THE ATTRITION MOD

In this mod of Duke Nukem 3D, all 12 of Duke’s weapons gain experience points and upgrade as he uses them. Duke’s max health, armor, and some of his inventory items can also be upgraded. As you progress through the game, you will encounter more powerful monsters to match your increased firepower. Based on the popular Duke Plus mod, Attrition incorporates many of the same features (including advanced monster AI, bot allies, mirrored levels, damage effects, and more). Attrition comes with a large number of high quality fan made levels that have been organized into several episodes. In two of those episodes, missions are selected at random, and you must complete 12 missions to finish the game. Addictive with lots of replay value, Attrition showcases some of the best levels ever made for Duke 3D, adding new gameplay but keeping the essence of the original game intact.

INSTALL

Extract the contents of attrition.rar to a folder that contains an Atomic Edition copy of DUKE3D.GRP. Use attrition.bat to start a game without the HRP. If you have the HRP installed in the autoload folder, then using attrition_HRP.bat will start a game with the HRP.

SELECT AN EPISODE

Episodes 1 and 2 consist of randomly selected maps. There are 31 maps in each episode, 12 of each will be randomly selected. After completing 12 missions, the final boss level will complete the episode. Duke’s weapons and ammo are taken away after each mission (these are user maps and were intended to be played that way)

Episode 3 is Daikarin by Gabriele R. Giaminardi (saarek), followed by several high quality user maps to add length to the episode.

Episode 4 is the original Duke 3D episodes 1-4, back-to-back.

SPECIAL KEYS

For this mod, you need to assign a key or button for ALTFIRE and ATTRITION MENU. You should also assign a key for QUICK PIPEBOME. Use the keyboard and mouse setup menus in EDuke32 to do this.

ATTRITION MENU

The menu can be accessed once a game is started, and has three selections:

RESTART MISSION --restarts the current level. You will have all the upgrades you had when the level began

UPGRADES –shows the upgrades you have acquired

HIGH SCORES –shows high scores you have achieved for the various episodes

GAMEPLAY FEATURES

These are some important gameplay features that differ from vanilla Duke 3D. I assume you are already familiar with the unmodified game.

KARATE KICKS – Press forward +quick kick to perform a sliding side kick. Press back+quick kick to perform a spinning hook kick (if the mighty boot weapon is selected, you can perform these kicks by pressing fire). Once you have the combinations upgrade for kicks, you can hold down the quick kick key and Duke will continue to kick an enemy in a combination until the enemy is dead or Duke’s kick energy is depleted.

ALIEN BLASTERS – These are dropped by lizard trooper captains (pal 21 liztroops). If you have a blaster, it is weapon 1 (same slot as mighty boot). You can still kick while holding a blaster by using the quick kick key. The only way to replenish the limited battery supply is by picking up more blasters. The blaster can be upgraded like any other weapon.

DEATH RAGE – You get one of these per mission. When getting hit by a shot that reduces his life to 0, Duke goes into a rage during which he does not take damage and he deals 150% damage to enemies. The rage lasts about 8 seconds. Once your death rage is used, you do not get another one until the next mission (restarting the mission DOES reset it). You lose 5000 points each time a death rage is used.

THE HOLODUKE BOT – Using the HoloDuke item spawns a helpful Dukebot. HoloDuke energy will deplete as long as the bot is deployed. It will deplete faster when the bot takes damage. Getting upgrades for this item improves the bot’s weaponry and his ability to take damage.

NUKES – Nuke energy is sometimes dropped by slain enemies (it looks like flashing, floating atomic health). You can hold up to 3 of them at a time. Using a nuke makes Duke throw it, after which it will start to expand, and then detonate a few seconds later. It will damage enemies within about half a city block. Nukes do not destroy cracks in walls (necessary to prevent unwanted level progression). Nukes will become even more powerful when your score reaches 50000, 100000, 200000, etc.

STEROIDS – Using steroids in Attrition causes the game to slow down and the player’s running speed to increase. In addition, upgrading this item has the following effects while it is in use: reduces the damage the player takes, makes him regenerate health, and increases the damage he causes to enemies.

