Leaky Radiation Suit

Post by **Xaser** » Sat Jul 26, 2003 8:22 am

I have noticed, if you're in a sector which does 10%-20% damage and you have a radiation suit, sometimes you still get hurt. This never happened to me in the normal doom.exe/doom2.exe. It only seems to happen in Zdoom, yet this bug has been here since version 1.22! Is this a Zdoom bug, or is it just me...

[FUTURE-EDIT] This still bothers the hell out of me to this very day.

Mighty Duck X-treme · Post by **Mighty Duck X-treme** » Sat Jul 26, 2003 8:35 am

It's probably a bug.

Although it would make a really cool ZDoom feature...

Post by **Graf Zahl** » Sat Jul 26, 2003 11:48 am

Xaser wrote:I have noticed, if you're in a sector which does 10%-20% damage and you have a radiation suit, sometimes you still get hurt. This never happened to me in the normal doom.exe/doom2.exe. It only seems to happen in Zdoom, yet this bug has been here since version 1.22! Is this a Zdoom bug, or is it just me...

This was a feature in the original Exe. ZDoom's random number generator works differently so it is likely that the chance of this happening is higher.

Hirogen2 · Post by **Hirogen2** » Sat Jul 26, 2003 11:51 am

AFAIK (and some doom editor such as windeu v5.1 seem to "claim" this)
that 5% is radiation whereas 10% and 20% is some other damage (lava, etc),
and that the radiation suit only handes the -- radiation (ala 5%).
However, this is just a very bad assumption based on some very old editors.

Cyb · Post by **Cyb** » Sat Jul 26, 2003 1:13 pm

doom/2.exe's random number generator isn't even really random, there's a bigass array of values and it selects one, and I believe it just starts at the beginning of the array each time the exe starts, or something rather non-random like that

Post by **Xaser** » Sat Jul 26, 2003 1:41 pm

Graf Zahl wrote:This was a feature in the original Exe.

It's not a bug, it's a feature!™

Not a very useful feature, though. Randy should fix this, and maybe put a compatibility option to turn it on or off.

Hirogen2 wrote:AFAIK (and some doom editor such as windeu v5.1 seem to "claim" this)
that 5% is radiation whereas 10% and 20% is some other damage (lava, etc),
and that the radiation suit only handes the -- radiation (ala 5%).
However, this is just a very bad assumption based on some very old editors.

Good point, but read this paragraph taken from DOOM's Manual:

Whoever made the DOOM manual wrote:Radiation Suits provide protection against radioactivity, heat, and other low-intensity forms of energy. Basically, they allow you to walk through the radioactive ooze without taking damage. While a suit holds out, your screen will have a greenish tint.

See, so the radiation suit is supposed to protect you from the lava. Obviously, the people who manufacture these things didn't test them out enough to prove that they actually work.

P.S: What does AFAIK stand for, anyway? Yes i'm new to forums. How'd you guess?

Post by **Graf Zahl** » Sat Jul 26, 2003 2:26 pm

Xaser wrote:
Not a very useful feature, though. Randy should fix this, and maybe put a compatibility option to turn it on or off.

There is nothing to fix! The strong damage type is simply too much for the RadSuit to handle. It's supposed to be this way and should not be altered. If Randy added strong damage types which are completely blocked by the radiation suit without changing the original sector type it would be ok.

BTW, why aren't the Heretic damage types blocked by the radiation suit? That's more likely a bug (although not a serious one.) Ok, in Heretic there isn't anything resembling a radiation suit but the behavior should at least be consistent, shouldn't it?

HotWax · Post by **HotWax** » Sat Jul 26, 2003 10:33 pm

This is NOT a bug and never was a bug. It has existed since the earliest versions of Doom, was well documented, and was not removed. Hence id wanted it in the game.

About the radiation vs lava thing. The suit protects you from both. That's why you don't take damage NEARLY as much while wearing it, even in the 10/20% sectors. However, it can only protect you from so much, so rarely you will get hurt (although the damage is significantly reduced) even while wearing the suit.

This is intended behavior, there is nothing to fix at all.

There is also no need for new damage types since you can just use scripting to apply an exact amount of damage to the player at any given time.

