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Baz's Mod V1.5


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Baz's Mod v1.5

(Released September 15, 2011)

 

BazsMod.jpg

 

Short Description:

This is a large scale overhaul modification for Rock Raiders (for PC) by me. This mod has been under development off and on since 2008, and it's taken a while to reach this point so I thank everyone for their patience on this. This is the newest and most likely final version of the mod. Two years ago I released v1.0 which was more or less a beta for the current version. I've worked out most of the kinks and all of the levels are in working, improved condition. (Download link at bottom of descriptions.)

The point of this mod was to bring the game to its full potential, by improving the weaker aspects of the game and making it more challenging for older players (older than the original target audience of 8-12 that is). I've done this by tweaking many different aspects of gameplay, making adjustments to the vehicles, buildings, and rock raiders, and so on, as well as redesigning or expanding many of the existing levels. 8 new levels have been included in the place of the old tutorial levels, all of which have more challenging "bonus versions" in the bonus level menu with added monsters, slimy slugs, and also in a different terrain type than the original. This isn't intended to diverge from the canon of the game, and is meant to be more or less an unofficial update to the original game.

 

Extended Description:

The following can be found on the Baz's Mod page on the RRU Wiki:

 

Gameplay Modification

The Gameplay has been modified so that:

  • Some Levels are rearranged on the mission-tree depending on how their difficulties have changed since the original game.
  • All Levels include improved Objectives, mainly to increase the number of crystals players must collect to complete the mission.
  • All forms of Mining Lasers can now be used to kill monsters. That goes for both vehicle mounted lasers and the Mining Laser Building.
  • Weapons now do more damage to Slimy Slugs, while doing less to Monsters.
  • Levels with Rock Monsters and/or Slimy Slugs have many more emerging or hidden throughout the level than they used to.

 

Level Modification

For a complete list of levels and their descriptions, see Baz's Mod Levels.

The Pre-Existing Levels:

  • All contain more Hidden Caverns, Energy Crystals, and other content
  • Some contain new or changed layouts.

The Eight New Levels:

  • Contain unique and original layouts with plenty of caverns and crystals.
  • Have alternate "Bonus Versions" that have been made more difficult and use a different Terrain than their normal counterparts. These can be accessed from the old tutorial menu which has been appropriately renamed in the main menu.

 

Interface Modification

The Game Interface has been changed to include:

  • A slightly darker style and rusted texturing. Parts are a modified version of Drageon's Grunge Interface, and others are of my own creation.
  • An improved in game Camera that can now zoom in closer and zoom out farther.
  • Fixed Erosion textures for Ice Maps and higher resolution world textures overall.

 

Unit Modification

The Rock Raiders have been changed to:

  • Be able to upgrade to an extra level that improves their drilling, shoveling, & running speeds, and also improves their ability to endure damage from rock slides and other hazards.
  • Have fixed faces when viewing them in 1st person or shoulder view (to make them appear more like Sparks, as they appear in normal camera view)

The Buildings have been changed so that:

  • The Upgrade Station now has another upgrade level UP2, which allows it to perform upgrades four times as fast (twice as fast as UP1).
  • The Mining Laser can now mine rock much more efficiently and do damage to Enemies (with the same stats as the Large Mobile Laser Cutter).
  • The Super Teleport now has another upgrade level UP2, which it needs to upgrade to teleport down the Chrome Crusher and the Tunnel Transport.
  • The Geological Center now has another upgrade level UP3, which will increase its scanning radius to 16 squares.
  • The Tool Store can now upgrade Rock Raiders faster when fully upgraded
  • The Ore Refinery can now be upgraded to UP4, which only takes one Ore to make a Building Stud

Major changes have been made to improve the:

  • Hover Scout
  • Small Mobile Laser Cutter
  • Large Mobile Laser Cutter

Other Vehicle changes include, but are not limited to:

  • Decreased Hard Rock drill times
  • Enhanced and new vehicle upgrades
  • The addition of the Tunnel Transport as a usable vehicle.
  • Increased/decreased crystal requirements for the teleportation of some vehicles.

For a complete list of specifications for the vehicles, see Baz's Mod Vehicles.

 

Changes between versions 1.0 and 1.5

Many changes have been made and bugs have been fixed since the initial (beta) version of the Mod for the final official release.

