Apotheosis X – A total conversion for Marathon Infinity – Release thread

For topics about the story, help in a certain level, game discussion, or finding/discussing content.
hypersleep
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APX-moddb-header.jpg
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https://simplici7y.com/items/apotheosis-x-5
https://www.moddb.com/mods/apotheosis-x ... otheosis-x

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Apotheosis X is a total conversion featuring 24 massive levels of carnage brought to life with entirely reimagined sprites and textures, high frame rate animations, 16 bit audio and an original soundtrack.

The campaign features engaging combat that scales with player skill and aggression, with a roster of new enemies and weaponry that complements the original games' nuance and high skill ceiling.

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Windbreaker
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Great job, hypersleep. I've only played one level so far, but I think it goes without saying that this will be seen by most community members as one of the best scenarios created for Marathon. The immense amount of work you've put into every part of it clearly shows.

The combat has been fun so far. The level design has been intriguing but not too confusing. Textures, sprites, everything, just really well done, as I'm sure you know. My only tiny nitpick is the .5 x .5 wu control panels on map 1 that are just for decoration. Started getting a bit confused as to which ones were actual switches and which were just for decoration. That's a small thing, though.

Also, I didn't hear any title music on startup. Is that intentional? I didn't have any issues with music once in-game.

Anyways, I hope this scenario gets the same amount of attention and recognition as some others do, because it definitely deserves every bit of it and much more.
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From the outset I wanted to see what you would do with Momewraths.
I was not disappointed.
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Destiny
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Just want to say I love what you did with the hunters. The crisp animations. The added melee attack I totally was not expecting when one got near me. Despite being ever so impatient to see this scenario come out, I am happy to see how high quality it is. I'm loving my playthrough of the scenario so far and have reached the Exile chapter!!
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Destiny wrote: Oct 2nd '22, 03:14 Just want to say I love what you did with the hunters. The crisp animations. The added melee attack I totally was not expecting when one got near me. Despite being ever so impatient to see this scenario come out, I am happy to see how high quality it is. I'm loving my playthrough of the scenario so far and have reached the Exile chapter!!
I think the Assassins are too similar to Elites from Halo, my brain can't separate the two.
Also the Enforcers are too sexually attractive.
On the first alien ship level the animations were so superb that I thought I was watching a cutscene so I didn't even think to move or fight and the Enforcer melted my face and that was my experience.
hypersleep
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This is a "no simping for the enforcers" zone.
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Meerjel01
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Are Enforcers really females anyway?
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CryoS
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Nice.
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Hathomirr
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Oh man, I've been waiting for this day to arrive. This may top the original for me. Can't wait to play!

(Also, damn, I've never seen ModDB overloaded before. Guess I'll have to wait a little longer to download this.) Nevermind. XD
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ukimalefu
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good job

thanks for this

I'm sure it'll be great if I can ever download it... (all servers are overloaded it seems...)
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ukimalefu
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Finally got it

Played a couple minutes, looks great

If anyone cares, I have a Mac mini from 2014 running OS X Mojave.
hypersleep
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Let me know how you go – The lowest spec I tested on was a 2015 MBP. It was strapped at 30fps, but would dip a bit in certain places when I turned the frame rate cap off.
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RadBurn
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This is wonderful! I played through on "Normal" this past weekend and now I'll play through again more carefully to uncover and appreciate more of what this gem has to offer. You guys are incredibly talented. This scenario needs recognition. What you've done with the map design and enemy placement is outstanding! As far as some technicals... I had a few crashes to desktop on various levels and elevator related texture smearing on one level. The grenade explosion sound effect seems out of place. Everything else is so well polished and cohesive.
hypersleep
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Thank you!

If you happen to remember which elevator you encountered the smearing on, I'll put it on the list to fix.

Crashes are interesting, I've had a few other reports. Just doing the boilerplate check here and making sure you're on Aleph One 1.5?
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President People
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Really cool so far! I love the Pfhor redesigns, especially the Hunters and the unique spark effects the stronger ones have. I think I'm still missing some weapons yet, but I feel like the pistols can be too inaccurate sometimes. Maybe it's to balance the fact that they're fusion damage, or to make the Enforcer gun stand out as the more accurate weapon, but I've whiffed so many shots even at mid-range. I could just be bad out of practice, though.

In any case, I'll list anything strange as I find it:
• On the first level, Berserk troopers can target the invisible actors throwing sparks. I was on TC at the time I saw this.
• The panels flanking either uplink slot on Ghost Hardware can be tabbed open early.
• The Pfhor gore scenery objects in the sewage set still use the old sprites, making them look a bit out of place.
• I've encountered multiple doors that, once triggered by a switch, remains open, but their switch panel does not return to the "off" position until pressed again. It sounds nitpicky, but the worry that I've broken something on the map sits in the back of my mind when this happens.

Looking forward to the rest of this scenario!
Love Marathon, and also play Doom on modern source ports? You might like these skins!
hypersleep
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• On the first level, Berserk troopers can target the invisible actors throwing sparks. I was on TC at the time I saw this.
Yeah, it's a pretty filthy hack and just something I have to live with.
The panels flanking either uplink slot on Ghost Hardware can be tabbed open early.
Now this is good catch!
The Pfhor gore scenery objects in the sewage set still use the old sprites, making them look a bit out of place.
Same with the Bobs ;) It was close enough and I was just at the point where I had to release something.
• I've encountered multiple doors that, once triggered by a switch, remains open, but their switch panel does not return to the "off" position until pressed again. It sounds nitpicky, but the worry that I've broken something on the map sits in the back of my mind when this happens.
I think this has something to do with the difference between Tag switches and other switch types. The critical path on all levels has been tested fairly thoroughly, and you shouldn't have to worry about soft locking yourself with doors or platforms.

