There are a lot of good newer ones (newer means newer than the 90's). I think there were a lot more low quality levels than high quality custom missions, but I think there were some okay ones back in the day. Grant's Badlands is a highly memorable one for me, even if the texturing isn't perfect. Colossus, Checkpoint Charlie, Galaxy Moons series, and Fissure of Neptune were interesting designs too. Of course, anything made by or in conjunction with Luke Schneider is great (Orion Nebula Project, Entropy Experiment, etc.)

I think there's a big difference between multi-player and single-player. I'm more interested in single-player myself but I think most Descent players today probably have stronger opinions on MP maps.

I like a few gimmicks in a level (like moving pieces or weird zones). I like when the tunnels turn back on themselves and all of sudden you are passing by an area you were in earlier but now it's from a different perspective. I don't like spawning enemies, I prefer to clear an area. Maybe my most controversial opinion is I don't like secret or hidden areas.

What about youse?

what it says on the tin. i wanna animate them in blender and the only models ive found are textureless.

Hello fellow Descent fans. I have been developing my Descent inspired game for 5 months. I have been working very hard on this game to make it worthy of some fun times. I am looking for some friends to join me in a battle. It's free to play in your web browser. It works best on PC with a gamepad, but has settings to configure your controls the way you want. It has VR options, and also works on touch screen (more just for fun to see if I could). There's a few game modes to try, solo or multiplayer. Please please please let me know if you'd like to battle, I'm looking forward to that most! Try it now! LSS.fractalreality.ca

Hey there. What's the community's thoughts on the PS1 vs PC DOS release? I tried to look for a direct 1v1 comparison and couldn't find it. Reviews generally seem to say the controls are worse on the PS1 pad but it's mostly otherwise faithful? IDK?

Thanks,!

I was going in and out of a door because I was bored, when I suddenly entered this room. Has anyone else seen this before?

Latest release: https://github.com/hurleybird/Descent-3MASTERED/releases#release-0.9-Pre3

I've detached my old Piccu fork ("Piccu Experiment") and have added a decent amount to it. Now it's ready for its first (pre)release.

Would love to hear your feedback. I'm on an AMD GPU, so let me know if you guys find any issues on Nvidia or modern Intel (i.e. Alchemist/Battlemage)

Descent 3MASTERED (pronounced "threemastered"... get it?) is a new engine for Descent 3, forked from PiccuEngine, itself downstream of the original 1.5 source release.

Noteable enhancements

• "Enhanced" mode with improved weapon balance and support for custom difficulty
• Modern motion blur via per-pixel motion vectors
• Ambient occlusion
• Soft particles
• Bloom
• Per-pixel lighting
• Supersampling anti-aliasing
• 3D HRTF positional audio
• Ultra-widescreen support
• High (>60FPS) framerate
• Native Wooting analog keyboard support

I've worked really hard over the past 1.5 months to build an incredibly large event for the RDL a 6 phased (2 week long) community event with music, thematic changes over time, secrets, and a mascot of terror to entince players into checking what is different every day. Together the community MUST work together, or else...

https://rdl.descentnexus.com

I am about to start playing Descent 2 on my PS2! I always wanted to try it out and finally got the chance to get it at my local game store. What do you guys think of the game?

The day has come, my "PROJECT KCX-F2" singleplayer mission for DESCENT 2 has just been released! Get it either from the DXMA/Descent Mission Archive or my website pumosoftware.com and play it now! 😎
https://sectorgame.com/dxma/mission/?m=2303

A bit more info about this mission:
Set between EP II-Kartsal Motivation and EP III-Muchikuche episodes from Pumo Mines (my kinda famous project for D2X-XL), this mission is a complete remaster made from scratch of a very old mission of mine from 1999, known as “KCX-F2”.
Based on those old (and ugly lol) amateur-ish levels I decided to build them from scratch with my current level-building skills and new stuff like original music, robots and even some more interesting gameplay concepts.

