04/01/2025 - "Lines of Communication" by Jarrod "JazzyB" Burgess

[Sat42]

Map Title: Lines of Communication
Author: Jarrod "JazzyB" Burgess
From: Project Xenome : First Day
Filename: ONP-map02LinesofCommX.unr




Video Playthread:




Coop play:


Synopsis: The Liandri complex is under attack by the Skaarj and though you recovered from being initially knocked out cold and have successfully battled your way out to the surface of the planet, you were too late for evac. Fortunately, you still have a radio link to security officer Barnes who has been guiding you through the chaos and now you've just managed to team up with a small marine squad.
Your little detour via the Administrator's office did reveal some clues as to how this mess came about: something related to a secret transportation technology development and a "Project Xenome"...
More questions than answers of course, but for now, with the help of the Admin's key pass, get to the main communications building and realign the deep space antenna to send an SOS. Activating the UHF relays would also be a massive boost for the marines on the ground seeking to co-ordinate their moves against the Skaarj...

Discuss!

[Masterkent]

This is undoubtedly one of my most favorite maps. There are 2 versions of this map, and I wouldn't say that the patched one is better than the older version in all aspects. The newer variant is more difficult and more challenging. I like the specific atmosphere on the darker version, that makes me want to replay it sometimes.

In both variants, it's a paradise for speedrunners and those who like BT-style tricks. There are 3 shortcuts, one of which connects the beginning and the end of the map, so the exit can be reached in less than a minute and players can even return to the start point from the final part, that is impossible to do in a usual way.

Some technical disadvantages include earthquake which can knock you straight into the abyss (sometimes without giving you any chances to prevent falling, unless you exactly know the location of the trigger and can jump over the dangerous place; if you're unlucky, a series of VRand calls in the script may return similar vectors producing a strong cumulative pushing force in a particular direction), an improperly placed Coop player start near the gate (you can be spawned into a crowd of enemies and killed by them in a second), and the one-direction-only lift to the bottom part of the level (without mods, some players may be trapped above, unless they know about those unobvious tricky shortcuts over the rocks).

[Semfry]

This follows on well from the intro visually, with more organic environments in contrast to the start, with only the communication building being purely human design. The mines in the second half especially look great and are on a big scale; the massive cave you follow a thin path through at the end is one of my favourite visual moments in particular, and one that shows how the set doesn't just excel at purely human architecture. There's also the standard great touches in Xenome like the machines and moving parts (especially the grinding machine thing). I do think the ambience is a little bright at times, and the underground of the Comms building is a bit too bright in ambience, when it would fit to have it darker. The final cave is a bit bright too, although I like the visuals enough there to be more neutral on it.

This map has the kind of infamous start where the enemy types in the first fight change it from pretty easy on lower settings to brutal on hard/unreal with how limited your equipment is, although you can use the water the cheese the fight heavily. You also get introduced to the ONP AI teammates here, although, unless you get lucky, they mostly work as meat-shields (or an extra challenge to keep alive) because they aren't too strong, plus their navigation kind of falls apart after the first area, so it doesn't feel like they're designed to go past it anyway. This is one of the more linear levels, which conveys a feeling of traveling some distance, but there are various good moments along the way, like the underground ambush, the grinding machine area where you have to be careful for hiding enemies, and the final trek through the treacherous cave. The messages also build up some small subplots that get resolved in various ways too, like the people in the mine and the military waiting at the end who are dead when you reach them. I think there are one or two sightings earlier, but the ending is also the first proper scene with the green Skaarj nemesis enemy, although you technically don't see him yourself. There seems to be a bug where you trigger picking up the power-cell multiple times, although it doesn't break anything.

[Aspide]

This is the second playable map of Project Xenome and it does a good job of continuing where the last map left off, while the previous map had environments that where very claustrophobic this level takes place in very open areas with plenty of room to move and explore. Project Xenome originally had a very rough beginning history where the author (JazzyB) made a very controversial version of the campaign that took many elements from other custom campaigns but not in a good way and this level shows glimpses of that older version especially during the cave sections that has many elements from Xidia's cavern level "Beneath Xidia". Thankfully JazzyB recreated the campaign to make sure the campaign was more unique and prevented the maps from stealing from other projects directly and instead having the connections to other projects being indirect and working as inspiration rather than a straight up copy.

