Marathon/Aleph One Tips & Techniques

Introduction

If you are new to Marathon and Aleph One, I can’t praise them enough. I'm talking about a completely free and immensely varied 'first person shooter' game. That means that the game presents the world from your point of view as you explore a virtual world, with varying amounts of combat. Some of the worlds focus on exploration and observation, some on problem solving, some on combat tactics.

There are free games and tools to make your own maps and scenarios. Many people have done so, so there is almost endless variety within this one game engine.

The First Person Shooter has roots back to the 70s, but "Wolfenstein 3D" is credited with creating the 'genre proper' in 1992. Doom was introduced in 1993. Bungie Software brought out Marathon in 1994, just for the Mac system. Predictably, their Engine was the best so far. It even allowed multiple people, on the same local network, to play at the same time, in a variety of combat games, or cooperatively. but more importantly, they released map making software. They followed up with Marathon II: Durandal and Marathon III: Infinity.

You play a Cyborg Marine raised on Mars. The UESC (United Earth Space Council) converts one of Mars’ Moons to an immense ship, the Marathon, on which you embark. You travel in cryogenic sleep until you are awakened because the Marathon has accidentally encountered an alien race. That race is now attacking. The race is actually the Empire of the Pfhor, which enslaves other races. Various AIs (Artificial Intelligence (computer programs)) on the Marathon seize the opportunity to gain new resources and turn ‘rampant’, in which they go through stages such as greed, paranoia, anger, then maybe, it is hinted, eventually stability. In essence, they come alive. You encounter evidence of an ancient super‑powerful race (?) called variously Jjaro or Yaro, and their ancient enemy, the demonic W'rkncacnter.

It may interest you to know that Halo is a successor to Marathon. It was made by the same people (Bungie!), contains many allusions to the Marathon universe, and contains many comparable plot points. Microsoft bought Bungie in 1999 just prior to Halo's release, so they could bring it out initially exclusively for the X-Box. Many considered it the X-Box's "killer app", the one program that made purchasing the X-Box essential.

Bungie was owned, not absorbed, by Microsoft. Bungie released the source code to the Marathon II Game Engine in 1999, and the Open Source Project called Aleph One began, which re-wrote the Engine using the open source graphics scheme, OpenGL. They added the ability to do multi-person play over the internet. People of all kinds of computer systems could now play. In 2004, Bungie released all three Marathon games to the public, so they are now free.

I've played Halo and other more modern First Person Shooters. They’re great, I love them. They're much nicer to look at, but are they more fun to play? Not really. Their sophisticated engines allow more variety in some ways, but they can't match the variety offered by an active contributing community of users.

Many of the scenarios that came out from the user communitywere crafted with love for great story, playability, and just general awesomeness. I include Rubicon and Devil In A Blue Drees in that group.

Here are some terms:

Plank - One of the possible story lines in a ‘Scenario’.

Scenario - A complete game, which is playable under a Game Engine. In the Aleph One ‘Game Engine’, it is a collection of ‘maps’, which the player explores, thereby acting out the plot of the story.

Game Engine - A Game Engine is the physics, rules, shapes, textures, behaviours of the virtual world, and how it interacts with the player.

Aleph One - Aleph One is an open‑source and free ‘port’ (re‑write) of the beloved Marathon game ‘engine’ which ran on old Mac systems, so that it will now run on modern computers, whether they be Macs or Windows or maybe even Linux and other Unix flavours.

Marathon - Marathon was the three‑Scenario series from Bungie (which also created the engine), known as Marathon I, Marathon II (Durandal), and Marathon III (Infinity). Each had its own Game Engine, each one better than the last.

Map - A map is a limited 3D environment, sort of like a blue‑print, except it can also have its own special physics. Each map will contain one or more ‘exits’ to other maps, so that the story can progress.

Cyborg - organic creature whose abilities are augmented by adding artificial devices to its body. Think 'Six Million Dollar Man' but more changed and less strong.

Polygon - Flat (planar) shape made of multiple straight edges. The whole virtual world in the map is made up of these. In the Marathon Game Engine, they can act as a switch when the player sees them or goes over them or steps on them.

The HUD is your 'heads up display'. It appears along the bottom of the screen, if you have chosen that in your preferences. You should. The bottom coloured bar on the left is your shield level. The bottom blue coloured bar is your air supply. The round disk on the left is your motion sensor. Note, that is distinct from radar. If an enemy is not moving, it won't appear. The square bracket keys, depending on the preferences you have set, will advance the textual list choice among the choices of 'Ammunition', 'Weapons', or 'Items'. If a list is empty, it won't appear.

