(Not a) Bug : Monsters fly far when BFG hits : 2.0.61

Mr. Tee · Post by **Mr. Tee** » Sun Mar 07, 2004 6:33 pm

Did anyone ever notice that since 61 or 62 monsters get flung away MUCH faster and farther when hit with the BFG ball??

I was just prancing in Doom2 (Map 09, right at the beginning) and if you hit a zombie man with a BFG shot on one of the upper ledges, he flies so far and so fast that his rotting corpse actually jumps the gap and lands on the other side! (Quite cool no doubt, but I don't think this is supposed to happen).

Does this have to do with the splash damage/sector multiplier rocket bug from a while back? (where if a monster was between sectors, it'd receive more rocket damage than if it was in only one sector)

I don't think I remember the BFG pushing actors away this much in vanilla Doom (and if I could get it too work for 1/2 second I'd check).

Post by **Graf Zahl** » Sun Mar 07, 2004 6:47 pm

See also:

http://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?t=2082

It's the same problem. But I can't see any change in the thrust calculations. Maybe it's just the much improved accuracy of fast movement that makes this more apparent in ZDoom.

Anyway, I think the maximum thrust applied by damaging should be limited. (I think the 10*FRACUNIT used for real overflows are enough in any case.)

Mr. Tee · Post by **Mr. Tee** » Sun Mar 07, 2004 7:32 pm

Hmmm... Very interesting. It's true that at higher frame rates, things like that are noticed more easily.

About limiting thrust: If this was ever done would there be any way to override it? I'm thinking about a part in my wad in which I would want something to move almost instantaneously across an area (either using Thing_Thrust, or making the thing invulnerable and smacking it with 20 silent , invisible rockets), but without it being teleported as there are linedefs with specials that would need to be activated along the way.

I guess I can using scripting to get around it and time everything correctly though, so... nevermind!

Post by **Graf Zahl** » Sun Mar 07, 2004 7:40 pm

I mean only limiting thrust inflicted by damage, not in general. As it is now the formula has some serious problem´s that only are apparent now that it is possible to create custom projectiles (and weapons soon.) ThrustThing would not be affected by this.

Giest118 · Post by **Giest118** » Sun Mar 07, 2004 11:03 pm

Something I noticed was that in Vanilla Doom, Spidermasterminds die in a minimum of two hits with the BFG... and in ZDOOM it only takes a minimum of one.

This is probably something to do with the BFG damage...

Post by **Bio Hazard** » Sun Mar 07, 2004 11:47 pm

giest118 wrote:in Vanilla Doom, Spidermasterminds die in a minimum of two hits with the BFG... and in ZDOOM it only takes a minimum of one.

the spider mastermind is old... things usually get weaker as they get older... (10 years right?)

Post by **Graf Zahl** » Mon Mar 08, 2004 3:43 am

giest118 wrote:Something I noticed was that in Vanilla Doom, Spidermasterminds die in a minimum of two hits with the BFG... and in ZDOOM it only takes a minimum of one.

This is probably something to do with the BFG damage...

This is the result of a recent bugfix. The BFG's secondary attack consists of 40 hitscan traces. The way Doom originally handled this many of those traces could get lost when aimed at such a large object as the Spider Mastermind. In ZDoom this can no longer happen so it is possible to do somewhat more damage with the BFG when attacking a Spider.

Mr. Tee · Post by **Mr. Tee** » Wed Mar 10, 2004 12:24 pm

Could this cause monsters to fly much farther??

i.e. when I said...

Mr. Tee wrote:I was just prancing in Doom2 (Map 09, right at the beginning) and if you hit a zombie man with a BFG shot on one of the upper ledges, he flies so far and so fast that his rotting corpse actually jumps the gap and lands on the other side! (Quite cool no doubt, but I don't think this is supposed to happen).

Could it be that this zombie is being hit by a hitscan BFG trace (several?) RIGHT after the ball hits him, causing him to get much more damage and hence, fly farther?

Post by **Graf Zahl** » Wed Mar 10, 2004 3:06 pm

Mr. Tee wrote: Could it be that this zombie is being hit by a hitscan BFG trace (several?) RIGHT after the ball hits him, causing him to get much more damage and hence, fly farther?

No. The BFG projectile has enough power to kill any smaller monster instantly. None of the hitscan traces will be able to hit them after that.

Sticky · Post by **Sticky** » Wed Mar 10, 2004 4:25 pm

Does it really have 40 traces? I thought there were only 20....
/me goes to brush up on the doom faq....

Giest118 · Post by **Giest118** » Wed Mar 10, 2004 6:42 pm

Graf Zahl wrote:
giest118 wrote:Something I noticed was that in Vanilla Doom, Spidermasterminds die in a minimum of two hits with the BFG... and in ZDOOM it only takes a minimum of one.

This is probably something to do with the BFG damage...

This is the result of a recent bugfix. The BFG's secondary attack consists of 40 hitscan traces. The way Doom originally handled this many of those traces could get lost when aimed at such a large object as the Spider Mastermind. In ZDoom this can no longer happen so it is possible to do somewhat more damage with the BFG when attacking a Spider.

Er... you're telling me that the spider gets hit with the amount of hitscan traces necessary to kill it?

I always thought that every monster onscreen got hit with one tracer.... well.... me is dumbass.

Anakin S. · Post by **Anakin S.** » Wed Mar 10, 2004 6:46 pm

I'm sure they got hit with one tracer each, but since there were leftover tracers, I think they just continued being applied to whatever's closer to you until all 40 were used.

Post by **Graf Zahl** » Wed Mar 10, 2004 7:22 pm

The BFG secondary attack is doing 40 hitscan traces over a field of 90 degrees. If one trace hits an object it is damaged, if not the trace is lost. No trace is aimed at a particular monster. Considering how large the Spider Demon is it's not surprising that a rather large numbers (on close distance almost all) will hit it.

Post by **Xaser** » Wed Mar 10, 2004 9:13 pm

Graf Zahl wrote:(on close distance almost all)

Almost? If you were to get in the spider's face and shoot the BFG, all traces should hit him, because you can't see anything but spider.

Sticky · Post by **Sticky** » Wed Mar 10, 2004 10:11 pm

It's funny how few people actually understand how the BFG works. Usually the one who whine about it are the same ones who don't have a clue what it really does.

Though the information in the BFG faq isn't always 100% accurate, it gives a pretty decent account of how it works. Anyone who doesn't know how the bfg works should at least give this faq a glance!
It's mirrored in many places, and there are a few different versions, but here's the first one I found: http://www.gamers.org/docs/FAQ/bfgfaq/