The ZDoom Community Map Project "Take 2"

ZDoom Community Map Project: Take II, abbreviated to ZDCMP2 is a single map for ZDoom designed by a large number of mappers. It is one of the largest levels ever made. Like the previous project, each mapper was assigned a set of dates to work on the map, each one continuing where the last mapper finished. It took over two years to build, with a final release on 25 May 2014. The map makes extensive use of ZDoom features, such as 3D floors (including swimmable water), and portals. The second release candidate, released on 9 December 2013, won one of the 20th Annual Cacowards.

Data logs
Throughout the level, the player will come across data logs of the since deceased base personnel, the contents are which can be viewed by pressing a key defined by the player in the "ZDCMP2 Options" menu. Many of the personnel are named after the developers of the level, though some are named after characters from popular culture. There are 21 data logs to be found in total. The player also has their own data log, which they can use to view their current objectives. This uses a separate keybind, and again, the player must define it themself.

Data logs essentially serve the same purpose as the PDAs in Doom 3. They play a large part in telling the story of the level, and also drop hints, telling the player what to watch out for, or what they need to do.

New monsters

 * Zombie scientists: Added to the zombie roster are scalliano's iconic scientist zombies. They can only attack with melee and move very slowly, so pose very little threat. They come in two varieties: Males, who are armed with an axe and have 20 health; and females, who carry a knife, and have 15 health, meaning they can be potentially killed with a single pistol shot. Neither scientist drops anything when killed.


 * Rapid Fire Trooper: A low-tier zombie that fits perfectly between the sergeant and the trooper. Like the trooper, he shoots with an assault rifle, but at a much higher rate, faster than the player's own pistol. Like the sergeant, the rapid fire trooper has only 30 health, so can easily be taken care of. They drop the rifle when killed, and can be identified by the distinctive brown colour on their body armour. They are among the first monsters encountered in the level.


 * Flesh Spawn: One of the more grotesque enemies in the level, the flesh spawn is a small, spherical airborne demon, completely featureless aside from a large mouth where its face would be located. Judging by the similar projectile, its ability to fly, and its blue blood, the flesh spawn is most likely some form of cacodemon larvae. Fortunately, it has just 30 health, so every weapon can make short work of it. Nearly always encountered in large swarms.


 * Shadow: A small humanoid demon that maintains a crouched position. Their skin is black, but also slightly transparent. They are often found in dark areas, where they are extremely difficult to spot, and their presence is easier to identify by their iconic growling. Their position is also given away by the fast-moving red projectile that they throw at the player. They have 80 health, so a single shotgun blast may not always be enough to take one of these down. As you'd expect, shadows drop nothing when killed.


 * Soul Harvester: Visually, the soul harvester appears to just be an imp with grey skin. However, in combat, it functions slightly differently. It takes some time to create its projectile - a yellow sphere showing the face of a demon - then launches it at the player, where it will follow the player, and due to its very small turning circle, it is rather difficult to avoid. With 100 health, it should take two shotgun blasts to kill one of these. They are one of the few monsters that appear continuously throughout the level.


 * Grell: A brown airborne demon, very similar in appearance to the Doom 3 Cacodemon. They spit a poisonous green projectile that on impact will give a green tint to the player's screen, and will slow the player down for three seconds. They are encountered solely in hellish settings, making their first appearance rising out of the portal inside the dig site. They have 300 health.


 * Hell Warrior: A medium-sized demon with orange skin and a lions mane. They appear to be related to the hell knight and baron of hell. They launch a yellow version of the baron's projectile, and if necessary, take cover behind their shield, which is also capable of shooting a green projectile.
 * They have 400 health, slightly less than that of the hell knight.


 * Vore: The vore is a three-legged monster taken directly from Quake. It functions identically to its original counterpart, throwing purple spiked bombs that home in on the player, exploding on impact. Like the projectile of the soul harvester, "Voreballs" have a small turning circle, so avoiding them can prove challenging. The vore is tougher than its original counterpart however, with 600 health.


