ZDoom

Gear has been being pecked at in the background for quite awhile, but has had one hold up or another. Its coming but I dont know when. As for weapons, I want to be super careful. I don't want a CoD situation where I have 40 guns that all fire the same. That said, I am working on adding some kind of anti-material rifle and still working on the MK23 SOCOM.

So, I just want to pop in and say that I don't know when or if I'll be able to get a conplete new update out, but the WIP branch is complete in terms of mew features! It all just needs polish and sprite cleanup before getting pushed as a complete new master update, but its there.

Quick rundown if whats nee: AUG is now the AUG A3 with underbarrel M203. HK23E is now the FN Maximi, chambered in .308 with no gl. And a new sidearm, the MK23 SOCOM has been added.

Final teminder: THESE CHANGES AREN'T IN THE MASTER BRANCH, JUST THE INCOMPLETE WIP BRANCH.

Cool, just tried it out! The AUG feels better now, I like the new look as well. The M203 has some crazy range on it, felt like I was getting hit by shrapnel from pretty far away.

The new heavy pistol is cool too, though is it suppressed? The sound doesn't really match the sprite, unless that's a compensator on the front.

True, still pretty loud. The pistol feels pretty good otherwise, a nice compromise between the regular pistol and the sawn off.

For now, consider the MK23's firing sound a placeholder until I find a good supressed firing sound.

In the mean time, I'm thinking of changing the rocket launcher to a SMAW. It'll be larger, stronger and slower than the LAW, and will also be reload able. I'm not a big fan of the LAW as it is right now but don't want to jump the gun on changing it. So I'm polling it to gauge interest! Be sure to vote if you so desire.

PS: check out the WIP branch to see a pretty major overhaul that I'm pretty excited to roll out...

Edit : So now that I'm home and at my keyboard, let me go more into detail about what the differences would be.
--SMAW
-Bigger and faster missile with more damage but less AoE.
-Much heavier, and slower to handle. Around the LMG's handle speed.
-Reloadable, so no inventory management. Just reload it.
-A scope for precise long range aiming.
-Back blast**. With all the dangers that incurs.
-Possibility of multiple missile types.

--LAW
-Bigger AoE damage while still dealing heavy direct damage.
-Very light and very fast.
-Disposable, requiring using an inventory item to prepare them.
-Throwing one away and grabbing a new one is much faster than reloading.
-No* back blast

*ignoring reality a bit on this one.
**would be toned down for gameplay's sake, but you can still kill yourself pretty easily being too close to a wall.

Would it work to have both? Make the LAW more common but less effective, while the SMAW is rare but better damage?

To avoid bloat and fight redundancy, both is not an option.

I kind of like the LAW, honestly. The idea of it being an inventory item is cool, you don't see that often with Doom mods. Otherwise we end up with another standard rocket launcher, unless the multiple ammo types and upgrades and stuff come into play.

I have come to offer an alternate sprite for the L115A1 (click to get the unscaled version)



bonus: it should be in the Doom palette if I did it properly

WOW! I like that A LOT. Expect to see it being used in the next update.

...whenever that is

So I've been tooling around with the WIP branch and have some feedback.

• Reloading the MK23 from empty causes you to hit the slide release and close the slide twice.
• The SPAS ends up feeling worse than the M870 once you've got the upgrades for the pump shotgun, particularly in the reload speed; perhaps the reload upgrade should also apply to the SPAS? (I have zero issues with the wider spread as a balancing factor though.)
• Speaking of the SPAS, it has... um... issues with tracking if there's a shell in the chamber. Firing in semi-auto seems to assume the gun is open-bolt in that mode (or something), but firing, switching to pump and pumping it will eject a spent shell (as well as load the chamber). And by extension the 'fully load in semi-auto' animation doesn't make sense - if the gun can fire, there's a shell in the chamber, so you shouldn't be able to load a shell INTO the chamber on top of that.
• Why can you only carry one NLAW inventory item between maps? It doesn't make sense that you can carry more armed ones with you than unarmed ones.
• You can't swap away from the pistols to the knife if you're caught out reloading them.

Most of these are oversights on my part and easy enough to fix.
As for SPAS issues, it actually is effected by the Power and Speed upgrade of the M870, And the chambering/pump interaction is just me not putting in strict enough checks for it being chambeted or not. Tho it being worse than the upgraded M870 is...more or less intended.

Brohnesorge wrote:Tho it being worse than the upgraded M870 is...more or less intended.

Interesting, so what role is it supposed to play in the player's arsenal? I figured it was about raw up-close damage (which it kinda is, being semi-auto). Also, it definitely still reloads a LOT slower than the M870 with the upgrade, which feels a little awkward.

On a different note, having played through some pretty dark maps with this, it'd be neat if we had usable flares - potentially the burning magnesium or chemical sort, but maybe LED flares as well?

So the SPAS (with slugs) functions well as a secondary sniper weapon, and the DPS is nutty. Unless your a God Gamer on the M870 pump, smashing out slugs extremely quickly to instantly delete an Archvile or such up close is much easier and more reliable with the SPAS.

As for flares, I've actually been running into quite a few dark maps recently too. It is making me strongly consider adding some kind of light source, possible with tact gear, but for now, I continue to recommend DarkDoomZ for a serviceable flashlight. You can turn off the darkness options and just use the flashlight.