Hideous Destructor 4.10.0b

[LadyErisXII]

Well the easiest way I can think of is to repeatedly work the action until all the shells come out of the gun, but you can just as easily push on the feed cover and have the shells come out that way. They're under spring pressure and being held in place by the feed ramp after all, so pushing the feed ramp all the way up will give you access to pull the shells free.

I'm gonna take a moment to correct myself and after quickly checking it up, it depends entirely on the model of shotgun. Some shotguns have a latch inside the receiver through the feeding gate that allows you to unload shells directly from the magazine without repeatedly working the action, however without this feature you have to work the action until the magazine tube is empty. Presumably the HD shotgun has this latch and Doomguy is simply pulling the shells directly from the magazine tube.

[Retraux Squid]

The Liberator seems *seriously* unsuitable compared to the ZM66 right now. Even if it poses a moderate chance of killing a zombie instantaneously, the sheer recoil of semi-automatic fire throws my aim off at a range where the ZM66 could just tap-tap-tap and be done with it. Furthermore, it's extremely annoying to have to constantly run around picking up brass and unloading zeds' ZM66s, wondering why I'm bothering with keeping my old 7.76mm gun running when it would be far easier- and more practical- to just use one of said 4.26 rifles. But since complaining without solutions is just whining, I'd like to suggest a few features to make the Liberator a little less pointless:

- Liberators and Liberator magazines could be present in the world/more common in the world than right now. Since the Liberator is no longer in mainline Marine service if I'm not mistaken, having these ammo stores fully filled would make sense (they're ceremonial/reserve weapons kept ready but never actually "used" the way the ZM66s are until now).

- To make it less of an effort in frustration, perhaps the Liberator's brass should be automatically picked up instead of requiring E. If not, a unique sprite for it (quite a bit longer, I'd wager) would help in differentiating it from common steel pistol rounds, which look extremely similar at a glance and which are quite common when you factor in SMG zombies.

- Reducing the recoil significantly would assist, though hopefully not to the level of the ZM66. While it is perfectly realistic that a bullpup high-caliber battle rifle should be horribly hard to control, it is also immensely frustrating to use the weapon, and not in the rewarding way that the Thunder Buster or Hideous Destructor are. Perhaps editing the pickup sprite to make it a non-bullpup, more full-length rifle would help, as well as further establish the "classic" nature of the firearm as opposed to the modernized, polymer-gray, bullpup ZM66. If that's not an option, then simply handwaving a recoil reduction as some sort of muzzle compensator or AA12 style integrated feature would work just fine.

- Introducing a variant of trooper armed with the Liberator would help in the ammo department as well as provide a unique type of enemy- perhaps he would actually be a random ChaingunGuy replacement. This guy would likely refuse to shoot full auto, but rather take accurate, slow shots with his powerful battle rifle, only really "panic moding" at point blank. (On that note- assuming HD zombies are not braindead, it's probably more "accurate" if zombies pick fire modes based on range instead of randomly. At close range troopers should ideally fire full auto, at medium range 3 round bursts, at long range single shots.)

[Matt]

I'd rather just give more stopping power to the Liberator to make it more worthwhile. That thing has the potential to function like a 30-round SSG.

...and now that I've done some crude estimates instead of just guessing what feels right, it seems I've grossly underestimated the increase in mass as you scale up from 4.26 to 7.76. (right now it's 40% more mass when the square-cube law suggests it's more like 400%)

EDIT: I might as well post my crude approxmations here for the record:

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approximate volumes of bullets:
z 4*4*16=256
l 8*7*20=1120
b 9*9*9=729
p 9*9*19=1539
f 4*4*8=128

z 60 (current)
l 250
b 170
p 360
f 30 (current is random(15,60) so at (60+15)/2=38 frags are rather OP)

EDIT: ahahaha the 4.26 does nothing but tickle now
Maybe rounding down both 4s was a mistake, 4*5*8=320...

[Bigger C]

Maybe some vertical foregrips on ZM66s/Libbies without GLs?

