[Hopefully final, BUMPED TO REL. #5!] Pagan

[OliveD]

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I've never heard anyone aside from you link the gauge to the size(Edit: weight, sorry) of the pellets. It doesn't make any sense to me, especially since different loads can use varying size and amounts of pellet. Bore size is a more important factor when trying to figure out what will fit down your barrel...

That said, I don't have that many friends into shooting shotguns, and I really dislike them personally because they brutally molest my fragile shoulders, so my information is not the most up to date or anything.

I think you're confusing the terms ball and pellet. Unless I am hilariously misinformed, gauge is measured by the size (Edit: WEIGHT) of a lead ball of the size of the bore. I can't find anything in the article you linked that suggests it has anything to do with pellets.

The reason why I don't think you could accurately measure bore size based on pellet weight is that depending on the amount of powder and the size/shape of the wad you use in your load, you could get a completely different amount of pellets. Because you used less shot in your shotshell doesn't make it useable in a different size bore shotgun. That would be confusing as hell.

Edit 2: I also agree that metric or imperial caliber is a better system btw. Gauge is kind of obscure for most purposes except cannons.

Edit: I don't mean to derail by the way, spoilered post for that reason.

[Ed the Bat]

Well, you sound like you have more experience with the subject than I do. I won't pretend to know more about it. You're probably right; I may have ball and pellet confused.
That being said, the point stands that I find 11-gauge to be an unusual classification for a bullet. Not saying it's necessarily incorrect, nor that it really detracts anything from this project.

[OliveD]

Yeah, I agree. It's also misleading because you just assume it's shotgun ammo when picking it up.

I just tried the mod, the graphics are absolutely gorgeous, but, well, like everyone else said, the morphing is more of a handicap than anything.

Fullscreen hud is also very nice.

The cylinders on the revolvers pop out when drawing or holstering them, not sure if this is done on purpose.

Also, playing on regular zdoom, the colour black appears to go red for me. Not sure if this is meant for gzdoom or if my install is messed up! I'm running r3968.

[rsl]

Technical discussion on gauge / bore / caliber

No problem, guys - do not fear to derail away a bit, I personally know nothing about the subject, so it's interesting to me to hear from somebody who is more acknowledged on it. Having a little bit of realism in technical terms within the mods is IMHO a nice touch in supporting the so-called suspension of disbelief effect for players, so I'm glad to learn something to improve this aspect, too. BTW, a little question: do you think that using "caliber" instead of "gauge" would be more appropriate in this case
(excuse me for some potential inaccuracy in terminology - after all, English is not my native language )

I just tried the mod, the graphics are absolutely gorgeous, but, well, like everyone else said, the morphing is more of a handicap than anything.
Fullscreen hud is also very nice.

Thanks for your appreciation! Yeah, the morphing system as it stands is not enough useful for the gameplay - but almost everything should be fixed with the next release, that should incorporate many of the suggestions / requests from the thread.

The cylinders on the revolvers pop out when drawing or holstering them, not sure if this is done on purpose.

Yeah, I made them so because I liked the effect and... That spared me extra work on dedicated raise/lower sprites.

Also, playing on regular zdoom, the colour black appears to go red for me. Not sure if this is meant for gzdoom or if my install is messed up! I'm running r3968.

Hmm, that's strange. To be honest, I developed the mod on (and for) GZDOOM 1.6.0, so I can't really say anything on that. Gotta try it with the latest SVN...

[Ed the Bat]

English is not my native language

I had no idea! Your written English is very good.

Anyhow, yes, I would personally change the name of the bullets. 11mm would work; it's not particularly common, but there are existing revolvers that have used this caliber so it's not too big of a stretch.

[A.Gamma]

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So... I'm getting a really odd bug playing this on gzdoom r1505 and r1506 where I'm unable to change weapons (It also happens on NecroDoom D:) but everything works fine on r1496. Obviously this is not your fault, just thought I'll let you know.
On a side note: I'm really looking forward to new releases of this; it has tons of potential and once you polish it up a bit, I'm certain it will be even better.

Edit: Enjay pointed me out to the bugs forum where he reported about this same bug... Silly me

[OliveD]

I would change it, yes, but not really for realism purposes. I think it's nice to switch things up a bit every now and then, but in this case, it's just a bit misleading since, like Ed said, you typically are referring to shotgun ammo when "gauge" is involved in the item name, and you do have a shotgun in the game.

Since it's a revolver, I'd go for an imperial caliber notation. That seems like it's typical of old rimmed cartridges and it's easy to recognize for the average person.

Edit:
Also if you want VA for the character I can provide, I have tons of female Doom sounds from the wads I've made over time.

[rsl]

(...) playing on regular zdoom, the colour black appears to go red for me. Not sure if this is meant for gzdoom or if my install is messed up! I'm running r3968.

I just tried with ZDOOM r4001, and it's the same for me... I don't know if this is just to be related to latest ZDOOM builds, or is simply due to ZDOOM and GZDOOM treating custom palettes differently. Also, if you play with the software renderer you lose all those fancy blurred magic / orb effects...

So... I'm getting a really odd bug playing this on gzdoom r1505 and r1506 where I'm unable to change weapons (It also happens on NecroDoom D:) but everything works fine on r1496.

Same for me on the above-said SVN build... Reload too seems unusable. At least, I'm happy to have stuck with a stable GZDOOM version like 1.6.0 for the development...

