ZDoom

A quick follow-up due to the recent GZDoom 4.5.0 release: To access RRWM options in GZDoom 4.5.0, you have to go to the "full options menu" first! RRWM options are found at the bottom of the full options menu, as always.



This will be a non-issue in the upcoming RRWM 1.3.0 release, where you will be able to access RRWM options directly from the main menu. Note that the next release will require at least GZDoom 4.5.0 to work (currently at least GZDoom 4.3.1 is required, but if possible, please always use the latest available GZDoom version).

Sorry for the inconvenience, and stay tuned for further updates!

So... there is no new release today, but we have some great news for modders! RRWM reloading system has been released as a standalone package for use in your own projects! Click here to go to the corresponding Script Library thread to download the example package and read the usage manual.

In addition to that, we have opened an issue tracker on the Bitbucket website. If you have an issue with RRWM, click here to report it via the issue tracker (there is no need to register an account for that). Of course you can also report issues in this very thread, but the issue tracker is more suited for them, and there is also less chance that your issue will get lost in the post history (although with what little activity we have here, it seems unlikely at the time).

Cheers!

RRWM has been updated to version 1.3.0. Download the new release HERE. Standalone HUD package can be found here. The links in the first post have been updated too.

NB: This release bumps the minimum required GZDoom version to 4.5.0 due to the use of the latest ZScript features.
Please update your GZDoom if you're using an older version.

Save files from the previous version should be fully backwards-compatible with this version, as long as GZDoom is able to load them.

This is mainly a QoL update with a lot of minor improvements, some new features, and a few small bugfixes. Full changelog is provided at the bottom of this post.
To report a bug, please use the issue tracker (no registration required), or post your report directly in this thread.


Important change: RRWM menu entries have been moved

Starting from this version, the RRWM options menu is accessed directly from the main game menu. This change has been implemented due to the introduction of the simple options menu in GZDoom 4.5.0, which made acessing RRWM options more difficult. Fortunately, not anymore - they are pretty much impossible to miss now:


I only hope the asymmetry is not bothering you too much

You can now also press Esc, R, and Enter in sequence during the game to quickly access RRWM options. Additionally, RRWM HUD options can now also be accessed from the HUD options submenu. Standalone HUD package does not alter the main menu, so it makes RRWM HUD options accessible directly from the simple options menu as well.


Other feature highlights:

Plasma rifle capacity upgrade

The plasma rifle (aka the "HyperBlaster") used to have only 40 rounds in its clip. Having done some playtesting on maps that suggest extensive use of this weapon, we've come to the conclusion that the clip depletes too fast. Therefore, its capacity has been upgraded from 40 to 60 rounds. Note that unlike with the recent super shotgun upgrade in 1.2, weapons in save files will be upgraded automatically. Starting from this version, super shotguns carried over from pre-1.2 save files will also receive an automatic clip upgrade (from 8 to 10) upon loading the game.


Changing persistent options in multiplayer

When the value of a persistent RRWM option is changed, you have to start a new game for the change to take effect. However, GZDoom won't allow you to start a new game in multiplayer. So if you suddenly found out that not all of the persistent options had been set up correctly, you had to quit the game, re-run GZDoom in single player mode (or edit the INI manually), and then fire up a new multiplayer session all over again. Fortunately, these times are long gone and forgotten now - thanks to a new menu entry that will do all the work for you without the need to restart GZDoom at all!




I can make a CHANGE! Er, I mean, apply it!

Notes:

• Like it says there, the current level will be restarted, and the state of all players (i.e. their health and inventory) will be reset. Dead players will respawn automatically.
• Obviously, only the hosting player (the same one who controls the server options) can restart the level.
• For technical reasons, restarting hubs is currently not possible. However, this may be implemented in the future.