My Spoiler Guides will occasionally refer to red, yellow, or purple, as in, ‘get your purple’. As a cyborg, you have shields, which are represented by a horizontal bar in your HUD. As the shields increase, they fill in the bar with red, then yellow, then purple. I refer to your shield level as 'health'. There are cannisters for a fast once‑only charge, and there are chargers. When next to a charger, hit your action key.

Sometimes you need to do a grenade hop. There are variations. A short one can be done losslessly. Your back is to the ledge, you shoot the ground as you try to move backwards. Use bullets for slightly higher jumps. Shoot the ground near enough to hurt for higher jumps. For the highest jumps, shoot the ground in front as you run forward toward the wall, like a pole vault.

Sometimes you need to do a rocket jump. There are two. If you have yellow or better shields and you don’t care about losing health, just shoot at the ground near enough to hurt. It will hurtle you backwards and up. Bouncing around will be a problem. Additional shots may extend the flight. From full yellow health, it will use up all but a sliver of health. The second way is lossless. As you are moving backward, shoot the ground as near as possible without getting hurt. That will slam you into the wall and lift you a bit. Shoot another rocket just then and get quite a bit of extra height.

All weapons have projectile speeds. As a cyborg, you are the fastest creature in the game by far. You are fast enough that if you are running perpendicularly to the enemies line of fire, you will mostly not get hit.

The most essential tactic is divide and conquer. All creatures in the game, including your enemies, have varying tempers. The Pfhor Fighters and Troopers are especially bad tempered. If they get injured by their allies past that point, they will turn on the creature that hurt them. So, again, use your speed. Use them as shields, rush between them, run behind them, till they turn on each other. Also, each has a variable point of injury beyond which they go berserk. When they have just a sliver of life left, they will start attacking whatever is closest. If their allies are even tempered or are moving around, just one barely alive berserk alien can cause a lot of damage. If you have room to run, you need no ammo against Fighters and if you have a charger, you need no ammo against Troopers.

When I say ‘use the door’, I mean to exploit a door as a tactical advantage, ideally one that opens up from the bottom. Get it between you and some shooting enemy. Every time they try to open it, close it again. Their shooting will either hit their friends or the door. If it hits their friends enough, you will get that ‘divide and conquer’ thing working. If they are close enough to the door and shoot grenades, it will even hurt the shooter. If you are impatient and have plenty of ammo, shoot once at their feet every time before you close the door. Any group that includes troopers can be decimated rapidly with this method.

Every creature has a certain reaction time. Almost all creatures hesitate when hit. So, if they are hit more frequently than their reaction time, they are essentially frozen.

Using your fists is slow but free. They hit often enough that certain enemies will be frozen and won’t even be able to hit back. It’s great one‑on‑one, but even against multiple enemies you can use your fists, if you are able to keep your target between you and the others. In a hall, that’s easy. In an open area, you must circle and dodge rapidly. Note that a running punch does much more damage than a standing punch. Other enemies will be able to hit back even when you are flailing with both fists, however, they usually do something that signals the commencement of their attack, and you can just run away while they swing, or fire, then return and punch some more. For instance, with Pfhor fighters, I run up and hit them once then immediately turn and run away, repeating as often as necessary.

Most enemies will come to where you want to fight them if you make a noise, such as punching a wall. Sometimes you must hit them with a shot. Sometimes they just won’t. When making a map, you can designate creatures as blind or deaf, and you can restrict them to an area. Of course if you suspect the creature is blind or deaf or trapped in an area, you can exploit that.

When I say, shoot the switch, you must use an appropriate gun. A grenade or alien weapon will do it. Possibly a rocket or mortar would, but they are too precious. Bullets and shotguns and regular fusion shots will not. In non‑Rubicon physics, you can use your second trigger on your fusion pistol to build up an extra strong charge. That will work on switches.

Part of the knack is figuring out the type of switch you are confronting. Some toggle a movement. Some move something only one way. Some do a cycle of both moving and moving back. Some of those can be switched off before they, say, re‑close a door. Some must be broken (Fist or grenade or alien weapon will do so frugally). Sometimes using a terminal will act as a switch. Sometimes stepping on a particular polygon will do so.

You’ll need to know climbing and jumping techniques. There is no jump button. However, your character will automatically climb onto something that’s not too high. About calf height is fine. So, that gets you on to stairs and low ledges. And there is momentum, on both vertical and horizontal vectors, so you can not only cross empty spaces by running (about 12 feet (4 meters) I estimate), you can extend that distance if you were rising when you leapt. Also, that effectively extends the height at which it will auto‑climb. Also, you can extend the jumping distance by strafing at the same time. Angle yourself so that the forward and sideways vectors combine in a straight line of motion to the nearest point. During a leap, you can manoeuvre somewhat, though it is less responsive than when on the ground. Perhaps they apply some model of reduced friction.

