NOTE: BLACK HOLE SUN IS NOT A NORMAL DEATHMATCH MAP. PLEASE READ THESE INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY TO MAKE SURE YOU SET-UP THE MAP CORRECTLY.

** INTRODUCTION **

Title			: Black Hole Sun.
Date			: 26th May 2000.
Filename		: Gustavo23_BHS.bsp
Filesize		: 3.1mb, or thereabouts.
Author			: Keved, my Half-Life alias is Gustavo.
Home Page		: http://www.planethalflife.com/gustavo
Email Address 1		: gustavo@planethalflife.com
Email Address 2		: keved@keved.force9.co.uk
Email Address 3		: keved@btinternet.com
ICQ			: 10393836 (auth required).

ABOUT THE MAP/ME:
Black Hole Sun is my 23rd FPS map (and 2nd for 'proper' Half-Life Teamplay).

Previous maps...
01. Penitentiary		(HL deathmatch, released 5-March-1999).
02. Maximillian			(HL teamplay/deathmatch, 15-May-1999).
03. Maximal			(TFC, 8-July-1999).
04. Mad Bucking Fastards	(HL deathmatch, 27-July-1999).
05. Talos			(HL deathmatch, 3-August-1999).
06. C4				(Action HL, 16-September-1999).
07. TNT				(HL deathmatch, 23-October-1999).
08. Orbital			(TFC, 31-December-1999).
09. Jaw Breaker			(HL deathmatch, 20-January-2000).
10. Corps68			(TFC, 26-January-2000).
11. The Bone Collector		(HL deathmatch, 2-February-2000).
12. Jaw Operation		(OP4 deathmatch, 2-February-2000).
13. The Jaw Action		(Action HL, 2-February-2000).
14. Bone Action			(Action HL, 4-February-2000).
15. Bone Operation		(OP4 deathmatch, 4-February-2000).
16. Eliminator Jnr		(HL deathmatch/teamplay, 19-February-2000).
17. Nostromo			(TFC, 24-February-2000).
18. Eliminator AHL		(Action HL, 26-February-2000).
19. Eliminator OP4		(OP4 deathmatch, 4-March-2000).
20. Sulaco			(HL teamplay, 8-March-2000).
21. Total Annihilation		(HL deathmatch/teamplay, 11-April-2000).
22. Burning Hate		(HL deathmatch, 9-May-2000).

Who am I? I'm 25 yrs old, English, & currently work for an Architectural Practice in NW England.

CREDITS TO:
1) Valve/Sierra/id.
2) The Zoner compiling tools version 2.06. Black Hole Sun was compiled with these superb modified compiling tools, via a batch file. sean@dimensionalrift.com. Keep up the good work, Sean.
3) Aliens versus Predator, by Fox Interactive/Rebellion, which is one of my fav games. If you like the visual theme here in Black Hole Sun, perhaps it will persuade you to buy AvP (or AvP Gold) if you haven't already done so, as lots of AvP textures have been used (without permission).
4) Mighty Pete for the custom skybox "Mercury". http://www.geocities.com/petes-oasis
5) The playtesters. LAN: HotRod, Stevie, Jon, Mr.Fixxer, GretZeL, JeffTheMeff. Online: Taco (taco@fuckyou.co.uk), Big_Marv, CSZ, EggSpam. Much obliged folks.
6) Records, for salvation from radio/tv hell.



** PLAY INFORMATION **

DESCRIPTION:
Black Hole Sun; a Half-Life deathmatch teamplay Assault-based map set on a volcanic planetoid in a solar system dominated by a huge Sun. The attacking team must infiltrate a futuristic base carved into a mountainside, once inside disable steel doors protecting vital computer equipment, and ultimately smash up the computers themselves. The defenders must do everything in their power to stop the attackers.

SINGLE PLAYER:
Just to familiarise yourself.

DEATHMATCH SOLO:
NO! Black Hole Sun is NOT a free-for-all deathmatch map. I can't emphasise that enough; BLACK HOLE SUN IS NOT A FFA DM MAP. Whilst you can play Black Hole Sun without "teamplay" enabled, the 32 respawn points are grouped into 2 areas, so clearly not ideal for FFA DM. Please do NOT play or judge this map as an FFA DM map.

DEATHMATCH TEAMPLAY:
YES! Black Hole Sun is one of the VERY few maps that make use of the "game_" entities that allow greater teamplay functionality (such as team spawning areas and team goals & scoring). Lots of deathmatch maps may claim to have a teamplay element, but do not have a set goal, just everyone running around in packs hunting each other down. Black Hole Sun DOES have an actual goal and rudimentary teamplay elements, such as team spawning locations & team scoring. 6+ players PER TEAM recommended. 16 respawn points per team are included. Bots are not ideal - they don't understand what they're supposed to do (ie attack OR defend).

HOW TO PLAY:
Those who have played Unreal Tournament will be familiar with the gametype here in Black Hole Sun. One team ATTACKS, the other team DEFENDS. I think it's best at this point to describe the role of each team.

