Zandronum

Updated the translation patches to include the Security Officer. Took FAR more effort than it should have. (SO many sprites...... O.o)

http://files.drdteam.org/index.php/file ... hes-v3.zip

Possible Characters
*katarn from dark forces (or a storm trooper)
*caleb from Blood
*Lo Wang from Shadow worrior
*Redneck Rampage
*Rise of The Triad
*(Shatner's) Tekwar
*Powerslave
*Witchhaven
*NAM
(these used the BUILD engine)
and so on and so on......Food for thought.

-Gibs *on*

Hi! Played some CTF and cooperative gaming, the mod is great, even though some characters feel like being weak compared with others :

I'm talking specially about the Security Officer, which in my opinion is the weakest of all characters, though I also think he just has the best Slot 2 weapon and Megasphere bonus (300 health and armor just makes him a tank) available in the whole mod. I never used weapon 3, at it seems like it deals very poor damage. Weapon 5 is a very dangerous to use, the animation when the player pulls off or withdraws that rocket launcher is incredibly slow, also for the reload. I have not tested the Flamethrower nor the Wave Motion Cannon so I should not talk about those. The Alien Weapon is very good. Also, with Marathon Gravity, he has the best mobility on the map. With High Jump rune it looks like you will never reach the floor again :P

Another thing that I really dislike about Officer (though this was in original Marathon, I know it's pointless but I'd like to talk about it), is the fire and smoke effects. They are horribly dull and makes very hard to see anything coming through that slow-moving cloud coming out of the rocket. The fire is dull but is smaller, I can live with it.

I have not tried Corvus very much, his damage output is kind of unstable and I suck with him, very hard. The Item management that he and Parias share makes their playing more strategic than just pushing forward and grabbing every item until you're back to full ammo/health/armor.

Parias is a total killing machine, both CTF and cooperative. On CTF playing, specially on small corridors which most maps have, he's lethal. Simply. Just get the frost shards or the Retribution Hammer and the killing-fest is assured. On cooperative, the Serpent Staff drains health off enemies very fast but almost useless to do with guys stronger than a Pinkie Demon or Invasion mode. The backpack item gives too much ammunition. I think he runs faster and jumps higher than everyone but Officer, who jumps a bit higher than Parias with Marathon Gravity on.

B.J. is in my opinion the most unbalanced character. He does not have a proper Slot 3 weapon, his Slot 2 is the worst Slot 2 of the mod, but this is compensated with an incredibly powerful Slot 4 and 5 weapons. In fact, i think that having his Rocket Launcher pierce is powerful, though looks like their explosion radius is very small, also the fact that he does not self damage with it. The chaingun itself is a problem, runs dry of ammo really fast but tears players appart ridicolously fast with almost perfect accuracy. Did not try too much Weapons 6 and 7. In CTF, if he manages to pick up Extra Life, you better be in the same team he is, or you'll be in a big problem.

Duke is a very nice character, when I first played with him I thought he sucked very hard, but now I find him to be overpowered in CTF. The damage he can do with RPG and Explosive Shotgun is extremely high, and the Pipebombs can set very good traps for careless players. Freezethrower is a the most unreliable Slot 6 weapon, I avoid using it every time I can, it's really bad. In cooperative he's not able for careless players, he is the easiest guy to suicide with.

For last, Chexter looks like a cookie-armor wearing Doomguy. He's really dangerous, though his Slot 3 weapon is not good for Cooperative, but kicks ass in CTF. His Rocket Launcher is very powerful, you can circlestrafe enemies without caring about self damage, as he can't Zorch himself. Overall... He's very similar to Doomguy.

EDIT : I just forgot to tell... Single player difficulty texts for Corvus don't show properly, for example, the easiest level "Thou needeth a wet-nurse", it's display misses some text. I don't know if it's my screen resolution (1600x900) or it's another thing.

MarkuzESP wrote: Duke is a very nice character, when I first played with him I thought he sucked very hard, but now I find him to be overpowered in CTF. The damage he can do with RPG and Explosive Shotgun is extremely high, and the Pipebombs can set very good traps for careless players. Freezethrower is a the most unreliable Slot 6 weapon, I avoid using it every time I can, it's really bad. In cooperative he's not able for careless players, he is the easiest guy to suicide with.

I'm just gonna say that the Freezethrower is much more powerful than the RPG in just about any gamemode that halls rooms that are medium-to-small size, especially in a CTF situation where you can basically block off entire rooms as death-traps.

His Explosive Shotgun is basically the same as the SSG only that he has to be close enough to almost kill himself with it, and he takes more damage from enemies too, that's why he puts out more (this makes him terrible at flag running but amazing at MID.)

MarkuzESP wrote: B.J. is in my opinion the most unbalanced character. He does not have a proper Slot 3 weapon, his Slot 2 is the worst Slot 2 of the mod, but this is compensated with an incredibly powerful Slot 4 and 5 weapons. In fact, i think that having his Rocket Launcher pierce is powerful, though looks like their explosion radius is very small, also the fact that he does not self damage with it. The chaingun itself is a problem, runs dry of ammo really fast but tears players appart ridicolously fast with almost perfect accuracy. Did not try too much Weapons 6 and 7. In CTF, if he manages to pick up Extra Life, you better be in the same team he is, or you'll be in a big problem.