Finally, AFAIK = "As Far As I Know"

Also, the Heretic thing is rather surprising. IMHO, it should be made to behave like Doom, where you don't take damage at all with the suit unless you're in the highest-damage sector (which, to my knowledge is still 10/20%) by default. Of course, we can already use scripting to get around this, but still it would be nice to not have to use scripting.

Mighty Duck X-treme · Sat Jul 26, 2003 11:25 pm

You know what guys? I never even knew whether it was a bug or not at all until you said it wasn't EVEN a bug

Thanks for correcting me :-)

SargeBaldy · Post by **SargeBaldy** » Sun Jul 27, 2003 9:07 pm

yeah, i've witnessed that a few times myself, it's rather annoying.

Hirogen2 · Post by **Hirogen2** » Mon Jul 28, 2003 9:16 am

Whoever made the DOOM manual wrote:Radiation Suits provide protection against radioactivity, heat, and other low-intensity forms of energy. Basically, they allow you to walk through the radioactive ooze without taking damage. While a suit holds out, your screen will have a greenish tint.

"LOW"-intensity... not 20%

Maverick · Post by **Maverick** » Tue Jul 29, 2003 11:15 pm

So if this isn't a bug, then why not use it? Has anyone ever done that?

One obvious use I could see is use Rad Suits in an RPGish manner by having different classes.

ie:
Red suit = protection against lava
Blue suit = protection against water/drowning
Green suit = protection against ooze
Gold suit = protection against all
etc..

Then you could have different levels of protection from hardly any protection to complete protection. Obviously you'd need to be able to differentiate between environments... and suits.. but I don't see how that could be too difficult.

Regards,

Maverick

Ultraviolet · Post by **Ultraviolet** » Wed Jul 30, 2003 9:35 am

Sounds like the hard-coded approach SUCKS. Use ACS to set up your own custom damaging sectors. Have one of those Things you place that acts when the player enters/is in/leaves the sector, have it check to see if you've set a variable for whether the player has one of your special suits, deal damage accordingly, then loop the script.

You could even maybe set this up to operate using a single function (but one sector-Thing for each damage sector). Hell, I haven't been keeping up with ACS well enough to know right now. Nanami would probably be enthusiastic/zealous enough to mess with it until she gets it right.

HotWax · Post by **HotWax** » Wed Jul 30, 2003 10:21 am

Even with the little I know of ACS, I can guarantee you this is possible.

Add decoration item(s) for custom suit(s), setup script to run when the player enters a given sector, check whatever number of variables you want, including one that stores the status of the player's suit. Another script could draw an icon on the screen to show what suit is being worn and how much time it has left. You could even bind a button to toggle using the suit or change suits and thus save them for when you need them. (An oxygen mask with limited oxygen for example) This would be even better if Randy would add the ability for decoration pickups to show up in the inventory (hint, hint) and execute a script on usage, but that's not really necessary since it can all be scripted.

And how is the hard-coded method sucky? You have your low-damage sectors, like radiation or whatever, and maybe you setup the map so the player HAS to run through it without a suit or whatever. Then you have your standard-damaging radioactive ooze/acidic blood/whatever sectors, and finally your high-damage even-the-suit-doesn't-protect-you-fully sectors where you REALLY encourage the player to stay the heck out/move quickly through the area even with a suit. That gives alot of options while still letting newbies off easy with the low-damage versions of each and doesn't restrict the map designer very much at all. Not as nice as scripting, obviously, but I doubt scripting could have been achieved on a 386...

Cyb · Post by **Cyb** » Wed Jul 30, 2003 3:11 pm

from the editing ref:

Damage amount below 20 will only hurt the player if he doesn't have an environment suit. Damages between 20-49 will occasionally hurt the player even with an environment suit on. Damages of 50 and above will always hurt the player unless he is in god mode.

all that is set with sector_setdamage() so you wouldn't even need to do much wacky acs fun (which wouldn't even be really that complex anyway, what steve described could be done in prolly around 20 lines or less).

re: the inventory, randy has said with the way inventory is currently coded in it doesn't leave much (or any) room for expansion with decorate items.

ZDoom