** INTRODUCTION **

Title			: Nostromo.
Date			: 24th February 2000.
Filename		: Gustavo17_Nostromo.bsp
Filesize		: 5.3mb, or thereabouts.
Author			: Keved, my Half-Life alias is Gustavo.
Email Address		: keved@keved.force9.co.uk, or keved@hotmail.com as a last resort.
ICQ			: 10393836 (auth required).
Home Page		: http://www.keved.force9.co.uk

ABOUT THE MAP/ME:
Nostromo is my 17th FPS map (and 4th for Team Fortress Classic). All are available on my web site.

Previous maps...
01. Penitentiary (Half-Life deathmatch, released 5-March-1999).
02. Maximillian (Half-Life teamplay primarily/also deathmatch, released 15-May-1999).
03. Maximal (Team Fortress Classic territorial domination, released 8-July-1999).
04. Mad Bucking Fastards (Half-Life deathmatch, released 27-July-1999).
05. Talos (Half-Life deathmatch, released 3-August-1999).
06. C4 (Action Half-Life, released 16-September-1999).
07. TNT (Half-Life deathmatch, released 23-October-1999).
08. Orbital (Team Fortress Classic CTF, released 31-December-1999).
09. Jaw Breaker (Half-Life deathmatch, released 20-January-2000).
10. Corps68 (Team Fortress Classic CTF, released 26-January-2000).
11. The Bone Collector (Half-Life deathmatch, released 2-February-2000).
12. Jaw Operation (Opposing Force deathmatch, released 2-February-2000).
13. The Jaw Action (Action Half-Life, released 2-February-2000).
14. Bone Action (Action Half-Life, released 4-February-2000).
15. Bone Operation (Opposing Force deathmatch, released 4-February-2000).
16. Eliminator Jnr (Half-Life deathmatch/also teamplay, released 19-February-2000).

Who am I? I'm 24 yrs old, English, & currently work for an Architectural Practice in NW England.

CREDITS TO:
1) Valve/Sierra/id.
2) The Zoner compiling tools version 1.41. Nostromo was compiled with these superb modified compiling tools, via a batch file. sean@dimensionalrift.com. Keep up the good work, Sean.
3) The original movie, Alien, and novelisation written by Alan Dean Foster.
4) Records, for salvation from radio/tv hell.



** PLAY INFORMATION **

SINGLE PLAYER:
Just to familiarise yourself.

MULTIPLAYER:
12-32 players. 16 respawn points per team are included.

DESCRIPTION:
Inhabitants of the Nostromo, a huge tug spacecraft ferrying millions of litres of oil back to Earth, were awakened from hypersleep early. Passing by an unexplored planet called Archeron, the signal from a beacon had been picked up, looping continuously, in an unknown language but seemingly calling for help. Company policy meant investigating all such events, with the now awakened crew departing for Archeron's surface knowing a bonus paycheque would soon be theirs.

Later developments proved that the beacon was in fact a warning; a warning to all passing spacecraft to stay away. For the crew of the Nostromo, the translation of the beacon's true meaning came too late. The source of the beacon had been a colossal spaceship, not of Earth origin, and containing a precious cargo; eggs. Unaware of the hidden danger, crew member Kain stirred movement inside an egg sack, one of thousands in the tropical heat of the striken spacecraft's interior. Leaping at him from an egg, a facehugger attached itself with an unbreakable grip to Kain's face, paralysing him near instantaneously. Naturally, their fallen friend was brought back to receive urgent medical treatment on board the Nostromo, but in bringing Kain back, the entire crew had unwittingly exposed themselves to complete terror. From the egg had come a facehugger, from Kain a Xenomorph - a living nightmare - which was now loose on board the Nostromo.

The Company, on hearing of the Xenomorph loose on the Nostromo, dispatched a crack team of Marines under orders to contain the Xenomorph and dispose of the Nostromo's crew if the Xenomorph hadn't already done so. Upon hearing the Marine shuttle arrive in docking station 3, the remainder of the Nostromo's crew arm themselves with what meagre weaponry was left available and enable the self-destruct sequence of the Nostromo, with a view to stop the retrieval of the Xenomorph back to homebase on Earth. After encountering the Xenomorph first-hand at the slaying of half of their numbers, they more than anyone know of its potential Scientific value to the Company as a means of developing devastating new Military weaponry, and the danger of widespread infection should the Xenomorph reach Planet Earth.

