================================================================
Title			: Pleiades
Filename		: Pleiades.wad; Pleiades.zip
Author			: Roger Ritenour
Emale Address		: ritenour@rlc.net

Story Line		: You are on a deep space mission when the
			  alien invasion at Phobos occurs. The
			  Starship Pleiades that is to retrieve
			  you does eventually arrive, but it too
			  has fallen to the aliens. Your first
			  challenge is to take control of the
			  Pleiades. From there, you fly her back
			  to the Solar System where you will face
			  a series of adventures against the aliens
			  of the Phobos Invasion.  
Description		: 11 Level quest for the ZDoom Port, v1.18b
			  or later (will run on earlier versions,
			  but some features used in Pleiades are
			  not supported by them).
Directions for running	: Pleiades is a patch wad and is run with
			  ZDoom using an IWAD file. The IWAD file
			  can be Doom2, Plutonia, or TNT. (Note:
			  if you have a functioning installation of 
			  ZDoom with anything but the shareware DoomI 
			  game, the IWAD requirement has already 
			  been met and nothing further is required 
			  to run Pleiades.) Unzip
			  Pleiades.zip and place Pleiades.wad into
			  a directory of your choice. To start 
			  ZDoom (from the directory you have ZDoom 
			  in), enter on the command line of the
			  MS-DOS prompt something like:

   zdoom -iwad c:\doom2\doom2.wad -file <path>pleiades.wad
			
			  If you run this with Plutonia or TNT,
			  the -iwad part of the command would be 
			  appropriately modified with the iwad's
			  filename and path. The <path> in the -file 
			  parameter is the location where you placed 
			  pleiades.wad. Note on screen resolutions: 
			  These levels have been optimized for speed
			  and run nearly as fast as the original 
			  Doom II levels. (Somewhat slower areas are
			  due to a couple of fairly long wide open 
			  views and complex structures using 2-side
			  lines with transparent textures not typical
			  in the original Doom II.) Generally, These
			  levels run well at one resolution step lower 
			  from the best resolution your computer runs
			  DoomII levels in; ie. if DoomII IWAD levels 
			  run well at 800 x 600 then you will see good 
			  performance of these levels at 640 x 480.
			  Satisfactory frame rates have been obtained
			  as follows:
				Pentium III, 600 MHz, (Home-build)
                                   (AGP video adapter) 1280 x 1024
				K6, 500 MHz, (Compaq Presario)
				   (PCI video adapter) 800 x 600
				Pentium MMX, 200 MHz, (Clone)
                                   (PCI video adapter) 640 x 480
				Pentium 133 MHz, (Clone)
                                   (PCI video adapter) 640 x 400
			        Less than 133 MHz, or any machine
				   running an ISA video adapter, 
                                   320 x 200
			  Note on delays in loading:
			  Wads with tall sky textures sometimes
			  require extra time for loading, especially
			  on older, slower machines. If 
			  the startup screen for ZDoom appears to 
			  lock up, give it at least 30 seconds for
			  the loading process to complete before 
			  concluding that your computer has locked
			  up.

Multiplayer:	
			  For network play (cooperative and DM), 
			  using the command line under Windows DOS 
			  prompt or LINUX:

   zdoom -iwad c:\doom2\doom2.wad -file <path>pleiades.wad -net <number> [other machine 1] [other machine 2]... (-deathmatch)

			  <number> is your player number (1 through 8)
			  with each player having a unique number.
			  [other machine n] are other machines 
			  in the network, this can be either a host
			  name or IP address. The last item, -deathmatch
			  is inserted for DM play (the default is
                          cooperative)

Additional Credits	: Paul Flechette, Beta tester.
			  Derek Clemenze, Beta tester, Deathmatch
			  (only here I could beat him since I 
			  designed the maps)
			  Doug Ryerson, I borrowed a few of his
			  textures from his ANTARES.WAD. Dave
			  Swift, I borrowed his idea of shiny gold
			  surfaces for a door textures from
			  his H2HMUD01.WAD level. 
			  Pink Floyd, Shine On You 
			  Crazy Diamond music selection. ID 
			  Software, I redefined their COMPSTA1 and
			  COMPTALL textures as animated textures
			  to produce "living" instrument panels.
			  Also, a couple of the sounds were 
			  borrowed from Quake and Quake II.
			  Jim Flynn/Return, Tree Sprite and the 
			  opening music for solitude, Kanon.
			  Midi.net Music resource for many of the
			  musics in Pleiades. (Ride of the Valkyries,
                          Tubular Bells, Mars)
			  Michael Coyne, source for the music, Jupiter

