[Won't fix] Bug in TC osiris.wad "fountain of ammo"

[Sin]

When I kill, for example - sergant, from flamethrower --> "bug - fountain of ammo".

[Graf Zahl]

What? That description is so vague that I doubt anybody can figure out what's wrong here.

[Ultraviolet]

Sounds like if he uses a flamethrower to kill a sarge he gets a "fountain of ammo" coming from his corpse. If the weapon is important, it must be because it's triggering the explosive death sequence.

[Risen]

Heh... this is pretty funny actually.

I downloaded and ran Osiris to test this. I did IDFA on the first level and used the flamethrower to kill the first few former humans. They die and begin smoking, then spit out a clip. Every few tics, they spit out another clip. It's a constant fountain of ammo, much as described. Perhaps the smoke has a pointer that spawns the ammo. You can also trigger this with the BFG so it is definitely the exploding frames. This also occurs when you gib a sergeant (replaced by a blue marine) and then you get a fountain of shotguns.

[Graf Zahl]

Looks like a bug in the TC. The item spawning in ZDoom is done in the NOBLOCKING codepointer (as opposed to the Die method in vanilla Doom) and this WAD apparently calls it repeatedly in a loop which it shouldn't. The only fix I can imagine is to limit the item spawning to once per actor but who knows what other side effects this would have?

[Risen]

It's not really a bug in the TC. The TC was designed for Doom's engine and it works under Doom's engine.

The only issue I see with the proposed fix is respawning monsters. You'd have to reset the flag when monsters teleported back in (-respawn) and also when monsters are ressurected by archvile. Why was it changed to begin with? If there's no reason for the behavior to differ from Doom's original behavior, then it should just go back to that. But if it changed, there's likely a reason...

[Graf Zahl]

Why was it changed to begin with?

ZDoom uses Heretic's method for item spawning. From a purely logical standpoint this is the better place to do so. Normally it doesn't matter - unless some TC creator doesn't know how to use code pointers...

[Enjay]

The only fix I can imagine is to limit the item spawning to once per actor but who knows what other side effects this would have?

Well one side effect it would have would be to break at least 2, and maybe more, of my WADs. I have used this ability to make some monsters spawn more than the normal amount of ammo on death. eg I did something like this to one of the marines in "Marine Assault". The dehacked SS Guy has 2 death pointers in its death sequence specifically to ensure they drop 2 clips when you kill them.

Some time ago, when this behaviour first appeared in the early-ish 1.23 betas, I asked Randy if it was likey to change. He said it wasn't and I have relied on it ever since. So I for one would not like to see this particular suggestion as a fix.

[Graf Zahl]

I think we have a problem here.

Another possibility would be to keep track of the item spawning by frame and if the same one is executed twice in a row it's obvious that it's a loop and spawning is blocked only in that case.

[HotWax]

I think we should accept the fact that Osiris.wad doesn't work with ZDoom. If it's that big of deal, add a compatibility flag "Actor drops limited" or "Doom-style item drop".

[Risen]

I like the by-frame idea... unless, for some reason, you wanted to have a spawn fountain. But it seems that spawn-fountains would be better left to scripting, which I believe is perfectly possible as well as much much more flexible.

[Virgil]

I like the compatibility flag idea the best. Everyone'll be happy.

[Lexus Alyus]

If it's compatibility you want, why don't you just play it on another port? It's starting to get a bit old by everyonwe saying that they want to play EVERYTHINg on Zdoom.

Zdoom is Zdoom... it's technically still doom, but not completely. What I a m trying to say is: YES, these are issues, but therew are only a few handful of wads that do this... The TC itself was made for vanilla doom, so what wrong with playing it on abnother port where it does work? If randy keeps on sticking to compatibility then Zdoom really isn't going to go anywhere because everytime he doew something great that breaks compatibility he will have to revert back to it...

That's what i think, but feel free to just ignore me .

[Enjay]

That's what i think, but feel free to just ignore me .

I think I said something similar last week. So I'll not ignore you, I'll agree with you.

The following comments are not particularly related to this specific issue, but do reflect my feeling on the bigger question of compatability.

Yes, compatability is important if it can be achieved but Zdoom shouldn't be limited by it IMO.

You are quite right to say it's getting a bit old to hear everyone saying they must play "EVERYTHINg on Zdoom" (sic). There are plenty of choices if total Vanilla compatability is required.

Zdoom (or Randy) has made, and is continuing to make, major advances and changes to the flexibilty of the engine. I'd much rather have those than have the occasional old mod not work quite as intended. (Let's face it, it's taken about 3 years for anyone to spot this as a problem with Osiris.)

To be clear - I'm all for compatability. I do think it is important. However, I think Zdoom moving on and providing flexibility is even more important. Sometimes the two things will be achievable at the same time, sometimes they won't.

[HotWax]

"I'd much rather have those than have the occasional old mod not work quite as intended."

Wouldn't we all?