[WIP] Batman Doom Patch for ZDoom/Skulltag (0.4)

[Ed the Bat]

I'm very glad you like my work. Just remember to thank everyone whose work I've built upon, including Evil Space Tomato and, of course, the original Ace Team.

I'll need to spend more time later today investigating the issue of enemies being alerted too easily, but I've just taken a look at Killer Croc's rocks on MAP04, and they seem to appear for me whether or not I have the Improved Enemies toggle on or off...

Would you be willing to give me some more details? What verzion of ZDoom/GZDoom are you using? Which files are you loading/how are you loading them?

[Ozymandias81]

Eddie, keep in mind that "Cones" acts like monsters and they need to be alerted to teleport them correctly on maps like MAP01.
Concerning Croc's boulders, I modified them on Reborn, have a look to their decorate and see if you like my version.
Happy to see that this thread isn't going forgot on community, it changed my modding life with Doom.

Ozy.

[KMetalMind]

Mmmm... I´ve tried again and both problems keep happening. The pk3 used is the one you linked here:
http://edthebat.com/doom/BatDoomPatchfix.pk3

ZDoom version seems to be ZDoom 2.7.1, or that´s what the ini file says.

The commandline is this one:
"zdoom.exe" -file "batman.wad" "BatDoomPatchfix.pk3"

I´ve tried replaying the level normally and noclipping to the boss, in both times no rocks. But I have noticed something strange: While entering the room, I nearly see for some frames one of the rocks. Sometimes a lose a lot of health running into the area, (50%+). It feels like if the rocks were there invisible but activated, and could hurt me in certain places.

I have a savefile too if it can help...

And yeah! Thanks to everybody who have worked in this patch You all rock! I´m a programmer and I know how much time you need to spend to fix these kind of things

[Ed the Bat]

2.7.1 is over two years old. I would normally ask that you try a more recent build and see if the problems persist. However, builds from the past month or so seem to crash when loading some of the maps in Batman Doom. This definitely needs to be fixed within the engine.

Until such time, though, I'm very sorry to say that there's little I can do. I kindly ask for your patience for now, and once the engine has been fixed (there seems to be a bug report already about this problem in similar projects), we may proceed. I'm so sorry for the inconvenience.

[KMetalMind]

Oops! Thanks for telling me that! I´m not that well informed on current Doom developments, and I thought that was the last version, because searching I thought the official website was this one:
http://zdoom.org/News

Anyway, I´ve tried again with the latest version of zdoom. Yeah, it crashes some levels, but the rock problem is fixed now. I´ll try to go back some versions until one that doesn´t crash the mod. Thanks!

The alert all enemies in the level with first shot still happens though!

[Ed the Bat]

You are correct; that is the official ZDoom website. But from this site, you can see the link to the changelog (last item on the bar at the left), which itself contains a link to these development builds, which I wholeheartedly recommend for the latest in features and bugfixes (though as you're seeing here, they're not always without bugs of their own, but those are typically fixed quickly).

Glad to know the rock issue is solved, then. And I'm confident the issue with maps crashing the engine will be fixed in due time (hopefully not too long).

I'll keep investigating the issue with enemies being alerted too easily. I already have some vague thoughts of what the issue might be, but I probably won't be able to do my best troubleshooting until the above-mentioned engine bug is dealt with.

Thanks again for your patience. Even though my work in this project is heavily based on the work of those before me, I still care about making this the best I possibly can.

[KMetalMind]

If you want to try fastest way, map04 is the key. Map01 doesn´t work on latest zdoom, so you should load some save game and load map 04 from there or something like that...

Once you get the fix I´ll play the entire game, so I´ll tell you if there´s something wrong Really thanks for your answers and help and good luck with the alert bug!

[Ed the Bat]

I've found the root of the problem. As I suspected, there's something wrong with the 'Check' actors I implemented that spawn different variants of the enemies based on the custom CVAR options (whether or not the player wants classic or improved enemies). The enemies having been spawned this way are, apparently, more prone to being awakened by the sound of your weaponry.

My next move will be to come up with a better way to do this. I'm thinking right now that, instead of having an actor spawn them, I'll simply have the monsters themselves check the CVAR and alter themselves as necessary. I'll post again once I have that in place.

[wildweasel]

My next move will be to come up with a better way to do this. I'm thinking right now that, instead of having an actor spawn them, I'll simply have the monsters themselves check the CVAR and alter themselves as necessary. I'll post again once I have that in place.

That'll actually be better from a user experience standpoint, too, as the cvars won't need the map to be reloaded to take effect.

[Ed the Bat]

Oh. It was still going to. I'd have to put these checks in every goddamn frame of the enemies' animations in order to allow it to change more than once per map.

EDIT: I'm an idiot. Turns out I simply forgot to carry over the AMBUSH flag with my spawners. I've reuploaded to the same link as before.

[KMetalMind]

Good job! I searched for alert flags, but I didn´t know there was an ambush one. Now the game works as it should

Playing the first 5 maps, I´ve some minor things to report, none too important gameplaywise:
* MAP03: I can´t seem to trigger Killer Croc on this map. I couldn´t with previous patches though,
* MAP05: On the blastgun room, once I picked it no enemy came out from the left small room like it should.

This one I´m not sure:
* MAP05: Once you open the blue door, you have some petrol cans. You have to blast them to continue, but that doesn´t open the hole in the wall. It triggers later, if you keep advancing. Was that the case in the original? I can´t remember clearly...

That´s all for now Thanks again to everybody who has worked on this patch!!

[Ed the Bat]

I'll look into those and see how they compare against "vanilla" Batman Doom. If you feel like doing so yourself, feel free to report your findings back to me.

[KMetalMind]

I´ll try first the entire patched game, but I´ll probably replay it on vanilla too (using dosbox?).

I´ve played through maps 6 to 8:
* MAP07: Gamebreaking: There´s no blue key. It´s supposed to fall from an enemy, but he doesn´t have it...
* MAP07: Some enemies somehow fell through the floor. One of them even got inside a non-walkable area (into a building, watchable from outside, like he was noclipping).

I´ll keep reporting if I find more

[Ed the Bat]

I would recommend just loading batman.wad and batman.deh in ZDoom to test for vanilla. But, if you're so inclined to run DOSbox or some sourceport recognized as more faithful to vanilla, you'd be more than welcome to.

Thanks for the reports. As soon as a version of GZDoom that doesn't crash becomes available from DRDTeam, I'll get to thorough testing and troubleshooting. Incidentally, a version of ZDoom that doesn't crash should now be available, so you can play unhindered now.

[Ozymandias81]

So you didn't say a word concerning my Killer Croc alternative. Bah.