ZDoom

Though of something. Bracing! Lean that gun against a wall and gain some control. Maybe it's already in?

It is! (I actually had to check... easiest way to do this is to use the brown corner on Map01 and the ZM66) It's kinda finicky though as you need to be in a position where the collision check is returning positive but you're not sticking your gun right in there so that you get pushed away.

If I could do this with sub-pixel accuracy I would, but we're definitely not looking at any Red Orchestra-esque fanciness here.

I suppose it is more middle now that I think about it, my bad.

I thought I saw a zombie man version of this at some time, but I can't find it now. It might be best to keep using original sprites and translations though, like the 2 shotgun guy types.

Snap-to-cover is sorta overrated anyway. Feels real fancy but can be quite a hindrance.
Aw, hell. Off to do some testing.

Big rule of keeping HD under one megabyte for as long as I can help it: Never add a sprite when TEXTURES or a translation would do. Now that net neutrality's dead every sudden bandwidth usage spike is going to get a lot more expensive for those of us who aren't video addicts making six figures signing up for six-year "premium" contracts.

A snap-to-cover would have to be automatic - I don't want someone binding like 3 extra keys to work this stuff out - yet on the other hand I don't want to get stuck on the geometry because I autosnapped to it when I really just wanted to shoot around a corner. It just gets way too fine-grained for some very tiny payoffs.

I prefer taking cover and stuff manually. "snap-to-cover" as seen in most modern games just feels like it gets in the way. It's definitely not as simple and convenient as Time Crisis. I guess Doom has crouching, but few maps have the ideal geometry to use it as a reliable tactic.
Hm, now that I think about it, I find it quite amusing no one has tried to put together a map specifically designed for HD, something urban-y accounting for the unique enemy, weapon and player properties.

If bandwidth is too much of a concern you could try progressive updates after point releases. I am also in a limited connection so I see the value in those methods. Most of the times the update is pretty much a number of changes in DECORATE or ACS that could be easily updated in a few kbs. Although it'd be more annoying to put together and would require an explanatory line for the ones that aren't very savvy, but it would save bandwidth at least. Another option would be something like a git repository (and having a repository of any code project is a good idea©, even if it's just local) or binary patches, but those usually require a tutorial for the end user.
(Note that I am not against translations and other DECORATE witchery, in fact I abuse them myself because it helps avoiding redundant assets)

Well, it's not quite that bad yet, but I did consider that!
(If I ever made a mod that had full custom sprites and music I can definitely see myself going that route though)

In the meantime, though, HD is completely unoptimized and just a little bit of effort to reformat and compress things has managed to knock off a quarter or so of the size.

As for maps, there have been a few attempts over the years but so far they've all been abandoned, including my own (which was really meant for both HD and vanilla). Given how niche the entire mod's premise is it just is not not big or pretty enough to attract a lot of committed independent mapping talent...

How would I go about making the Ninja Pirate unable to heal while cloaked but heal instantly and fully when it uncloaks? Do I have to go into one of the roam states?

...pretty much all the states, really, IIRC each one has its own checks.


Meanwhile, I'm going to upload this NEW UPDATE! a day earlier than scheduled because my computer just suffered an inexplicable total system freeze which suggests DYING MACHINE D: D: D: D: (EDIT: or possibly some glitch resulting from loading Audacity a bazillion times, having too much crap open and possibly even a memory leak caused by my abandoned map, now that I think about it. Oh well, might as well see if you guys find any bugs in the reformatted graphics before the weekend's over!)

Changes:

• Bugfix: The chaingunguy never had idle regeneration the way other zombies do.
• Bugfix: Some people mentioned a while back that the player translations did not work properly when running HD with other mods that had their own palettes, because they used separate PNGs instead of unpaletted Doom graphics. The optimization described below should fix that.
• Old shotgunguy obituary is now back by popular demand, with a new hitobituary to boot!
• Increased the threshold for ZM66 cookoff.
• Got rid of the annoying spin-down time when firing the chaingun in semi. Its only function was to make it worse than the ZM66 and didn't really make a whole lot of sense.
• Nazis now shoot SMGs.
• Converted various WAVs to OGGs.
• Converted all sprites and graphics - except crosshairs - to Doom WADs instead of individual PNGs. Download size of the file is back down to the 500ks.
• Removed a few sprites that were nothing but recolours of existing Doom sprites, in favour of TEXTURES.