As someone who plays BJ a lot (rarely do I switch away from him), I can kind of agree with what you said. The machine gun isn't as bad as you think. True it may not deal a bunch of damage, but it has perfect accuracy and if you can keep your bead on the target, down it will go in no time flat.

The chaingun is my weapon of choice with BJ though since I agree with the points you brought up with it.

The rocket launcher is really powerful, but at the same time can be worse than the machine gun. The machine gun is hitscan, but the rocket launcher isn't. Most of the time when you blast someone with the rocket launcher they will die though. My thoughts on the rocket launcher? Very good but it's something that you have to either have a lucky shot or be good with it.

The flamethrower is pretty good, but it feels like a slower plasma rifle with more damaging projectiles.

The Spear of Destiny is probably the second best room clearing weapon in Samsara (behind the Wave Motion Cannon), but one thing that does make it really dangerous to use is that its a close to mid range weapon. But firing this in a tight area can prove pretty darned hilarious.

The extra life is what can save BJ. Since he has a higher potential to miss, it only seems fair that he gets something to save him. But I have also exploited the extra life in CTF by capturing the enemy flag and allowing myself to take enough damage for it to activate. Since the extra life teleported me to one of my team's spawn points, I was able to score easily.

Wow, that's a pretty detailed write-up, Markuz! I appreciate it, thanks--that sort of input is pretty vital for data.

I've been frowning quite a bit at Parias and Corvus as of late, as Parias' damage potential at mid-range is obscene. The Frost Shards and Hammer are definitely the culprits, as the Hammer can even go through armor and the shards can effectively deny an entire area with how much spread they've got. Corvus, on the other hand, hasn't been able to get to use Utility role in DM games as well as I'd wanted--since in DM you can die right away as soon as you spawn, waiting to get the Morph Ovum, Tome of Power, and etc to really shine simply isn't an option.

But hey, in the meantime, have something I've been experimenting with.

[spoiler]
Why, yes please, I would love to have a bulletspitter. I'm a fine, upstanding member of the community.


I'm pretty sure this is not how you're supposed to play Strife.


Still the greatest line of dialogue in any FPS.[/spoiler]

Now THAT looks promising......

Definitely excited for the update that has that in it!

Does that mean we get to play Strife Co-op soon? :P

I was going to suggest Jon from Exhumed and Lo Wang from Shadow Warrior. I spoke about it on a server and they said to maybe suggest it on the forums. Great mod so far. EDIT: Seems it's already been suggested. Sorry about that.

That spoiler looks really good, Terminus. :)

Does that mean we get to play Strife Co-op soon? :P

Oh God. The possibilities make my head reel.

Strife co-op is broken in so many ways already. I'm sure Samsara would break it even further.
But, well, nothing wrong with trying, I suppose!

zdude wrote: Does that mean we get to play Strife Co-op soon? :P

Ha.
Hahahahahahahahahahah.
To fix Co-op in strife you would literally have to write a whole set of ACS that distributed the correct keys, and dialogue, as well as replacing the dialogue of almost every questgiver in the game.

Llewellyn wrote:

zdude wrote: Does that mean we get to play Strife Co-op soon? :P

Ha.
Hahahahahahahahahahah.
To fix Co-op in strife you would literally have to write a whole set of ACS that distributed the correct keys, and dialogue, as well as replacing the dialogue of almost every questgiver in the game.

Doesn't sound all that impossible. Surely, at one point where Zandronum has fully caught up with Zdoom, maybe because of boredom the developers will decide to do it!

Not that it matters, Samsara works efficiently as is with other games.

I thought someone was working on Strife co-op.

Strife, Strife... and Strife... but why there is no Strife Guy in Samsara? inb4 someone has asked that question before but... why? :<

As far as I know, the main issue is balance; Strifeguy's weapons are very destructive.

The Toxic Avenger wrote: As far as I know, the main issue is balance; Strifeguy's weapons are very destructive.

They are and they aren't...
Strifeguy's weapons are VERY close range, at medium range you'll be lucky to get a good shot off with the plasma cannon thing, and your only weapon at long range would be the Assault Gun or Sigil (depending on which variant.)
I also reproduced several of the weapons from scratch, so they could be easily modified to buff/nerf at whatever needed to be done. I have already externalized the resources, so all he really needs to do is add the weapons to the decorate spawners (which takes a significant chunk of time) and add things like bot chat and menu options for the player class.

Besides all that, TerminusEst13 wanted to finalize a "balanced" build in which he makes all the characters more or less balanced in their abilities to make the wad more open competitively. Other changed that I can remember that still need to be made is the Chexguy's SSG slot replacement.

I say that strife guy is still balanceable. Not the easiest task, but not impossible as well. Also, the close-rangeness of the weapon depends on your accuracy rank - at max, you are quite able to hit anything with anything. Still, no is a no. If extreme cases of wanting strife guy in, you can learn to DECORATE and craft a user attachment to Samsara that will add Strifeguy. Like I'm doing with Caleb. Slowly. Painfully.

Qent, as far as my knowlege goes, nobody is working on Strife Coop. There were ideas to do so, but I did not see any advancement beyond that.
Ivan, actually doing strife coop is sure far from impossible. But finding a guy who has the skill, and, most importantly, time, will and patience to do so? A whole different story.

last day i were playing in a CTF server with Samsara and shit doode, is very easy to kill with everybody, specially with parias(aka cleric), i managed to get the highest frags score in my team, and i do that very rarely