Changelog:

• Increased plasma rifle clip capacity from 40 to 60.
• Weapons in old save files will now receive clip capacity upgrades automatically.
• Applying changes to persistent options in multiplayer is now possible without restaring the game.
• New main menu entry allows direct access to the RRWM options menu.
• The HUD options submenu can now also be used to configure the RRWM HUD.
• Menu entry to access RRWM HUD options has been added to the simple options menu (standalone HUD package only).
• Option sliders in the RRWM options menu are now grayable.
• Removed puff Z randomization from the chainsaw attack via SF_NORANDOMPUFFZ (same as for other weapons).
• Enemy health bar now uses SpawnHealth() instead of Default.Health.
• Re-entering hub levels should no longer trigger redundant savegame version warnings.
• Exterminated a potential +WEAPON.NOAUTOFIRE glitch due to a typo in a condition expression.
• Placeholder state definitions in RR_Weapon are no longer necessary, so they have been removed.
• LANGAUGE aliases are now used to deduplicate some repeating LANGAUGE strings.
• Instead of the ALTHUDCF lump, Inventory.AltHUDIcon is now used to add an icon for chainsaw ammo to the alternative HUD.
• Enabled the use of ZScript 4.5 features, including covariant virtual return types.
• Switched from dummy virtual functions to abstract functions.

Playtesting log:

• Single player: TNT: Revilution
• Single player: The Darkening
• Single player: The Darkening Episode 2
• Multiplayer (coop): Ancient Aliens - we didn't finish it last time

Happy DOOMing!

Little bit of feedback.

Things I liked:
- What I like the most is the balance. Despite reloading changing the pace and the fire rate in the long term, it doesn't make the gameplay slow or unfair. The timing and magazine capacities are just right. The other weapon mod with reloading that I played a lot, Weapons of Saturn, leans to the side of being too powerful. RRWM keeps the challenge.
- There are a lot of options to tweak the gameplay and looks.
- Help screens for each option! Super helpful. This is a thing that many mods direly need.
- Pistol, with "Enable sniping: Laser sight only", gains more use than in the original game.
- Different sounds for different kinds of pickups.
- Proper blood colors built-in. It may cause minor visual incompatibilities with WADs like BTSX, but in general it's nice to have.
- Special effects: sparks, smoke, shell casings.
- Weapon sound consistency with former humans, and an option for chaingunguy's sprite to conform to their new weapon.

There are also some personal nitpicks, of course.
- All weapons except one are angled, and this makes playing without a crosshair harder. Crosshair, in my opinion, is a step away from the charm of Doom.
- Zen-II Handgun feels weak. The looks, the fire sound... Even with the same damage as the original chaingun, Zen-II seems inferior.
- Shots and shell casings hit the liquid flats like the solid surface. Maybe adding some splashes would improve the feel.
- Slade doesn't recognize the ZIP compression method used in the pk3. That may make exploring and experimenting with RRWM harder for some folks.
- Laser sight of the pistol is slightly below the target point. Maybe it's intentional, though.
- Ammo pickups are small and sometimes hard to see. They look more compact and realistic.
- The weakest point of the mod are the weapon sprites. Weapons don't have the general theme, and because of that the mod doesn't get an identity of its own. We programmers often value function over looks, but I think it's worth investing time in finding weapon graphics that fit together better.

Thank you very much for the feedback! Let me address some of your points:

m8f wrote:What I like the most is the balance. Despite reloading changing the pace and the fire rate in the long term, it doesn't make the gameplay slow or unfair. The timing and magazine capacities are just right. The other weapon mod with reloading that I played a lot, Weapons of Saturn, leans to the side of being too powerful. RRWM keeps the challenge.

Now this is surprising, since in our playtesting sessions we've always found the game to be slightly harder compared to vanilla. This is even addressed in the readme. But I'm sure as hell not going to change anything in this regard, at least not in the near future

BTW, I recently played through Speed of Doom with this mod and was able to complete it entirely from start to finish on UV. A couple fights are mostly luck-based though (in particular MAP32, the final part of MAP20, and of course MAP30), but I didn't have a lot of trouble. It most certainly is hard, but not unfairly hard, even with RRWM.