GOGGLES – The nightvision goggles will reveal which switches you need to flip in switch puzzles. They also have the power to make the player invisible to enemies. This ability is very limited to begin with, but can be upgraded. Invisibility works better when crouching, and it is disrupted by running and even more disrupted if you fire weapons. But with enough upgrades, you can remain invisible even when running and firing weapons. If an enemy cannot see you, a ‘?” appears over its head and it will not attack you. Instead, it will wander towards the last spot at which it saw you.

FREEZING SYSTEM – In an unmodded game of Duke 3D, the freezethrower will freeze enemies only if it has done enough damage to kill them. In Attrition, enemies will freeze whenever they are hit by the freezethrower, and the amount of time they remain frozen depends on how much strength they have left. Even enemies that cannot be frozen in regular Duke 3D, such as the sentry drones and tanks, can be frozen in Attrition.

SKILL LEVELS – In Attrition, selecting one of the easier skill levels (“PIECE OF CAKE” and “LET’S ROCK”) will reduce the amount of damage received by the player, and also reduce the amount of points that enemies are worth. In other respects, different skill levels have the same effects as in unmodded Duke 3D. “Come Get Some” or “Damn I’m Good” skill levels are recommended for experienced Duke 3D players

UPGRADEABLE WEAPONS – Some of Duke’s weapons start “nerfed”, but all of them can eventually become extremely powerful. The experience bar (located under the ammo counter in the lower right corner of the screen) shows the current weapon’s level and how much progress you have made towards the next level. As a rule of thumb, you gain experience for a weapon if monsters are damaged or killed while you are holding it. There are some exceptions: if a frozen enemy is shattered, you will gain experience for the freezer even if you aren’t holding it. Likewise, if a shrunken enemy is stomped you get experience for the shrinker. Using regular kicks or karate kicks on enemies will level up the mighty boot weapon (unless the kick shattered a frozen enemy). Finally, tripbomb explosions will level up the tripbomb, regardless of what you are holding. When a weapon upgrades to the next level, a message will display with a brief description of what has been changed or added to the weapon. You can always review your upgrades in the UPGRADES menu.

Here is a complete list of enhancements that weapons may acquire when upgrading:

+ DAMAGE ( most weapons )

+ RATE OF FIRE ( pistol, rocket launcher, chaingun )

ALTFIRE MODE ( shotgun, chaingun, rocket launcher, devastator, freezer )

Adds a new altfire mode to the weapon. They are –

shotgun -> flak burst

chaingun -> incendiary pods

rocket launcher -> megarockets (cost 3 ammo each)

devastator -> auto shotgun

freezer -> ice shards

Note: the ALTFIRE key causes pistol to reload (no upgrade needed)

Also: ALTFIRE on pipebombs makes them switch between timer mode and trigger mode.

BLEEDING WOUNDS ( pistol, shotgun, chaingun )

Causes a wound to appear in the exact spot where the projectile hit the enemy. The wound will bleed for several seconds, causing additional damage as it does.

STUNS (karate kicks, pistol, shotgun, rocket launcher)

Enemies become paralyzed for a brief time when hit by the weapoin. The amount of time depends on the weapon.

+ SHRAPNEL ( chaingun )

Causes small spiky bits to fly from the impact point and harm enemies. They do not harm the player.

TIGHTER SPREAD ( shotgun, chaingun )

More accurate bullets/tighter spread.

+ PROJECTILES ( shotgun, devastator altfire, freezer altfire )

The weapon shoots an additional projectile when firing.

PIERCING ( chaingun bullets, pistol bullets, devastator rockets, freezer altfire )

The weapon’s projectiles can pierce an enemy and hit another enemy or object

+ RUNNING SPEED ( rocket launcher, devastator )

The player can move at normal speed when holding the weapon.

+ SHOT SPEED ( rocket launcher )

Projectiles fired by the weapon move more rapidly.

BURNS ENEMIES ( chaingun altfire, rocket launcher, pipebomb, devastator )

Spawns fires on impact which burn enemies

+ EXPLOSIONS ( rocket launcher, pipebomb, tripbomb )

Spawns additional explosions and increases the area of affect.

+ BOMBLETS ( pipebomb, tripbomb )

Spawns small rolling bombs which detonate on contact.

BOMBLETS SEEK ( pipebomb, tripbomb )

Bomblets will seek out and move towards nearby enemies.

