Pumo Mines official release thread - Current: v1.1

[Pumo]

PUMO MINES OFFICIAL RELEASE THREAD
Current Release : v1.1
(12 levels - full Mineral Valley episode, partial Kartsal Motivation episode)

__________________________________________________________________

Finally, after more than ten years and some highs and lows, I'm able to release a new Pumo Mines version!
Pumo Mines is divided in three episodes: Mineral Valley, Kartsal Motivation and Muchikuche. Each episode can be selected from the initial Hub level (made by Lightwolt )
The current release (v1.1) includes the full Mineral Valley episode that has 8 levels + 1 secret level, and the first 3 levels of Kartsal Motivation that everyone knows but revamped and remastered.
Muchikuche episode is still not available (there are no complete levels for it yet).

This new Pumo Mines version also features lots of new custom high quality textures, sounds and 3D models, as well as new music.
As always it requires D2X-XL (there's no DXX-Rebirth version as it's exclusively designed for D2X-XL and its special features and modding capabilites, sorry )

-

DOWNLOAD PUMO MINES v1.1 FROM PUMO SOFTWARE WEBSITE (various mirrors available)

Download size is 421 MB and it's a packed .7z archive, so be sure to have either 7-Zip or Winrar to decompress and install it.
Detailed instructions comes in the included PDF manual inside the .7z file.

-

Some screenshots of this release (using ReShade effects)


Pumo Mines planned and current features:

• 37 Levels (counting all episodes) – Current release (v1.1) features 12 Levels (11 + 1 Secret)
• Custom Robots & Weapons
• 4 All new custom Ships – 3 on current release (v1.1)
• Custom Music & Sounds
• Custom Graphics & Textures
• Totally new and original story based on a new universe

System requirements:

• 2 GHz CPU
• At least 2048MB RAM (perhaps more for future releases)
• OpenGL Video Card with at least 1024MB VRAM (most textures are 256x256, with a few 512x512 and 1024x1024 ones)
• 1.57 GB Free HD space for Pumo Mines mission/mod
• 16:9 aspect ratio screen resolution (at least 1280×720 recommended)
• Descent II v1.2 game data
• D2X-XL v1.18.74 (not tested with other versions)
• D2X-XL Hires Sound pack installed (get it from here or here)

You will get weird sound artifacts if the Hires Sound pack is not installed first!

As you may noticed Pumo Mines is BIG (at least for Descent 2 standards) due to its high quality custom content, so be sure to have plenty of hard drive space.
Also note that Pumo Mines and specifically the Mineral Valley episode is hard even on Rookie and Hotshot (not TEW hard but still...), so play on it on higher difficulties at your own risk, lol.
For faster level loading times I would recommend to set your D2X-XL lighting setting to Standard (Lightmaps are not mandatory for Pumo Mines anyways).

-

There are still some issues and bugs here and there (mainly when using full warp appearance effect), specially with a couple of teleporters but it's not something I can fix on my side.
Also due to the player spawn points that changes according to your progress on each level there might be situations where you might spawn near attacking robots, so also take that in account when using full warp appearance setting.
However I tried to make safe spawn points specially at the very start of levels (as suggested by Alter-Fox), except a bit on level 8 of Mineral Valley (as it's a bit of a 'risky' entrance).

If you encounter some bugs feel free to contact me either via PM on this forum or on any of my social network accounts or by E-mail (you can find more info at my Pumo Software website).
-
If you wish you can improve Pumo Mines and D2X-XL visuals with ReShade and the preset I made specifically for it.
You can get the preset here: https://sfx.thelazy.net/games/preset/11618/

_____________________

Now a couple of briefing scenes to make you interested, hehehe:


And the ships you will be flying on this release:


-
Hope you will enjoy this all new and shiny Pumo Mines release!

For more info please visit my Pumo Software website.
To check the soundtrack of Pumo Mines and other of my songs be sure to visit my Bandcamp website.

[Alter-Fox]

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


:clears throat:
...sorry, words failed
punctuation will have to do

[TRUEpiiiicness]

Ditto what alter said...

Also is the blue key meant to disappear on level 3? I know I saw it behind that grate but when I got there it had gone.
Another one of d2xxls quirks?

[Pumo]

Ok, that sounds to me like a D2X-XL quirk, lol

Just to be sure, do you mean the blue key from actual level 3/Mineral Valley level 2, or the one from level 13/Kartsal Mot. level 3?

[TRUEpiiiicness]

As long as its d2xxl doing it and not your mission it's fine.
It was the blue key from mineral valley level 3/actual level 4

[LightWolf]

It looks like XL wants to crash on start for me when the HAM or VHAM is enabled. (Tested by renaming things until it let me in; having either enabled causes the crash)

[Pumo]

It looks like XL wants to crash on start for me when the HAM or VHAM is enabled. (Tested by renaming things until it let me in; having either enabled causes the crash)

Ok, another weird bug, will see if I can find a possible solution later as soon as get out of work.
With so many D2X-XL settings it could be a misconfiguration issue (perhaps I will add a .ini file and a player profile with recommended settings on next version )

[LightWolf]

I figured it out...Leaving "Enable custom weapons" unchecked causes the crash, it has to be checked to run. (I didn't think much of it because I thought having a mod with weapons in it enabled custom weapons anyway.) Probably the oddest crash I've seen so far out of XL so far.

[Xfing]

Oh well, guess I'm gonna have to make an XL folder now

[Alter-Fox]

Well, played through all the levels (except the secret level, haven't found that one yet-- that's what the second playthrough is for!) and aside from some troubles with the first boss (until I found the ceiling hidey-hole) this is definitely one of the best experiences I've had playing Descent mission packs. I played on Hotshot since I wasn't sure how the difficulty was going to scale if I went all-out. That ended up being a good thing 'cause it certainly gets at least a little harder than Descent 2 by the end.
And while the difficulty has its moments -- especially on the last few Mineral Valley levels where there are quite a few enemies that can ruin your shield total before you have much chance to even turn and see them, and kind of necessitates using your inventory if you have any -- overall the whole thing feels polished to an unbelievable level and pretty well-balanced too.

And while I love the soundtrack and don't actually want anything about it to be changed, my one criticism if I had one is that the two boss fights both take place on levels with fairly slow and chill soundtracks, and once you actually start fighting the boss, the music doesn't always feel like it fits with the action.

[Pumo]

Yeah, can't say you're not right about the music on the boss levels (an option to change the music when the boss appears like in Overload would be nuts!), but couldn't change the level music either as I always felt that both songs were already an integral part of the Target : Uranus based levels (at least on my head, lol ).

[Alter-Fox]

For sure. Like I said, I like both songs a lot and wouldn't actually want to change them

[Tancients]

I was setting up a new computer and wanted to give a run through these levels again, but I noticed the main site is offline. Anyone happen to have a mirror or alternative to download?

[Pumo]

I'm having a couple of issues with the current hosting provider and that's why I had to shut down my website temporarily, but Pumo Mines can still be downloaded directly from the server, this is the link to it: https://pumosoftware.com/files/descent/pmines_v11.7z
Alternatively, you can also download it from my Mega mirror: https://mega.nz/file/IlozyYYJ#EehYEAkbH ... W_hVCGUxFg