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4 CHANGING THE BASIC MODES


4.1 MODE WINDOW BASICS

Each of the six basic elements has its own window and changes, like changing the texture on a side or the inner cube light, are carried out directly from these windows. Use the left mouse-button to apply changes to the current object and the right mouse-button to change any tagged objects and the current object.

The corresponding current object can be selected with the `<' and `>' buttons. The left mouse-button cycles backward or forward through the objects by number, the right mouse-button selects the first or the last object respectively. An object can be selected directly by entering its particular number in the field to the right of `<'. The current object can be tagged (and untagged again) using with the left mouse-button on the `Tag' push-button while the right mouse-button tags all objects of this type if none are tagged and untags them if at least one is tagged (the left mouse-button on `Tag' simulates the spacebar, the right mouse-button Shift+spacebar). The Tag-Filter can be used to select a particular group of objects to tag, see Section 7.3 about this.

`Insert' and `Delete' keys can be used in (almost) all of the basic modes. Their precise functionality differs according to which window is active (see the next section for more, for an exact description see Section 5).

You can switch between the individual element windows via the keyboard by using Ctrl+Initial-letter of the window-title (e.g., Ctrl-'c' for cube and Ctrl-'s' for side mode). These key-combinations also change the `Modify what' toggle at the same time. simultaneously

The `Enter' key simulates the left mouse-button on `Insert' and `Shift+Enter' the right mouse-button on `Insert'. The `Del' key simulates the left mouse-button on `Delete' and `Shift+Del' the right mouse-button on `Delete'.

4.2 THE CUBE WINDOW

The `Insert' push-button inserts the Group which is specified in the list labeled `Group:'. Clicking on this push-button brings up a pop-up list of all Groups currently in memory. To insert a single cube into your level, use `Insert' in the Side window (Section 4.3). Group insertion and deletion is discussed in more detail in Section 5.1

Clicking with the left mouse-button on `Delete' deletes the current Cube, the right mouse-button deletes all tagged Cubes. If a cube with a wall on a side is deleted, the wall is also deleted.

With `Type' you can select the cube-type. The following types are available:

* `Normal': Simply a completely normal cube. 99% of all cubes in Descent levels are of this type.

* `Fuel Center': Whenever you, as a player in Descent, find yourself within a cube of this type, your laser energy is recharged (to a maximum of 100 points). If you use such a type, you should insert Walls of type "Illusion"between the joined sides of the cubes and set the texture to the golden sparkles [misc17 (353) in Descent 2]) to indicate the effect to the Descent player, making your energy center look like it does in the standard Descent levels.

* `Reactor': There should only be one of this cube-type in a level and it should be the cube which contains the Reactor, otherwise the countdown at the end of the level will not work properly. When you declare an item to be a Reactor, Devil automatically changes the cube to reactor-type for you.

* `Producer': A materialization center for robots. Robots originate in these cubes and which robots originate can be specified under `produces'. The producer-cube is activated in Descent by the player passing through a special Wall (see Section 4.6 about these Switches) and, in most cases, produces three robots whose type Descent chooses arbitrarily from the list you specify. In general, each cube can be activated a maximum of three times, so that in total each cube produces up to 9 robots.

Translator's Note: Whilst the above may certainly be true for anarchy and multi-player games, the difficulty level chosen with solo games affects robot production as follows :-

Level

Activations
Number of Robots



TRAINEE
3
3
ROOKIE
3
4
HOTSHOT
3
5
ACE
3
6
INSANE - D1
3
6
INSANE - D2
Unlimited !
6

* `Blue/Red Goal': These cubes are for the `Capture the Flag' game in Descent 2. It is the cube which the Flag, with which you accumulate points, must be carried back into.

With `Inner light' you can specify the brightness inside the cube. This is different to the brightness with which the sides of the cubes are illuminated. `Inner light' determines how brightly lit robots (or other things) will be when they are inside this cube.

`Edge Light' specifies the average of the brightness of all the cube's edges. If you change this value, the edge light of all Edges of the cube is set to the new value.

4.2.1 CUBE COLORS.

In order to indicate their function and status, Cubes are given the following colors :-

Color

Indication
Comments
White
Normal

Yellow
Fuel Center

Light Red
Red Goal

Light Blue
Blue Goal

Brown
Producer

Purple
Reactor

Dark Blue
Tagged cube
Tagged status overrides all other color settings.
Gray Green
Current cube
Cube is also tagged
Green
Current cube
* Current side is indicated in purple, brown and yellow.

