If you could add any feature to zdoom...

[DoomSplitter]

Okay, imagine that you could add any feature to zdoom, what feature would you add, and how would that feature benefit the players or modders?

[Per-Scan]

Bugger! I just wrote a huge post and then lost it somehow!! Damned keyboards and tech stuff!

Anyway, I wrote this big thing about separate follow mode settings for overlay and normal maps. This is the short version!

DoomSplitter: You didn't say what you would add.

[printz]

A_CustomMissile whose aim can be raised vertically by pitch, but still depends on target's position against the monster. So that I can make a grenade-shooting monster that still points up if the target is up.

Or let's have it this way: the monster fires a gravity affected projectile. Have a function fire at the correct pitch it by calculating physics.

[wildweasel]

I would like to be able to directly modify how player movement works. Doom's default movement works for many occasions but sometimes you don't want the player to be able to ice-skate at 90 MPH down a city block or two. I'd like to be able to have a more modern implementation, with a sprint key that disables firing (or makes firing less accurate).

[chopkinsca]

My choice would be being able to write variables to a file that doesn't stop existing when you exit zdoom.

[Gez]

Something in DECORATE that allows to alter already-defined actors, rather than having to do the Actor NewBlah : Blah replaces Blah routine, with all the drawbacks this implies (such as screwing up attached lights).

[Duducrazy]

I'd add a menu option to load a wad in-game. similar to how Eduke32 works: select the "Custom Wad" episode and then a menu appears, which lets you choose the wad you want.

[Jimmy]

Roll.

[FDARI]

Decorate expressions and code pointers with explicit references to actor / related actor:

SELF: Whatever actor the call is actually defined in; can cause weapons and custom inventory objects to reference themselves where they otherwise might not.
TARGET, TRACER, MASTER: Self-evident
CHILD, CHILDREN: Get value from a CHILD. Trigger a code pointer in CHILD or CHILDREN (all).
SIBLING, SIBLINGS: Same pattern.

Usage samples:
A monster assigning a new state for all its children: SPRT A 1 [CHILDREN:A_Jump](256, "CustomState")
A weapon checking its own "user_cooldown" variable: WPON A 1 [SELF:A_JumpIf]([SELF:user_cooldown], "StillCooling")

The syntax gets somewhat cludgy and better implementations are thinkable, but I think this is enough to show what I'm thinking about. Also, a wild extension would be to chain references in a strongly object-oriented fashion [CHILDREN.CHILDREN:A_Jump] makes all your grandchildren jump. [CHILDREN.CHILDREN|CHILDREN:A_Jump] makes all your children and grandchildren jump... And so on.

Null handling syntax:
handle-null [skip|stop|loop|goto (standard syntax)]

Use handle-null to set action if a null is encountered. Skip means the animation continues normally, but the code pointer does not happen.

[Zippy]

A direct link to the nearest pizza parlor for immediate access to orderable sustenance. Damn the phone! Damn minimizing to bring up the online order form!

[Matt]

Some kind of script that lets you directly mess with what input does what to what, that makes no assumptions about what the player is to identify with. Turn Doom into a point-and-click adventure, set up a WoW-style mix of cursor and turning, set up weapons to move independently of the player, swap which actor you're controlling and which actor you're viewing things from (and the two may but not must coincide), stuff like that.

Failing that: projectiles that can accurately hit things at any speed and can still be subject to gravity, and can add their shooter's velocity to their own.

Decorate expressions and code pointers with explicit references to actor / related actor

damn dude I nearly soiled myself this is so not appropriate for a lazy laid back sunday afternoon

[Salad Viking]

Some way to make an in-game GUI menu using a cursor without the need for 1000 lines of ACS script.

[Nash]

I want an "instant megawad/TC" maker in ZDoom that automatically creates a full game for me with the click of a button.

[Ethril]

DoomScript.

More realistically: Robot clones of the developers that would deal with all the "coding nightmares" that they don't want to do, in as clean and efficient a manner as possible.

[printz]

Something in DECORATE that allows to alter already-defined actors, rather than having to do the Actor NewBlah : Blah replaces Blah routine, with all the drawbacks this implies (such as screwing up attached lights).

Speaking of that: get access to another actor's state, don't make them private, so I can have multiple monsters sharing the same frames, without having to copy them (and update them everywhere they appear, etc.).