  • Bug Fix for Tunnel Transport so that it carries other Vehicles properly.
  • Resolve the various inconsistencies with the Mining Lasers, particularly with the Large Mobile Laser Cutter.
  • Bug Fix of Run the Gauntlet to make it completable and add a crystal count to objective.
  • Bug Fix of Back to Basics to make it completable by adding more energy crystals scattered through level and a few recharge seams. Also added tons of Ice Monster emerges and Sleeping Ice Monsters to keep it challenging.
  • Increase number of crystals required to make certain vehicles, particularly the Chrome Crusher and Tunnel Transport
  • Rapid Rider now only requires 1 crystal to teleport.
  • Fix typos and mixed up mission objectives for mission, success, and failure statements.
  • Minor redesigning of Water Works to separate caverns and modification of heightmap.
  • Addition of Monsters, depleting Oxygen Supply, etc. to Bonus Levels where they were not already present.
  • Fairly large changes and fixes to Don't Panic!, adding areas & monster spawns, which are now Coordinated properly.
  • Addition of Lava Monsters to Erode Works.
  • Fixed spoken level names to correct levels (assigned new levels to the old tutorial spoken names).
  • Small fixes to a few levels, where the level's open cavern extended to the border of the map, which caused random bugs such as turning ground into water and solid rock into ground.
  • Moderate changes to Water Lot Of Fun, including working monster emerges. I've also made changes to the caverns so that it is much more difficult to reconnect cavern across water to base now. The height map is restored and improved.
  • Minor changes to Lake of Fire to include Recharge Seams and sleeping Lava Monsters. Made it so the safe cavern is only accessible through the clever use of Mining Lasers. Increased crystal objective from 100 to 150 crystals.
  • Added emerging Rock Monsters and Bats to Fire 'n' Water.
  • Ice Monsters can now cross water.
  • Bug fix of Hot Stuff to fix emerge file with correct spawns. Also added some more sleeping Lava Monsters and did some small changes to the caverns and heightmap.
  • Addition of Bats and sleeping Ice Monsters to Air Raiders.
  • Added Cyrem's improved Biome textures.
  • Addition of more sleeping Monsters of all kinds in Rocky Horror, as well as tons more emerges. Caverns changed slightly to make the seam reservoirs harder to get to. Removed buggy crystal reservoir near the lake of lava (Lava Monsters sleeping there now). Crystal objective fixed to the correct number (was 349, now 350 as it's supposed to be).

 

A Note about Bugs & Stability

While I have gone through a lot of work to fix any problems with the mod and the levels themselves, the engine itself is not only dated, but is unstable even on those standards. I have been able to complete every level without crashing, however I did encounter a few (not many) crashes along the way. They occurred mainly when I was either teleporting something down, shooting something with a mining laser, or opening a cavern, particularly one with sleeping monsters in it. While all the levels should work fine, if you encounter a crash one or multiple times, I'd try to avoid doing whatever it is you were doing before the crash, whether it be teleporting down way too many rock raiders or buildings or trying to upgrade a certain building, or what have you. Rocky Horror in particular, because of the multitude of monsters and slugs, is very sensitive and will probably crash if you teleport down a full 2-3 support stations worth of rock raiders. This being said, the most stable running mode is 16-bit Windowed, and I'd recommend playing in that if you are having any problems with crashing.

 

> Download Link <- 37.2 MB Download, 89.3 MB once installed (via Installer)

 

Enjoy!

Also, if you like: btn_donate_SM.gif

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Unless I decide to randomly work on it again 2 years later I like I did before, this is probably going to be the final version. The version I released earlier was for all intents and purposes a beta, as not all the levels were tested and completed yet and lots of bugs remained to be fixed. Aside from problems from the engine that I have no problem over, and two overlapping sleeping rock monsters (don't get any ideas), it should be free of bugs and working fine. I've done a lot to make use of all the game's vehicles, particularly the mobile laser cutters on the lava levels, which I had a lot of fun with. Honestly this is my vision of how the original game should have been, (well minus them killing the engine and graphics, I can't do much about that, though I used Cyrem's higher res world textures). Although I may not be making another version I still appreciate any comments, reviews, and feedback on it from people who have played through it.

Anyways I hope you all enjoy playing it as I put a lot of work into it.

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though I used Cyrem's higher res world textures).

You didn't use my high-res Rock Raider skins ?