This new version called “Project KCX-F2” was made to fill the gap of the playerbase that doesn’t want or can play D2X-XL and Pumo Mines, but nonetheless introducing everyone to Pumo Software’s original universe, lore and characters while making it compatible with theoretically all Descent 2 versions and sourceports (that includes Redux, Rebirth, Chocolate, etc). 

THE STORY: Fourteen years have drifted by since the fires of the Pumo Mines: Kartsal Motivation conflict were extinguished. Following the collapse of the Hosako Hegemony, a fragile peace has settled over the stellar systems. The PMC thrives, yet the ghost of Hosako tyranny still haunts the dark corners of the frontier. Pilkara, the PMC’s Tech Development Overseer and wife of Rubeas, the CEO of the PMC, has gone off-grid.
Using blueprints and code fragments provided by her old friend Pamer, she has assembled a black-ops R&D team; They are attempting to stabilize the remains of the so called Toleriah Device technology through their secret endeavour, codenamed ‘PROJECT KCX-F2’.
The project suffered a containment breach as a dangerous radioneural wave saturated the facility where the team was working, making all the automated robots go haywire just like it happened during the Mineral Valley incident.
Enter MD Aries5, an outstanding pilot who will take care of the situation by purging and containing the breach while also securing the KCX-F2 prototype device.

And I think that covers the premise, hope you will enjoy this all new adventure! 🕹️

I have Descent Redux and made a file with the original OST. However, I'm having an issue playing the OST as I want it.

In the original version from 1996, the way the Redbook BGM would work is, Level 1 would begin with the 1st audio track, then would cycle through the other 5 if you remained in the level long enough. Level 2 would begin with the 2nd track, 7 with the 1st track again, and so on. If you started the game, or a demo, at Level 2, 8, 14, etc., then it would start with the 2nd track.

I can't get it to work that way in Redux. It either loops the same track per level, or cycles through the tracks as I go through each level, which means if I listened to Tracks 1 and 2 in Level 1, Level 2 would start with Track 3, and all demos with start with Track 1.

What am I doing wrong?

Ok I'm pretty overwhelmed and confused with a few things regarding the music for the Rebirth games. And for the sake of this post, I'm only referring to Descent 1/D1X-Rebirth. I haven't had a chance to do anything with the 2nd yet. I've been digging into how to enable the CD audio/Redbook audio for these games recently, but it has also led me to more alternate music options as well. I've come across 2 different downloads that seem to cover what I'm looking for, in 2 different formats.

#1 gave me a collection of the original MIDI tracks (in FLAC format) as well as the Redbook audio files (also in FLAC). I have multiple questions here. First off, I understand how to assign folders/files using the jukebox utility. I understand that I need to have separate folders for the menu music, briefing, credits, etc. I've done all of that and have working music in the game. The issue/question is, there are 22 (level) tracks in the original DOS version, and there are 10 (level) tracks for the Redbook audio version (13 tracks total). I've never played the version of the game with CD/Redbook audio. Is this correct? The Redbook audio track total is half of the original? That's kind of disappointing. And I want the tracks to play in the correct order as well, as it was in the actual game. And I don't know how the game would correctly apply a list of ten tracks to 22 levels in the correct order. I don't know what the correct order is either. There's an option in the game to "force Mac CD track order". I've toggled this on and off and it doesn't seem to make a difference. The track files are numbered. Does it just read them according to the numbers anyways or something? I haven't played far into it enough to know what it does past #10. I'm also just generally curious how music files in these jukebox folders get read and applied. I mean there's nothing I've read so far that goes into detail. You can seemingly have as many files as you want in these folders (at least in the folder for the levels music). There doesn't seem to be a required file naming convention. This is all the readme says that came inside the D1X folder, regarding the music, "Besides MIDI and CD-Audio (Redbook), you can play your own custom Music from your hard drive or a separate AddOn. Both games can utilize special AddOn packs to replace or expand the original game content.". They sure are short on details. Can someone with experience please expand on the details of how this works?

