Map: Spellbound File: ns_spellbound.basp Author: Tom "[SoM]Coroner" Groner Date: 11/16/2003 Contact: tom@strategyplanet.com //*************Thanks To************* _/*Ben "InFlames" Breitenbach - for introducing me to mapping and giving me the info to start off mapping. Oh yeah, and for being my best friends for the better part of a decade. _/*Flayra and the NS Dev team - this mod McPwns. _/*The NS.org mapping forum community - for answering some basic yet vital questions and giving comments as I worked. //*************Back Story************ The following is an account by myself, Chester Osgood, head scientist in charge of the coolant systems on the Spellbound. Forgive me for being brief, I do not know how much longer I have. The air has, that smell, again. I fear a repeat of what has happened. I want to pass the knowledge on to whoever survives. The newly constructed battleship, the USS Spellbound had just been furnished and sent off on its first, trivial mission to quell a rebellion on a remote colony on the southern region of Mars. The Frontiersmen, equipped with Heavy Armor and Machine guns, were sent to the surface to stop the political turmoil and maintain a temporary presence on the surface until local authorities could re-establish control over the area. They made quick work of the rebels who foolishly remained defiant. The solders told me they admired the interesting plant life of the region. They had never seen such vibrant looking plants on the side of structures before. It reminded one soldier of his hometown, on Earth, in the republic of Italy. All was going well for the Spellbounds first mission. Two days into the occupation mission, a small group of the Spellbounds infantry division was ordered to return to the ship to aquire supplies, the occupation was to take longer than expected. Grabbing a few crates from the colony, they returned to the ship and gathered the equipment they were ordered to get. The commander of the squad, always known for being a "by the books" worrier, had brought up far too many crates than they needed. He left them in the main hold and proceeded to the hanger for deployment onto the surface once more. If he had not already been killed, I would kill him myself now. Its not his fault, but my primitive anger overcomes me as I write this. The skeleton crew onboard the Spellbound went about their business as normal. All of us silently complained about how boring this first mission was. We were aboard the newest, most powerful ship in the system, and we were being baby-sitters. If only we knew. I was on a routine inspection of the ship, one I had already been on dozens of times and did not look forward to dozens more of, when I came to the main hold. There was a sour taint to the air. The room felt damp, much much more damp than it normally was, more than it was suppose to. I walked into the room and had a look around. There was a strange layer of plant life on the walls, almost flesh like in nature. It seemed to be effecting the lighting, as the room was dim by its normal light standards. I continued around the ship, and found this was not the only room that had developed a sour smell accompanied with a damn environment and this flesh like plant life. A week had passed since I made my first notice of the changes on the ship. I had ordered the crew to try and cleanup the walls and get the environment back into its regulation levels. They reported they think the, infestation i'll call it now, started in the main hold from the crates the solders had brought up from the service. This must have been what the soldier was referring to, the plant life that brought back memories of his home. The view from my end was not as happy as his. Something about that plant life, just made me imagine, something, wrong, something, evil. Fourteen days after our arrival in the system, I was woke from my sleep by the sounds of alarms across the ship, and the red emergency light that could only mean one thing, a battle. I rushed from my bed to the bridge and called down to the surface, with intent to aquire all the knowledge I would need from the commander, and gather whether or not I should radio fleet for more reinforcement. The commander responded, confused, as to what I was talking about. The door to my left opened, to a horrible sight. Adem Tob, my fellow scientist, fell onto the floor, covered in blood, breathing as though he had just ran for his life, his left arm was missing. The story he told me was, unbelievable, intangible, not possible. Not possible until I looked up, into the vent, and hear a chuckle, then a scattering sound. He was telling the truth, the ship was under siege from the inside, from a force more horrible than anything Ive ever seen. I turned back to the radio, and simply screamed "RETURN TO THE SHIP, WE'VE BEEN BOARDED BY HOSTILES!". Im aware the wording did not do the situation justice, but the effect would be the same, an immediate return of the ships infantry division. I ran to the infantry reception as fast as I could, seeing puddles of blood and green slime scattered along the way, along with guns, empty clips, and body parts I was fully aware were not from my own species. Luck with with me that I made it to the infantry reception with no encounters. When I reached the infantry reception, there was nothing out of the ordinary, except the lack of the ordinary. No computers on, no crew, nothing but an empty room and a radio with the commander I had only moments ago spoken to, screaming at me or anyone else in earshot to activate the systems, which I did. I was relieved to see the squad of three dozen Heavy Infantry enter the room. The commander, grabbed me and threw me to the wall, gun at my head. "WHOS SIDE ARE YOU ON BOY!". I exclaimed that it was me, the man who had alerted him to the problem. Upon recognizing my voice he put down his gun and impatiently asked me for more information. Before I could say a word I hear