Spoiler: Side note for those who want to play Speed of Doom with RRWM

---

DISABLE ROCKET SMOKE or turn off "Replace Cyberdemon's rockets" on MAP30! Even though smoke's been optimized, the map is still going to lag like hell because of 20+ cyberdemons in there.

m8f wrote:Shots and shell casings hit the liquid flats like the solid surface. Maybe adding some splashes would improve the feel.

The problem with splashes is that sometimes PWADs can replace existing liquid textures or add new ones. This will result in inconsistencies regarding how various liquid flats behave. If you know of a mini-mod that implements terrain splashes, you can combine it with RRWM, and they should be perfectly compatible. If that isn't the case, please report a bug.

m8f wrote:Slade doesn't recognize the ZIP compression method used in the pk3. That may make exploring and experimenting with RRWM harder for some folks.

Huh? Weird. I don't use Slade for development, and since GZDoom itself has always been able to load the PK3 just fine, I never bothered to check the compression options. Thanks for pointing it out, I'll see if I can fix this in newer versions.

m8f wrote:Laser sight of the pistol is slightly below the target point. Maybe it's intentional, though.

Intentional, since the laser is located slightly below the barrel after all.

m8f wrote:Ammo pickups are small and sometimes hard to see. They look more compact and realistic.

This was an intentional design decision, the original ones always seemed way too large to me. Maybe I could slightly bump the scale and potentially introduce an option for that. Not sure yet. Thanks for pointing it out anyway.

m8f wrote:- The weakest point of the mod are the weapon sprites. Weapons don't have the general theme, and because of that the mod doesn't get an identity of its own. We programmers often value function over looks, but I think it's worth investing time in finding weapon graphics that fit together better.
- All weapons except one are angled, and this makes playing without a crosshair harder. Crosshair, in my opinion, is a step away from the charm of Doom.
- Zen-II Handgun feels weak. The looks, the fire sound... Even with the same damage as the original chaingun, Zen-II seems inferior.

Quite right, unfortunately. I have only so much free time on my hands that I can spend either to fix bugs and implement new features, or to endlessly search for replacement weapon sprites instead. Most of the time, I have to choose the former, for obvious reasons.

As for the handgun, I really wish it were an assault rifle instead. However, I'm not sure if sourcing new sprites from other third-party mods is going to make the situation any better, especially regarding "identity". For truly unique identity, the sprites have to be unique too. If only I had a sprite artist on the team, this would probably be a non-issue then.

RRWM has been updated to version 1.3.0a. Download the new release HERE. Standalone HUD package can be found here. The links in the first post have been updated too.

Save files from the previous version should be fully backwards-compatible with this version.

This is a minor update with a small fix to improve scrolling of description texts on help pages. Note that the fix won't work in GZDoom 4.5.0 because the necessary code to make it work is missing from GZDoom itself due to an oversight. Hopefully, it should be resolved in newer GZDoom releases. As of now, there is no way to lift the 30 FPS limit to enable truly smooth text scrolling in menus, but as soon as it's implemented, you won't have to update RRWM again to make use of it.

In addition to the above, the release package is now distributed as a ZIP archive instead of a 7Z to make it easier for less experienced users to work with - on Windows systems, for example, you won't need any third-party software to unpack it. Also, the PK3 file itself now uses a more common compression algorithm, which should make it possible to examine its contents with editors like SLADE. (thanks to m8f for noticing the latter issue, BTW!)

To keep up the tradition established in the release announcements in this thread, here's the playtesting log for this release:

• Single player: Speed of Doom (read the spoiler note in my previous post if you want to play it)
• Single player: Resurgence

NB: This will probably be the final version of RRWM for a while, unless any serious bugs are found during later playtesting sessions. However, rest assured that this project is most certainly not dead. I've decided to take a break from it right now, and since there are no other people working on it, active development is not going to resume for some time. But in the meantime, feel free to report issues in this thread as well as on the issue tracker, and I will take a look whenever I can. I will also be checking out newer GZDoom releases to ensure the mod still works properly with them, and, if necessary, make appropriate changes to maintain compatibility. And if for whatever reason you want to contribute art to this project, please send me a PM!