Best of luck to you, man. Fingers are crossed that it's a non-serious issue, but...

The rifle sounds much better and I can't quite put my finger on it. Maybe the switch to .ogg? It just sounds much better.

Ah, happy to know I'm not going crazy or losing my hearing! (though a small child did burst a very loud balloon across the table from me in a basement with some very... amplifying acoustics at lunch today x_x) Yeah, things do seem to have better bass somehow - possibly a compression artifact?

I appreciate that you update so quickly, it's nice to have all these fixes and new content almost every few days.

Vaecrius wrote:a small child did burst a very loud balloon across the table from me in a basement with some very... amplifying acoustics at lunch today x_x

Uhm... you had a small child in your basement?
Before anyone jumps on me, it's a damn joke, and I'm stating it now before Poe's Law does a number on me.

Yeah, I had to go into labour a bit early so he's underweight, but the midwife did a wonderful job. Gotta take a few months off work for mat leave, during which I might not be able to update HD (or SD) as often.

(Actual context was just everyone having lunch in the church basement after today's service. No idea where the balloon came from though.)

Regarding shotgun variants: Maybe you could just make the default Hunter a toggle-able shotgun like the SPAS-12, able to alternate between semi-auto and pump, and have the semi-auto be prone to jamming? And at any rate, as things presently are the SMG feels kinda like a semi-auto shotgun in burstfire given its speed and damage output on smaller enemies. Of course, that still puts a very spammy gun in the hands of every Jackboot enemy...And the mod's hard enough as it is.

Regarding other weapon variants: I noticed in the manual that interested parties were considering a mini version of the Thunder Buster modified to only dispense the particle beam and not the world-ending lightning blast. Any possibility of the beam-only version being a Thunder Buster variant?

Regarding the ZM66's autofire: I find it's controllable enough in terms of avoiding cookoff as long as you only hold down the trigger long enough to mutter "die motherfucker die" under your breath. Handy rule of thumb, that.

Regarding the Vulcanette's rate of fire: I find the Vulcanette's lower ROF decent for ammo conservation, but honestly, if you're in a situation where you need to conserve ammo with it, you're probably at a long-safer distance, which means you can afford to snipe instead of hosing them. So then you could just use the semi-auto mode. If the enemy actually IS an immediate threat, I'd want the higher rate of fire because I want the enemy dead NOW. So in conclusion, I think the slower rate of fire is a bit unnecessary given that the ZM66 already fills the "jack-of-all-trades hitscanner" niche and the Vulcanette is like a combination of the chaingun's hitscan accuracy and the classic plasma rifle's sheer DPS.

Regarding the Vulcanette's appearance: I remember you showing off a Pimp My Gun mockup of the Vulcanette in another thread, Vaecrius, and it looked like a minigun-rifle. Any particular reason you went with just making it a longer-barrelled version of the DooM chaingun?

Regarding the rocquette launcher: I kinda gotta agree that it's REALLY high-powered, in concurrance with HexaDoken part of me wonders if it needs some crippling quirk like the ZM66 or the BFG to make it more Hideous Destructor-ish and annoying. On the other hand, another part of me says that Hideous Destructor needs at least a FEW weapons that are relatively gimmick-less. (And at any rate, "terrible for close-quarters fighting" and "uncommon ammo that you also have to share with your precious Liberator rifle grenade launcher" count as gimmicks. )

Regarding the new SMG: Good weapon, I like it, pleasantly no-frills and versatile, highly responsive, goes through my pistol ammo like a vacuum which keeps it pretty balanced as you're weighing up using that ammo for the SMG versus using it for backup pistols versus using it for the Derpbot.

Regarding night-vision goggles: Any possibility of making them toggle-able like the hazard suit pickups are? Seems kinda odd to make them one-shot items.

Regarding medkit boxiness: How do the grunts carry so many of those, anyway, considering they're bigger than the stimpacks?

Regarding this post: Holy wall of text, Batman!