* Play Information *

Episode and Level #	: Map01 through Map11
Single Player		: Yes
Cooperative Player	: Yes (untested)
Deathmatch		: Yes Map02, Map03, Map04, Map05 and Map10 
			  are layed out for DM, other maps have the
			  DM positions but for a variety of reasons,
			  are not tuned for DM.			  
Difficulty Settings	: Yes, full range (all difficulty levels
			  a little tougher than standard Doom 
			  difficulties, suggest starting
			  at the easier levels until familiar
			  with the layout. One special note:
			  one of the things that really distinguishes
			  the ultra-violence, is the scarcity of 
			  of ammo and health. You will have to
			  think your way through and aim carefully;
			  charging in with weapons blazing, will
			  result in running out of ammo with 
			  many monsters left alive; But it is 
			  possible to dispatch all the monsters
			  with the ammo available.
New Sounds		: Yes, many ambient and sequence sounds using 
			  ZDoom's new sounds capability.
New Graphics		: Many Textures, Flats, Sprites, 8 new 
			  skies that are full-tall for ZDoom,
			  and Title Screens.	
New Music		: Yes
Demos Replaced		: None
ZDoom/Boom specials     : Yes; water, sludge, colormaps, varying
			  gravity, episode flow under control of the
			  mapinfo lump, sound sequences, ambient
			  sounds, water current, animations 
			  definition lump, and flat scrolling.
			  (although there is not a single conveyer
			  belt in the whole wad.)
Notes on Conversion	: Even though this Wad uses a lot of custom
			  resources, an effort has been made to 
			  conform to and enhance the classic Doom
			  story rather than to create something
			  entirely new and unfamiliar. The story
			  builds on the original Doom story.

*Construction *

Base			: Based on the Pleiades and Phobos series by
			  the same author originally created for 
			  Doom II. There are several totally new
			  levels included, and the original Doom II
			  version levels are significantly reworked 
			  with new features to exploit the 
			  advantages of the ZDoom/Boom ports.

Editors/Tools used: 

	WAD Builders:	  Wintex/Deutex, O. Montanuy
			  Patcher, Jim Flynn 
			  (Wintex used in original Doom II levels, 
			  Patcher used in ZDOOM version)
 
	Level Editors:	  WinDEU32 5.23, R. Paquay, R Quinet, B. Wyber
				(still my tool of choice when it comes to 
				close and detailed vertex placement, and DEU
				does not choke on ZDOOM/BOOM specials even 
				though it cannot add them.)
			  DETH 4.16b, J. Burden, S. Oke plus 
				other contributors, (used primarily to 
				create the ZDOOM/BOOM specials)
			  ZETH (a variation of DETH adapted for ZDoom,
				used primarily to reverse engineer the
				ZDOOM demo levels)
			  Waded, M. Ayres (used in some of the original 
				Doom II versions) 
			  DOOMED  (used for Doom II version of Starcity) 
			(Multiple level editors used throughout 
			history of development)

	Node Builders:	  BSP 1.2, Colin Reed (generally used in Doom II
						versions)
			  NBLD 1.0, Jim Flynn (Used in final release) 
			  WARM11, Robert Fenske (used in history of 
						development
			  RMB, Jens Hykkelbjerg (reject map builder)
			  (Multiple node builders used in development,
			  In the final version, the maps are compiled 
			  under Nbld)

	Graphics Tools	  Corel Photopaint 6 and 8
			  CorelDraw 6 and 8
	Sound Editing Tools: Syntrillium Cooledit 96, full registered
			  version: Used for creation of many ambient
			  and sound sequence wave files. Plus
			  a portable tape recorder and a lot 
			  improvisations to create some of the
			  custom sounds.

Known Bugs		: Running ZDoom version 1.18b can be 
			  problematic. The game can crash back to 
			  Windows with a page fault error
			  or a Visual C++ runtime error. 
			  This appears to be prevalent when ZDoom
			  has run consectively through several
			  levels. Recommend saving at the 
			  completion of each level just prior 
			  to exiting and proceeding. Also, on each
			  save, recommend alternating between at
			  least 2 game-save slots because if ZDoom
			  crashes during the save, that particular
			  save may be corrupted. Exits of the game
			  and restart with loading the saved game also
			  seems to help in reducing the occurences of
			  crashes. This problem
			  appears to be pecular to just version
			  1.18b and not to earlier versions; 
			  but unfortunately, Pleiades uses some 
			  features not supported by earlier versions.
			  

* Copyright / Permissions *

You MAY use this episode as a base to build additional levels
You MAY modify these levels. If you do, please drop me a line, I 
would like to see what you come up with. You MAY distribute this
this WAD in any electronic format provided you include this
information file unmodified. If you use portions of this wad
in other wads, all I ask is that credit be given to the
originator, whether it is me or someone from whom I borrowed from.

