Improved Xen Fixes

Improved Xen was a great mod released sometime after the 1.0 release, and it works on the latest version (Definitive Edition), but it does have some flaws, most noticeably is that some of the HL1 sounds are used in this mod and Black Mesa mostly uses their own sounds, so I took it upon myself to make changes to these maps and update the New UI for it. No, I did not majorly change the maps as they remain the same (also, I’m not good with using Hammer Editor).

Zloikot currently doesn’t plan on releasing the .vmfs for these maps, so I edited the entities in the .bsp files using EntSpy[gamebanana.com] to replace the HL1 sounds along with other tweaks.

[THIS FIX PACK EDITED THE SOUND ENTITIES FOR THE MAPS, SO PREVIOUS SAVES WITHOUT THE FIXES WON’T WORK. RESTART THE MAP OR START A CHAPTER]

– New UI is updated to use the UI from the latest version of Black Mesa.
– New startup screen, text changes for English and Russian languages, background, and chapter icons for the mod.
– All maps were edited to replace HL1 sounds with Black Mesa’s sounds (I had to create a few new ones) except for a few because they sounded different in the mod than the HL1 counterpart.
– This mod now uses the custom folder and the custom folder from the main game.
– Optional addons for this fix pack are included. (Scroll down the description for directions)
– Boid, Hacker Tree, and Plantlight models are replaced with official ones, but they behave the same in the mod than in the official Xen levels.

– The player now draws the Crowbar instead of the Crossbow.
– Gibbing sounds used for breakables remain unchanged as Black Mesa has this sound by default.

– "xen-gl2bx.wav" was replaced with a high quality version of The Hunting track.

– Mantis Flyers laser beams were altered to be slightly similar to the official maps. I couldn’t change the beams to be consistent.
– The Tentacle NPC sound script was edited so that it now sounds like it’s hitting rocks than metal.

– "ixen_credits.wav" was replaced with a high quality version of the Border Worlds track.

– Some images are included when you subscribe to this addon.
– The edited maps were saved and optimized, breaking the checksum for these maps. I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing, but I don’t want the maps to crash the game.
– I didn’t delete the sound entities that I don’t want, so I have it play the null sound instead.
– There could be a random chance that the game could still crash. An addon that I created for the fix pack may solve this problem for some.
– The shine and reflections seen in some maps may look bad unless you increase the graphics in the settings menu.
– I couldn’t fix the double doors seen in End Game.
– The breathing sound at the end of the game was the one that I felt like I want to change the most, but eventually has grown into a fix pack for Improved Xen.

– You need to subscribe to Improved Xen first. Then find the directory in:
"C:Program Files (x86)Steamsteamappsworkshopcontent362890894282258"

– Find "xen" folder from the fix pack addon located in:
"C:Program Files (x86)Steamsteamappsworkshopcontent3628902426879157"
and put it in the Improved Xen mod directory also labeled, "xen", and replace the files.

– I originally uploaded the fixes on December 10th, 2020 on ModDB. But after seeing YouTube videos showing Improved Xen with my fixes, I finally uploaded it to the workshop.
– Thank you for the support and thanks to Zloikot for making the Xen levels with HL1 layouts.

ModDB Link: https://www.moddb.com/mods/black-mesa-xen-improved-maps-from-half-life/downloads/improved-xen-fixes