Abstraction Pack 3.8a

This update for Abstraction Pack brings some script changes and other small modifications for the sake of other map packs which use the Altermap Framework and general netgame stability.

Spoiler: Patch Notes

• General:
  • The early Altermap script has been updated to a modern version which is compatible with other map packs that use the modern version of the script. Any map pack which uses an old (<1.2) version of Altermaps will break Abstraction Pack's Implementation!
  • Flesh Eden's SOC has been entirely moved over to the Lua script.
  • A lot of Windy Valley's whirligigs have been rewritten, hopefully to imporve netgame stability.
  • The torado exit in Windy Valley now uses a specialized timer/teleport. This should force you on the right track if something unexpected happens.
  • This pack now uses object skins to free up thing slots along with Lua. Run this pack before Jam Jar if you run it and add this SOC to your server script or load this as a .soc after Jam Jar. This is to ensure that Egg Reverence still has it's odd Eggman decals and that this (and other packs which use object skins work properly).

Spoiler: Egg Reverence SOC

Level MP​

LevelName = Egg Reverence​

Music = EGGREV​

SubTitle = Grape Jam R6​

TypeOfLevel = Race​

NumLaps = 3​

SkyNum = 3669​

NextLevel = 545​

lua.spawnskin = MT_BUSH,SPR_EGRV,D,MT_BERRYBUSH,SPR_EGRV,C,MT_GFZFLOWER3,SPR_EGRV,G,MT_PLANT2,SPR_EGRV,B​

lua.objectskin = MT_RANDOMITEM,spawnstate,S_EGGMANITEM1,MT_GFZFLOWER2,spawnstate,S_EGGFLOWER,MT_BSZFISH,spawnstate,S_EGGSIGN​

​

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• Thing type 2221, the lit lamp post has been removed. SI-HT still uses this thing,however.
• Thing type 2270, the Malicious Metropolis Roaming Shadow has been removed and reworked to be a modification of the the base Roaming Shadow.
• Thing type 2220, the huge invisible bubbler has been removed.
• Thing types 3341 and 3344 which were flesh paradise plants have been removed. Several states related to them have been freed up as well.

A combination of life, procrastination, perfectionism needed for a "Final Update", and agonizing over modernizing Windy Valley textures has put me in a soft hiatus of sorts. I still appreciate the feedback and bug reports. Hopefully I can make a supposed V4 all it is expected to be. In the meantime have some previews what might appear in V4, whenever the time comes.

It's been over a year since my last update! While this is not a big finale, I hope that you find this update enjoyable.

This update introduces the last map to Abstraction Pack's standard line up, Hysterical Trinket (MAPZI) (name subject to change). SS91 Miracle Lancer was reintroduced along with an early rework of the paradiseillusion script. General fixes are also included in this update.
Make sure to update the Level Headers for Windy Valley and Flesh Paradise in external scripts for proper operation of this update.

Spoiler: Change Log:

Spoiler: General:

• Introduced Hysterical Trinket (MAPZI) as the third and final map of the Ascension Cup. I have no intention of making new cups for this pack right now, but there may be something lurking in the distance.
• Introduced SS91 Miracle Lancer from SI-HT to Abstraction Pack as a bonus map. The map slot is the same and some death planes were added.
  • Egg Reverence is recent enough and has an odd bug which I don't currently know how to fix which is why it is not included. Pale Shrine is a bit too dated to be added.
• Due to changes in Map Hell chances the following changes have been made:
  • Cosmic Rift Classic is no longer a Hell map. It is rebranded as an Abstraction Pack Bonus map. It is not an intentionally bad stage but rather a look into what Cosmic Rift was. Some servers removed the stage from Map Hell on their own, further justifying my decision.
  • Flesh Eden remains in hell, but now there's an alternate route to facing off against the boss.
• AbstractReduction has gotten an update to include all maps of the map pack. It unhides some maps which were previously hidden by the script and hides others. The maps which remain I feel have potential in the future. This does not mean all maps which were not hidden by this script will make it to future versions of the game, however.
  • All maps except: Evaluation Summit, Windy Valley, Empty Sanctum, Bio Satellite, SS91 Miracle Lancer, Cosmic Rift, Sublime Bastion, Motherlode Canyon, Forbidden Monolith, Hysterical Trinket, Malicious Metropolis, and Flesh Paradise are hidden by this script.
• Level load linedef executors were replaced in several maps to hopefully increase netgame stability. The maps affected were: Flesh Paradise/Eden, and Motherlode Canyon.
• Paradiseillusion has been turned into a generic Altermap Script for alternate texturing of maps in a more robust way.
  • The script changes has allowed Windy Valley to get a texture swap in encore instead of a palette and Hysterical Trinket becomes brighter in encore mode. The operation of paradiseillusion should not have changed with this script.

Spoiler: Stargazer Cup

• Overgrown Castle:
  • Made the stone u-turn at the start and the cave section way more forgiving.
• Empty Sanctum:
  • Thrown objects now behave as expected when thrown up stairs.
• Cosmic Rift:
  • The shortcut is dead in record attack. Long live the speed runners.
  • Fixed an illusive bug after the first meteorite where you would end up soft-locked if you touched an invisible starpost rather than colliding with the checkpoint sector.