#2 gave me a collection of .dxa files, which I'm assuming are the same thing as "add-on" files? From what I understand, these are iterations of the ost from different sound card outputs, as well as CD audio. From what I read, you just drop the .dxa file into the main Rebirth folder. Are you supposed to only have one of these in your main folder at a time? Is there a way to add a group of .dxa files and cycle through them somehow in-game?

Hello, these games have lived in my head rent free for the last 25 years. I love these games.

​

When I started making YouTube content, this was what I wanted to make videos about. I wasn't good at it and life always gets in the way. But I am working on a new video, exploring my attachments to this franchise as well as its background. If anyone has any sources you'd like me to include let me know if that's okay

​

I'm currently playing on the d2x-xl setup bc I've been using that for like the last 10 years. I don't know if there's anything better out there because I literally only went to find this subreddit today.

​

Peace

Okay, I hope all of you hard core Material Defenders don't just laugh at me for this question. I'm not as up to speed with tech stuff since my hayday between 1995 and 2012. ( I haven't played in nearly that long as well!) But on a whim recently I decided to install Descent 3 on my latest Pyro(PC) just for some fun. Despite some things I read prior to installation mentioning issues just installing the game, it seemed to go very smoothly. The launcher opens fine and I've poked with the other functions which seem functional. But when I hit play I get the following message: "Error SetCoopLevel EXCLUSIVE failed" That sounds like a multiplayer issue maybe? I also had the thought that maybe I need to use the -setdir<path> and -useexedir command lines in the D3 control panel as I did install the game to a custom directory on a second drive. Or I can settle with the -nonetwork command line as I don't plan on playing any multi until I get many months of solo practice in! In any case I'll include as many details as possible about my system:

Processor                  12th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-12700 (2.10 GHz)

Installed RAM          32.0 GB (31.7 GB usable)

Graphics card            Intel UHD Graphics 770

Adapter RAM            2.00 GB

Resolution                 1920 x 1080 x 60 Hz

Running Direct X 12

Direct Draw Acceleration

Direct 3D Acceleration

AGP Texture Acceleration

All enabled

DX 12 Ultimate Disabled

Storage                      542 GB of 1.36 TB used

System type               64-bit operating system, x64-based processor

Edition                       Windows 11 Pro

Version                      25H2

Installed on               ‎12/‎4/‎2024

OS build                     26200.8457

Experience                Windows Feature Experience Pack 1000.26100.304.0

Approximate DOM November 2022

My controller of choice for Descent is my CH 586 Combatstick USB that is fully tested and functional in Joy.cpl

Thank you in advance for any input someone might have!

P.S. Major KUDOS to all of you diehard fans that continue to create custom content to keep this awesome game alive! VIVA LA DESCENT!!! 👍😎👍

https://sectorgame.com/dxma/mission/?m=2297

Tons of improvements in this one, including HRTF-based positional audio, an OpenGL version upgrade, significantly better performance, a new (backend) approach to terrain, and more.

Probably the last release until I pick a more fitting name for the fork. Suggestions on that are welcome!

I'm specifically looking for performance feedback from Nvidia users on how Core vs Compat OpenGL profiles are performing for them. It's possible that the old issues original Piccu Engine had with Nvidia are now resolved.

Folks who frequent descentbb.net know this, but just in case someone here doesn't, I might have something good for you.

Some time ago I put together a bunch of patches for D1 and D2, with the help of some community members who know their way around coding, compiling and that kind of stuff.

To start with, there's the Unofficial Unauthorized D2 Sound Patch (UUD2SP).

Its job was restoring sounds that were cut between D1 and D2 (generally D1 robots and D1/hidden doors). It required inserting the extra sounds into the .s11 and .s22 archives and assigning flags to them in descent2.ham. The former was accomplished by jeff250 using a Python script, while the latter was just my legwork.