I'm sure you will get many comments and reviews like your previous version :)

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The only criticizm I have so far is the use of Spark's face. He's a unique character, but now everyone is clones of him. You claim you did it to fit the LP model, but you could have replaced it with HP, or at least edited the LP model skin.

I'll probably copy matt and review each level as I go.

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  • 2 weeks later...
The Ascending Space

Dude, I thought I was already playing a great enough game.

Do you have a donations page for your efforts?

Um, I was going to set one up for my other modding projects, but I guess I could use it for this too...I wasn't expecting donations on this one, that'd be very nice of you o.o

EDIT: Here you go:

http://www.rockraide...r-bazs-mod-etc/

I want to at least put in $40 bucks, because the way I see it, it's an entirely new game, perhaps a sequel if I please.

However, I do not currently have the cash on card for it, so when I can get that ready (hopefully next paycheck) I will send it your way.

I look forward to more things from you later!

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Dude, I thought I was already playing a great enough game.

Do you have a donations page for your efforts?

Um, I was going to set one up for my other modding projects, but I guess I could use it for this too...I wasn't expecting donations on this one, that'd be very nice of you o.o

EDIT: Here you go:

http://www.rockraide...r-bazs-mod-etc/

I want to at least put in $40 bucks, because the way I see it, it's an entirely new game, perhaps a sequel if I please.

However, I do not currently have the cash on card for it, so when I can get that ready (hopefully next paycheck) I will send it your way.

I look forward to more things from you later!

That's very generous, thank you. I won't be working on much of anything related to RRU over the next couple months as my time is mostly going to be taken up by applying to graduate school, but I'll most likely get back into RRU stuff once things have settled down a bit. If there are any glaring bugs or problems that I've managed to overlook, I could probably foresee a newer version of the mod in the future, but for now this is the finished product. I hope you enjoy it!

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The Ascending Space

Dude, I thought I was already playing a great enough game.

Do you have a donations page for your efforts?

Um, I was going to set one up for my other modding projects, but I guess I could use it for this too...I wasn't expecting donations on this one, that'd be very nice of you o.o

EDIT: Here you go:

http://www.rockraide...r-bazs-mod-etc/

I want to at least put in $40 bucks, because the way I see it, it's an entirely new game, perhaps a sequel if I please.

However, I do not currently have the cash on card for it, so when I can get that ready (hopefully next paycheck) I will send it your way.

I look forward to more things from you later!

That's very generous, thank you. I won't be working on much of anything related to RRU over the next couple months as my time is mostly going to be taken up by applying to graduate school, but I'll most likely get back into RRU stuff once things have settled down a bit. If there are any glaring bugs or problems that I've managed to overlook, I could probably foresee a newer version of the mod in the future, but for now this is the finished product. I hope you enjoy it!

Hey no problem. I don't expect anything to come out again soon anyways, besides, due to my Raedon Graphics card, I probably will be unable to complete these levels until I get a new card or computer. Oh well, I can cope with that. Still got a long time of fun ahead of me.

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  • 1 month later...

I have 3 levels to go on the original Baz's Mod - come back here and find a newer better version :'(

I will percy vere though until the final showdown !!

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  • 2 months later...
The Brigadier

This mod is great. The game is now actually challenging. :af: Shame that TheShadowOfX is too scared to complete his hilarious LP. :lol:

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Shame that TheShadowOfX is too scared to complete his hilarious LP.

He says that the later levels are "designed so that the later is sadly incomplete" and "it has no ending" and "the further missions are too difficult for any sane man to complete."

That is the biggest bunch of bull I have ever heard.

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The Brigadier

Shame that TheShadowOfX is too scared to complete his hilarious LP.

He says that the later levels are "designed so that the later is sadly incomplete" and "it has no ending" and "the further missions are too difficult for any sane man to complete."

That is the biggest bunch of bull I have ever heard.

Well, I completed it without a massive deal of difficulty. I don't know what he's on about. I personally relish having to collect 200 crystals.

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  • 2 months later...

This is a really cool Mod.. I'm finding these levels a lot more enjoyable (and challenging) than the original 25.

A Breath Of Fresh air can be very cruel if you're not familiar with the map layout.. I ran out of air first time around, one energy crystal short of building a support station. The influx of monsters on some levels can also be a little overwhelming :P

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  • 2 months later...
  • Cyrem pinned this topic
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