Enter the Marines 1.0

Well, here's a little hack which allows marines with each and every weapons option to be placed in your games.  To try it out, I suggest removing all of the aliens from Mars Needs Women and placing 4 of each of these marines and 4 of each of the civilians (plus regeneration).  The provided physics model makes the marines less than friendly to each other, but they'll leave you alone for the most part.  It is awfully entertaining to just watch them go to town in the large area on that map.  You might also wish to add a 3x shield generator in there somewhere (the dead-end  in "the coffin" is a good place IMHO) as things tend to get rough with that missile wielding marine running about.

In order that existing shapes not be destroyed, I've used the Unused 1 shape collection in the "Shapes" file: so if you want you can have all of the other baddies in the carnage as well.  Just used the supplied installer on a copy of your Shapes file, and put one of the physics models in your Marathon folder, and you're good to go.  Here's a summary of the Marines and their associated name in the provided physics model:

Unused 1 : Fist
Unused 2 : Pistol
Unused 3 : 2 Pistols
Unused 4 : Fusion Pistol
Unused 5 : Assault Rifle
Unused 6 : Missile Launcher
Unused 7 : Napalm Unit
Unused 8 : Alien Weapon

I've also taken the liberty of using a few of the unused shot types, so watch out if you need to use them yourself.

Files included:
This Read Me file
2 Marines physics modules (one where they do and one where they don't attack you)
a map (Mars Needs Women revisited, only as a quick hack to demo the marines for those too impatient to put them in on their own).

Oh yes, thanks to all of those shape editor people out there (I'm pretty sure I've used most of the editors available).

Marathin Shape Editor 2.0b1 by Kevin Bell
Pfhred 1.1.2 by Jeremy T. Parsons
Marathon Shapes Editor 1.2 by Joe Kloss

Also, thanks of course go to Bungie for the game (and the original shapes).  You can never even begin to appreciate the time and effort that goes into something like this game until you start to muck around with its internals a bit.  What a time commitment (especially at the end of the semester).

Warning: I take absolutely no blame for any damage or general mayhem these files may cause.  Accidents happen, and I won't be held responsible for your cat pulling the plug on your machine while you're installing, etc.  You're all intelligent people, so you know well enough to make copies before you do anything, etc., etc., etc.  Use common sense...

If you like this, send me e-mail at gorlinsk@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign)

