: Trapped In The Future!" (Duke Nukem 3D user map) file

Hi Chris and thanks for playing, I'm glad you like the level. Yes the level is likely to crash mostly around the first minutes of the map because it's just about too loaded with sprites but then the odds diminish as the player kills the first enemies/collects a few items. Interesting to hear it happened in Flood Zone though which is pretty far into the progression already, didn't expect that. Might optimize sprite count a little at some point later down the line.

Flood Zone part really relies on optimal scuba gear use, it's probably the only really demanding part of the map, thankfully it's big but pretty short once figured out. Whether or not the player has found the secret scuba like you did already sets a big precedent, otherwise the idea is the player has to rely on nothing but the numerous Atomic Healths and Portable Medkits around, and also remember about resurfacing to cross large distances until they find the one you found on the Terminator 2 truck. The TV in the central apartment is a security screen pointing to it if they first miss it, and then there are two extra scubas in the rest of that part. One of them is revealed by a poorly hidden switch under the stairs in the very next hallway (it's in plain sight after going down the stairs if you turn back), and another one is available on the 'dry' office floor with the central elevator to the rooftop if Duke interacts with the Duke 3D Flood Zone loading screen on the PC. But in the midst of all of that the player should find a moment to visit the crane.

Thank you for playing and giving feedback. Cheers!

Nah, I think he could in a flash... The true question is, now that he has realized the near-infinity of dimensions at his disposal - all complete with their respective ratio of ***** to kick - will he ever choose to come back?

Almost ironically, only time will tell us - once Duke decides.

It's already happening (the N.U.K.U.M.'s that appear from Zarathustra on are alternate versions of Duke Nukem), but the original timeline isn't looking good at the end of Blast Radius anyway. Technically saved humanity there and then, but Earth is still gone and it's unknown how much of what Duke is experiencing really is happening anyway. Maybe he didn't even survive the original skycar crash in Sunset Suicide, maybe he did exactly thanks to his nature of a video game character. Whatever is the case, whenever the game is going, he has to keep advancing also exactly because he is Duke Nukem. Just a master of his design now, and is all the more unstoppable that he trusts reloading more than ever.

Alright, I didn't realize things could get that extreme since the crashes stopped happening to me personally, but I guess is because I spontaneously follow the ideal route or has to do with gameplay style. There probably is a number of sprites I can cut from certain places around the map which hopefully would suffice to alleviate the problem. Will try as soon as the next update. In the meantime, the route that's always stable for me is going down the first road (to the clinic) killing monsters/grabbing items on the way, reaching the road should trigger an explosion which will unload a considerable bulk of sprites. Then I basically keep progressively cleaning out the streets and subway entrance before getting inside the sushi place, things should be fairly stable by then. Exploding too many trashcans at once also might generate too much debris sprites for the early game to handle (but should be fine individually, or later). Sorry for the inconvenience, I'll be thinking about optimization. In its current form I'd say the map may be fragile for the first five minutes tops depending on the player's actions but stabilizes after that.

Ah if you were getting the sprite crashes trying to run this specific level with AA or any gameplay mod then it makes complete sense, technically this is a vanilla map so in theory is compatible with everything but not necessarily optimized for any derivation of the game that will draw a lot of extra sprites. The other maps will work fine because they still have a lot of leeway in sprite count but this one is so packed base Duke can just barely run it already (IIRC it's only a hundred sprites below the hard limit) so it's likely to run into difficulties with more thrown on top. What I'm thinking still is I might make a 'light' version sometime with some of the decoration and explosions cut and offer that as a separate download but I have no idea when that might be. Am also not sure that would even suffice to guarantee smooth compatibility with other mods that use sprites their own way anyway because due to its nature, this specific level is this loaded.

The issue can be alleviated but I'm afraid not to the point of being used with gameplay mods the code of which itself involves the drawing lots of extra sprites. AA uses/spawns way more sprites than base Duke 3D for gameplay purposes and so will most likely not run the map (or most largest Duke maps) without crashes until AA code gets lighter or a quarter of the level gets deleted, both of which are unlikely, even if the files technically are compatible, it's a Build engine thing and why Duke players shouldn't expect mod overlap support, Duke modding internals do not work like DooM, most ambitious projects usually are mutually exclusive due to hard limitations and different modders can only make so much work together by nature.