Hideous Destructor 4.10.0b

[Matt]

Seems a bit game-breakingly convenient, and I'd start to wonder why the enemy wouldn't be made of it... worse, what on earth could possibly be that resistant and collapsible?

I have considered smoke bombs for a long time, but never could figure out the implementation (A_RadiusGive can do it now, but not when I've got a bunch of things that ignore +shadow).

[Abba Zabba]

Seems a bit game-breakingly convenient, and I'd start to wonder why the enemy wouldn't be made of it... worse, what on earth could possibly be that resistant and collapsible?

ok, it's silly and stupid

I have considered smoke bombs for a long time, but never could figure out the implementation (A_RadiusGive can do it now, but not when I've got a bunch of things that ignore +shadow).

Idea doesn't sound too bad, but I haven't a clue how (at least how I'm imagining it in my mind) a big cloud of white-colored smoke sprites would work in blocking the enemy's los; could it be done in a way where when and if the smoke touches an enemy, that it makes it follow a drunken AI? Duration equivalent to the life of the smoke or something. Not so sure about the demons, but the zombies could take pot shots through the haze at random. Kinda like a blursphere.

[Matt]

New update!

Changes:

• Changing the shotgun formula back to a bell curve instead of a flat random spread. The maximum possible spread is now actually greater than in the last update, but generally the patterns should be much tighter, more natural and tending closer to the aimpoint.
• Rewrote some of the shotgun fluff to, you know, make sense.
• Total overhaul of zombieman attack. Use of frandom in all places means they're a lot likelier to narrowly miss than hit at longer ranges. They're also easier to distract with your own shots.
• The slowest two stages of the shotgun pellet no longer leave sonic cracks.
• Chaingunguys now offer similar cover fire to zombiemen.
• Shotgunguys and imps now shoot where you were immediately before they lost LOS if you if you get behind cover immediately before the projectile is loosed.
• Mage imp's missile swarm now works as originally intended.
• Drunk imps now spam everything.
• The healer imp shield ball now explodes into a shower of smoke and burning chunks, creating a smoke screen to further frustrate an attacker.
• Zombies and marines now drop their rifles only once. If they are raised and killed again, no rifle spawns.
• Mancubus now arcs its shots.
• Spectre is melee-only and much better cloaked, its health restored to 150.
• I drew a picture for you guys.

I'm thinking of moving the rifles over to slot 4. Thoughts?

[Abba Zabba]

Good stuff Vaecrius. Slot 4 for the rifles like the chaingun? Yes.

RE: Picture: I can't be disturbed by it due to the fact that it's so true. But I always thought demons were androgynous! I found out about your other art, you've got some talent.

Little gripe here...do you think you can make the specific weapon hotkeys (grenades, pistol, rocket launcher) be more say, toggle-able? Like, press it and pull out your pistol, press it again and pull back out whatever weapon you were holding before toggling to pistol.

EDIT: Do you think you could switch the speed of reloading around? I notice how on the rifle (and probably on the pistol too now that I think about it) it's faster to due an emergency reload than it is to do a tactical reload. Why is this? It should probably be the other way around since with a tactical reload all your doing is swapping mags and don't have to chamber a round unlike an emergency reload. But still, you should keep the extra chambered round feature in though (you know, how the pistol can actually hold 13, rifle 31 when you reload from empty twice or reload with only one round total left in the gun) And here's my counter argument to the fact that doomguy is saving the used mags for later, ergo making the whole reload take more time; dude has an infinite number of magazines (atleast, empty ones) in his pockets so why is putting away one that's partially used takes more time? Could doomguy just drop these mags like he does empty pistols so you pick it up later? That way he isn't juggling with a bunch of other stuff and could just focus on the target at hand. You could still do the slower tactical reload by using that secondary reload button (which has only one use) so you can keep the mag in your bag instead of dropping it on the ground, where you can't be bothered to do it, like when you can't see your hand in front of your face.


Kind of rambled on but to make it concise: tactical reloads make you drop the mag but reload the quickest. Using the secondary reload button will make be slower, but eliminates the problem of fumbling around the ground for the mag. If you want to reload a gyro grenade on the rifle, just press the normal reload button when you're in grenade mode (seems simpler and more straightforward in my opinion, but that's just my opinion.) That way, the buttons are clearer and simpler to use and you have more options in combat.

