I played the middle route (and a few seconds of the quad route on my second attempt before I got demolished). The bunk area was nice with some good detail. I liked how the chairs were in different positions although I gotta wonder who would build the toilets and showers to close to the eating area.

I was a little confused with the layout out times in terms of how some doors were barred off and I couldn't tell if they were supposed to open up later. I also didn't get how some doors kind of far away from the quad damage can only be opened if you pick it up but I'm guessing that it will make sense once I actually try that route. The assault at the bottom of the elevator was kind of brutal since I was facing the wrong direction when it got to the bottom. I liked that area though - I especially thought that the laser turrets were awesome since I haven't seen anything like that in a custom map.

There was a random biosuit in one of the rooms and I didn't understand why that was available to the player in that location. There were also some bars that had to be opened elsewhere (I'm guessing those come into play if you pick the biosuit route). Because the routes were intertwined, I was a little confused but overall, I thought it was a nice looking base style map with good detail and it was a nice challenge. I hit 7 minutes, 1/3 secrets, 100% kills. 

I found the middle route to be the most interesting. I think the quad route was dull due to only shotgun, as far as I could find anyway. And the bio route killed me a few times. I really like the 3-in-1 design! That middle hangar room looked very cool. Demos below:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1lNi1P3CN-_jTTAgN_uYRgsdKwMxnPnrg 

Poorchop:

Thanks for the quick response! Well, it's a military base, after all, with focus on function over everything else, so it's just practical to have all the basic needs covered close to each other. ;D Although I guess I could have made at least a curtain or something to separate them from the mess hall or something. xD

Interesting comment on the barred doors. In beta testing I didn't have even the bars to mark doors as permanently closed decorations, and it was only thanks to negke's feedback that I added them in the first place. Guess the bars didn't make it completely clear either, that the doors won't ever open.

The bottom elevator confrontation sure was supposed to be brutal. ;) They were prepared for you, after all, with those laser turrets moved and prepared right in front of the elevator.

Yup, the biosuit does serve a purpose, and it is related to the biosuit route along with the openable bars. ;)

JCR:

Thanks for the entertaining demos. You were playing them with such skill that it got me wondering whether they were your first tries or not, well except for the biosuit demos. :) You sure had bad luck in the maze. You had pretty much explored all the other places before finding the red button. Thankfully I had at least made the pipes less easy to get stuck on, after negke's beta feedback.

The choice of having the player use the shotgun most of the time in the quad path was a tough one. Redfield did suggest adding another gun during his testing, but I wanted to keep the path challenging and distinct enough gameplay-wise from the middle route, so I instead decided to make the quad permanent, as per Redfield's suggestion. Maybe in terms of actual enjoyment, it may have been the wrong choice. :/ 

I finished the quad and biosuit route. I never ended up going to the hangar after taking the biosuit route so I never got that spare suit that I mentioned earlier. I guess that I just didn't do enough exploring.

I agree with jcr that the middle route was the most interesting although the quad route was pretty fun. I liked being force to gib the zombies. Took me a few minutes but I eventually figured out how to get the nailgun, which was nice to have in addition to the shotgun.

I liked the slime maze but I think that could've worked as a level segment, like in addition to the middle path. I was a little surprised that it ended when it did. You put a lot of work in the level so if someone were to play this as part of a larger map set, they would miss out on most of your work if they went the biosuit route. Cool concept though to give the player different ways of playing the same map - definitely adds to the replay value. 

Here is my playthrough of all the routes of the map \o/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rgbztpZnWw

I already played the beta version, so this is not a blind playthrough, i knew (more or less) where to go and what to do...

The Biosuit route is the first (at 00:01)
I choose the "wrong exit" to show how the grids stays open if you press the button on the acid pool.

In the Middle Route (at 02:34) i use the "wrong exit" trick to open the red armor cage on the hangar, so i could get all the secrets =D

In the Quad route (at 10:02) i did the same. The "wrong exit" trick let the megahealth exposed in the slipgate's room, and i got all the secrets.

And i also did a "Combo route" (at 15:56), starting with the acid route, then jumping again into the pool to take the middle route, then getting the "secret" biosuit and jumping again into the pool, and taking the quad route to finish the level XD

i think i had too much fun with this map =D 

Hey, you weren't supposed to jump back into the pool with the RA and biosuit! >:C Clearly, you WERE having too much fun with my map, cause you ended up breaking it!

Because as you saw, when you went "illegally" for the Quad path after choosing the middle path, there were no Quad path monsters to fight (and some missing doors too). The monsters were all secretly telefragged when you chose the middle path. (In a similar fashion, all middle path monsters are telefragged when choosing the Quad path, to allow for 100 % kills.)

If I ever finish this episode, I'll probably have to close the sewer bars that would allow you to sneak back to the start room like that! >:C Or then I should just incorporate your trick into my map in a way, that the only way to 100 % the map in the future would be to use your trick! @~@

Thank you, that was quite eye-openingly entertaining, and may have given me some bad ideas to implement for the final final version! >:D

Poorchop, you should take some advice from Tribal, who religiously had the slime path as a segment in each of his/her runs! ;D

Anyway, it seems you genuinely enjoyed my map enough to be messing around with it to the point of breaking it, so that makes me happy. :3c Thank you! 

Good to see you finished this. I'm glad the changes you made seemed to have worked out. I had a lot of fun on the quad path this time, and the ending was much more challenging.

The middle path is the best overall, because it offers the most visually interesting set piece. Preach's models are good, especially for very low poly models, but I guess you don't see these ones because they aren't very Quakey. But the set you used them in is very nice, and the aerial sky entry is cool.

Good job. 

