[WIP] The Trooper - 0.3.4 [INFINITE HIATUS]

[will183]

Are the enemys supposed to be able to instantly walk up and down different map height levels?

EDIT: encountered another issue, cant reload the XM27 or shoot it since gaining extended mags, i had 50 rounds left in the clip when i couldn't shoot or reload it.

[TheRailgunner]

Are the enemys supposed to be able to instantly walk up and down different map height levels?

EDIT: encountered another issue, cant reload the XM27 or shoot it since gaining extended mags, i had 50 rounds left in the clip when i couldn't shoot or reload it.

Enemies being able to scale ridiculous heights is intentional; I wanted to give enemies more of an ability to reach the player easily. As far as the XM27's issue(s) is/are concerned, I'll have to figure out what the hell is wrong with it - I'll see what the culprit is.

[TheRailgunner]

So, I've rolled out 0.2.4.13c - the Turbo Update!

A few things I've put up on the Changelog:
*Nishimura Seven now has a fifth upgrade - the Masterwork Variant, which turns this sniper-ish battle rifle into an actual sniper, dealing ridiculous damage to all enemies it passes through. Unlike other upgrades, this doesn't permanently alter the weapon, but makes the Masterwork N7 (the Nishimura Eight Sniper Rifle System) switchable with the basic N7 using User 8, bound to the J key.
*Weapon switching animations are much faster; as a result, melee speed is also increased slightly.
*XP requirements for weapons now scale with rarity - Common upgrades take 500 each, Uncommon upgrades need 1000, Rare upgrades require 1500, and Legendary/Exotic upgrades cost 2500.
*Headshot multiplier increased from 1.5 to 2.
*Surfeit Torment deals increased base damage after each of the Firefly and Cluster Explosive upgrades.
*Surfeit Torment now has a Zoom function, which increases effective range and accuracy. Conversely, it now has decreased accuracy when fired from the hip, but a higher rate of fire.
*For enemies without headshot hitboxes, Firefly now triggers upon enemy death (Lost Souls, Demons, Cacos, etc.).
*Zombie hitboxes changed slightly - Ripper projectiles should no longer break XP and Firefly.
*Snuck Hammerspace Backpacks back in, for no good reason.
*You can now move faster when aiming down sights with the Surfeit Torment or XM27 owing to their lighter weight and size.

[Somagu]

I'm actually enjoying this quite a bit more after having played Destiny 2, heheh, had a few things to report from the time I spent playing.

XM27 only seems to take one magazine whether you're reloading just one, or both
MARS B can access Nightmare Rounds regardless of whether you have that upgrade or not
You removed a bunch of cvars from the menu, which means I was stuck having my HP and shield regen turned off, which meant the sharpshooter arm would never cool down. Had to wipe/change the TR_ cvars manually to fix it.

[TheRailgunner]

I'm actually enjoying this quite a bit more after having played Destiny 2, heheh, had a few things to report from the time I spent playing.

XM27 only seems to take one magazine whether you're reloading just one, or both
MARS B can access Nightmare Rounds regardless of whether you have that upgrade or not
You removed a bunch of cvars from the menu, which means I was stuck having my HP and shield regen turned off, which meant the sharpshooter arm would never cool down. Had to wipe/change the TR_ cvars manually to fix it.

A few things:

I've attempted to fix the first two bugs - XM27 should take two mags when dual reloading and MARS B should no longer be able to use Nightmare Rounds until the upgrade is unlocked. I've also made the CVARs accessible again (I can't actually tell why it won't work on your end, but if you have any CVARs set from an older version of The Trooper, it may cause health/shield regen to function improperly). I should consider making a second script for the Sharpshooter Arm's cooldown.

I've also separated the special variant of the Nishimura Seven into a new weapon found in the Secondary slot - the Nishimura Eight Sniper Weapon System. Note that I have to fix some issues with N7/N8 Firefly explosions being damaging to the player. Nerfs and upgrades are coming (the former applicable to the Nishimura Seven, which is pretty powerful even without any upgrades). Since the upgrade system is currently absent for the N8 Sniper Rifle, you may notice your Surfeit Torment magically upgrading itself, as well as that the N7 can still accrue an extra 2500 XP - this will be rectified after I get off of work today.