* Overrides other color settings excepting blue.

4.3 THE SIDE WINDOW

When `Insert' is pressed, a partition is inserted into the current side (if the right mouse-button is used, into all tagged sides), which means removing the Connection between two connected cubes. This is, naturally, only possible if there actually is a connection and if no Wall is already present in this connection. If there is no connection on the current side, another cube is inserted which originates from the current cube - the shape of the cube inserted depends on whether the left or right mouse-button was pressed, see Section 5.2.1.

`Delete' removes a partition from a cube, i.e. a second side is searched for in the proximity of the current (respectively the tagged) side(s) and, supposing one is found, the two sides are joined to each other.

`Default' determines how a side appears when Devil creates it via `Insert'. The side indicated in `Default' is duplicated during insertion. This side is also used as the default when Devil automatically inserts a side, as, for example, when creating a group from two joined Cubes but only one of the two is copied over.

`Locked' signals whether Devil is to automatically re-calculate the texture alignment when a point of the side is moved. If the button is pressed this does not happen. Sides which are locked are indicated with a brown tag-marker. Sides which are both tagged and locked are indicated with a purple tag marker.

Translators Note: You may want to lock a side that you have carefully adjusted. This allows you to change the shape of the accompanying cube without having to re-align the texture. Locking four sides of a cube will cause the whole cube to move when you try to move one side.

The `Adjust Light' option allows you to manually adjust the lighting effect for one light at a time with rendering mode on. See Section 7.2.3.1 for details.

The following buttons apply to selecting the texture for a Side: The four buttons `Top', `Up', `Down' and `List' on the left-hand side are used to select Texture-1 (i.e. the background texture) and the corresponding buttons on the right-hand side are used to select Texture-2 (i.e. the fore-ground texture, e.g. signs or monitors). The textures displayed will be wrapped at the end of the list, so to get to the bottom quickly, click on `Top' and then on `Up'. The window which is displayed when selecting `List' is explained in Section 4.3.1.

The texture displayed in the Side window is also a button; if you click on it another window appears, in which you can align the texture on the side. The usage of this window is explained in Section 6. Beneath this group of push-buttons you'll find both the name and number (in round brackets) of the textures; where a different name can be specified: Devil would then search for a corresponding texture in the alphabetically ordered list. If you enter a number in the round brackets (e.g. `(3)'), the texture with the number 3 is chosen overriding the text name specification. Note: Not all texture numbers are in use, e.g. there is no texture assigned to the number 2 in Descent 1. In such cases, Devil indicates `Unknown (nnn)' and no texture picture is displayed. Despite this, such levels are playable in Descent, but which texture will be displayed in Descent depends on the Descent version (normally a red cross on green background amongst others.).

Following this is the field `Turn Txt2'. Here you can specify how Texture-2 is to be aligned relative to Texture-1, in order, e.g., to correctly turn a sign.

The field `Edge light' indicates the average light of the edges of the current side; if a value is specified, the light of all edges of the current side are set to that value.

If Devil is configured for Descent 2 (V1.1 or higher), there are two additional fields ... `F.L. Timer' and `F.L. Mask'. These indicate whether and how the light that comes from this side should blink: In `F.L. Mask' you can specify up to 32 zeroes and ones, where a zero indicates light-off and a one indicates light-on. The on/off pattern indicated there is continuously repeated by Descent, every bit (each zero or one) stays that way for the duration indicated in the `F.L. Timer' (time in seconds) field. The whole thing naturally only makes sense if there is actually a light-source texture on the side, which generates light and if the level-lighting has been automatically calculated (see Section 7.2.3)

All the above controls (particularly those used to choose the textures) operate - as mentioned above - on all tagged sides and the current side if you select it using the right mouse-button, but only on the current if you select using the left.

4.3.1 THE TEXTURE-LIST

The window for the texture-list is opened when the `List' button in the `Side', `Thing' or `Wall' window is pressed. Each type of texture has its own window, i.e. there is a separate window for Texture-1, Texture-2, Thing Texture and for Wall Animation Texture. All texture lists function in this way. There are two modes (`List' and `Txt.') for the texture-list; whichever one is to be active, can be specified top-left. The normal mode, which is activated when the window is opened, is `Txt.'.

