Thursday, January 21st 1999
What is ROKS?
ROKS is a source port death match MOD. It was created by myself, Marc A. Pullen, started on Sunday, 1/10/1999, and ended on Sunday, 1/24/99 (two weeks). I spent about 4-8 hours a day on it, so I got a lot done really fast. It was inspired by the incredible new source ports, such as BOOM, ZDOOM, and specifically, DOOM Legacy, as well as GothicDM 1 and 2, and Gothic98. Not to mention my irritation with editing Unreal and Quake 2. It was quite nice to relax with DOOM, get creative, and not have to fight with engine bugs. This is by far the finest map I have ever made. I am quote proud of the entire project. The only bad aspect of ROKS is that is only has one map. I may add maps at a later date, time permitting, but anyone else that wants to create maps for ROKS, can! The theme is a gothic style, sort of an old military war base, large complex indoor areas and a huge outdoor area to give combat a lot of variety in one map, and it's still big enough to handle 10 or more players at once.
Requirements
You must have one of the source ports installed for ROKS to work, due to the extreme amount of linedefs, verticies, and VISPLANE counts. Regular DOOM 2 will crash to DOS with a "VISPLANE OVERFLOW" error. So you need to have: -DOOM 2 version 1.9, upgrades to 1.9 are available at: http://www.idsoftware.com/archives/doomii.html -DOOM Legacy source port, available at: http://www.frag.com/doomlegacy You should be able to modify ROKS.BAT (using DOS's EDIT or Windows Notepad) to work with whatever source port you prefer (check the docs that came with the source port you use for setup instructions). All you need to include is: -roks\roks.deh -roks\roks_gfx.wad -roks\roks_snd.wad -roks\roks_map.wad
Details
ROKS MAP01 currently has: -10 DM starts -ambient sounds on skill 1 -extra ammo and health on skill 1/2 and 3 -less ammo and health on skill 4/5 (competition mode) -one chainsaw -4 shotguns -3 super shotguns -3 enhanced chainguns -2 enhanced rocket launchers -1 flame thrower -1 napalm land mine launcher -various armour and health pickups (green and blue armour, potions and helmets) -1 invisibility powerup -2573 NODES -6101 SEGS -2574 SSECTORS -3982 VERTICES -heights of left and right subtrees = (15,15) -map goes from (-4768,-3832) to (3056,2544) It's a big bastard. -new sounds -new intro, inter, and map01 music -2 new and severeal enhanced DOOM 2 weapons
Editing
To use the special stuff in ROKS, you only need to be aware of a few items: -use the flaming barrel (thing 128) for ambient looping water drips -use the SS Nazi (thing 24) for ambient looping wind -use the plasma rifle for the flame thrower -use the BFG for the napalm land mine launcher When placing the ambient sounds, only set them to exist on skill 1/2, and make sure you don't put too many in view at once, or else it will flood the sound channels, and you won't hear combat sounds. I usually set them against a wall, and set them to view where the player will be, set it to DEAF so it only makes sound when the player is in view. This will help free up the sound channels. Experiment, you'll get the hang of it. The napalm land mine launcher uses 20 units of fuel per shot. The flame thrower uses 1 per shot, and both have 100 max capacity. They are limited distance weapons, and it's essential the player uses MLOOK (looking up and down) when firing to get the maximum distance out of it. The napalm land mines do 2 points of impact damage, cause it's just a piece of metal hitting the player. The explosion occurs about 10 seconds after it's hits something (you'll hear a "clink" sound when it starts timing down), and damage varies basd on how high the celing is in the area it explodes. The higher the room, the weaker the damage. Also, be sure to keep sectors under 512 units tall, or else the explosions will not stop, and could eventually crash the game to DOS. Warp to DOOM 2 map 15 and use it there to see what I mean. The flame thrower is really deadly. It does 10 points of impact damage per shot, and then does radius damage about a half second after impact. But, it can also be deadly for the person firing it, due to it's limited range. It's easy to knock yourself out. this is an excellent weapon for using while running backwards. The shotguns are unchanged, except that they can hold 60 shells max. The chaingun now fires like a *chaingun*, and the pistol is actually useful. They both can hold 400 bullets max. You'll need them. the chaingun is the weapon of choice for large areas (instant impact). The rocket launcher fires faster, has a new twist on the explosion, and the rocket travels much faster.