[Somagu]

Health and shield regen weren't functioning because I had deliberately disabled them in favor of actual health and armor pickups at the time, in an earlier version. That's actually why I had the thought to go find the cvar in the pk3 and see if resetting them fixed it, which it did! Thanks for the quick response, I'll hopefully have more feedback soon.

[TheRailgunner]

Health and shield regen weren't functioning because I had deliberately disabled them in favor of actual health and armor pickups at the time, in an earlier version. That's actually why I had the thought to go find the cvar in the pk3 and see if resetting them fixed it, which it did! Thanks for the quick response, I'll hopefully have more feedback soon.

So, I've uploaded an update with all of the N8's upgrades:

*Outlaw (faster reload after precision kill)
*Extended Magazine (+2 rounds)
*Zoom Lens Assembly (gives 4.5x and 9x zoom functions)
*Firefly (precision kills cause explosions)
*White Nail (technically it's supposed to be "Three consecutive headshots refills the magazine", but it more or less amounts to getting six headshots before reloading owing to the N8's ripper projectiles and larger magazine capacity)

Makes for an interesting secondary weapon, no?

In addition, monster AI has been tweaked - enemies will now seek cover the moment they see you, and will attempt to alternate between attacking and returning to cover if far away enough. Also, enemies seeking cover now continually face their targets when they hide, turning any fleeing enemy into a potential ambush.

[Firebat]

This mod could definitely do without having monsters jump, it doesn't make sense when you have monsters that are supposed to shoot you from an unreachable position, or when they are going to ambush you, it simply breaks the normal flow of the game and destroys any element of surprise they might have. At least make it optional, the rest of the mod is very nice otherwise.

[comet1337]

i booted this up with vanguard
zoom is impossible to use because it gets cancelled immediately
either make it only activate on tap instead of hold, or increase the delay until you can zoom out

why are the standard zombiemen the most dangerous and powerful enemies with inhuman reaction times, accurate high damage hitscan and tons of health
meanwhile shotgunners go down from a single revolver shot
why do monsters have limitless stepheight
why does the player have crazy high stepheight
why can i jump seven miles into the air
why are enemies where there shouldnt be / wander and activate teleport ambushes too early
new hellknights make no noise what so ever
i am full on ammo for weapons i do not have and out for the only weapon i do have, at a point where im supposed to have 3 weapons
all weapons seem to fire bullets out of the players waist
mancs have some sprite weirdness going on with their pain state
i cant tell what weapon is supposed to be what (mg = rl plasma = sg ???)
i dont know what ammo goes where with these weapon names that are the entire bio of said weapon
i have no idea if i even have ammo for a weapon, with it all just being a jumble of number on the side above hexagon soup that is the hud

overall very confusing and frustrating to play
which is weird considering the last version i played was pretty fun and cool
what happened?

[TheRailgunner]

i booted this up with vanguard
zoom is impossible to use because it gets cancelled immediately
either make it only activate on tap instead of hold, or increase the delay until you can zoom out

why are the standard zombiemen the most dangerous and powerful enemies with inhuman reaction times, accurate high damage hitscan and tons of health
meanwhile shotgunners go down from a single revolver shot
why do monsters have limitless stepheight
why does the player have crazy high stepheight
why can i jump seven miles into the air
why are enemies where there shouldnt be / wander and activate teleport ambushes too early
new hellknights make no noise what so ever
i am full on ammo for weapons i do not have and out for the only weapon i do have, at a point where im supposed to have 3 weapons
all weapons seem to fire bullets out of the players waist
mancs have some sprite weirdness going on with their pain state
i cant tell what weapon is supposed to be what (mg = rl plasma = sg ???)
i dont know what ammo goes where with these weapon names that are the entire bio of said weapon
i have no idea if i even have ammo for a weapon, with it all just being a jumble of number on the side above hexagon soup that is the hud

overall very confusing and frustrating to play
which is weird considering the last version i played was pretty fun and cool
what happened?

