Is a proton pack possible?

[Scuba Steve]

I was sitting here, going through old files, and looking at decades old Ghostbusters Doom artwork. I got to thinking, with the ACS functionality in ZDoom now, would it be possible to make a functioning, movie style Ghostbusters Proton Pack? It would need...

* The beam from the gun styled to look like the films... waving around and arcing. I've seen some wild projectile guns in mods and this seems doable.
* Stun Enemies and hold them
* Slow the player when they've latched onto a ghost.
* Overheat instead of ammo

I'm guessing you'd use a_damagetype (or whatever it was) to set a specific Proton Pack effect when they're wrangled (This could also be used with the slime blower to hold creatures with slime or make certain enemies friendly. I also suppose the ghost trap would have to be a special use tool that "sucks" ghosts into the trap) As for the rest of the effects... I dunno what's possible, but after seeing what the Doom 4 Doom guys are doing, it seems like Ghostbusters Doom could have worked... if I had made it in 2017.

All moot anyways since the 2009 game was everything I wanted

[Caligari87]

I'm sure it's possible. All the stuff you mentioned sounds almost trivial to do in ZScript, though it'd probably be a massive pain in DECORATE.

[Kinsie]

The beam would likely need some wacky math stuff I don't know, but everything else is very do-able.

[Matt]

Funny this comes up now, since I was just thinking about electrical arc effects in ZDoom.

How is the zigzaggy lightning effect in the railgun calculated?

[Gutawer]

The beam would likely need some wacky math stuff I don't know, but everything else is very do-able.

The maths for calculating the beam's path wouldn't be too difficult (create a line, add a vertex, shift it in a random direction perpendicular to the line (you'd use the cross product for that), then rinse and repeat for the 2 new lines created, then for the 4 lines created, etc.), the actual issue would be displaying it, as there isn't enough data access to display such an effect (you'd probably need to create primitives for the GPU and apply a texture which slowly scrolls down the length of the beam over time). That's if you wanted to, say, replicate the effect seen in a game like TF2 with the medic's beam - you could simplify it and just spawn particles along the generated lines, which wouldn't look amazing but would be very easy to do.

[Xaser]

Keep in mind you're gonna have to add some extra features if you want to support co-op. I think folks will be quite disappointed if nothing happens when people cross the streams.

[Scuba Steve]

So suppose someone wanted to make a short, 3-4 map project with a proton pack and Ghostbusters theme... what kind of interest is there for help?

[ReX]

... what kind of interest is there for help?

Not sure what you're asking, Steve. How much help people are willing to offer you in order to get the project done? If so, and depending on the timetable, I'd gladly pitch in to the extent I am able (mostly with mapping).

[Scuba Steve]

I've contemplated a short 3/4 map project that uses the women from the Ghostbusters remake, but rewriting everything about them to fit in canon with the original films. Some short narrative levels, a first bust level, and maybe an introduction to the big baddie... and that's it.

[ReX]

I've contemplated a short 3/4 map project that uses the women from the Ghostbusters remake, but rewriting everything about them to fit in canon with the original films. Some short narrative levels, a first bust level, and maybe an introduction to the big baddie... and that's it.

So what kind of help are you seeking?

[AFADoomer]

So, I made a thing (apologies for sprite borrowing, but I though they were appropriate here):


View from the side (frozen, so not *quite* what it looks like in play, but you can get the idea):


It looks far better in motion, since everything moves fluidly... The tendrils fire roughly straight ahead, but 'home' toward enemies and pull them toward the center of the screen. I currently have this set up acting like a gravity gun, in that it can pick up the target actor and move them up/down and side to side (I moved this imp from its default spawn point with the weapon in-game), and the beam(s) keeps the enemy positioned at around 256 units in front of the player. The proton pack doesn't actually do any damage... It just holds the enemy in place, so they can be killed by some other trap-like means.


Unfortunately, I can't upload it right now - Need to talk to Major Cooke and make sure that I am OK to use/distribute the D4D lightning gun code that I used as a partial base for a good portion of the effect (that, or scrap about a third of the code and re-implement). Plus I think there are probably some optimizations to be made... There's a lot of actor-spamming going on, so I'm not sure how this would behave in multiplayer or in resource-intensive maps.

[Tormentor667]

AFA, you are Crazy

[Scuba Steve]

What the fuck!?

[AFADoomer]

I'm not sure if that reaction is good or bad?

[Scuba Steve]

Good!

FYI: If you want to steal artwork... I completely redrew the Proton Pack for Ghouls vs Humans!