[Release] Cherenkov Station

[Supertanker]

Cross-posted from Duke4.net

Cherenkov Station: a space station!

Continuing my second-to-last map, FOS Station, Duke Nukem must
travel through an abandoned, alien-infested Russian space station,
activating the slumbering nuclear reactor deep in the bowels of the station and fighting his way to
a showdown in the docking bay!

I put a lot of effort into making this less of a generic E2 map and more of a conceptually grand,
mechanical, gritty space station with more emphasis on atmosphere and (later on) nonlinearity...but see for yourself!

Screenshots:














Download: http://muse.thegovernment.net/cherenkov.zip
CGS Download / Review

(Reviewers: please upload your own copies of the screenshots and map download!)

Requires Atomic Edition. Will work with classic and polymost. Will work with Polymer. Will work with HRP.

But the last two will probably make your computer slag in the catwalk room. Sorry--I couldn't test it much with Poylmer because my system won't handle it very well. I got mixed responses on performance in the catwalk room due to various users' systems.

Note that Micky C and I have been working on our maps and decided to release them at the same time as some of the first maps of 2012! Keep an eye out for his excellent city level, Parkade, which should be out in the next hour or so!

[Puritan]

Awesome!
Will play it tonight 

[Loke]

Played through it on LR, took me 17 minutes. Loved it! Found one secret but missed the last one, darn it. Atmosphere was great and I liked how you went with your own style instead of the generic 3DR-styled space stations. Great shading and texture work as well though I especially liked the sprite-based walk bridge.

[Puritan]

Finished it.
A very nice space level. The style reminds me a little bit of what Fernando pulled off back in the days.
@Supertanker: The reactor.....reactor it is 


We'll of course host this map here very soon.

[James]

Just finished it, good stuff! I really enjoyed the atmosphere you created, and you've done a nice job making a spacestation without retreading E2's grounds.

The combat-less section you made at the start was interesting, and retreading the facility AFTER you've turned on the power is always a good way to make retreading familiar grounds fun. Plus the reactor actually did feel like a big Nuclear reactor rather than just an abstract collection of sectors like many other reactors. Gameplay was fun as well, although more ammo for the bigger guns would of been nice (I missed a secret though, so maybe there was some more)

[MikeNorvak]

I played the map, it took me 19 min, and I found 1 secret only. It has a fine and neat design, nice shading and shadowing, is surprising how fresh the same old textures look on this level, specially on a space map. The open component gives the station some breathing, and even though there's that gray color on everything it doesn't feel repetitive, thanks to all the trimwork and diffent color complements. I really enjoyed it. Great work!

[Supertanker]

Just finished it, good stuff! I really enjoyed the atmosphere you created, and you've done a nice job making a spacestation without retreading E2's grounds.

The combat-less section you made at the start was interesting, and retreading the facility AFTER you've turned on the power is always a good way to make retreading familiar grounds fun. Plus the reactor actually did feel like a big Nuclear reactor rather than just an abstract collection of sectors like many other reactors. Gameplay was fun as well, although more ammo for the bigger guns would of been nice (I missed a secret though, so maybe there was some more)

There wasn't much in the other secret area (mostly health). Now that I think about it, more shrinker ammo would've been fun, as well as devastator, but it seems to play okay as it is. I'll keep that in mind for my next map.

I figured that reactors like Chernobyl are really really absurdly big in real life (3 stories, I think?) so I tried to make it feel like it was a massive power generation device. The only thing I would've liked to do was make it take longer to "warm up" but I think that would've taken away too much from gameplay. It makes me very happy that I managed not to make Yet Another High Tech Space Station (YAHTSS) map.

I played the map, it took me 19 min, and I found 1 secret only. It has a fine and neat design, nice shading and shadowing, is surprising how fresh the same old textures look on this level, specially on a space map. The open component gives the station some breathing, and even though there's that gray color on everything it doesn't feel repetitive, thanks to all the trimwork and diffent color complements. I really enjoyed it. Great work!

Thanks! I worked very hard on texturing this map.

[Forge]

Played it and found it an enjoyable alien slaughter fest. Nothing too complicated about the layout. Those are some of the nicest space station corridors I've seen. I think some of the larger rooms could have used stronger shading (like in the corridors), they seemed a bit washed out.

[Supertanker]

Some of the larger rooms I left with relatively simple shading (although it didn't look too washed out here--do you fiddle with your ambient light settings or gamma?) because at the time I was worried about having walls remaining. By the time the map was through I was tired with fiddling, heh.

Incidentally, the reactor room itself really makes me mad, because SE8s (what I used for the flickering powerup fx) flattens all shade values, which doesn't make it look that nice. Ah well...

Thanks for playing!

[Forge]

Some of the larger rooms I left with relatively simple shading (although it didn't look too washed out here--do you fiddle with your ambient light settings or gamma?)...

nope, but maybe I'm just being nit-picky.

It's a pretty fun map and I enjoyed splatting the baddies

[Supertanker]

Might be my monitor. Eh, It'll be something to work on with my next map. I've been fiddling with composing music for the map all day even though I haven't even laid down a single sector or drawn any maps yet.

[Forge]

I've been fiddling with composing music for the map all day even though I haven't even laid down a single sector or drawn any maps yet.

music can be just as good inspiration for mapping as a story or a real life location

[Micky C]

What's your next mapping project going to be about?

[Supertanker]

A city. That's all I'm saying.

The song, though, is coming along great. I don't know what inspired me to write it, but it sounds pretty kickass imho but with a touch of oldschool retro weirdness. I like video game music :3

[Micky C]

Well good luck, trying to make a large realistic city by today's standards (if that's what you're going for) would be a lot of work. But I'll look forward to playing it when it eventually comes out.