OH! WELL IN THAT CASE I BEAT THE ENTIRE GAME ON INSANE WITHOUT SAVING OR DYING! AND I THOUGHT IT WAS TOO EASY LOL

I'm amused that this thread is still alive. I really enjoyed reading the post by "Entropy."

The reason for this is that originally the homers (and many other things) were FPS dependent. So there are almost as many "original" homer settings as there are Descent players, because everyone played at different FPS.

I'm not sure how XL does it, but I know Rebirth has set the homers based on difficulty...each difficulty has the homers set to fly like they did at a certain FPS in the original.

Now play Doom2 on Nightmare, and Unreal on Unreal. A lot of older games had difficulty levels that were a joke to play. I don't think they were ever meant to be playable, just a novelty feature. For instance, both unreal and doom spam so many monsters, that even if you had the skill, you'd still run out of ammo. Descent completely takes the fun out of the game since the balance is so out of whack. I can't really consider a difficulty level that unbalances the game and cheats to be fun, but hey whatever rocks your boat. Just keep in mind S&M isn't for everybody.

That's just plain bad and lazy programming. The 3dfx version doesn't have this problem, maybe they should figure out how they fixed it. Because if you can't dodge the homing missles, and if you dodge them and they do a 180 and come back, that's just unplayable garbage. And why would the higher difficulty levels need to fly at higher "fps"? The original game didn't do that, so neither should Rebirth.

Well here's the deal:

In the original game many of the weapons were based on FPS (frames per second) which changes depending on how good of a computer you had. The better the computer, the better the FPS and so the harder the homers were to dodge.

Both the original game and the 3dfx version changed the difficulty of the homers depending on your particular computer's capability. So on your particular computer, you might experience the original, and the 3dfx version the same as each other...but it's something totally different than someone else may experience.

Rebirth has removed the variance in difficulty...it no longer depends on FPS. The different difficulty levels have the homers fly the same way that they used to at certain FPS settings. This way everyone gets a uniform game experience.

As an example...the homers now fly almost exactly like they did on the original game when I played it...simply because my FPS at the time were similar to what Rebirth has set the homers to fly like.

E.G. I used to play the game at 36 FPS on Rookie (FPS on the original changed with difficulty because on higher difficulties more projectiles were in the air at one time, and so FPS would drop). Rebirth has the homers on Rookie fly like they used to at 30 FPS (I don't know that...it's just for the example.) Therefore when I play the game they fly almost exactly like they used to.

Also I can still dodge homers on insane...granted they're very hard, but I still can. (And I'm not THAT good of a pilot.)

http://www.dxx-rebirth.com/frm/index.php/topic,805.msg8597.html#msg8597 Here's a thread explaining the way the homers work a little bit.

There was also a poll and the majority of the people said that the way the homers work now (0.57.1) is very close to the original.

Boy it's a hard game, just made myself through the first 10 levels. Enemies are everywhere and how i hate homing missiles and vulcan armed robots. Each time they get me killed i quit the game in frustration but the next day i overcome new level to meet even more challenge ahead.
What an unusual mix of humiliation and satisfaction! ;)

Now I want to complete all Descent games even unofficial commercial mission pack Dimensions for Descent

Welcome to the hardest game ever. :D

Well I'm in reactor room in level 21, quite a surprise from level designers! ;)

I did it! I finally completed Descent 1, the most difficult level for me was Level 12 for some reason. I also hate Cloaked Vulcan/Driller bots they are the worst, thank god there is only one level with reproducing pods for these bastards.

Well, now it's time for Descent II. Imo Dimenstion from Descent and Levels of the Words are mediocre at best, some of the levels corrupted and many designed for multiplayer/anarchy only. I don't understand what the fuss was about some user created levels missing. I've never heards of Descent II: Vertigo levels before, will check them, anyway Vertigo levelrs were created by original designers and they sort of cannon / plot oriented, so yeah it's bad they're missing.

As for the DX Rebirth Project: very good job! I always wanted to play Descent 1 they same way I played Descent 2 with 3dFX Voodoo patch. It's very good.
Would be nice if they add Playstation cutscenes and speech packs for briefings and bots info, here is a video of how it would look like:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrPs0ZWQSb4

I'm glad you like Rebirth! I'm part of the team that works on it, and I really love the project too!! :)

I think there's some licensing issues with getting the PlayStation cutscenes, but I'll ask around. Also, you can get Vertigo in the Definitive Collection thread here on this forum. (There's a link in the FAQ thread).

Not only the cutscenes but the speech narratives for each and every briefing screen which were "hidden on the disc".
It's quite easy to avoid any licensing issues using the same approach as with Vertigo missions, the installer could have additional option called something like "PSX enhanced edition" with the requirement for user to have all the necessary files. Theoretically it's possible.

Thank you I've already downloaded Vertigo missions from your link. Also there were exclusive Playstation levels from Descent Maximum, DXX Rebirth installer even had it in Downloadable Content for D2X (only 1.4 Mb), I checked it but nothing happens. What was that exactly? Special tool to convert PSX levels or someting?

Anyway if you are interested the converted Descent Maximum levels available here:
http://moon.descentforum.net/descendarium/d2maximum.html

They work fine but I suggest to edit naming in maximum.mn2 file a little, current naming is "-Descent- Maximum".
These levels were officially made by Parallax Software.
The levels are quite good, but I can't say for sure before I finish original campaigns.