This guide is meant for using the Veteran Edition's data files to create maps for the unmodified/standard classic Strife.

If you want to create maps with Veteran Edition's enhancements, read the official Mod Tools thread for proper guidelines.

Setting up Doom Builder to map for the Veteran Edition of strife is short and sweet, but here's the gist of it if you're unsure how to set it up.

1. Purchase and download Strife: Veteran Edition (duh).
   
2. Download Doom Builder 2[www.doombuilder.com].

Install both programs, launch Strife: VE and set your configuration for the game up to how you want to play it. You should try to finalize your configuration for the game before proceeding.

Setting up Doom Builder for building levels for Strife is simple and painless, it only requires us to set up a single setting.

1. Launch Doom Builder 2 and go to Tools -> Game configuration.
   
   
2. Choose "Strife" from the list on the left and on the Resources tab on the right, click on "Add resource..."
   
   
3. Make sure you're in the "From WAD File" tab, and press on the folder icon on the right.
   
   
4. Browse to Steam/steamapps/common/Strife/ and choose "strife1.wad" from the directory. Press enter or click "Open".
   
   
   
   
5. Hit "OK" to apply the setting.
   
   (Don't check the "Strictly load patches between P_START and P_END only" since it's not necessary here.)
   
   
6. The settings menu should now look like this.
   
   
   Press "OK" and we're good to go.

This will allow Doom Builder 2 to use Strife's resources.

That's it! Simple as that, Doom Builder 2 is properly set up for building levels for Strife: Veteran Edition.

Now since this is obviously a huge subject and I don't want to cover it in this small guide, this section just stands as a small introduction to people new to Strife mapping.

John W. Anderson's great DOOM mapping guide, Doom Builder: An Illustrated Guide, is a great read and helps to kickstart anyone's Strife mapping career since it lists most of everything required to use Doom Builder effectively.

This guide is written for the first version of Doom Builder, so there are interface differences and such, but in general it's great for letting you know of the basics of mapping, such as creating doors and placing objects in the game.

Download the guide from Doom Builder's official site:

• Doom Builder: An Illustrated Guide (PDF)[www.doombuilder.com]

Doom Builder 2 is a very fast and effective tool and hopefully we can get new people from the community to become interested in mapping for Strife.

Since Strife: Veteran Edition relies on OpenGL nodes in its maps to render the new shadow and lighting effects, custom and classic maps cannot be run with it.

If you try to run a level without proper GL nodes, you'll get the following error:



In order to play custom maps through Doombuilder, we need to set up it to launch the game in the classic mode by making a copy of the Strife configuration file and making a small edit to it.

1. Browse to
   Steam/steamapps/common/Strife/
   
   and look for the chocolate-strife.cfg file. This holds all of your settings for playing Strife: VE.
   
   
2. Make a copy of the file and name it to your liking. For example I named my configuration file classic.cfg
   
   
3. Open the newly created file in your favourite text editor and find the following line (at the bottom, should be the line number 165):
   
   gl_enable_renderer 1
   
   Replace the 1 with a 0 and save the file.
   
   
   gl_enable_renderer 0
   
   
4. Start Doombuilder 2 and go to
   Tools -> Game Configurations -> Strife -> Testing
   
   Check the "Customize parameters" tick box and add the following line to the end, replacing classic.cfg with the name of your new configuration file:
   
   -extraconfig classic.cfg
   
   It should look something like this:
   
   

Make sure your map has a valid player start, hit F9 to test the map and Strife: Veteran Edition will launch your map in the classic mode of the game without error.

You can also use this configuration and launch settings file to launch any other usermaps as well.


Happy mapping!