a blood curdling scream from down the hall. Dozen upon dozens of, nearly dog like creatures, hell hounds, poured into the room, some with blood on their teeth, others with obvious wounds that had no effect on their reckless desire to kill. I am ashamed to say I, for the first time since my childhood, soiled myself out of sheer terror. Seconds later, I almost smiled at what I saw. The sheer amount of firepower that was focused on that doorway made me step back in my mind and realize just how amazing my species was. Any shortcomings we have at birth we make up for with intellect. Almost as fast as they had appeared, those hell hounds lay curled in piles on the floor, dead. Most of them had been dismembered by the sheer volume of ammunition their bodies absorbed. The commander looked at me, in shock (which I must say was strange to see through a mask), and realized the type of "hostiles" Ihad referred to. They setup a command post and started taking back the ship. A few hours later the emergency lighting turned off, and the bright white lights of the ships normal light grid were back on. I went to my chambers to rest my shaking body. Im just a scientist, I picked this job so I wouldn't have to see blood. I hate blood, and I had seen more that day than I had my entire life. Sleep did not come easy, but it did come. I woke up once again. The alarms were back on. The emergency lights were back on. I could hear machine gun fire. I heard, that chuckle again. Was this a dream? I rubbed my eyes, thinking there was no way I was actually awake. I looked through the view port of my quarters door, and saw something that will rule my dreams for the rest of my life, assuming I am able to sleep again. Outside the door I could see TSA troopers, guns tearing through their clips, emptying hellfire onto the most terrifying creature I had even seen. It looks like a dinosaur, is it a dinosaur? I have to be dreaming as I write this, its outside right now. Nothing that terrifying could be real. As I write this I can hear and even see TSA troopers being torn apart by these creatures. I write this, as my last handle on life, for the sake of any other person who survives this endeavor. If by some miracle we survive this, we'll need documentation, and that's my job as a scientist. My species is amazing, but we are not perfect. Our individuality is our greatest strength and weakness. I myself sit in my quarters here now, alive, while my fellow humans are dying. When I am done with this document I am going to join my friends and hope to save us all. The most terrible thing Ive ever heard was just said outside my door. Terrible because it was spoken by my fellow man. "Sir, I have one last request sir!"."WHAT IS IT SOLDIER!". I looked out my door, to the crippled body of a fallen marine, gun in hand, still unloading his ammunition onto what is now a literal swarm of alien life forms. "Permission to die sir", the soldier gasped. His commander looked over at him, as if his own son had passed away, and then turned and annihilated an alien at his feet. "Permission granted soldier!". The solder finished his clip, as if the last bullet was his life, and fell limp on the floor. Im done writing now, I cannot stand to see this happen without helping anymore. Im grabbing my gun. God help me. As a scientist who never believed in anything that cannot be graphed or calculated, I never thought I would say those words. ------------------------------------------- //******************Technical Stuff********************** ----- BEGIN hlcsg ----- Command line: C:\PROGRA~1\ZHLT\hlcsg.exe c:\tom\mapping_files\ns_spellbound -chart -hullfile c:\sierra\half-life\ns\nshulls.txt -high Texture usage is at 2.97 mb (of 4.00 mb MAX) 66.06 seconds elapsed [1m 6s] ----- BEGIN hlbsp ----- Command line: C:\PROGRA~1\ZHLT\hlbsp.exe c:\tom\mapping_files\ns_spellbound -chart -high === Total BSP file data space used: 2833834 bytes === 52.97 seconds elapsed ----- BEGIN hlvis ----- Command line: C:\PROGRA~1\ZHLT\hlvis.exe c:\tom\mapping_files\ns_spellbound -chart -high -full === Total BSP file data space used: 3032721 bytes === BasePortalVis: (145.69 seconds) LeafThread: (588.31 seconds) average leafs visible: 134 g_visdatasize:198887 compressed from 2818530 734.86 seconds elapsed [12m 14s] ----- BEGIN hlrad ----- Command line: C:\PROGRA~1\ZHLT\hlrad.exe c:\tom\mapping_files\ns_spellbound -chart -bounce 5 -sparse -lightdata 10240 -smooth 80 -ambient .001 .001 .001 -extra 20050 faces Create Patches : 111231 base patches 0 opaque faces 1022612 square feet [147256240.00 square inches] 11017 direct lights BuildFacelights: (2252.72 seconds) BuildVisLeafs: (1001.14 seconds) visibility matrix : 26.2 megs MakeScales: (2184.02 seconds) SwapTransfers: (475.95 seconds) Transfer Lists : 64835328 : 64.84M transfers Indices : 39994216 : 38.14M bytes Data : 259341312 : 247.33M bytes GatherLight: (9.48 seconds) GatherLight: (6.69 seconds) GatherLight: (6.67 seconds) GatherLight: (6.67 seconds) GatherLight: (6.69 seconds) FinalLightFace: (359.70 seconds) Object names Objects/Maxobjs Memory / Maxmem Fullness ------------ --------------- --------------- -------- models 207/400 13248/25600 (51.8%) planes 21476/65535 429520/1310700 (32.8%) vertexes 27772/65535 333264/786420 (42.4%) nodes 10293/32767 247032/786408 (31.4%) texinfos 7436/32767 297440/1310680 (22.7%) faces 20050/65535 401000/1310700 (30.6%) clipnodes 29162/32767 233296/262136 (89.0%) leaves 6492/8192 181776/229376 (79.2%) marksurfaces 26939/65535 53878/131070 (41.1%) surfedges 94377/512000 377508/2048000 (18.4%) edges 48704/256000 194816/1024000 (19.0%) texdata [variable] 5020/4194304 ( 0.1%) lightdata [variable] 2692497/10485760 (25.7%) visdata [variable] 198887/2097152 ( 9.5%) entdata [variable] 66036/524288 (12.6%) 114 textures referenced === Total BSP file data space used: 5725218 bytes === 6346.28 seconds elapsed [1h 45m 46s] Compiled on: 1.47 GHZ AMD Athlon XP 1700+ 512MB pc333 DDR RAM