Soooooo, that is a list.

Don't really know what to do about the tap/hold thing. I've been trying to speed up zoom functions because for the longest time, ADS seemed to take too much time to use, but I may have to figure out some sort of workaround. I forgot that my traditional solution was to create a ready state that can't zoom that goes to the main ready state loop after 10 tics.

1: Standard zombiemen are NOT the strongest enemies. There ARE two high-tier enemies that look very, very similar (the Pulsar-D guy and the Fallen Legionnaire, with 550 and 1000 HP respectively) that are highly accurate and quick to retaliate. The Pulsar guy has sunglasses and the Fallen Legionnaire has a hooded cloak. Chaingunners (and higher-tier variations of such) do have a small chance of spawning in the place of Zombiemen - originally to allow a greater chance of obtaining their weapon drops in Ultimate Doom, though the switch to the Engram system has made this overall unnecessary. Both monsters are Chaingunner-type, however, and I should probably remove them from the Zombieman spawning rolls in the next update.
2: All basic enemies (i.e., classic Doom monsters, not elite or champion type) fall somewhat easily to the revolver - which, for the record, is a Legendary weapon.
3: I feel that a lot of enemies get trapped in stupid places where they absolutely cannot reach or attack the player (personally, giving them a ledge jump would be better - I wanted enemies to be able to engage in ridiculous pursuits). I could remedy this by removing +DROPOFF and their absurd stepheight value of 128, however.
4: The player has a step-height of 32. While patches exists to remedy this, they are likely heinously out of date. I may remove this, although I do consider it slightly antithetical to the concept of Joe Nameless having greater movement freedom.
5: Multiple jumps, configurable in Options - sometimes results in a super-jump for reasons I haven't actually determined yet.
6: Enemies, with some exceptions, will attempt to evade the player's line of sight at range. As far as the teleport ambushes...I actually thought I fixed issues with +AMBUSH not being transferred to spawned actors.
7: They do, but they're not as loud as they probably should be - I'll see what I can do.
8: Perhaps I'm not following you - with the exception of alternate ammo, all weapons in a given slot share ammo.
9: I don't really follow you here - could you explain with screenshots?
10: I actually know about this, it's something I know I have to fix, but mostly been lazy/busy.
11: Don't really follow you here, but I can try to add a text line that tells you what weapon you're holding/switched to/picked up.
12: See #8.
13: Even so, you could at least watch the numbers decrease as you fire and reload - granted, since I haven't added any clear indicators of what is what, I can understand being bloody frustrated with the HUD since it is, in fact, a crazy jumble of hexagons.

What was the last version you played? Granted, I'm still working a lot of things out (stepheight is likely on its way out since multiple people have brought it to my attention in a not-so-positive light), but I'm more or less testing some concepts, seeing if they're worth refining, and hoping The Trooper doesn't continue to die in darkness.

[comet1337]

i don't think i saw a single standard zombieman
and the disparity in power between enemies from the same spawn is insane (a zombieman with smm firepower and baron health)
also when they start infighting, they just shoot 45 degrees up above eachother infinitely
with the player having multi jumps (put a delay on when a double jump can be done after a normal jump to avoid super jumps), the stepheight increase is redundant and only makes me stumble over switches and railings
increased enemy mobility doesnt play nice with map balance with them expecting shit to be and attack from where they are
i open the door from the room i spawn in, shoot a guy, wake all the monsters, and then get swarmed by hellknights that dont respect map boundaries or flow
also having them warp up and down non stop because they brush against a wall is infuriating
the weapon selection system is needlessly complicated and i dont see a reason why it couldnt work the traditional way
doesnt help the keys in the menu are just labelled as "user #"
are they even used for anything essential?
enemies (zombies) dont reliably drop ammo/weapons like they normally do
do you need to have a weapon to pick up ammo for it? i found what i think is shotgun and rifle mags, but couldnt pick them up
(turns out theres some kind of arbitrary trigger for when you can and cant pickup certain ammo and i dont know what it is because i just picked up ammo i previously couldnt and did not pickup any weapons between)
for shooting out of your hip, hug a wall, step back, shoot, step forward again: the decal appears under the entire gun
also the knockback on enemy guns is absurd
you get hit once and are thrown out in the open
also makes melee worthless since you cant get in range
do ammo spawns randomly spawn weapons/ not spawn anything?