[LadyErisXII]

Maybe some vertical foregrips on ZM66s/Libbies without GLs?

That certainly would make sense, it's a bit odd that apparently rail interface systems have fallen out of style in favor of integrated optic mounts and slab side furniture.

On the topic of liberator vs ZM66, I honestly prefer the liberator by far. I never have issues with the recoil because a grand majority of the time all I need is a single shot to kill something, whereas the ZM66 does need repositioning after firing quite often and even if it takes more than one shot to kill something, the recoil is pretty easily mitigated and the target is generally big enough I can shoot two or three more times before I need to aim back on target. Though I won't lie, a bit extra damage might go a long way in differentiating the two weapons from each other and give a reason to incentivize the liberator more.

[Retraux Squid]

I'd rather just give more stopping power to the Liberator to make it more worthwhile. That thing has the potential to function like a 30-round SSG.

...and now that I've done some crude estimates instead of just guessing what feels right, it seems I've grossly underestimated the increase in mass as you scale up from 4.26 to 7.76. (right now it's 40% more mass when the square-cube law suggests it's more like 400%)

That seems like it would work just fine. Since 7.76 is even larger than 7.62- already a very powerful round- it makes sense that it should punch a hell of a lot harder than the comparatively tiny but high-velocity 4.26 ammunition. The troopers' tan shirts don't seem to be any kind of armor- rather a simple security uniform that perhaps would have a bit of stab/frag resistance- but they can still presently take a single 7.76 shot before keeling over a lot of the time, which feels weird and significantly hurts the Liberator's combat capability. As said before, it's much easier to keep your sights on the target and use a quick tap-tap-tap with the ZM66, than it is readjusting after every Liberator shot while said trooper is angrily hosing your position down with a hail of 4.26 fire. The sheer uncertainty of whether or not I'll get a clean killshot or a wounded but fighting enemy, compared to the relative security of expending three 4.26 rounds, means that I more often than not don't bother with the Liberator- which absolutely blows, thematically it's my absolute favorite weapon in HD.

I feel like the Liberator should be a one-hit one-kill policy on human-sized targets (zombies, imps, etc.) and very quickly murder larger non-elite enemies. Since you have to pick up your brass, grab used 4.26 magazines, etc. to keep it happy, it should reward you by being overall superior to a ZM66 in everything but recoil control, clip size, and ammo capacity. In return, its recoil can stay fairly high; I don't think the automatic feature should really be usable at anything other than close range, because real-life 7.62x51 automatic rifles often suffered from uncontrollable recoil as well.

Also, some minor lore questions regarding the Liberator:
- How long ago was it phased out by the ZM66?
- Does it have its own designation (something like ZM30?)?
- Does anything explain why it seemingly flaunts the trend of "lower caliber but higher velocity/ammo capacity" culminating in the ZM66? Given that it seems tailor-made for well-placed single shots and not the rapid bursts or automatic fire the ZM66 is adept at, it seems like more of a specialist weapon in the vein of the M14 in modern Army usage than the retired infantry issue it is placed as.

Finally, are there any plans for future implementation of firearms? I'd love to see a few more "old" firearms present; perhaps a 7.76mm squad support weapon that was superseded by the Vulcanette, which'd look a lot like an M60 or other heavy machine guns, or even some sort of high-caliber pistol that can occupy the "emergency" slot (i.e. be a second handgun) but grant a lot more power than the comparatively weak 9mm sidearm.

[Matt]

Disclosure of bias: I dislike vertical foregrips with a nearly visceral aesthetic response. It always looks off, wrong in some ineffable existential sense, like an alien parasite or an executive-meddling-driven romance subplot.

I'll think about it.

[EDIT: vertical or no, it occurs to me that you should be able to get a much better grip on the front of a non-GL rifle in any event, so reducing the muzzle climb for non-GL rifles may be warranted anyway.]


The Liberator (or rather its unnamed Volt-Shepard predecessor - the "ZM7" is just a marketing gimmick by HAM*) was never really in full production with the US military.** I would imagine production ceased pretty much as soon as the lawsuits began. Given how long those things last, one would imagine the Doomguy to be a child when they started.