AKIMBO ABILITY ( pistol )

Allows the player to wield two pistols at once. Note that you have to find a second pistol first!

+ DISTANCE ( karate kicks )

Increased kick range.

COMBINATIONS ( karate kicks )

Continue to hold down the quick kick key after kicking an enemy and Duke will keep kicking the enemy in a combination until the enemy is dead or Duke’s kick energy is depleted

+ KICK ENERGY ( karate kicks )

Increased kick stamina.

KNOCKBACK ( shotgun )

Knocks enemies backwards. Note that some weapons can do this without an upgrade.

+ SHRINK POWER ( shrinker )

Allows the shrinker to affect stronger enemies.

+ SHRINK TIME ( shrinker )

Increases the time that enemies are shrunk.

+ SHRINK RADIUS ( shrinker )

Increases the area of affect of the shrinker impact.

VORTEX OF DOOM ( shrinker )

Makes a small singularity appear where the shrinker shot impacts, sucking in nearby enemies and crushing them.

ROCKETS SEEK ( devastator )

Will seek out enemies.

BLINDING FLASH ( pipebomb, tripbomb )

Spawns blinding flashes of light that stun nearby enemies.

+ FREEZE SPARKS ( freezer )

Additional short range freezeblast sparks fire off in random directions when a primary freeze blast impacts

SHOOTS BEAM ( alien blaster, freezer )

Makes the weapon fire a beam instead of a projectile.

CHARGED ALTFIRE ( alien blaster )

Hold down the altfire button to charge a shot, release to fire.

POWBALL ALTFIRE ( alien blaster )

The charged shot becomes a powball, a highly explosive ball of energy. The powball will detonate when it hits something, OR when you shoot it with a blaster beam.

+ CLONING POWER ( expander )

The first of these upgrades gives the expander the cloning power, which makes a duplicate of the expanded enemy spawn in its place. The duplicate will fight on your side. Additional upgrades make the duplicates more powerful than the originals.

+ EXTRA CLONE ( expander )

Two duplicates of the expanded enemy are spawned instead of one.

WEAPON MASTERY UPGRADES – Each time you upgrades a weapon, it adds one point to your total weapon mastery. When your weapon mastery reaches certain levels, you get additional bonuses:

TOTAL WEAPON LEVELS WEAPON MASTERY BONUS

12 fast weapon switching

24 increased nuke power

36 1% life leech

48 ultimate nuke power

60 2% life leech

OTHER FEATURES

AUTOMATIC WEATHER AND GRASS – Attrition decides whether rain or snow is appropriate for a level, and if so the weather is generated. Likewise, blades of grass are spawned where appropriate. The system is not perfect: you may see grass spawned on a green metallic vehicle, for example.

MAP MIRORRING – When starting a level , there is a 50% chance that it will be an x-flipped (mirrored) version. This feature works fairly well but is known to cause some glitches, such as some swing doors opening in the wrong direction.

LOTS OF STUFF FROM DUKEPLUS – Damage decals, footstep sounds, etc.

GAME TIPS

· If you are playing one of the random missions episodes, try to level up a large variety of weapons when given the opportunity, instead of focusing on just a few. This will pay off when you are in one of the harder missions and all you have is a weapon you don’t normally use much, such as the freezethrower.

· If monsters are killed by a nuke or by each other, then the weapon you are holding will get the XP. Use this to your advantage. You can easily level up tripbombs, for example, just by holding them while detonating a nuke. The QUICK PIPEBOMB key is tailor made for this tactic. Once pipebombs are leveled up they become a poor man’s nuke, and you can lob them while holding a different weapon.

· Those evil, purple Duke clones are extremely fast and deadly. Usually it is not a good idea to try to stand and fight with them. Use cheap tactics! Backtrack around a corner and then fire your weapon along your path and he will probably walk right into the trap. Also, use weapons that have the stun mod to stop him from moving long enough for you to hit him again.

· The altfire shots of the chaingun bounce off walls and light enemies on fire, making it a great way to stall or soften up groups of advancing enemies while staying out of their line of fire.

· As soon as you are able to use the expander, get it leveled up so it has the cloning power. It levels up quickly and is a good investment. The clone allies are more powerful than the originals and can make some nearly impossible fights fairly easy.

