Weapon and "Offhand" Magic

[Praecant]

I'm trying to build a new WAD where the character works similar to VTM: Bloodlines. For those that don't know, you can have a weapon equipped which is changed with the top number keys and can cycle through various abilities and spells using the mouse wheel without changing your weapon. These abilities differ based on your Clan and range from temporary increased speed, a projectile attack, temporary invisibility, a damage shield, forced placation, etc. and all of them can be used while a weapon is drawn.

Does anyone know of a WAD that allows for a similar system which I can study or use as a base?

[Jarewill]

I don't know if there's a way to detect if the player is changing weapons via the mouse wheel, (ZScript might have a way) but the way I did it is this:
In a weapon parent class, I put User1 and User2 states, which work as a switch between various spells, which give dummy inventory items.
And also a Zoom state which casts the spell based on the amount of those inventory items.

Of course it could have been done smoother with ZScript and weapon variables, but there would be too much converting at this point.
Here's a slightly edited example:

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Code: Select all

  Altfire: //Casting the spell
	TNT1 A 0 A_JumpIfInventory("CurrentSpell",4,"Spell4") //If spell 4 selected, cast it (it should do jumps from highest spell to lowest spell)
	TNT1 A 0 A_JumpIfInventory("CurrentSpell",3,"Spell3") //If spell 3 selected, cast it (because of how A_JumpIfInventory works)
	TNT1 A 0 A_JumpIfInventory("CurrentSpell",2,"Spell2") //If spell 2 selected, cast it
    TNT1 A 0 A_Jump(256,"Spell1") //Otherwise cast spell 1
  User1: //Previous spell, User2 should be the opposite of this
	TNT1 A 0 A_JumpIfInventory("CurrentSpell",4,"User1a") //If spell 4 selected, jump there
	TNT1 A 0 A_JumpIfInventory("CurrentSpell",3,"User1b") //If spell 3 selected, jump there
	TNT1 A 0 A_JumpIfInventory("CurrentSpell",2,"ChangeTo1") //If spell 2 selected, switch back to first one 
	TNT1 A 0 A_JumpIfInventory("Spell4",1,"ChangeTo4") //If spell 4 unlocked, change to it
	TNT1 A 0 A_JumpIfInventory("Spell3",1,"ChangeTo3") //If spell 3 unlocked, change to it
	TNT1 A 0 A_JumpIfInventory("Spell2",1,"ChangeTo2") //If spell 2 unlocked, change to it
    TNT1 A 0 A_Jump(256,"NoSpells") //If no spells unlocked, don't change
  User1a:
	TNT1 A 0 A_JumpIfInventory("Spell3",1,"ChangeTo3") //If spell 3 unlocked, change to it
	TNT1 A 0 A_JumpIfInventory("Spell2",1,"ChangeTo2") //If spell 2 unlocked, change to it
    TNT1 A 0 A_Jump(256,"ChangeTo1") //If no spells unlocked, change to spell 1
  User1b:
	TNT1 A 0 A_JumpIfInventory("Spell2",1,"ChangeTo2") //If spell 2 unlocked, change to it
    TNT1 A 0 A_Jump(256,"ChangeTo1") //If no spells unlocked, change to spell 1
  ChangeTo1:
	TNT1 A 0 A_SetInventory("CurrentSpell",1) //Set the dummy item to spell 1
	TNT1 A 8 A_Print("Spell 1 selected")
    TNT1 A 0 A_Jump(256,"Ready")

I know it is very messy, but it works.
This is also just an example, in which the player always starts with spell 1 unlocked and there are only 4 spells.
So you will have to tweak it a bunch to make it fit your project.

[Praecant]

Oh changing via mousewheel isn't really necessary, having them bound to a hotkey like [ and ] to shift through and R to cast, etc. or mapping each one to a different Numpad button for quick use once unlocked would be fine as well.

My design doc has only 4 ATM for conceptual reasons (Projectile, temporary buff, toggle that drains secondary resource over time, toggle that drains secondary resource when weapon is fired), so the example actually works really well.

[kodi]

What you'll probably want to do is to initiate an A_Overlay through an item inheriting from customInventory. It'll run like a second weapon along with the real weapon. In this overlay, you'd make it jump to a next spell state, a previous spell state, or the use spell state depending on input. Presumably you'd want to use the User_1/2/3/4 inputs only, rather than the normal secondary or primary fire inputs that the weapons will be using.