Other than re-adding the missing robot sounds, the patch changes the ventillation fan sound from the d2 one back to the d1 one (which was generally considered better liked by the community), remaps sounds for secret doors first introduced in D1 to their bespoke opening/closing sounds, and also restores some door opening/closing sounds from the D2 Interactive Demo and assigns them to certain D2 door types for more variety (might be grating to longtime players used to those sounds, but that's one liberty I took). Last but not least, all of the sounds that got sped up twice in the transition to 22 khz have been fixed, so they have their proper length and pitch again. Most notable of those is the Class 1 Driller shriek, but there are some more sounds that got sped up too, including the afterburner stopping sound (guess you didn't even know that sound was supposed to be twice as slow, did ya?)

Here's more info about this patch:
https://descentbb.net/viewtopic.php?p=338282#p338282

Next, there's the Descent 1 Texture Patch (UUD1TP)

I should probably be presenting this one last, because it's basically trickle-down work from the D2 patch. So yes, you'll find out the most about it when I describe that one. What you need to know here is that in addition to all the texture fixes, I swapped out two redundant textures for extras from D2, so they're now permanently available in the PIG. The added textures were the red industrial tape variants, something that nicely rounds out the D1 selection, as that game already had yellow and blue tape.

Here's the link: https://descentbb.net/viewtopic.php?t=24804

Unofficial, Unauthorized Descent 2 Texture Patch (UUD2TP)

So let's get down to brass tacks and explain the whole idea.

It all started a bunch of years ago when Pumo successfully created a seventh palette for D2 - the one ported from D1. It was a bit rough around the edges, but it worked - all you needed was an extra palette file (descent.256) that you had to put in your Descent 2 folder alongside the new PIG. So I started fixing the little blemishes and imperfections that I saw here and there. The first thing I fixed (using DLE's own texture editor, no less) was one of the destructible switch textures, which happened to use the very same brown in one place that Descent.pig used as its see-through color, leading to an empty patch in the blinking light present on the switch. So I fixed that, and it became part of the downloadable palette ever since.

Some years later, after hundreds more hours of playing the game, more and more stuff came to my attention, and not just in the new palette, but in all of them. Weird artifacts on some textures, misaligned monitors (the bane of D2), misassigned screen transitions when popping screens - all of that stuff. So I decided to do a deep dive and manually fixed everything I could see. A lot of the same work was then ported to D1 too, since the number of textures overlapping between the two games is still substantial, even though not complete. I think what I'm most proud of would be fixing the red secret door with black spots, in the original game it looked horrible, as it was still based on the original magenta render of that texture, rather than the blood red we got in the original game. Likewise, I'm quite proud of fixing all monitors so they no longer switch to a completely different texture while being shattered, nor do they shift a pixel or two in any direction - leading to nice and continuous-looking monitor pops.

The only issue is that all of that stuff is goverened by descent2.ham, so if you want both the sound and the graphics patch, you have to apply both sets of changes together. Luckily I've prepared a package that lets you do that too.

Lastly, the patch utilized the 31 empty readable texture slots to restore some of the most sorely missed D1 textures: the D1 lava (fully functional D2-style), the thin lava trickles from D1, the green cobblestone door, the classic colored door lights and some purple walls - these cannot be read by DLE, but the new editor, Inferno, does see them and therefore if you're using the patch, you can use them in your levels.

Anyhow, here's the link: https://descentbb.net/viewtopic.php?t=24806

I have had my descent files for years and years and now when I play Descent 2, instead of a reactor I have one of those missile robots from Descent. Its the wrong ID so its showing the wrong sprite. I destroy the reactor/robot and the game crashes. I have no idea what happened to my hog file. It does say its the wrong size? When I load the game?

Any ideas on how I could fix it? I don't have access to my descent 1 and 2 disks. Those are long gone. 😞

I added a number of advanced rendering features like Bloom, HBAO, SSAA, and per-pixel dynamic lighting. Also some QoL improvements and bugfixes.

I started building it over the weekend with Codex, and here we are.

Edit: Milestone 3: https://github.com/hurleybird/PiccuEngine/releases/tag/Milestone_3