[imgur]https://i.imgur.com/jfz6G87.png[/imgur]
how the fuck do i post pics
this is the result of spawning a bunch of zombiemen
with the cloaked guys being the most powerful, this is pretty fucked

What was the last version you played?

v0248e

[TheRailgunner]

i don't think i saw a single standard zombieman
and the disparity in power between enemies from the same spawn is insane (a zombieman with smm firepower and baron health)
also when they start infighting, they just shoot 45 degrees up above eachother infinitely
with the player having multi jumps (put a delay on when a double jump can be done after a normal jump to avoid super jumps), the stepheight increase is redundant and only makes me stumble over switches and railings
increased enemy mobility doesnt play nice with map balance with them expecting shit to be and attack from where they are
i open the door from the room i spawn in, shoot a guy, wake all the monsters, and then get swarmed by hellknights that dont respect map boundaries or flow
also having them warp up and down non stop because they brush against a wall is infuriating
the weapon selection system is needlessly complicated and i dont see a reason why it couldnt work the traditional way
doesnt help the keys in the menu are just labelled as "user #"
are they even used for anything essential?
enemies (zombies) dont reliably drop ammo/weapons like they normally do
do you need to have a weapon to pick up ammo for it? i found what i think is shotgun and rifle mags, but couldnt pick them up
(turns out theres some kind of arbitrary trigger for when you can and cant pickup certain ammo and i dont know what it is because i just picked up ammo i previously couldnt and did not pickup any weapons between)
for shooting out of your hip, hug a wall, step back, shoot, step forward again: the decal appears under the entire gun
also the knockback on enemy guns is absurd
you get hit once and are thrown out in the open
also makes melee worthless since you cant get in range
do ammo spawns randomly spawn weapons/ not spawn anything?

[imgur]https://i.imgur.com/jfz6G87.png[/imgur]
how the fuck do i post pics
this is the result of spawning a bunch of zombiemen
with the cloaked guys being the most powerful, this is pretty fucked

What was the last version you played?

v0248e

...so, here is what happens when I spawn a shitload of zombiemen:

https://i.imgur.com/8NcVZpw.png

Most are normal, some are XM27 zombies, a few are Chaingunners, one is a Pulsar-D guy, which makes me wonder what the CVARs are set to on your end (since the last version you played was 0.2.4.8e, the default values may differ from 0.2.4.13c, or may correspond to different states/trigger different spawning mechanisms). From your screenshot, it seems you have the Rare Enemy Spawn Rate CVAR set to Elite Monsters Only:

https://i.imgur.com/1G6RyF6.png

The infighting thing I haven't figured out - it has to be a faulty loop in its attack states, since many enemies will sometimes continue to fire at a nonexistent target indefinitely. About the 45-degree angle thing - it occurs if they get stuck in a firing loop and can't actually hit each other (but can see each other). Once i figure out what is making these loops, that will likely cease to be an issue as well.

The weapon switching thing - yeah, I get that it's convoluted, but streamlining it would be a lot better than using the traditional setup (one where you have to page through all of the weapons in a given slot to select the one you want, weapon acquisition interrupts the flow of combat, a hodgepodge of ammo types, and a poorly-defined assignment of the roles the various weapons fill in the arsenal).

I'm pretty sure I fixed the +AMBUSH thing as of 0.2.4.13b (before that, because of their custom spawning mechanism, monsters could not inherit flags from the actors they're replacing, so +AMBUSH would get dropped). I do have to do something about the stepheight thing and +DROPOFF, though.