The level geometry is awesome as always, JazzyB has always been a master in this department, brushes are complex and detailed, textures are well chosen and aligned, there's not a single boring room and JazzyB's skills will only get better over time especially by the time Interloper arrives. The map also has some excellent terrain that rival even the best custom projects of the community, it's interesting to see that JazzyB already mastered all of this stuff so early on, terrain is always the most difficult type of BSP that mappers have to deal with but for JazzyB it feels like this brush is as easy as the rest. Also special mention to the vehicles that appear in the map, they are brushes and they look beautiful considering the limitations of BSP. Lighting unfortunately isn't as strong as the geometry, while JazzyB does a good job at using different colors the lighting in general feels very bland not to mention that there are many room that only have ambient lighting like for example all the rooms inside that building where you need to find the green power cell, also don't look at the areas beneath the water in the first big open area, the lighting is really bad there, at least the map uses Trigger Lights very well for scripted sequences. However one very positive thing about the lighting is that JazzyB implemented the same trick that ONP used to make terrain lighting, very well done

Sound design is good, there are plenty of sounds used as Ambient Sounds and many used for scripted sequences, unfortunately nothing stands out except for the ambient sounds used in the cave sections (because they were taken from Xidia ), I wished that the level used more unique Ambient Sounds or more Dynamic Ambient Sounds. The music is fine with some custom tracks used but the songs aren't that memorable and they aren't used that much, the map only uses one song from Unreal but it's used for one fight, which begs the question if that song was needed in the first place.

Gameplay is the highlight of the map, Project Xenome is one of the most entertaining custom campaigns out there because there's a good mix of enemies, weapons, secrets and very clever level design that's inspired by games like Doom and Half Life. This level continues the tradition from the previous map where you have to find a way to open a door by doing something related to the environments you are in, your objectives are basically finding keys to open doors but I like that the actual keys are recontextualized so they make sense in the context of the story. This level introduces the AI allies that you will encounter many times during the campaign, they aren't supposed to defeat the enemies for you and you are supposed to use them as support, however the allies are very weak so you have to be very careful how you use them, not to mention that in higher difficulties friendly fire is turn on, careful where you are shooting . This map has some sections where you have to find something to open a door to continue but there's no challenge in this, however it's fine because this is just a introduction to what's to come. Lines of Communication might be one of the most difficult levels in First Day in the higher difficulties because ammunition is a very big problem, you only have the Dispersion Pistol and the Enforcer (plus the PulseGun later on) so you don't have that much to work with, however the biggest issue is the amount of enemies in the highest difficulties, you have to be very creative in how you are going to deal with the big amount of Skaarj in this level, using you AI allies in a clever way can make a huge difference. The map has some small cutscenes and they are well made especially the last one where you are introduced to the recurrent antagonist of the story (the green energy Skaarj). One big problem of this map is that even though Xenome is famous for its secrets this map has none, there are some unintentional secrets like the shortcut you can take to finish the map in less that 3 minutes (you can reach the top of the mountains in the area that spawns the first Skaarj).

