14.10.99

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Title                   : Mel Soaring 2: Star Rancor
BSP Name                : alk03.bsp
Author                  : Shaun Ross aka [Kona]
Release Date            : October 1999
Email Address           : alkali@ihug.co.nz
Home Page               : http://render-seed.cjb.net
			  
Map Description         : Control intergalactic villain Mel Soaring take down an 
			  alien palace - built on a small asteroid floating through space!
			  
Storyline               : You've been living on the Strogg planet named Meeylark for a number of 
			  years since you took it over. There aren't many Strogg left on it - you	
			  wiped most of them out when you took over the main base where the
			  leader lived. Since then you have defended your planet along with 
			  a number of Iron Maiden, who surprisingly took your side in 
			  defending the planet.
			  "Mel, you better take a look at this," requests Keldar, as she stares 
			  into a computer monitor. 
			  "Our radars have detected an alien structure. It has been built on an
			  asteroid and is floating toward us.
			  It's definitely not another Strogg ship, but I have no idea what race 
			  has built this structure, or if they still live on it."
			  "So, Mel, what do you think we should do?" asks another Iron Maiden
			  listening next to you.
			  "Obviously, we'll have to go check it out," you respond. "Maybe I 
			  can take over another alien world," you gleefully announce.
			  
			  Typically, you can only go alone. An Iron Maiden is not strong enough,
			  they would not last long if this structure were full of Strogg - 
			  and there are not many of them left on Meeylark anyway.
		          Also, there doesn't appear to be any place for a ship to land on this
			  asteriod, so you will have to be dropped off on the edge.
			  From there you can explore this alien structure and report back 
			  if there are any lifeforms on the asteroid. 
			  Not before too long you are all packed and ready to start your new 
			  mission.
			  
			  As you fly towards the asteroid in one of your Strogg ships, you are
			  reminded of a long time ago, when you were flying towards Meeylark -
			  all alone and ready to take over a small planet ruled by the Strogg.
			  This time you'll face a new deadly species - the Xen...

Other maps by Author	: Mel Soaring - Hear Me Roar (Quake2)
			   	The first of Mel's adventures, where he took over the Stroggos 
				palace on Meeylark.
			  Mid 98 - The Alkado Adventure (Quake)
			   	Episode of seven new levels, new textures, skins, weapons 
			   	and all new sounds and was featured in 'The Quake Bible' cover 
				CD (by PC Powerplay).
			  Good Things Come To Good People
			  Royal Sacrifice
			   	A couple of very short unreleased Doom2 levels made in 1998.

Other Info		: ** Read the storyline before playing this level, or you might get bored
			  at one stage... **

			  Some of you Q2 level designers should check out Half-Life editing - I
			  found it to be quite different to Quake/Q2.
			  Mel Soaring 3 (yes i've already started it) will be the more 
			  traditional Half-Life style - humans and base... 
			  Next I will somehow move the story into Daikatana, then perhaps Fakk2 
			  or one of the 3D Realms games (Prey, Max Payne, Duke Forever) and not 
			  to be forgotten - Half-Life 2. 
			  I'd love to do Q3A or UT but it depends if bots are fun enough...
			  
			  I think the things which let my last level down have been cured here - 
			  not so difficult, not so many different textures (mainly because the
			  half-life textures were boring), the story in the text file carries 
			  on into game, there is no backtracking (thus not such a good
			  layout) and it mostly flows with the same theme.
			  It's all still quite cramped though, which is how I like levels - so
			  you better be quick with the trigger as there's nowhere to run! :P
			  I believe making the fights more cramped makes it scarier.

			  This level actually has five levels (so you could call it an episode)
			  but each level has no more than five rooms and since all are 
			  flowing into each other it's really supposed to be just one big level
			  but cut up to make it run quick. One thing you may notice, though, is
		 	  that each small level takes on a different theme to the other. Eg. The
			  first is the palace on the asteroid surface, the second is the tech 
			  stuff (pump and power generator), third is on the cliff/edge of the
			  asteroid - which is like the part in Valve's level 'Surface Tension'
			  (that part was the best in the game). The fourth level is kind of a 
			  mix between the palace and the tech, the fourth is Xen style!

			  R_speeds can get a little bad - on the first level wpoly gets up to 600
			  which is ALMOST too high. However it is a detailed first level. Also
			  on the third map epoly gets quite high too, although never above 10k.
			  Unfortunately, epoly is quite high for most of the level, but that is 
			  that price you have to pay when you have alot of aliens!
			  BTW - no humans in this level, hopefully a good change from the usual
			  SP levels.

			  If you play this map you are required by law to email me and tell me 
			  what you think so I can do better next time.

Additional Thanks to    : Ben Morris for Worldcraft, ID Software for Quake, 
			  Rust for their great tutorials
			  Jiang, Brian (Buddy) and 
			  Eoghan O Neill for final testing - thanks guys!
================================================================

* Play Information *

Game                    : Half-Life
Single Player           : Yes
Cooperative Play        : No
Deathmatch Play         : No
Difficulty Settings     : Yes

* Installation *

Unzip all files into your .../half-life/valve directory  
If there is pak1.pak file already, then rename my file to other number. For example,
pak2.pak or higher, or removie or rename your file to random number and my
file leave the same.
Run Half-life with the following parameters: hl.exe +skill 2 +map alk03a
Or you can just start Half-Life then type "map alk03a" (without quotes) at the console.
Skill you can choose as you want:  
+skill 1 - easy 
+skill 2 - normal 
+skill 3 - difficult 


* MAP Information *
(before refinements from playtesting)

			  Alk03a  Alk03b   Alk03c    Alk03d	Alk03e		Total
Solids			: 485	  295	   242	     506	326		1854
Faces			: 2845	  1809	   1416	     2869	1902		10841
PointEntities		: 97	  79	   56	     109	45		386
SolidEntities		: 29	  19	   10	     23		11		92

* Construction *

Base                    : From Scratch
Construction/BuildTime  : Started 30.09.99
			  Level	    Construction    Size	Qcsg	Qbsp2	Vis	Qrad

			  Alk03a    3 days/20 hrs   732k	10	11	291	142
			  Alk03b    2 days/15 hrs   452k	6	11	1651	44
			  Alk03c    1 day /6  hrs   506k	7	22	429	53
			  Alk03d    2 days/15 hrs   491k	9	10	100	61
			  Alk03e    1 day /7  hrs   490k	8	8	255	34
			  Total	    9 days/75 hrs   2.67mb	40	62	2726	334		
			  Adding Monsters, Items - several hrs


Compile machine         : P3 450mhz, 128mb RAM, Riva TNT2
Editor used             : Worldcraft 2.0
Known Bugs              : Hmm, none. The end would of been better, but I couldn't get the
			  end level entity to work with trigger_relay. So instead you actually
			  walk to the cave opening, rather than it ending with the last monster
			  dieing.
			  Oh here's a proper bug - func_breakable is lighter than everything else
			  so you kinda know what is gonna happen in the fourth level while the
			  camera is moving around.
			  Oh and another bug, for some reason there are two controllers on the 
			  first map that seem to be picky whether they should appear or not. 
			  Sometimes both appear, sometimes just one or none!

         		  You may note that these are all Valve's bugs, which couldn't help but
			  go in my level :\


* Copyright / Permissions *

You may NOT use this level, or anything in it, to build additional levels.
You may distribute this BSP in any electronic format (BBS, Internet,
PC/Game Mag cover-CD, etc) but you MUST inform me before you do this.