In `Txt.' mode, by choosing a texture, the corresponding texture in the level can be changed. The `/\' and `\/' buttons scroll the list up and down (left mouse-button only a little, right mouse-button a lot). You can change the displayed size of the textures using the `/1 /2 /4' zoom setting in order that more textures at a time can fit into the window without re-sizing it.

In addition, the following options can also be selected:

* `All': All textures that correspond to this type of texture are displayed.

* `Level': All textures of this type used in the level are displayed.

* `User': Load a user-defined texture list.

In `User' mode, a user-defined list can be displayed, in order that individual textures can be found quicker. The differences from `Txt.' mode are as follows:

* When a texture is selected, it is "tagged"(with a green frame) instead of chosen.

* There is a `New'-button, used to reset all tag-settings, a `Load' and `Save' button used to save a list and load it again (take note that the tag settings themselves are loaded in this mode whereas in `Txt.' mode, the list itself is loaded).

* Additionally a `Level' button exists, which tags all textures in the Level.

4.4 THE EDGE WINDOW

A peculiarity about Edges is that in order to achieve simple point selection, when the current Edge is changed, the current Point is automatically changed to one on the current Edge as well.

(You can still use `p' to get to an arbitrary point)

Using `Insert' in this window you can remove all connections which the current cube has with another cube which shares the same points. This makes it possible to move the points of the current cube without disturbing the other cube. See Section 5 for more about the reasons for this arrangement and why it is useful.

The `Light' field indicates how bright the texture on the edge of this side is to be (and together with the other three edges of this side - how bright the texture appears in total). The total Light value may exceed 100% as it carries the lighting from textures on both sides of the Edge. It is very laborious to set the overall light manually; normally you would use the automatic level-illumination function for this. (see Section 7.2.3). You should use the automatic level illumination any way, otherwise blinking lights will only function as shoot-out light-sources (only available in Descent 2)

The Fields `u-Co-ord.' and `v-Co-ord.' give the co-ordinates of these side in the texture-space. If you change them, you change the texture alignment on the side. (see Section 6).

4.5 THE POINT WINDOW

The `x-Pos.', `y-Pos.' and `z-Pos.' buttons specify the position of the current point. If they are changed the corresponding point will be shifted to its new position.

4.6 THE WALL WINDOW

Pressing `Insert' in this window will add a single or multiple Wall. The inserted wall is always a copy of the current Wall. A Wall can only be inserted between two existing, connected cubes which means that the current side must join two cubes with each other. An exception to this rule are Walls of the `Shootable Switch' type in Descent 2. These Wall types only appear on unconnected sides. Apart from this exception, a pair of Walls is always inserted ... one Wall for each of the two cubes. In the same way `Delete' always deletes the pair of corresponding Walls.

With `Wall-Type' you can specify the type of Wall. The type always changes both the adjoining walls. The following types are available:

* `Blow door': A wall which can only be opened by shooting it, e.g., the door to the hostage room in Descent 1, Level 1.

* `Normal Door': Simply a normal door which is opened by a laser-shot or a Switch. You can specify whether a key is required for the door, and if so, which one. You can also specify whether the door is to be opened at the end of the level (i.e., after blowing up the reactor). A maximum of 10 "open-at-end" doors are allowed.

* `Wall': The use of this type is to enable one cube to be seen from another through a grate amongst other things, but not to be able to reach it (e.g.: The grate to the reactor-room in Descent 1 Level 1). It follows that the player cannot fly through this Wall, but with the appropriate Texture-2 can see through it and shoot through it.

Check the color between the grate textures; if this color is purple it indicates that you can see through this area if it is used as Texture-2, whereas if used as Texture-1, it will simply be purple when on a Wall. A gray-brown color (the same as Empty (302) in Descent 2) indicates a see-through area meant to allow Texture-1 to be seen. If used on an unconnected side as Texture-1, Devil displays this area as purple in the rendered modes ... in Descent this area produces the strange Hall-Of-Mirrors effect.

* `Illusion': With this type you can make walls which have a texture but are otherwise permeable for everything else. A sensible application of this type is found in the energy-centers.

Translators Note: There are valid arguments against using 'Illusion' too often as the original intention of having it in Descent was to build the energy center sparkles and nothing else - but then it's all a matter of design style and the level being created.

It is preferable to avoiding any unnecessary "bumping along walls" to find hidden doors ... in a well-designed level you can hide things by focusing the attention of the player on something else, similar to what magicians do, and quite often you can find secret doors simply by their position in the level or by looking at the map where some grate has revealed the existence of a hidden section and the approximate way to find the entry to it. Consider changing the shading slightly on secret door textures to give the player a chance.