Issues I found :
- The planet in the skybox has a very ugly texture used for the rings, Interloper fixes this.
- There are no Coop weapons or checkpoints or any kind of filtering, this campaign wasn't designed for Coop which is vey unfortunate.
- One of the lockers near the beginning of the map can hurt you.
- The corpses/chunks of the human enemies don't stay forever even if you have that OldSkool option turned on, this is an issue that Xidia/ONP always had.
- Pathnodes are incomplete which is a big problem because your AI allies won't follow you if you enter the building or if you enter the caves. Also the lake in the first section has no pathnodes, so enemies/allies can get stuck there.
- When you enter the building you can see a SeachLight, for some reason it's an actual pickup instead of being a decoration.
- There are enemies behind movers, which is a problem because when you play UT99 online enemies can see you through movers.
- The Power cell mover is ReturnWhenEncroached, so it can get stuck. Thankfully this doesn't soft-block the map.
- The door that opens after aligning the dish is CrushWhenEncroached, so if you put an ally in that area he will get killed instantly.
- There's a conveyor belt that takes you to a crusher, unfortunately it doesn't affect monsters.
- Near the conveyor belt there's a door that cannot be opened, that door is a mover and it actually works but nothing triggers it.
- When you enter the caves there's an earthquake and some rocks fall from the ceiling, this rocks can kill you instantly. Funny that the level Beneath Xidia has the same problem because that level was used as inspiration.
- All movers that appear as decorations are BumpOpenTimed which can cause problems when you touch them, it would have been better to make them TriggerOpenTimed.
- The wood planks that break when you touch it are ReturnWhenEncroached.
- In the final cave area that's full of mantas and flies you can jump to the top of the waterfall, nothing kills you or blocks you if you go there and you end up soft-blocked.
- In the final caver area there's a trigger that kills you if you fall, however it only affects human players. This issue is everywhere in Project Xenome.
- If your allies somehow reach the final area of the map the game might crash, I don't know what causes this.
- The tank at the end of the map has awful collision.
- The green energy Skaarj looks very different from how he will appear later especially in Interloper.
- If you use the shortcut to reach the final section you can break the final cutscene, you can shoot at the green Skaarj and you can get close to the other human enemies to spare them from dying, which will reveal that they have no names and they use Cliff Bleszinski's portrait from DM-Codex. Also if you ambush the green Skaarj from behind you can kill him.

[Sat42]

An excellent map with some great scenery and smooth action. Maybe a bit too smooth on Medium: even on the first playthrough it was easy! So I find Masterkent's mention of the original version being more challenging interesting (might try to get my hands on it)... Then again next time I might just go about it the way I plan to do with my ONP rerun: play on Hard!

I know the high quality of the build is a constant with JazzyB, but Lines of Communication is quite unique aesthetically in Project Xenome : First Day as it combines tech environments with large outdoor areas and of course the massive cave towards the end. That variety makes it very memorable.

And the scripted sequences are very cool too, as usual!

[Masterkent]

So I find Masterkent's mention of the original version being more challenging interesting

The patched version has more enemies and is more challenging than the original one (at least on the Unreal difficulty). I also like how it adds some extra enemies in Coop game.

It's still relatively easy when compared to further maps in PX: First Day where 5+ players may be needed for beating all monsters comfortably.

[Sat42]

So I find Masterkent's mention of the original version being more challenging interesting

The patched version has more enemies and is more challenging than the original one (at least on the Unreal difficulty). I also like how it adds some extra enemies in Coop game.

It's still relatively easy when compared to further maps in PX: First Day where 5+ players may be needed for beating all monsters comfortably.

Ah OK thanks for clarifying! There does seem to be a big jump in difficulty between the lower and higher difficulty settings (also based on what Semfry & Aspide were saying). And thanks for sharing a video of the coop version too EDIT: added video to the OP

[Mister_Prophet]

I love how Jazzy makes his human/tech environments. This kind of design is unmatched. If Xidia opened the door to the big UT SP tech scene, Zephon kicked it open. But Xenome brought a freight train through packed with boxcars full of angsty punk band marauders shooting jets of flaming oil like that guy strapped to the front of the rally wagon in Mad Max Fury Road. There's no wasted design in sight. Seriously, there's so many little touches everywhere you look that I can't even talk about them. For a second map that's a big deal. That tells the player "hey, this is just gonna keep going."

I'm still on the fence about ONP elements being used in the campaign, but that is only because the scope of the project is so grand that I almost wish Jazzy had someone to help him make new HUDs and gametype/package stuff to compliment. Being truthful, I think the ONP assets fit well enough. The HUD in particular, I dunno why but I just like it better in Xenome.