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Reactor Gamma
A Descent 3 Single Player Level by Solrazor
E-mail: kyouryuu@myway.com
Web: http://www.descent-3.com/solrazor
Release Date: January 11th, 2003
Version: 1.0
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SUMMARY
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Reactor Gamma is a single player mission for Descent 3.  The
CED has been closely monitoring an outbreak of the alien
transmode virus at a derelict PTMC fusion reactor.  Your
mission is to purge the reactor and destroy the facility
to stop the infection from spreading.

Fully compatible with the Cooperative multiplayer mode.

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STORY
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Thirty kilometers west of Tokyo, Japan, there exists a derelict
fusion plant known as Reactor Gamma.  After the Post-Terran
Minerals Corporation was dismantled, the facility was abandoned
since the Collective Earth Defense had no interest in keeping it
active.

However, for the past few hours, the CED has been monitoring
suspicious activity here.  The reactor was mysteriously brought
back on-line and we fear that the alien transmode virus may be
responsible.  Intelligence reports have concluded that rogue robot
activity is present.

We are dispatching you onboard the Asagiri, a retrofitted PTMC
cargo ship.  This should allow us to approach Reactor Gamma without
being attacked.  Your mission is to destroy the facility.

The best method of accomplishing this would be a meltdown of the
Reactor core.  This would create a systemwide malfunction that
would vaporize the complex and all of the infected robots therein.

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OBJECTIVES
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A self-destruct sequence must be initiated to completely destroy
all traces of the alien transmode virus.

	GAIN ACCESS TO THE LOWER CORRIDORS
		- Unlock the western generator
		- Shut down the western generator
		- Unlock the eastern generator
		- Shut down the eastern generator

	DESTROY THE REACTOR CORE
		- Disable the Reactor core locks
		- Infiltrate the Reactor core area

	ESCAPE REACTOR GAMMA

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KNOWN BUGS
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- On my ATI Radeon 9700 Pro, the fog effect post-detonation looks
very strange, especially in the tower room.  The effect is even
more odd when the fog changes color in the ending sequences.  I
considered this to be a video card issue rather than a game issue.

- On my SB Live! sound card, the "Self Destruct Sequence
Activated" and subsequent GBEuphora sound effect are not always
heard when the Reactor is detonated.  Increasing the sound quantity
setting in the Sound options menu, from the title screen, seems to
help remedy the problem but does not provide a consistent fix.
My belief is that it has to do with the quantity of sound effects
that are being heard at that particular point.  If the Reactor room
is fairly clear of robots, the sound effects are almost always
heard.  Because the scripting for these sound effects is the same
as in my previous mission, Centroid, I believe it is a hardware
issue and not a software issue.

- In the briefing, some images don't blend in with the background
properly.

- In a Co-op game, sometimes the camera viewpoint that focuses
on the defensive forcefield points in some other direction.

- Also in a Co-op game, the Entry Door opens at the beginning then
closes.  Even though there is no opening cutscene, all of the
events carry out as if one existed.  In order to prevent players
from existing through the open door early on, I put an invisible
forcefield in front of it for the duration of time that the door
is open.

- There is a GAM file for this mission that contains the custom
sounds.  If you save and reload, you may not hear them due to
a bug in version 1.4.  If this should happen, please load Reactor
Gamma from the New Game menu and then use Alt-F3 to load the
saved game.

- The level is not Macintosh or Linux compatible.  However, I left
the CPP and related files in the MN3, so if you want to take the
initiative to compile them yourself, be my guest.

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LEVEL STATISTICS
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108 rooms, 1 external
17,910 faces
21,773 vertices
150 portals
342 polygon objects
15 doors
6 energy centers

4 custom sound effects by Cougar
Event-driven soundtrack based on "UD-8" by Cougar

MN3 file size: 15.9 megs

Approximate time taken: 80 hours

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HISTORY
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Some folks might wonder how Reactor Gamma was built so quickly.
In reality, there was a lot of planning involved before D3Edit
was ever opened.  I think the initial seeds for Reactor Gamma
were planted back in September of 2002.  I had resisted working
them because of college and schoolwork, but they sat in my head
and fermented nonetheless.

The plan was always to go in and destroy the Reactor.  The means
of achieving this varied over time.  As some point, the east and
west generators were dubbed cooling systems.  The central junction
room, the one where the robots are first encountered, changed designs
three times.  The cutscenes took far too long to design, so much
so that I had to inject some humor into one of them.

But, you know, if you are working at the rate I was, you fall
into a state of trance.  The level's structural creation represented
about half of the challenge.  The other stuff - goal setting, scripting,
briefings, sound effects, music regions - gets outright overwhelming
sometimes.  But when you see the light at the end of the tunnel, you
can't help but reach for it.  And despite throwing dozens of hours of
your time into it, the sweet return of twenty minutes of unhindered
gameplay somehow makes it all worthwhile - that and knowing others
will have the chance to enjoy it as well.

The scripting would have been very difficult had I not bundled the
original CPP file in my previous single player effort, the Centroid
Military Base.  That uncovered a lot of things I had forgotten over
time.  For that reason, I have left the CPP in this level so it may
save me later.  At the very least, it might help you if a scripted
level is in your future.  I wish I had more of these to go by, but
unfortunately not too many leave them in the MN3.

I don't necessarily promise any more levels like this in the future.
I'll just have to see what happens.

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OTHER LEVELS BY SOLRAZOR
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You can find my other levels at my website:
http://www.descent-3.com/solrazor

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KUDOS
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As with any large level project, there are several people I want
to extend my thanks to.  In particular:

- Cougar
For designing the soundtrack and segmenting it so that it would
work with Descent 3's event-driven music

- Hawkeye3
In various posts to the DescentBB, he illuminated some of the more
obscure facets of the editor.  Also, he gave me some DALLAS scripting
help.

The author would also like to thank and give kudos to:
- Narfig_Agar
- Robo
- Gwar
- OtherOne
- Nirvana
- Shoku
- Luke Schneider
- Lars Christensen
- Dark Wolf
- Lex
- Wolf on Air
- Stealth and the rest of the Descent 2 Revival pilots
- Topher, Stinger, Heiko, and the rest of the Descent Network Team
- The #D3Coop channel on irc.shadowfire.org
- PlanetDescent, GameEdit, Levels4You, et al
- All D3Edit and DALLAS tutorial authors
- All of those Shoutcast radio stations who gave me music to listen to

Peace,
Solrazor