The Extra User Keys permit the weapons to have more options - firing modes, alternate ammos, things like that. Some have as many as four functions tied to User 5 through 8 (the MARS B, for example). They are important, at least.

Yes, the disparity between Common, Elite, and Champion monsters of the same monster type is absurd - as it should be, since the monsters you are seeing are supposed to be rare.

No, you do not need a weapon to pick up ammo for it, and there isn't an arbitrary trigger for when you can or can't.

Please explain the decal to me - I literally have no idea what you mean.

Enemies having knockback is an unintended side effect of increasing the mass of tougher enemies to make them less movable; that said, only Elite and Champion monsters have gameplay altering knockback. It also makes melee riskier and more selective in its usability - The Trooper's melees are actually quite strong, and normal knockback would make it easier to Tyson your way through it, especially once you pickup a Blood or Might Focus

All enemies in The Trooper drop ammo and potentially weapons, though neither is guaranteed to do so except from tougher enemies; if the zombies dropped their weapons (instead of a small chance to drop an item that gives you a psuedorandom weapon), the player would either acquire the strongest weapons in the game too early (as with the Fallen Legionnaire), or not encounter the enemies that drop them until later (making much of the game too easy, even if you make the N7 obtainable later instead of earlier); if they always dropped ammo, the player would never run out of ammo for most of their weapons, because most enemies (assuming proper CVAR values) are killed for a fraction of the ammo you get from them.

Ammo does have a chance not to spawn (I would guess about 1 in maybe 4?), and primary weapon engrams have a chance to spawn in the place of clips (this chance is pretty low by comparison).

[TheRailgunner]

It's UPDATE TIME...in a few days or so:

*The Angelsphere will endow the player with powers not unlike those of the Angels from Neon Genesis Evangelion - it replaces the Invulnerability Sphere, and apart from giving you eyebeams and an impenetrable AT Field, it achieves the same effect.
*Quad Damage will now replace the Megasphere.
*Weapon engrams will have a chance to spawn with one of its upgrades already unlocked!
*Enemy logic improved - they will be quicker to acquire new targets, more aggressively reestablish a line-of-sight with the player during pursuit, and will no longer just get stuck shooting in a random direction.
*Only common shield upgrades will spawn from now on; rarer upgrades may be dropped from boss monsters.

Other changes may be inbound, but these are the big ones.

[SpiffyJUNIOR]

Confirmed the zombieman bug. Cloakers (that's what I call em) spawn WAY too often. Vanilla cVARs. Fresh install. GZDoom 4.1.3. Spawned around 12-13 of them and this is what I got:
https://imgur.com/a/nKnw8fv
Might wanna fix this before the next update.

[TheRailgunner]

So here's the dev version of 0.2.5. It has the basic version of the Angelsphere, but without fancy effects or sound - it pretty much just functions. I've decided to put some effort into a new feature - a Level System. Basically, for every bit of XP your weapons gain, you do too: the higher your level, the tougher and faster your enemies will become. Higher level enemies also have higher chances of dropping loot!

The system is by no means done; as I work more on it, enemies will gain new attack variants as they increase in level. For now, enemy level is determined based off of your level at the start of a map; if I ever find out how to cause in-map level changes to apply to monsters after they have spawned, I'll implement it.

Additional changes:
*Instead of just spawning enemies, Soul Commanders now fire projectiles which themselves spawn enemies.
*The number of shield charges the player can pick up has been increased to 20, from 5. This brings the maximum possible shield/armor amount to 700, from 250.
*The Nishimura Seven's Enhanced Firefly is now a toggle, like the N8 Sniper Rifle's - User 8 (by default, bound to J). Disabling Firefly gives a raw damage boost of 50 points, half of which is ripper damage.

Bugs:
*Like most versions of The Trooper, Dead Simple is still broken - unless I figure out someway to replace the Mancubus spawners with ones based off of the Mancubus class, it will continue to be broken.
*The enemy-spawning attacks still place enemies in walls.