ZDoom

Xtyfe wrote: ↑Fri Jan 31, 2025 7:01 am To my knowledge "flood-filling sectors with their sound pointer" is not a standard feature of doom. In fact, it was not like this as far back as gzdoom 4.13.

Enjay wrote: ↑Fri Jan 31, 2025 9:39 am I don't think it was a problem as such in the original Doom mainly because there wasn't really a way to spawn new enemies into the game. So, having them appear and not be "awake" wasn't really a thing. The closest would be enemies teleporting in from elsewhere (already "awake") or being resurrected by an archvile - where springing into action immediately would be desirable. Maybe spawning from the boss cubes too?

Enjay wrote: ↑Fri Jan 31, 2025 9:24 am I have a fuzzy recollection that there was something like this in the original doom. I remember having a discussion about it a very long time ago - but I can't find anything to back it up. so, pleas forgive me if this is wrong but, isn't there some sort of behaviour in Doom where once a sound has been made in an area, then it is remembered that the area in question is now one where monsters will automatically go into searching mode. So, provided the game has not actually been restarted, an enemy spawning into an area where the player has made noise will automatically be aware of the player's presence?

Is that a thing, or have I just had a complete brain-fart?
Perhaps that's the "Use original sound target handling" that has already been mentioned?

Rachael wrote: ↑Fri Jan 31, 2025 6:48 am Ultimately this is a cheat, so unless it reveals any quirky behaviour that can happen in a real game play setting without it, I don't think this will be addressed.

The thing to remember is notarget is only taking the player off of normal sight and sound checks. It does not prevent the player from flood-filling sectors with their sound pointer by firing their weapon, and some creatures will respond accordingly to that if other conditional checks suggest for them to do so.

phantombeta wrote: ↑Wed Jan 29, 2025 10:52 pm This sounds like you have the "Use original sound target handling" compat flag enabled, which works exactly as described.
Basically, in vanilla Doom, monster "hearing" works by the player's weapons setting a pointer in the sector's data to point to the player, and "sleeping" monsters check that pointer and target the actor it's set to.
ZDoom changed this so the player's weapons set a pointer stored in the monsters instead. (this does lead to a similar quirk where, if you resurrect, any monsters that ever heard you will instantly wake up, but ones that only saw you won't)

(Note that compat flags stay set even after you close the game, unlike gameplay flags)

Rachael wrote: ↑Wed Jan 29, 2025 9:22 pm This does not appear to be a bug to me, but rather a quirk of the ambush mechanic.

When a monster has the ambush flag, they will stay in the Spawn state even when they acquire the target player. The only time they move in to attack is once the player has LOS to them. This can happen even if the monster is not facing them - all that is required is the monster gets pulled into the "ambush" state, which is what likely happened when you shot and killed the first monster, and then the player has to have a direct line of sight to the monster, which will cause them to go to the See state as normal.

Monsters without the ambush flag will start engaging the player as soon as they get the player as a target, which is what the player firing their weapon causes. Monsters with the ambush flag will still acquire the player target but stay in the idle state until the player has LOS to them which is when they think they can "surprise" the player.

-

However, even discounting all that, notarget is ultimately a cheat, and it's merely a flag, at that. It's possible that your actions are causing the monsters' soundtargets to be triggered but the monsters can't attack, so that might be inadvertently causing the ambush mechanic even with normal monsters.

• 1. set notarget on.
  2. summon a monster and make sure its back is turned away from the player. then back up so it won't wake up from you touching it.
  3. set notarget off and shoot and kill the monster.
  4. set notarget on again and summon another monster then back up again.
  5. set notarget off.