Vaporware

Vaporware Demo is a partial conversion with one single player level titled "Cargo Transfer" for Eternity Engine by Sarah Mancuso (esselfortium). The project was announced on July 9, 2009 as an "ambitious map pack" by a team of experienced Doom community members. Its one level preview demo was released on May 1, 2011 to coincide with source port Eternity Engine v3.40.11 required by the PWAD. A v1.01 bug fix release followed on December 6 to remove an improperly tagged secret area. The par time defined in EMAPINFO is 7:30.

Despite being a short preview of an in-development project, Cacowards 2011 named Vaporware Demo as one of its annual winners. Feature writer Ryan Nematollahi (hobbs) called the WAD, "one of the best single map levels ever". Although the demo had an overwhelmingly positive reception, the Vaporware map pack was never completed. However some prospective team members did contribute to 2012's Back to Saturn X: Episode 1 megawad whose development was lead by esselfortium. It explored similar tech base themes within design restrictions of the vanilla Doom engine.

Level
The map theme is an industrial tech base that uses custom textures extending the base materials of Knee-Deep in the Dead. It uses a modified palette that desaturates the blue color range for a worn-down aesthetic. Building interiors showcase environment effects including translucent steam and humming computer panels.

The level also acted as a tech demo for features added to Eternity Engine including ACS, EDF, slopes, and ambient sounds. Polyobjects are used for horizontal sliding doors with a see-through window. Vaporware is the earliest WAD to make extensive use of complex portals to accomplish multi-story room over room effects and floor reflections.

Soundtrack
The WAD contains custom music written by esselfortium for the title screen and MAP01.

Enemies
The level adds four new enemies:


 * Catharsi
 * Rapid fire trooper
 * Shadow
 * Shadow (stealth)

There is also an additional unused enemy "Crazy suicide bomber" with EDF behavior under sprite lumps and thing type 22099. It is likely this enemy was planned for future levels.

Weapons
Doom II weapon behavior is maintained however the sprites are modified to use smoother animations. Firearms using shells also emit casings and bullet damage causes enemies to spurt extra flying blood.

Secrets

 * 1) In the hallway northeast of the "Shipping/Inventory" cargo bay bottom story containing the orange key, press on the grey wall in the corner to open up a hidden cache containing green armor and health bonuses. (sector 6392)
 * 2) In the blue key room on the third story, there is a computer panel on the south wall with a green button. Press the button to lower a western wall two stories below in the main cargo bay where the orange key was once located. The accessible secret area is now visible when looking down two stories below the blue key window. Return to the second story and walk through the damaged railing opening to the cargo bay below to access green armor, medikits, and box of shells. (sector 1471)
 * 3) In the north area accessible after the blue key door, on the top story there is a computer room labeled "Control Board" containing an office chair and small display. Press the display to lower a crate visible through the window which has a backpack on top of it. Approaching this switch will count as visiting the secret. (sector 6414) To pick up the backpack, return to the main central area on the second story and again use the damaged railing opening to reach the dangling crate. Eternity Engine's jumping feature must be used or else the player must make a low-percentage SR50 straferun attempt to cover the wide gap.

Current records
The records for the map at the Doom Speed Demo Archive are:

The data was last verified in its entirety on May 2, 2022.

Things
This level contains the following numbers of things per skill level:

Trivia

 * The name is a tongue-in-cheek reference to ambitious projects for the Eternity Engine often ending up being and was accordingly originally called "Eternity Vaporware Project #77b".