See ya next time!

RRWM has been updated to version 1.4.0. Download the new release HERE. Standalone HUD package can be found here. The links in the first post have been updated too.

NB: This release bumps the minimum required GZDoom version to 4.8.0 due to the use of the latest ZScript features.
Please update your GZDoom if you're using an older version. (And as always, try to stay on the latest version if possible.)

Save files from the previous version should be fully backwards-compatible with this version, as long as GZDoom is able to load them.

Long time no see! Here comes a major update with some new features as well as bugfixes.
To report a bug, please use the issue tracker (no registration required), or post your report directly in this thread.


New feature highlights

Weapon recoil

At long last, this update adds recoil to all non-melee weapons, making combat much more realistic! Firing shots from most heavy weapons will push you back a bit, while small arms fire will only disrupt your aim a little. The exact types of recoil and its strength depend on the weapon being used. Following RRWM's paradigm of customizability, weapon recoil can be turned on and off at any time as a server-only option (in multiplayer, it can only be changed by the host and will affect all players). However, recoil cannot be toggled for individual weapons - it's either all or nothing.

NB: Weapon recoil is turned on by default. If you're loading an old save file and don't want recoil to be applied there, just open the menu, navigate to "RRWM", then "Weapon options", and disable it. You do not have to start a new game to switch off recoil.


Improved BFG tracer effects

BFG tracers will now spawn over a wider vertical area (proportional to the target's height) and rotate along different axes. Here's a short visual demonstration:




DEHACKED compatibility enhancements

This update adds compatibility with the following DEHACKED modifications:

• Initial ammo amount (aka "Initial Bullets")
• Ammo capacity

RRWM will automatically modify the ammo capacities and/or starting ammo if a DEHACKED patch with the corresponding modifications is present. This increases compatibility with PWADs containing lightweight DEHACKED patches that don't affect weapon behavior, for example, 007: Licence to Spell DooM.

NB: Existing save files will be mostly unaffected by these modifications. The only exception is when you transition to a new level without having picked up a certain type of ammo before at all - then the game will use the modified capacity value for that ammo type when you first pick it up. It is recommended to start a new game if you're experiencing glitches, but don't hesitate to report them anyway.


Fixes and tweaks

This update implements multiple optimizations for the UI subsystem, which, together with the recent GC fix, should keep the memory usage at bay while playing. Extensive playtesting has been conducted to verify that the memory issues have indeed been addressed, and to ensure that UI rendering and updating still works properly. Nevertheless, it remains possible that the testing seesions haven't covered all edge cases. If you see the HUD or option menus being rendered incorrecty, or even experience VM aborts with long stack traces containing a lot of class names starting with "WL_", please report them here (or on the issue tracker), and provide a copy of your INI file, if possible.

This version also fixes multiple bugs related to the interaction between weapon casings and map areas with non-vanilla special effects (e.g. wind, scrolling floors, 3D bridges). These do not affect gameplay in general but should get you rid of the stranger things you might have seen in your playthroughs, especially if you're not playing with the default settings (which are set to cause all casings to disappear in short order). For details, please see the full changelog below. If you have experienced something similar in any maps not playtested with this update, please re-test with this new version and report any issues that still occur. Thank you very much!


Changelog:

• Weapon recoil added to all non-melee weapons as a toggle-able option.
• Enhanced DEHACKED compatibility to support initial bullets and ammo capacity mods.
• Augmented the BFG tracer effects for better visuals.
• Rectified some minor issues related to the "apply changes" feature.
• Eliminated a bug related to casings bouncing on top of thing-based 3D bridges.
• Buggy bouncing behavior of casings in windy areas has been fixed.
• Added self-destruct logic for runaway casings and empty clips that have somehow ended up outside of the map.
• Corrected an issue where an active chainsaw wouldn't stop after having been picked up if the auto-switch was prevented or disabled.
• KEYCONF aliases have been added for RRWM console and network events for better user experience.