* `Only Switch': This type causes the wall to be invisible and not block shots. Such walls only make sense when combined with switch functions.

* `Shootable Switch': Only in Descent 2. You create a switch with a Wall of this type and a shootable Texture-2, which is activated by shooting it.

* `Cloaked Wall': Only in Descent 2. Used to create an impermeable "smoked-glass" wall. The lower the transparency value specified, the "darker" the wall is.

With certain of the Wall-types various other fields are also present:

* `Flags': Up to three independently selectable options:

- `Locked': The door is locked.

Translators Note: The "lock" flag takes precedence over the key requirement for a door when both are specified, in that a door which has been unlocked by a switch no longer requires the key specified, e.g.: You specify that a door needs a blue key and is also locked. If you try to open it you will get the message "blue access denied". If you get the blue key and try to open the door, you will get a message "you cannot open this door" until you also unlock the door. If you unlock the door BEFORE you have the blue key, you can open the door without the blue key.

- `Close again': The door closes again after opening.

- `Robots won't pass': Robots should not pass this Wall.

* `Hitpoints': This field specifies how many shots are required to blow the wall. This only works properly with the `Blow door' type, but can also be used with the `Door' and `Wall' type in Descent 1, where it is possible to specify the hitpoints required to shoot open a door. Specifying a hitpoint value of zero indicates that this wall cannot be blown by shooting it. The hitpoint unit is in `flares', i.e., the number of flares it would take to blow the door.

* Buttons for the animation sequence: Using `Top', `Up', `Down' and `List' you can choose the animation which is displayed when the door opens or when the wall is blown. The texture is automatically correctly placed onto the corresponding side. The animation is always applied to both walls (since Descent also does this). With `Wall' and `Illusion' types, the texture must be changed using the Side window. Clicking on the animation texture displayed simply runs the animation sequence, you must use the Side window to align the door texture.

Each Wall can also have Switch functions. These you can choose in the `Switch' field. When flown through by the player in Descent, a Wall can open doors, activate robot-producers, complete the level etc. The following Switch-types exist (some of which are only available in Descent 2):

* `None': Nothing happens when this Wall is passed.

* `Open Door': When this Switch-type is activated by passing through it, all doors which are tagged at the time of declaring the Wall to be of this type, will be opened. The tagged doors must all be of the `normal door' type. The field `Switches' indicates how many doors will be opened by this Wall (max 10). This field cannot be changed.

* `Close Door': as for `Open Door'.

* `Unlock Door': as for `Open Door'.

* `Lock Door': as for `Open Door'.

* `Producer': When this Switch-type is activated, all robot-producer cubes which are tagged at the time of setting it to `Producer', are activated. The cubes must all be of the `Producer' type. In the `Switches' field you can see how many cubes will be activated by this Wall, a maximum of ten are possible.

* `Normal exit': Once you pass through this Wall, the level is completed and the next level is the following normal level. In a secret level in Descent 2, you will be returned to the level from which you came.

* `Secret exit': Once you pass through this Wall in Descent 1, the level is completed and the next level is the secret level specified. Once completing the secret level you begin the level following the current level (which level is next is determined by the MSN-File built by the Mission Manager, see Section 7.3.4). In Descent 2, however, the level is "suspended" and you proceed to the specified secret level. After completing the secret level, you restart where the Thing `Secret Start' was placed in the current level.. You may have multiple "secret exits" in your level, but only one "secret start". When you flag this wall as being a secret exit, a `secret start' Thing is automatically inserted in the current cube for you.

* `Illusion off': Removes the texture of an `Illusion' type Wall (i.e., the wall becomes transparent). It functions like `Open Door'.

* `Illusion on': Displays the texture of an `Illusion' type Wall. It functions like `Open Door'.

* `Open wall': Removes a wall of the `Wall' type, this means that the whole wall becomes transparent and you can fly through it. It functions like `Open Door'.

* `Close wall': As for `Open wall'.

* `Wall to illusion': As for `Open wall', only the wall texture does not disappear, but you can now fly through it.

* `Turnoff light': Turns off all light-sources whose sides are tagged at the time that switch is set to `Turnoff light'.

* `Turnon light': As for `Turnoff light'.