 * Cybruiser: A devastating combination of the Baron of Hell and the Cyberdemon. This dark grey baron has had its right arm removed and replaced with a very powerful rocket launcher, and like the cyberdemon, fires three rockets at a time. At 1250 health, they are slightly tougher than the standard baron.


 * Bruiser demon: A giant baron-like demon, easily identifiable with its bright orange torso and black legs, and by its distinctive roar. The bruiser demon has three different attacks, it can either launch a spread of seven small fireballs, a single large one, or send three lines of fire towards the player along the ground.
 * Bruiser demons only appear in Hell, and even there, they are rarely encountered, but when they are, they will be in pairs. They have 1500 health, making the rocket launcher or plasma gun a favourable weapon for taking them down.


 * Angel of Death: A tall, brown, hoofed demon with a skeletal face and a grey, hooded cloak, first encountered as the eponymous specimen in specimen containment. The angel is armed with two machine guns, of which the bullets rebound off walls, and mounted on its chest is a small explosive cannon.

New weapons

 * Rifle: Weapon slot 2. Dropped by the rapid fire troopers, the rifle is a bridge between the pistol and the chaingun. It fires two bullets at a time at a slightly slower rate than the pistol. It has an alternative fire where it will shoot one shotgun shell as a slug. The shell attack takes very long to reload, and since the shotgun is received early on in the map, and the chaingun not long after, the player is unlikely to use the rifle past the first few minutes of the map. However, its complete lack of spread (in both modes) makes it useful as a sniping weapon.


 * : Weapon slot 3. The AA-12, when found, will replace the default shotgun. It does the same amount of damage, but has a much higher rate of fire, making it a very powerful weapon. In New Game ++ mode, it replaces the normal shotgun.


 * Nailgun: Weapon slot 4. Hailing from Quake, the nailgun is a decent alternative to the chaingun. The nails that it will launch at the enemy are more powerful than the chaingun's bullets, but the nails also travel as a medium speed projectile, taking longer to reach their target. The nailgun's rate of fire is also slightly lower than that of the chaingun. Ultimately, this makes the nailgun a very good close quarters weapon against mid-high tier monsters, but at longer distances, the chaingun is the weapon to use.


 * Flamethrower: Weapon slot 5. Retrieved from the weapon lab, the primary purpose of the flamethrower is to burn through the vines that are encountered about midway through the map. However it can be used as a very effective weapon against monsters, as it has a very high rate of fire - no pun intended!
 * If a larger number of monsters are being faced, the player can use the flamethrower's alternative attack, which will eject the fuel that is used as ammo, and then ignite it all in one go. One thing to note is that this can also be triggered by enemy projectiles, so unintentionally premature ignition can occur. The player can not be damaged by the normal attack, but can be damaged by igniting the petrol. If the player's napalm ammo is under 50, they can use a fuel station to bring their ammo up to 100 on ITYTD, and 50 on other difficulties.


 * Dark claw: Weapon slot 6. The Dark claw can first be found in the research annex, not far from the dig site. The player should take caution when picking it up, as it will be already firing purple projectiles in every direction that rebound off any surface it impacts. These projectiles are actually the primary attack of the dark claw, and addition to rebounding off surfaces, they will also home in on the nearest monster. The claw also has a secondary fire, which shoots a red beam, which drains enemy health and transfers a fraction of it to the player. The claw uses souls for ammo, and happens to belong to the final boss.


 * Soulrender: Weapon slot 7. An extremely powerful weapon. On ITYTD, the soulrender is given to the player just before the final boss fight, but if the player is on a different skill level, they will have to find the secret area containing it. Using souls for ammo, the soulrender needs to be charged up to a certain extent to fire. The progress of the charge can be seen on the weapon as white beams that light up when that charge is complete, with each beam representing a different stage in the charge. At least one beam needs to be lit to fire the soulrender, at which it will fire a white projectile that may or may not be orbited by a number of smaller white projectiles, depending on how much it is charged. At full power, the soulrender rivals the BFG9000 in power, though be aware that it will take over five seconds to charge it fully.