UI-specific changes:

• Large-scale optimizations of the UI subsystem to reduce the load on the garbage collector and avoid memory spikes.
• Extended the HUD settings with a new option to control the alignment of the fullscreen HUD inventory bar, and changed its default alignment from left to centered.
• Tracked down and fixed an issue where the enemy health bar would appear when looking at monsters through security cameras.
• Status bar will no longer cover the whole screen when "Status bar scale" is set to "Scale to fullscreen".
• Game will no longer animate the HUD while paused.
• Other small tweaks to the UI and settings subsystems, including minor language corrections.

Playtesting log:

• Single player: 007: Licence to Spell DooM
• Single player: EPIC 2
• Single player: Moonblood
• Single player: Sunlust (NB: some fights are very difficult and/or require unconventional tactics)

Thank you for your interest!

Cross-posting here to advertise a small resource request related to this mod. Along with the severe lack of time and, to a lesser extent, motivation, it is one of the major blockers preventing further development as of now. But just in case someone wants to help me with that request, I'm sure it will get me motivated enough... and as for time, it's a bit harder than that, but I'll see what I can do.

Not being an artist, I generally have to rely on third-party resources - you've probably noticed that almost all of the sprites here are borrowed from several high-profile (but rather old) weapon mods; you can find the full list here. I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing, but opinions on this usually seem to vary a lot (not surprising of course). Though I still wish I could use 100% original resources instead, I fully understand that it's likely not going to happen anytime soon.

Anyway, thanks again to everyone who's taken an interest in this project and/or its reloading system provided as a standalone library.

I like the HUD (and the mod too!), but is it possible to make a version without the HUD, so I can have it (the HUD) in my autoload AND play RRWM without having to disable autoload, and add everything back besides the HUD?

The problem here is that the HUD is required for magazine counters to be visible; were the HUD and the rest of the mod to be decoupled from each other, it'd look like the mod is broken if someone tried to load it without the HUD. Although I think it is possible to make GZDoom detect this scenario and error out with a user-friendly error message. Still, that'd necessitate rewriting some parts of the code, and having to always load two files instead of just one is certainly going to degrade the user experience somewhat.

Nevertheless, I will look into this after I've finished with everything else for the next release. Thank you for the suggestion.

I meant a seperate version of of the mod that is hudless. You are welcome.

Yeah, that's what I meant as well. It wouldn't be too hard to rework the build script to produce two versions of the mod, one with the HUD and one without. The real problem is that the HUD code has dependencies that make it difficult to create a universal HUD package - one that could work both in standalone mode and as a "plug-in" to the rest of RRWM. This doesn't mean it cannot be done, but it will surely require a significant amount of work. Like I said, once I've worked out everything else for the next release, I will see what I can do here.

Player701 wrote: and as a "plug-in" to the rest of RRWM.

Like all those custom functions you made? PreRaise() for example.

Player701 wrote: I will see what I can do here.

Thanks for considering my idea. BTW: When you try to load the HUD AND RRWM at the same time, the errors are CVAR related. Maybe I'll make a version without the CVARs and keep it on my harddisk.

yum13241 wrote: ↑Sat Feb 04, 2023 1:36 am Like all those custom functions you made? PreRaise() for example.

yum13241 wrote: ↑Sat Feb 04, 2023 1:36 am Maybe I'll make a version without the CVARs and keep it on my harddisk.

No, it's more complicated than that. There is a ZScript-based framework that implements a sort of an abstraction layer for the CVARs, and since it's used both by the mod proper and by the HUD, the two packages share a lot of common code - the main difference being that the version of this code included in the HUD is stripped down to the bare minimum needed to support just the UI options. Thus, if you remove only the CVAR definitions from one of the packages and then attempt to run them both at the same time, you will likely get a lot of ZScript errors due to duplicate class declarations.

Thanks for informing me about that. So here's what I can do:

1. Remove it from my autoloads every time I play the mod. Very annoying.
2. Disable autoloads for RRWM, and relist every other thing. Also very annoying.
3. Remove the abstraction layer and HUD CVars from RRWM (and probably the HUD itself) , which would be needed to be redone on every release.