Thanks for feedback :)
hypersleep
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You know, I was curious about the pistol thing and trying to remember what I'd actually done with the physics. Turns out they're the same as the Magnums, which is 1 "theta" value away from perfect accuracy. I suspect the issue is the bigger maps creating longer firing distances which exacerbate Marathon's rather "granular" player rotation.
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President People
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Hmm. What about the projectile speed?

Also, it could be the angle of the pistols in hand versus the flight path of the projectile that's throwing me off. And now that I say that, I believe Eternal had this dilemma at some point, with projectiles originating from the center of the screen for both pistols being settled upon.
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President People wrote: Oct 5th '22, 00:35 Hmm. What about the projectile speed?

Also, it could be the angle of the pistols in hand versus the flight path of the projectile that's throwing me off. And now that I say that, I believe Eternal had this dilemma at some point, with projectiles originating from the center of the screen for both pistols being settled upon.
I still struggle with the projectile speed, I do appreciate that it demands close-quarter combat with enemies that you really don't want to get into close-quarters with.
Besides projectiles coming from the player the enemy's projectiles throw me off too, specifically the blue fighter whose projectile always seems to tag me.

One player projectile I really don't like is the railgun, railgun? The charge-up sniper weapon. It's a split dual-round projectile that just doesn't seem to go where I need them to go in relation to the minimalist targeting reticle. I don't like it.

The rocket launcher is introduced in a level with numerous hunter packs seemingly to suggest that you should use the rocket launcher on them but frankly, dual-pistols are preferable up until you get the ESR Banshee which is by far my favorite weapon in any Marathon game ever.
The rocket launcher is my preferred sniper weapon which puts the railgun in the dust bin.

Towards the end of the game, you get a particularly amazing weapon that kicks so much ass in the level that it's introduced but after that, I found very few instances in subsequent levels that communicated to me that the time to use this amazing weapon was now. Well, besides Juggernaut encounters.
You can take the time to kite enemies together to create an opportunity to use this end-game weapon but I don't find that particularly fun.
Still, it's the best BFG in any Marathon I've ever played.
hypersleep
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The nail gun presents itself as a sniper weapon but it's secretly a brutally effective brawler. Get the timing right and use it like an SSG. It one shots most thing in the game even on TC, and will penetrate through packs of weaker enemies.

There's a small grace period where it will fire before the warning beep.
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President People
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Shocktart wrote: Oct 5th '22, 04:04 The rocket launcher is introduced in a level with numerous hunter packs seemingly to suggest that you should use the rocket launcher on them but frankly, dual-pistols are preferable up until you get the ESR Banshee which is by far my favorite weapon in any Marathon game ever.
I was nearly out of pistol ammo by then, so I had to use the RPG a lot for that level. Individual missiles seemed weaker than a standard SPNKR; I found them much more effective when fired in twos and threes.

Love the Banshee and its firing sound, but I wish it didn't cut off.
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hypersleep
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Yeah, I didn't think of it as "teaching" you to use the rocket launcher on the hunters – we all know marathon and we already know what's good for those guys.

The fun I was trying to make there is being able to scoot around all the catwalks along the canal, firing off quick volleys before repositioning. Really fast and dynamic if you want it to be. I kept the Hunters because they can respond to that type of play and tend to reposition quite effectively themselves.

I guess I didn't see the job of the architecture as teaching you about what the hard counters are – what it can teach you is what kind of movement and positional play works for each weapon.
Last edited by hypersleep on Oct 5th '22, 22:16, edited 1 time in total.
hypersleep
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Love the Banshee and its firing sound, but I wish it didn't cut off.
At some point I figured out the firing interval in milliseconds and edited the sample so it would be seamless... and it turns out Marathon doesn't reliably play the sound in time with the trigger, so then there was gaps as well as the clicks. Sad.
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hypersleep wrote: Oct 5th '22, 22:05
Love the Banshee and its firing sound, but I wish it didn't cut off.
At some point I figured out the firing interval in milliseconds and edited the sample so it would be seamless... and it turns out Marathon doesn't reliably play the sound in time with the trigger, so then there was gaps as well as the clicks. Sad.
I actually like the fluctuating sounds from the Banshee intentional or not. I don't want the ESR Banshee to be the Dangi Maser from Rubicon with an energy duckbill attached to the barrel.
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RadBurn
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hypersleep wrote: Oct 3rd '22, 20:54 Thank you!

If you happen to remember which elevator you encountered the smearing on, I'll put it on the list to fix.

Crashes are interesting, I've had a few other reports. Just doing the boilerplate check here and making sure you're on Aleph One 1.5?
I checked and confirmed that I am up to date using Aleph One 1.5

When I previously encountered the few crashes I was running in software mode instead of OpenGL. I am currently playing through again in OpenGL with no crashes so far. I am currently at Sky Burial.

Sky Burial is where I noticed texture smearing involving one elevator. It is the multi-stop elevator. The thing is, in software mode the textures smear. In OpenGL there isn't any smearing.

Another quirk I encountered on Sky Burial is with the first couple windows you come across after beginning the level and making your way to the entrance. When I first saw the enemies at the terminals I shot at them from outside with the assault rifle. The window/wall seems to be flagged as semi-permissible to projectiles since some of my rifle rounds passed through while some collided with the window. Just before these two windows there is a corner with a windowed catwalk that has the same setting. However, right next to this is a smashed/debris wall with an enemy and chip on the other side that does not permit projectiles through when I would think this for sure should be semi-permissible. I feel at this point I am nit-picking :(
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