*There is probably another chapter of lore to be written about the trademark disputes with the clothing brand...

**I was just thinking about this while driving to work this morning... surely the Pax Americana must have long ended by this point, so how US-centric should this even be? Unless the (perhaps no longer quite federal) American Union was too convenient for the new privatized masters of the military-industrial complex to give up... anyway that's just some thinking aloud that would probably result in no change to the lore.


EDIT: I just got through Map01 on medium with the Liberator without changing weapons or reloading, but was in god mode so no panicked shots, shaky aim or cover fire. Took me exactly 31 shots to kill everything including one respawn. Damage per shot was frequently well in excess of 200. I think we've got a perfectly serviceable weapon here.

[LadyErisXII]

That seems like it would work just fine. Since 7.76 is even larger than 7.62- already a very powerful round- it makes sense that it should punch a hell of a lot harder than the comparatively tiny but high-velocity 4.26 ammunition. The troopers' tan shirts don't seem to be any kind of armor- rather a simple security uniform that perhaps would have a bit of stab/frag resistance- but they can still presently take a single 7.76 shot before keeling over a lot of the time, which feels weird and significantly hurts the Liberator's combat capability. As said before, it's much easier to keep your sights on the target and use a quick tap-tap-tap with the ZM66, than it is readjusting after every Liberator shot while said trooper is angrily hosing your position down with a hail of 4.26 fire. The sheer uncertainty of whether or not I'll get a clean killshot or a wounded but fighting enemy, compared to the relative security of expending three 4.26 rounds, means that I more often than not don't bother with the Liberator- which absolutely blows, thematically it's my absolute favorite weapon in HD.

I'm gonna stop your right there. 7.76 may be a larger number, but in the world of guns .50mm is hardly a difference and you're also ignoring case length as that makes just as much of a difference as projectile diameter in the scheme of things. In actuality, 7.76 probably functions almost identically to 7.62x51mm in real life, if it wasn't for 22nd century propellants. As at best, 7.76 would have a few grains extra powder and/or weight to the projectile. Otherwise the switch from the Liberator to the ZM66 honestly makes sense, intermediate, high speed projectiles are pretty much king in warfare because the weapons are so light, controllable and still very effective. There's no reason the Liberator should just be a straight upgrade from the ZM66, even if the ZM66 is to be portrayed as an experiment gone wrong, they're two different rifles on two different ends of the spectrum. The damage comes at the cost of lower magazine capacity, higher recoil, and most important weight (at least if you're playing a carry game). Though I get where you come from and I still would like to see a couple "older" weapons as well.

[Turbo]

I have a suggestion regarding the backpack; how about reverting them to their earlier behaviour (dumps content on ground when picked up) when hd_carrylimit = false? IMO, being able to carry all guns along with extra stuff is kind of overpowered without carry limit. Any thought on this?

Some bugs I've found:
- ZombieSemiStormtrooper no longer spawns ingame (intentional?)
- Picked up armor is not automatically equipped when another armor is present in inventory
- Arachnotrons cannot shoot up or down with its close range scatter attack (shots will go over a crouched player)

The following is a nitpicky code suggestion for the HideousShotgunGuy class in zscript/shotgunguy.txt.

Code: Select all

143	spawn:
144		SPOS A 0 nodelay A_JumpIf(wep>=0,2);
145		PLAY A 0;
146	spawn2:
147		#### EEEEEE 1{
...
167	#### A 0 A_PlaySound("grunt/active",CHAN_VOICE);
168	goto spawn2;'
...
180	#### B 1 A_SetTics(random(10,40));
181	goto spawn2;

These changes adds the spawn2 state like in zscript/zombieman.txt, along with appropriate changes, and should not have any behavioral changes (as when I tested it).

