[Monster] ED-209

[LilWhiteMouse]

Summon ED209 in a large area. Not really meant to be challenging, a few good rocket hits will take it down. Disabling the legs slows it down and immobilizes it. Disabling the head will render the weapons inaccurate. Destroying it's weapon pods (arms) will destroy the entire unit.
http://home.midmaine.com/~lilwhitemo/ed209.7z

[scalliano]

Ace. We need more multi-part bosses like this!

Any chance of Cain?

[LilWhiteMouse]

Oops. I forgot to set the weapon pods to not bleed. I left it this way to test when I was hitting the pods, and never got around to adding the NOBLOOD flag.
[EDIT] The head is missing the flag too. Though I'm sure I added it at one point, and don't remember ever removing it. I guess I'm getting old.

Ace. We need more multi-part bosses like this!

My experience with my Shades of War project has taught me that multi-part actors are finicky in a sprite engine. ED-209 still demonstrates some of the rendering glitches, but I tried to minimize them as best I could. I just wish I knew then what I know now when designed SoW's Tankoids. I wouldn't have mounted the turret and subturret so far from the main body.

Any chance of Cain?

Not at the moment. This is actually the third time I've done ED-209. I used my original in Armitage vs. ED-209, but redesigned it for that project. Despite the intent of it's creators, I think ED-209 is absolutely adorable. It's oversized parts give it a SD look. It's lack of intelligence puts it into amusing situations.

[ZDG]

We need more multi-part bosses like this!

The Harbinger is one

[Xim]

This is win.

[scalliano]

Any chance of Cain?

Not at the moment. This is actually the third time I've done ED-209. I used my original in Armitage vs. ED-209, but redesigned it for that project. Despite the intent of it's creators, I think ED-209 is absolutely adorable. It's oversized parts give it a SD look. It's lack of intelligence puts it into amusing situations.

I was only joking about Cain, btw I'm with you on ED-209, particularly on the lack of intelligence. Best part of the first film for me:

"You are illegally parked on private property. You have 20 seconds to move your vehicle..."
*pop*

Need to watch that film again...

[Enjay]

Here are a few problems that I have encountered. A lot of this was done by summoning an ED209 and a cyberdemon and getting them to fight. I did not use friendly cyberdemons or EDs due to the first point noted, so I just summoned non-friendly ones and got them to infight:

If you summon a friendly ED209, it will often (always?) ignore enemies and not try to attack them.

The rapid-fire/chaingun projectiles seem to be aimed at a target's feet rather than a more logical location. As such, it can be pretty easy to avoid. eg, just go down a few steps and let the projectiles impact harmlessly on the top step, or stand behind a low wall etc.

The right cannon doesn't fire very often. If it is the last undestroyed part left, the ED209 will often just stand there doing nothing and the player has to realise that there is still a cannon to destroy.

One time an ED killed a cyberdemon and then stood jogging on the spot no matter how many times I ran around it and tried to get its attention by shooting it, it didn't switch targets to me.

Another time, an ED killed a cyberdemon but, for some reason, it didn't seem to think that the cyberdemon was dead and so kept on attacking the cybercorpse. Again, I could try to get its attention but it seemed intent on attacking the dead cybie. I can't really think why an individual monster would do this, regardless of its decorate, because surely it is down to the other monster being dead but not removed from the game as a valid target but, hey, that's what I saw and I haven't seen it with anything else.

[LilWhiteMouse]

Here are a few problems that I have encountered.

I have no idea about some of it, but the rest I can guess. For all intent purposes, each part is it's own monster, and thus they all have their own targets. There's no way to tell the "arms" to attack the target of the "head", without scripting targets (the Harbinger and Chibi AT-AT do this), or general hackery (Harbinger's eye beams). With just one player, it's not really an issue outside of infighting.

It's overall behavior has been altered, so I don't know what issues still remain. Though I don't see how much of what I did would affect any of your issues. The head now directly tells the arms when they should fire. Just not what to fire at. When the head wants to attack, it unlocks the arms' attack ability, and they fire until their target is out of their LOS. If the arms have a different target then the head, it obviously won't work as expected.

The only alternative I can conceive is to create an invisible dummy monster that spawns with each ED. The dummy monster would stay with it's target, and ED would attack the dummy monster.

[MagSigmaX]

This is pure win... There are some bugs with this thing, but overall is a great boss. I love it!!

Now we need that someone makes the player Robocop.

[Xim]

If anybody is ever able to make some decent Robocop hands and a sprite set, that'd be cool. I wouldn't mind playing a Robocop themed Doom mod. It'd be like in the old days when there were Doom mods based on movies and such.

[Enjay]

There was actually a Doom Robocop mod that was being worked on years ago. However, I don't think it got much beyond a set of sprites for an ED209 and a teaser video.

[Shadelight]

I remember the harbinger being totally awesome, I need to try this.
EDIT: That was awesome.

[LilWhiteMouse]

Uploaded the current revision, same download URL. Fixes the library bug. Improved the model for the right arm. Gave it some gas grenades, though they're not very effective.

I remember the harbinger being totally awesome

Except no one will use it.

[EDIT] Updated first post with a screenshot.
[EDIT2] There's still some stuff I'd like to do with ED. Replace and randomize the muzzle flashes. Improve the death. Replace the rocket sprites, and perhaps the gunfire sprites.

[lizardcommando]

This is really neat. I've always wanted to see ED209 make an appearance in Doom. Shouldn't the orange tracer shots travel much faster though?

[LilWhiteMouse]

Shouldn't the orange tracer shots travel much faster though?

Done. I've also increase the speed of the rockets.
Destroying the "head" now destroys ED as well. To compensate I've upped it's health. Destroying the "arms" is still the fastest way to defeat him, if you can hit them.
[EDIT] Replaced the tracer effect with a one pixel bullet. Added decals to the projectiles.