Here are some of the weapons. All of them show the amount of ammo in the clip graphically in the HUD, and the number of clips textually in one of the 3 HUD displays.

Fists - Primary and Secondary triggers operate left and right fists. Short range, low damage, higher when running towards target.

Pistols - Long range, fast projectile. Extremely accurate but low damage and frequent need to re-load. Primary and Secondary triggers operate left and right pistols if you have two, otherwise they both shoot the primary pistol.

Fusion Pistol - Long range, medium speed projectile. Very accurate. More damage than pistol. Especially effective against technological enemies (Drones, Compilers, Troopers, Hunters). Primary trigger shoots, secondary trigger builds up a more powerful charge which is released when the trigger is released. This 'super-charge' can activate switches. It can also eventually explode the pistol, injuring you.

Assault Rifle (AR) - Primary trigger rapidly sprays bullets. Secondary trigger shoots grenades. Both triggers can work concurrently, but if either needs reloading, both stop. Grenades are essential for grenade-hopping. They have a 'range of effect', so you can hit several enemies at once and have an effect beyond your line of sight. They are affected by gravity, so they have a quite visible arc in flight, so you must compensate for distance. They can activate switches.

Shot Guns - Shoots multiple pellets all at once in a spreading cone, so lethal at short range, not so strong at long. Secondary trigger brings up and shoots a second shotgun if available, just fires primary shotgun otherwise.

Flame Thrower - Throws flames. Short range, but lethal to biological units, not too strong against mechanical units. Interferes with your vision. Can be used to greatly extend jumps.

Alien Weapon - Rapidly shoots energy bolts. The bolts are capable of activating switches. They are fairly accurate. The Secondary Trigger, in most scenarios, converts it shoot off to the left and right. So, holding both down, you get a broad area of effect. In most scenarios, they can't be reloaded.

Rocket Launcher - Launches rockets. The rockets cause massive damage in a large area of effect. In network play, shoot walls and floors near your target to hit a player that dodges too well. Projectiles are fast, but visible in motion. In solo play, they are so useful to climbing that you should virtually save them for that. Only two rockets in a clip. Very slow to reload.

There must be some graphical collection of Enemy types out there. If so, somebody please email me the URL. For now, here are the main types:

Pfhor Species - Insectile race expanding their empire based on slavery. They have three red eyes, and 3 is a common motif for them.

S'pht Species - Cyborg race. Originated on Lh'ownen as biological life. Long ago they became dependent on technology. 13 'tribes', 12 of which were enslaved by Pfhor.

Fighter - Pfhor soldier. Two-legged, two-armed, skinny insect, carries a powered staff. Yellow is weak, and can only strike with it. Green is stronger. Purple is stronger. Blue seems to be a bit weaker than Purple but can now shoot bolts with the staff. Grey is very strong./p>

Compiler - Type of S'pht. Tall, robed, flies and shoots energy bolts. Easy to freeze with fists. Can be invisible.

Hunter - Possibly armoured Pfhor, possibly another species. Hard shell, shoots bolts rapidly from shoulder. Especially vulnerable to fusion pistol. Explodes when dying, especially if killed with fusion pistol. Blue is very powerful.

Tanks - Cyborg, sort of a human torso with a machine base travelling on treads. Shoots bouncing homing exploding balls and, depending on scenario, bullets or flames.

Trooper - Armoured Pfhor carrying Automatic Rifle very similar to yours. Shoots bullets and grenades but not concurrently. They are excellent to manipulate into hurting your other enemies, and are very vulnerable to 'using the door' as described below. Difficult to freeze except with AR. Often, it is best to use your grenades to keep knocking them back behind a corner so they can't get a line of sight at you.

Enforcer - Some sort of upper Pfhor caste, tall and robed. They carry guns which rapidly shoot bolts of energy. If not exploded or burned, when they die they will drop their guns and you can pick them up and use them, though in most scenarios you can't re-load them. Ideally, freeze them with your AR.

Drone - Flying killer robot, shoots energy bolts. Fairly weak. Especially vulnerable to fusion pistols.

Juggernauts - Flying huge killer robots. Can take immense amount of damage. In most scenarios, shoots bullets rapidly, and powerful and fast homing exploding missiles. Generally they are too expensive to kill. They explode powerfully when killed, causing brief blindness. The explosion is nearly sufficient to kill you even when you have purple shields. If you get right up to them, in most scenarios, you can stand safely between the muzzles of their guns and punch them. Count the punches, and when you explode, then try it a second time, but flee just before they are due to explode, and finish them with a pistol or something. In at least one scenario, they are immune to fists and pistols however.

Flick'ta - Creature from Lh'owen, possibly ancestor of S'pht. Looks like Swamp Thing. One type lives in lava and can throw balls of lava. Always can claw. Usually can be frozen with fists.

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