[LadyErisXII]

Actually, this talk on recoil has got me thinking. The ZM66 has way too much recoil for what it is. There's negligible difference between it and the Liberator. Realistically the ZM66 would probably be more on par with the pistol in controllability rather than being almost identical to the liberator. The recoil for what the guns have while braced is actually more the behavior I'd expect from them if they were actual real weapons. As for the topic about foregrips and grenade launchers, in actuality there's not much you can do with a bullpup like these to get a better grip and reduce recoil, as the actual furniture on both weapons seems to be too short to actually get fancy with the grips, if they were conventional weapons you could do some fancy thumb over bore tacticool grip or something to get a better control of the recoil. With a grenade launcher you might actually have a better grip on the weapon and it'd have less recoil for certain. While it may be an (unrealistic) M203 style launcher that doesn't provide a vertical grip for you to grab on, the extra weight of the launcher on the muzzle not only balances out the rifle more, but actually increases the mass of the weapon and reducing how much the muzzle would rise and felt recoil to the shooter, since the gun "soaks" up more of it.

[Matt]

LadyEris: See the numbers on my post before last re: differences. I think they're about right as they are now.

As for the GL, that was my original reasoning but then smaller things more easily grasped are typically more controllable (as long as they're not too small which is not an issue here). I may or may not change this back.


Turbo:

Have you tried the recent git builds? I've removed hd_carrylimit and instead created hd_onemanarmy - encumbrance still applies, but with hd_onemanarmy set to true the calculation ignores any ammo that you cannot use without switching weapons. (This includes usables, so you'll always keep 9mm if you have a DERP, 4.26mm and cells if you have a HERP, etc.)

ZombieSemiStormtrooper and similar will be considered deprecated once I switch over to custom uservars that can be accessed in GZDoom Builder. Right now ZombieStormtrooper contains its own weapon randomization.


Re: shotgun guy, I see what you mean but that's not by a long shot the only one of those jumps/gotos that should be changed for consistency - so I'd rather it just kept doing that redundantly rather than I made a change much later and ended up skipping some important check somewhere because I got spawn and spawn2 confused again.


Arachnotrons' pitch turns out to be inverted. Fixed.

Armour fixed.

[LadyErisXII]

LadyEris: See the numbers on my post before last re: differences. I think they're about right as they are now.

As for the GL, that was my original reasoning but then smaller things more easily grasped are typically more controllable (as long as they're not too small which is not an issue here). I may or may not change this back.

I must be blind because I'm not seeing what you mean about the recoil differences. They seem a bit high to me, speaking from experience with intermediate cartridges. As for the grip issue, the grenade launcher and furniture should more or less give the same grip surface in actuality. I can't imagine the grenade launcher being too much wider than the furniture around the barrel unless the roquettes are genuinely just that fat. Then maybe, but the weight and balance shifting would just kinda balance it out.

[Turbo]

Have you tried the recent git builds? I've removed hd_carrylimit and instead created hd_onemanarmy - encumbrance still applies, but with hd_onemanarmy set to true the calculation ignores any ammo that you cannot use without switching weapons. (This includes usables, so you'll always keep 9mm if you have a DERP, 4.26mm and cells if you have a HERP, etc.)

I must've missed that when I tested the latest build, will try it later.

Re: shotgun guy, I see what you mean but that's not by a long shot the only one of those jumps/gotos that should be changed for consistency - so I'd rather it just kept doing that redundantly rather than I made a change much later and ended up skipping some important check somewhere because I got spawn and spawn2 confused again.

Ah, I see. The "####" sprite names are very useful, but can be a pain when actors suddenly turn invisible due to unforeseen state jumps.

[Bigger C]

Hay Turbo, I think your New Zombies addon doesn't work right with current HD versions.

On another note, one thing I love about HD is that despite how difficult and complicated the mod is we're a pretty welcoming community:

[Abba Zabba]

Had Somagu confirm what I thought was the case on stims - they can be completely wasted if you switch away during the injection animation.

While on the topic of stims, is there a real reason they don't have their 'use weapon' assigned to slot 9? I guess for conciseness's sake and also because it's not for stopping immediate life threatening injuries? Guess I'll make a bind for it.