Marines objective: retrieve red keycards held by ship's crew to deactivate the self-destruct sequence. Only then can the hunt for the Xenomorph begin.
Ship's crew objective: retrieve blue keycards to reactivate the destruction of the Nostromo and blow the Company's prized possession, the Xenomorph, to smithereens.

PLAYING:
I don't apologise for the map being dark. When I originally planed Nostromo I fully intended to have a dark atmospheric feeling, keeping in line with the movie/book. Remember, whilst the battle between the Marines & ship's crew continues, the Xenomorph is still loose...where is it? Down the dark passageway in front of you? Above you in ducting? Behind you, creeping up? Get the picture of what I tried to accomplish with the dark setting? Turn your own gamma setting up if you feel the need.

Using the main entrance to the enemy base is likely to lead you into the heaviest defences, so huge diagonal lifts give an alternative way into the enemy base, and are located at the lowest point of the map. Not much point in me droning on about what they look like here as they aren't exactly easy to miss due to their size. Note that when attacking the enemy base you cannot simply slide down the lift shafts quickly, as the bottom houses electrical power generators, which kill you on contact. ie, To get down a lift shaft, you must use the lifts.

Each team has 2 operational vertical cargo lifts just prior to their own flag room. Engineers cannot build on them, but the likes of defensive snipers & soldiers can gain a big elevational advantage, and the enemy simply HAS to pass by this area to reach your flag.

R_speeds...despite the enormity of some of the areas, running speed is pretty respectable. I can't remember many (any?) points where FPS for OpenGL users will drop below 30. Software mode users must ask themselves why they've gone to the trouble of finding this map and are still playing FPS games without a 3D card! Still, any software mode users should be ok too. 8OÞ

Hope you like Nostromo. I'd appreciate feedback too...to my email address at the top of this text file. It's a major commitment putting in the time to design these damn maps, so I fully welcome any & all constructive encouragement / ideas / criticisms / praises. Job offers welcome too!!



** WHAT'S NEXT **

"SmashTV". A large deathmatch map that will feature four independent nukes (like my second map Maximillian). It will also have a strong teamplay element by being "King Of The Hill" in nature (a central bunker complex, surrounded by the 4 nuke-able zones).

I'm also thinking about venturing into HL single player mapping for the first time. Plenty of ideas, probably not enough free time, so I may just continue deathmatch mapping. I'd also like to have a go at Quake 3 mapping, but my cack Ati@Work 2D card refuses to be friends with Q3Radiant - I simply can't even load it never mind do any editing (arghhhh).



** INSTRUCTIONS **

Extract the files manually into the following.

Gustavo17_Nostromo.bsp and Gustavo17_Nostromo.txt into ...\\tfc\maps

And of course keep this text file. 8¬)



** CONSTRUCTION **

Base                    : Created from scratch.
Editor(s) used          : Worldcraft v2.1
Custom textures		: Yes. Around a dozen from the Aliens vs Predator PC game (without permission), a few more from a copyright-free image CD.
Custom sounds		: No.
Known Bugs              : Just that I've stretched some textures, so decals may be out-of-shape/size.
Build Time              : Started 4 months ago, though for the last 2 months Nostromo has been sitting pretty much in this current state, ready to release but not compiled. I actually had massive problems getting Vis to accept a map of this size (Vis.exe continually crashed upon finishing a full Vis). I've also been working other maps simultaneously.
Compile Time		: Around 3 hours, give or take, on my PII 300mhz w/224mb. Full vis, normal rad. Why the normal rad? The map is so large that an extra rad would have taken weeks to compile, literally. It took 3 days of 100% CPU usage to reach 30% (!!), so I had to give up and leave it at normal. Those playing will not notice the difference anyway between a normal and extra rad. Running speed is UNAFFECTED by a normal rad, the only difference is an extra rad gives smoother shadows, and since Nostromo is meant to look like a huge dirty tug, what the heck? 8O)

MAP INFO:
Rmf size		: 5440kb
Solids			: 2410
Faces			: 14380
Point Entities		: 497
Solid Entities		: 273
Successive revisions	: 30



** PERMISSIONS **

Email me if you'd like to have a look at the (6mb) rmf file for Nostromo. Zips down to ~250kb.

You have yerself a nice day, y'hear?

Oh btw, if you see me on a server, I *CANNOT* speak Spanish/Portuguese/Smack talk/whatever...just so I ain't assumed to be a Colombian drug baron like I have been a few times before (or corderoy wearing Uruguayian goat shepherd, that happened once). 8¬)

--
Gustavo.