On a side note: I'm really looking forward to new releases of this; it has tons of potential and once you polish it up a bit, I'm certain it will be even better.

Thank you! I hope the next release will improve on the weak spots that have been underlined by early tryouts of the mod.

Since it's a revolver, I'd go for an imperial caliber notation. That seems like it's typical of old rimmed cartridges and it's easy to recognize for the average person.

Seconded, already! The pickup message for revolvers ammo now refers to '11 mm. bullets'.

Also if you want VA for the character I can provide, I have tons of female Doom sounds from the wads I've made over time.

Sounds interesting! If these blend well with the existing ones I might add up to them for extra variation. Or more consistently, I could create a new sound pack as well to replace the current one. Thanks

[Blue Shadow]

(...) playing on regular zdoom, the colour black appears to go red for me. Not sure if this is meant for gzdoom or if my install is messed up! I'm running r3968.

I just tried with ZDOOM r4001, and it's the same for me... I don't know if this is just to be related to latest ZDOOM builds, or is simply due to ZDOOM and GZDOOM treating custom palettes differently.

Maybe it has something to do with the colormap? (just a guess)

So... I'm getting a really odd bug playing this on gzdoom r1505 and r1506 where I'm unable to change weapons (It also happens on NecroDoom D:) but everything works fine on r1496.

That is a known issue in the latest SVN builds of ZDoom.

[A.Gamma]

That is a known issue in the latest SVN builds of ZDoom.

Yeah, Enjay pointed it to me in the NecroDoom thread, I hope they fix it soon.

[rsl]

Hi everybody,

release #2 of the mod is now available at its own IDGames entry page (see opening post).
A brief list of changes, more or less as they appear in the .txt:

• Rebalanced the default weapons roster (thanks Xaser):
  - hatchet now has tap-only, super-fast poking attack; old charged attacks have been slightly quickened and beefed up.
  - revolvers can be fired more rapidly, but are both toned down. Unwanted fire-after-reload shouldn't happen anymore. Improved distinctive accuracy of left revolver (thanks JimmyJ). Their ammo now bears a label that makes sense: "11 mm." instead of "11-gauge" (thanks Ed the Bat).
  - leviathan shards do more damage.
  - reznator has doubled mag capacity, greater fire rate; its pins are more powerful and can sometimes rip through.
  - aries on-body indicator appearance after dual-mode fire has been fixed (was displaying the wrong fire mode for one tic).
• The fullscreen HUD of the main player class has now been completed with a spare ammo counter and armor gauge (thanks JimmyJ).
• Added the possibility of unmorphing prematurely before powerup time expires - this is done via reload key.
• Slightly reduced the duration of all morph powerups. Also, the full load of powerups cannot be kept anymore across levels.
• All deity skins are now in effect and replace the default player skin when morphing (thanks Ed the Bat).
• Divine transformations:
  - A configurable key is now provided to directly morph into each one of the three deities (provided you hold the appropriate powerup).
  - Lord: hammer attack now has reduced charge time and greater reach, and is much more usable IMHO.
  - Master: levitation spell now deals low damage; combined with its rate, it serves as a good stunning/ranged attack (the mage had none). Lesser foes explode in a multitude of gibs when dying from this. Also, this morph class now receives only half the damage from any attack (should make it a bit more useful).
• Minor boss monsters (Barons and Viles) might now randomly drop orbs.
• Bosses are now much more resistant to attacks of the goddess' crucifix.

So... I hope you can now better enjoy the mod, and give me your impressions on the new weapons balance!

[Ed the Bat]

Sounds like a fine list of tweaks to me. I'll try out the new version later today.

[JimmyJ]

It seems like the download is still for the first release.

[Ed the Bat]

Finally, the Reload key is implemented via the old inventory item / custom keybind method, but ZDoom has had a dedicated Reload state since 2.6.0 that you can make use of...migrating to proper Reload is good practice nowadays since it'll stop users from having to rebind Reload for everybody's mod.

I agree with this. It's not a huge issue, but may as well save a step for the players, right? I'd be happy to go through and make this revision for you, except I'm not quite sure how to make the change for the dual revolvers. Synthetic Fire does complicate things a little bit, there... If its innovator, Xaser (or anybody else, for that matter), could help me figure out what needs to be done differently, I'd be delighted to give this project a quick once-over and modernize the reloading methods.

And JimmyJ, the link is for the new version; I checked. The info text on the idgames profile just hasn't been updated.

[rsl]

Finally, the Reload key is implemented via the old inventory item / custom keybind method, but ZDoom has had a dedicated Reload state since 2.6.0 that you can make use of...migrating to proper Reload is good practice nowadays since it'll stop users from having to rebind Reload for everybody's mod.

I agree with this. It's not a huge issue, but may as well save a step for the players, right? I'd be happy to go through and make this revision for you, except I'm not quite sure how to make the change for the dual revolvers. (...) I'd be delighted to give this project a quick once-over and modernize the reloading methods.

Eh, I know. Xaser is right, and you are, too; yet I thought that for this last time I would have kept the old "Reload" and "CheapAlert" implementations once more (I preferred to give higher priority to other changes, and I wanted to grant myself this bit of laziness ). However, if you'd like to try your hand at upgrading that aspect of the code, you'd be absolutely welcome!