With certain of the Switches the following flags appear:

* `No Message': No message is issued if the player flies through the wall.

* `Trigger once': The Switch will only be activated once.

4.6.1 WALL COLORS.

In order to indicate their function and status, Walls are given the following colors :-

Color

Indication
Comments
White
Normal

Bright White
Cloaked wall or Switch

Green
Current
* Overrides other colors

* If this wall is a trigger for shootable lights then those sides will be outlined in green

* If this wall is a trigger for a producer cube, then those cubes will be outlined in brown.

Red
Requires Red key

Yellow
Requires Yellow key

Magenta
Requires Blue key

Dark Blue
Tagged
Overrides all other colors
Gray Green
Tagged and Current

Brown
Triggered by Current wall
Maximum of 10 possible
Purple
Trigger
Trigger function affects the current Wall, Cube or Side.
Light Red
Blow door
Shoot to open

4.7 THE THING WINDOW

When `Insert' is pressed, whether using the left or right mouse-button, a duplicate of the current Thing is inserted in the current cube. If the Thing has orientation, the current side is taken to be `bottom' and the current edge `left bottom' (as seen from the object). Left mouse-button on `Delete' deletes the current Thing, right mouse-button on `Delete' deletes all tagged Things.

The position of the Thing can be specified manually at the bottom of the window.

The `Thing' window differs from the others in that changes which are entered in the fields do not affect all tagged Things if the right mouse-button is pressed, but rather only all those tagged Things which have the same type as the current Thing.

The `Type' field determines the category of the Thing and depending on the category may also have a sub-field (e.g., `type id') which determines more specifically what type of Thing it is:

* `Robot': One of those unfriendly fellows who make life difficult in Descent. There are various robot types (sub-Field `Robot'), of which the `Big Boss' types have the peculiarity that they replace the reactor during the course of the game. A robot can drop Things when it is shot ... which type of Thing it drops, can be specified in `Drop type'. `Default' means that robots will drop something now and then, e.g., the `Class 1 Drone' drops an `Energy Boost'. `Number' determines how many of the specified Things will be dropped once the robot is shot. `Behavior' determines how the robot behaves itself (Not all behavior modes are possible in Descent 1)

* `Sits still': The robot doesn't leave its place except to avoid shots.

* `Normal': The robot follows you `a little'.

* `Gets behind you': The robots tries to approach you from behind, e.g., the Thief robot which steals your weapons. (Descent 2 only).

* `Runs from': The robot lays mines and doesn't bother itself with the player otherwise (Descent 2 only).

* `Snipe': The robot behaves itself as a `Sniper' e.g., those lilac things in the first Level of Descent 2. (Descent 2 only)

* `Station': The robot flies to and fro, but doesn't follow you far.

* `Follow': The robot follows you.(Descent 2 only)

* `Hostage': One of those lively figures which you can collect. You can adjust the size of the hostages.

* `Start': The Normal and Deathmatch/Anarchy starting positions. Here, the number of the starting points is most important. The numbers run from 0-7. Whether all numbers are correctly placed or not, you can check in the level statistics (`Info' menu option `level info'). The normal Start has the Number 0.

* `Mine': Inserts a mine. You may affect the rotational speed and direction of the mine. The higher the number, the faster it will spin in that direction.

* `Item': Something to collect. Specifying this will present two additional control buttons. Click on `item id' to specify what the item is. Keep the left mouse-button pressed when the list is brought up and then move the pointer to the item you want to select. By default the `item grfx' will be set to the graphic of the item id, but you can make life "interesting" for the player by specifying a graphic different to what the item actually is.

* `Reactor': The reactor. It is normal to provide only one per level. The reactor has up and down orientation as with robots (front and back naturally doesn't make much sense). If Devil is configured for Descent 2 you can specify the time which remains once the reactor is shot. The duration is in seconds for games played at the `Insane' difficulty level, with the other difficulty levels you calculate the time as follows: 1.5* the indicated time for Ace, 2* for Hotshot, 2.5* for Rookie and 3* for Trainee. In addition you can also specify the strength of the reactor under `Hitpoints' which is the amount of damage it can take (the unit of measurement is `flares').

* `Coop Start': Player-start for Co-operative Mode. The number of these Player-starts must be 1 9, 10 or 11 in Descent 1. This restriction was removed in Descent 2.

* `Secret Start': The cube you return to after completing a secret level. You may have multiple "secret exits" in your level, but only one "secret start".


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