The ATTACKERS...your goal is to infiltrate the base and proceed to smash up the computers (located at the far end of the base) as many times as possible. You receive 2 frags per computer smashed, which contribute to the score of your team. Smashed computers "reset" after 5 seconds, so if the defenders are not quick enough in reaching & killing you, it is possible to repeatedly smash the computers several times over. It is not that easy though; the computers are housed inside a room with a locked door. You must activate a button elsewhere in the map ("blue door control") which disables the doors for TWO MINUTES. Also, when you press this button, your APC opens giving access to 4 teleports which can be used for quick access to the very centre of the base. After this 2 minute period, all doors then close automatically and anyone still inside the computer room gets killed. Unfair maybe to kill someone right after they have achieved the goal, but if you have survived for 2 minutes smashing up the computers, you'll have gained 50+ frags for yourself and your team, maybe as much as 100!

The DEFENDERS...your goal is purely to stop the attackers. No more, no less. Until the attackers have reached right into your base, you have the better choices of weapons so set up your defences wherever you want. Your respawn room features 6 teleports to enable you to quickly reach wherever you want to defend. If you try to press the button that disables the door guarding the computers, nothing happens. Only the attackers can disable the door. When an attacker does disable the door, it stays open for 2 minutes then automatically closes. If you hear the siren, get to your computer room and defend like crazy!

As far as I know, it is not possible to automatically swap the teams over after a goal has been reached, like is possible in Unreal Tournament. So, if for example you want to play a clan match with the teams alternating between defending & attacking the base, it's up to you to set a time limit, record the score each round (via a screendump), and then for everyone to manually change teams next round.

INFORMATION:
There is no Gauss present for the simple reason that attackers could fire at the computers through the glass, obviously defeating the purpose of having a door barrier to disable.

The attackers starting position (beside the APC) is elevated to stop any respawn camping. With the map not having a Gauss, the defenders simply cannot get up to the APC.

I don't apologise for the map being dark in places. I fully intended to have a dark atmospheric feeling, keeping in line with the Alien movies/books. Turn your own gamma setting up if you feel the need, and/or activate flashlights.

Running speed is one element I'm particularly pleased with in Black Hole Sun. Take a look around the map with r_speeds enabled. I can't remember wpoly rising above 550 *anywhere* in the map, despite all the visual detailing and some large cavernous areas. One word of warning though...if you have an old video card (circa Voodoo1) you may experience framerate problems due to having inadequate texture memory; Black Hole Sun uses 3mb of textures. The vast majority of OpenGL/D3D users should have no problems at all though, and none of the playtesters had any problems, but I thought I would mention it. 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. I tested in software mode on my old P2-300 w/4mb Ati card, and found no fps problems. 8OÞ

Hope you like Black Hole Sun. 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!!



** INSTRUCTIONS **

Extract the files manually into the following.

Gustavo23_BHS.bsp into ...\\valve\maps

ALL of the "mercury_" files into ...\\valve\gfx\env

And of course keep this text file. 8¬)

Now choose to start a LAN game, choose "Gustavo23_BHS.bsp", and click advanced options. IMPORTANT: MAKE SURE THE 'TEAMPLAY' BOX IS TICKED. If you do not enable teamplay, all team functionality will not be available thus reducing Black Hole Sun to standard free-for-all deathmatch rules, and as described above, Black Hole Sun is NOT ideal as a ffa deathmatch map. Due to the darkness of the map, you may also want to enable flashlights. Also, depending on your preferences, alter the models you want to use for the two teams (ie robo;zombie instead of hgrunt;scientist). Note that you cannot have more than two teams, but you are free to choose whatever models you want. Now start the game, and by default new players join the team with fewest players (ie the first player to enter will join team 1, the second player onto team 2, third to team 1, etc). Lastly, make sure you're familiar with the goals in Black Hole Sun, which are described elsewhere in this text file (the "HOW TO PLAY" section).



** CONSTRUCTION **

Base                    : Based on Gustavo8_Orbital.bsp, with a *massive* facelift. Take a look at Orbital if you want (download via my website) and the differences are massive, certainly in terms of the visuals and also layout (Orbital is CTF with 2 identical bases).
Editor(s) used          : Worldcraft v2.1
Custom textures		: Yes, around 2 dozen used without permission from one of my fav games Aliens vs Predator. A couple from Quake 3 Arena. Great material. Apologies for ripping.
Custom sounds		: No.
Known Bugs              : I've stretched some textures, so decals may be out-of-shape/size in places. For info, all light fixtures are func_illusionary's. Don't be surprised by being able to jump through light fixtures.
Build Time              : A total of ~40 hours spread over 6 weeks.
Compile Time		: ~15 minutes.
Build & compile machine	: Athlon 650mhz, Asus K7M motherboard, 256mb PC100 ram, 32mb Matrox G400 Max, Windows98, etc.
Compile settings	: (via a batch file) Nothing special, apart from Zoner's hlrad using the switches -chop 128 -scale 1.25 -gamma 0.45, and Zoner's hlcsg adding my custom wads into the bsp.

MAP INFO:
Rmf size		: 3860kb
Solids			: 1723
Faces			: 10178
Point Entities		: 599
Solid Entities		: 268
Successive revisions	: 22



** PERMISSIONS **

Do NOT put this zip, or any of the files contained within, on any sort of commercial product or compilation unless you have permission from myself beforehand. You MAY distribute this zip file through any other means, providing it is unaltered and is free of charge. Do NOT modify this BSP in any way, either for commercial or non-commercial purposes.

You have yerself a nice day, y'hear?

--
Gustavo.