 * Grenades: You will be required to bind a key to use grenades. Pressing that key will throw the grenade, where it will wait a few seconds before detonating, resulting a powerful explosion. Alternatively, you can hold the key down to cook the grenade, then throw it for a smaller delay before the explosion. If you cook the grenade for too long, it will explode in your hand, dealing 200 damage.

New game +
When you finish the level, a credits sequence will begin to play. When this finishes, the level will restart at a higher skill level, and an information box will appear at the top of the screen, telling you that you have started New Game +. This is an optional challenge for experienced players, where there are some significant differences, which include the following.


 * As you would expect, there are more monsters. Initially there are 1262 monsters in the map, opposed to 1069 on ultra-violence. Most of these additional monsters are flesh spawns, but watch out for particularly nasty changes:
 * Three angels hide behind the doors to the dig site, bringing the angel count in the area to seven.
 * The central junction contains three cyberdemons.
 * There are two abaddons.
 * In addition to the ones already existing, many types of monster have had their numbers increased as some stock monsters have been replaced with a tougher monster that is related in some aspect, for example, all barons in the level have become Cybruisers.

It is even possible to go on a New Game ++ after finishing the level twice; however a definitive game over is reached after finishing the level thrice.

Walkthrough

 * Main article: ZDCMP2/Walkthrough

Things
The level contains the following number of things on each skill level. Does not yet account for Thing_Spawn. Custom things are italicised.

Soundtrack
The level uses several different music tracks, which play at different points as the player progresses through the map. These tracks include:
 * MUSIC1.ogg "2012 (ZDCMP2 Remix)" - The first track heard in the level, this track plays up until the player burns through the vines in the first main room. Also known as "2012 (Judgement Day)," this music was originally composed by James Paddock (Jimmy) for his Rainbow Season EP. Paddock then created a remix of the song specifically for the mod ("ZDoom 2012"), which was then edited by Henri Vuortenvirta (Icytux), who replaced the MIDI instruments with high-quality VSTis, and recorded live guitar and bass for the in-game track. Both MIDI files can be found in the PK3 along with the OGG.
 * MUSIC2.ogg "ZDoom Colab" - This track plays when the player enters the Engineering Bay, and plays across this entire section of the level, up until the dig site. It is based on a guitar riff by dj-jo, mixed with a slower-tempo rendition by Icytux of "2012", and featuring some further tweaks by Xaser.

Development team

 * Alex Meyers (Apothem) - Scripting
 * Blue Shadow - Testing, support
 * Captain Toenail - Mapping, coding
 * Chronoseth - Mapping
 * Deathknight - Testing, quality control
 * dj-jo - Music
 * DTDSphere - Mapping
 * Dusk - Mapping, coding, textures
 * Gez - Mapping, quality control, textures
 * Ghastly - Coding, quality control
 * gothic - Mapping
 * Grymmoire - Mapping
 * Henri Vuortenvirta (Icytux) - Music
 * Infirnex - Mapping
 * James Paddock (Jimmy) - Mapping, music
 * Chris Kassap (lupinx-kassman) - Mapping
 * Andrew Rehberger (Malinku) - Mapping
 * James Cresswell (Phobus) - Mapping, quality control
 * Pyroscourge - Mapping
 * ShadesMaster - Mapping
 * Fraser Low (TheDarkArchon) - Mapping, coding
 * Daniel Gimmer (Tormentor667) - Project lead, mapping, graphics, textures
 * Björn Ostmann (Vader) - Mapping, graphics
 * Xaser - Mapping, coding, quality control, music
 * zrrion the insect - Mapping