This was a neat map. The area with a ton of bunks makes me wonder if there isn't some mapping trick that could be employed to get better r_speeds in that area. 

The map exceeded some vanilla limits, so the only trickery I tried to do (as per negke's suggestion) was to combine the bunk bed sheets, which originally were individual func_illusionaries, into fewer func_detail_illusionaries. So, not really trickery that would help with r_speeds, I guess, just with limits (which btw, still are exceeded in the final version).

Since you're writing here, it reminded me, that I had written on the readme file that the performance was poor in Mark V, but I had only tested a little bit on version 1.35. But when I tried the later beta builds after releasing the map, they ran the map perfectly fine. Some rooms did fall from 150 fps to around 100 fps in Winquake mode, so some noticeable dips in performance did still occur. Although I guess I shouldn't really complain about 100 fps, considering the load software mode can put on your CPU. :) 

Gave this a playthrough (skill 1, only found 1 secret on middle path), but I forgot to record the demos :(

I like the concept of the players picking their tool of choice and having that affect their options later on, kind of like how Strafe lets players pick one of the three weapons at the start of their run. The paths do feel a little too divergent though, to the point where they could be separate maps with less confusion. If the choice at the start has more to do with playstyle (let's say rockets, super shotgun, or nailgun), then I think you could reuse the same combat arenas and the players would need to play them differently anyhow.

That said, I do like divergent paths. The biosuit route made me feel like I was playing Deus Ex and choosing the sneaky route. Maybe if the three routes had a clear shared objective, and the choice was more about how to approach that objective?

A few other notes. On the middle path, I failed the jump at the crane twice, and started to look for a switch to extend the bridge or something before trying the jump a third time. In that same area, the platform behaves like a toggleable door; I kept lowering it, stepping on, and waiting for it to rise up automatically :P

Altogether, fun level with some cool ideas worth further exploration! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUS7hN7bXEk&t=6338s

Really excellent and unique idea here! It's really great to see how far your skills have come since last years Temple of Quake map.

I think it's cool, the idea of the branching paths that completely change the way the level is played depending on what way you choose. This had to take you a ton of time to figure out with all of the triggers and stuff toggling back and forth!

I especially loved the mess hall area. Great attention to detail with the eating area, beds and storage room... But who showers and craps right next to where they eat!? =)

Nice job buddy! 

Mclogenog, my next map is actually starting to look more like one where you choose your tool at the start and solve one path; a lot less divergence.

It seems both you and ArrrCee were going to reach the silver key by trying to cross the bridge somehow. You can actually reach the silver key without jumping from above: the pile of crates can be climbed from the ground level.

At some point I had actually thought about making some broken buttons on both sides of the bridge, and the player could deduce from them that the bridge won't ever be extending. But I had forgotten to add them. -_-

Thank you for your playthrough, ArrrCee! :) Having my map featured on your show is highly rewarding. Lots of valuable feedback and entertaining to watch to boot!

I'm not going to lie, figuring out how to make the doors work differently for the different paths was overwhelmingly frustrating. If I were to make the map now, though, I could probably execute it much more simply. And I've already started utilizing my refined skills with the next map of the episode. 

...before tackling your newest release, since it's gonna be the first map of the episode.

I expected a somewhat longer map but each path is in fact very short. But what it lacks in length it makes up for in intensity! Middle & quad on skill 2 are quite brutal romps from the get-go and remain relentless until the exit. I liked your efforts towards non-linearity, especially in such a short map. The fact that you can use the crane as a bridge of sorts is a nice touch. Oh, and it's the first time ever that I see chairs that don't look like shit in Quake 1. The only minor gripe I have about these two paths is their brevity.

The biosuit path is a whole different beast. It's both confusing and difficult to navigate due to the sheer amount of pipes that clutter these flooded tunnels. TBH, I found it more irritating than enjoyable. I expected something of a more stealthy and exploratory nature but in fact, the challenge resides in squeezing through that mess of pipes. Not my cuppa. 

Yeah, it's quite short, unfortunately, but playing all the three routes somewhat makes it last around the same time as a medium sized map... almost? :D

And I can also defend myself with the fact that it IS the first map, which traditionally have been shorter maps that help players get familiarized with the concepts of the game and (yadda yadda, excuses, I know). :D

Yeah, the map's quite experimental when it comes to this whole "three distinct paths" mechanic. Incorporating non-linearity and having the paths partially intertwine was part of the experimentation, and it was quite difficult for me, with the skills I had at the time.

I did away with the intertwined paths approach in the following map, which is more of a traditional map, where you just choose your tool at the beginning. Not sure yet, if I'm going return to experimenting with intertwined paths in my next map or not.

I think you're the first player, who's discovered the crane bridge, nice! ;D The bridge grants another way to access the slipgate room, and I'm quite happy with that little non-linear development.

Haha, you complimenting my chairs reminds me of LGR, this one YouTuber who reviews a lot of Sims games and their expansions, and he rarely forgets to mention how many new chairs, especially, have been introduced in each expansion/stuff pack. :D

Yeah, the biosuit path never quite worked out. T_T But hey, at least you didn't get to suffer as a beta tester, who had to juggle through even MORE pipes! ;D

I wanted to keep the powerups more "techy" in the base map, so the ring of shadows wasn't an option for me to bring stealth to the map. (Thankfully I got to correct that in the next map.) And if I wanted to use the biosuit at some point, it would have to be in this map. I did add some boxes to the slipgate room, so the player could sneak past the guards and beat the level without aggroing anyone, so there's the stealth you so badly craved, okay! >:C 

I think you're the first player who's discovered the crane bridge
Heh! I like to explore and hop on stuff. I wasn't sure if it was possible and I was pleasantly surprised to find out that it was.