Spoiler: Dreamweaver Cup:

• Ethereal Crystal:
  • The skybox is now correctly aligned in OpenGL and Software.

Spoiler: Ascencion Cup:

• Windy Valley:
  • Fixed a very chaotic set of sectors in the first lap which caused OpenGL to have massive frame drops. General optimizations and sky culling was also added.
  • Added a relative teleport to the transition from the tornado to the sky. This should reduce improperly flying out of the tornado, going too far after the tornado, and getting horrifically smacked down when leaving the tornado.
  • Removed the encore palette and replaced with the lap 1/2 getting Autodemo textures and the Autodemo section getting modern textures.
• Forbidden Monolith:
  • The arrows now flicker a lot less in Software mode.
  • Added downwards wind in the big crystal tunnel for speed mod support.
  • Fully walled off the skull wall after the big crystal.
• Flesh Maps:
  • Added a generic lua.nonewflp level header parameter to prevent infinite paradise from affecting a map. This could be used externally if so desired.
  • Signs are now full bright in Flesh Eden.
  • The Flesh Eden Hud changes should have better interaction with other mods now.

Welcome to 3.7a part 2, it's been a while. It will be some time before I can make a major update so I wanted to get these critical fixes out of the way for now.

Windy Valley

• The performance heavily optimized; the paper sprite fans were dragging performance down. Special thanks to Ashnal for helping me with this.
• Removed physics on the wavy road in the Autodemo Section.
• Resolved a thing conflict with Excitebike Arena.

Forbidden Monolith and Cosmic Rift Classic received minor fixes.
Flesh Eden

• Remembered to remove the old SOC which was causing issues. Hopefully the Lua will actually make the stage playable in multiplayer.
• Spoiler

  Infinite Flesh Paradise was introduced in 3.7. It is a mode representative of the bad ending which gives EVERY stage a Flesh Paradise skin. Lose to the boss for a sample or use infiniteparadise 1 for unlimited meat. Special thanks to Altiami for letting me use their GFZROCK.pk3 linedef blacklist for my similar project.

  

This is a small patch to resolve Flesh Eden not ending the stage on failure and removing several of the whirligigs from Windy Valley to greatly improve performance.

This update introduces a multitude of general changes, an upgrade to lua, a new stage and stability revisions for Flesh Eden. KL_AbsP-ParadiseIllusion-v1 is no longer needed.

Spoiler: Changelog

General

• This level pack now uses lua due to the requirements of Windy Valley and patching Flesh Eden.
• It uses customtracks.dat to preserve RA compatibility. This gamedata is shared with other level packs.
• Record attack ghosts for Cosmic Rift, Empty Sanctum, Motherlode Canyon, and Sublime Bastion have been temporarily removed.
• Previous versions of Abstraction Pack are now archived offsite.
• The external Paradise Illusion script is now redundant. Please remove it from your server wads if you use it. Alternate thumbnails are in Misc/Flesh Paradise of the pk3. You are still free to reuse or modify the internal Trueparadise.lua for other purposes.
• This level pack now natively supports Daytona Kart. Thanks to LunarRay for letting me use their work.

Empty Sanctum:

• Bridged the spring corkscrew.
• Greatly widened the cave U-Turn.
• Changed the sky number to prevent conflicts with Weapons Hangar. Pale Shrine is the only other stage to use this sky and it has not been forgotten about.

Bio Satellite:

• Fixed OpenGL rendering error with a laser at the start of the map.
• Adjusted the first shortcut to not launch a player as high in the air.

Cosmic Rift:

• Patched an exploit.
• The shortcut is dead, long live the shortcut.

Sublime Bastion:

• The fading effect is now lua based, which greatly reduces the FOFs in the stage and hopefully resolves some midgame sync errors.
• Widened the straightaway after the first jump.

Motherlode Canyon:

• The stage now occupies MAPZN.
• Fixed a node building error.

Evaluation Summit:

• Fixed some checkpoint errors.
• Made the second sneaker panel an invisible FOF to prevent driving over it.
• Made the forested area a death pit.

Malicious Metropolis:

• Random Shadows have been dummied and their effects are now sector based. Hopefully this prevents random explosions in the map.
• Made the first jump slightly less extreme.

Flesh Paradise:

• Paradise Illusion has more parameters:
  • 2/Never: The alternate mode never exists. This is the default.
  • 3/Always: The alternate mode is the only one.
  • 1/On or 0/Off can no longer be played in encore mode due to issues with removing the encore palette for the stage. The alternate form will load in normal mode if encore is set.

Flesh Eden:

• The boss was reworked in lua to (hopefully) resolve crashing issues. Please let me know if the stage still crashes on dedicated servers.
• There is now a health bar to indicate HP left, time before a path opens/how long it will remain open, and time until failure.
• Lightning shields now autodetonate near the core. Manual detonation has a slightly higher range, however.
• Picking up an orb with a lightning shield will now detonate it. Picking up a lightning shield with a hyuudoro will give who the invisibility effect.
• Missiles will automatically crash down at the edge of the arena.
• You will no longer respawn over despawned roads with kmp_respawn enabled. Credit to JugadorXEI for letting me use their script.

Cosmic Rift Classic

• Added FoFs under the road to prevent thrown objects from phasing through them.