· Do not depend on the auto save feature. Sometimes it will go a long time without saving the game. Also, it always saves to the same slot, so if you start a new game, the new game’s autosave will overwrite the autosave from your previous game. So, make a regular save before starting a new game, if you plan on coming back to that game later.

· Kill every enemy. Difficulty progression is based on level progression, not on your score. Therefore, if you leave enemies alive, you are putting yourself at a disadvantage, because you are losing opportunities to level up your weapons while the game gets more difficult. Obviously you should make an exception if there is an avoidable enemy with a lot of health such that fighting it would be suicide or exhaust your ammo.

CHANGELOG

1.03 5-26-10

· goggles have cloaking ability (see documentation)

· evil dukes can drop the expander instead of expander ammo

· sentry drone explosions have more power in proportion to drone's hit points

· fixed bug with allied monster AI which could cause them to back away too far from player

· added improved life leech as a final weapon mastery upgrade (need 60 total weapon levels)

· improved the nuke power upgrades

· added protection against crashes caused by spawning too many sprites

· fat liztroops regain the correct size after cloaking

· fixed a bug in which chaingun gets passed over by next/previous weapon if the most recently used chaingun ran out of ammo

· increased size and clipdist of miniboss cycloid so that rockets won't pass through him

· fixed bug which caused evil Dukes to cause more damage than they were supposed to and could also make them kill the player and bypass his death rage

· improved boss battle at end of random episodes

· added jump/stomp ability to some Cycloids

· steroids can now regenerate up to the player's current max health amount, instead of 100

· new system for limiting the total strength of player's allied cloned monsters

· fixed bug where killing allied monsters gave points (the player already gets points for cloning monsters)

· fixed bug where pistols would deplete clips more rapidly after acquiring the piercing upgrade

· other minor tweaks

1.02 4-27-10

· fixed atomichealth so it can add up to 2X max normal health, as intended.

· fixed a bug related to piercing bullets; this should fix the bug which causes the player to get squished sometimes

· protector drones (newbeasts) can now be shrunk by the player if the shrinker is level 6 or higher

· reduced chance of nukes dropping, and added small chance of monsters dropping boots

· fixed autosave bug

· weapons do extra damage at higher levels, instead of leech; leech is now a global weapon mastery upgrade

· added piercing upgrade to pistol to replace the extra damage upgrade at level 4

· added shrapnel upgrade to chaingun to replace the extra damage upgrade at level 3

· weapon switching has been "nerfed" at game start. It is no longer possible to switch weapons while a weapon is firing, and you cannot interrupt a weapon switch to switch again. However, fast weapon switching is now an upgrade, and it is even faster than default EDuke32 switching.

· adjusted point values for monsters to prevent player from leveling up too fast

· increased XP needed for some levels of tripbombs and expander because they were leveling up way too easily

· delayed introduction of some monster types to ease difficulty in early levels

· fixed a bug where cloned monsters could get squished at the moment of cloning

· fixed bug with the chaingun ammo display in the strip on the bottom of the screen

· changed some code with the fat commander's cannonball projectile in order to avoid an eduke32 crash

· removed battlelord variant that fires incendiary bullets and replaced it with one that fires ice shards (cuz there were too many monsters firing those incendiary bullets)

· added new pic for menu background (there are two versions; one for widescreen and one for regular)

· added HRP font to replace the big red font seen in the HUD and some other places; I generally like the graphics without the HRP but that font was an exception

1.01 4-17-10

· Changed 'RELOAD&ALTFIRE' to 'ALTFIRE' which should fix a keybinding problem for some users.

· Split the original levels into 2 episodes, because there were just too many levels in one episode. This allowed me to add back a few levels that had been cut out.

· reduced damage from evil Dukes by 25%

· prevented big bosses from having the flag that makes them retreat (no walking backwards)

· added enforcer variant which fires devastator

· improved autosave

· various tweaks to difficulty progression

· reduced upgraded shrinker blast radius by about 20%

· First aid kits and health packs can now be partially picked up (remaining amount in smaller leftover kit/pack). This means you no longer have to worry about “wasting” health.

· Karate kicks do increased damage with every level up

THANKS

To all those who have Attrition possible through development of EDuke32, contributions to DukePLus, making user maps distributed with this mod, playtesting, etc. One of these days I’ll get around to adding proper credits to this thing…