[Marrub]

It would be nice if the player actually started bleeding when he is, because I can barely tell when I am, and when I finally do, I'm probably dead. Can't you spawn some Blood actors on the player?

[Matt]

...

I think if you can't tell if you're bleeding after the first 5 minutes of black flickering I think you deserve to lose.

[wildweasel]

...

I think if you can't tell if you're bleeding after the first 5 minutes of black flickering I think you deserve to lose.

In my opinion, it's difficult to get an indicator of whether bleeding is still occurring after using a dozen stims/meds to try to stop it. It's like a gamble, most of the time. See black flicker. Use medkit. Wait a few seconds and hope the black flickering went away. Notice it hasn't. Use another medkit. Spend the next minute cowering in a corner. Eventually keel over for no good reason because 10 medkits aren't enough to save your ass from one pistol shot. =P

[Marrub]

...

I think if you can't tell if you're bleeding after the first 5 minutes of black flickering I think you deserve to lose.

I can barely see the black flickering over the red flickering, and trying to concentrate on seeing those while in combat is kinda ludicrous.

[Abba Zabba]

...because 10 medkits aren't enough to save your ass from one pistol shot. =P

Going to have to call bullshit on ya for that one. Pop a medkit and wait three seconds, this cures most bleeding. If not, pop another. No more than two are required, no lie. Just park your ass for a few seconds with medkits, then walk around with stims, since it's an injection rather than bandaging and splinting.

[wildweasel]

What things can interrupt the use of a medkit? I'm almost positive at this point that I'm doing something that's stopping them from working all the time. Am I allowed to move the mouse while a medkit is being applied, or does that nullify it?

[Abba Zabba]

When you pop a medkit, you need to stand still a few seconds to nullify bleeding. As soon as bandaging is done (and it always happens first), a mild stimulant then takes effect, which is roughly 1/2 the speed (but not the total amount of damage healed) of a stimpack's stims. Once you reach the stimulant part of the medikit (black flickers clear up) then it's ok to move around since that stuff is running it's course internally. If you move around (not including looking around with the mouse) before you're done bandaging or even before, it won't be as good when you stop, and not much at all even if you come to a stop after awhile. Stimulants kick in normally though. You know how your momma always told you to bundle up before heading out on those cold winter days? Armor does the same. You can equip 1 of each type (with the strongest being the only one visible on the hud.) The more layers, the slower and less frequent the bleeding. I even put some on while I was bleeding and it cleared up a good deal of it and slowed down what was left. Also, don't forget to use the medical station robot thingy.

...love my phone's new plan. Didn't want to leave you in the dark on that one.

[Matt]

I can barely see the black flickering over the red flickering, and trying to concentrate on seeing those while in combat is kinda ludicrous.

What settings are you using? The black flicker is quite literally the screen briefly going black (while the red is translucent), I can see it plain as day in GL or software. I'd understand a complaint going the other way, that the flickering makes it impossible to focus on the fighting causing an unavoidable death spiral, but not being able to see the flicker over the combat is very unexpected.

(also note that if you're playing at the first skill setting on the list you don't bleed at all and there's no black or red flicker.)


@WW/LG: moving prematurely does undo some of the benefits of the meds, but generally the difference will not be worth taking any additional risk if moving is appropriate for the situation.

[Big C]

Vaecrius, FYI the friendly rocket marines tend to wind up suiciding.

A lot.

[Marrub]

I can barely see the black flickering over the red flickering, and trying to concentrate on seeing those while in combat is kinda ludicrous.

What settings are you using? The black flicker is quite literally the screen briefly going black (while the red is translucent), I can see it plain as day in GL or software. I'd understand a complaint going the other way, that the flickering makes it impossible to focus on the fighting causing an unavoidable death spiral, but not being able to see the flicker over the combat is very unexpected.

(also note that if you're playing at the first skill setting on the list you don't bleed at all and there's no black or red flicker.)


@WW/LG: moving prematurely does undo some of the benefits of the meds, but generally the difference will not be worth taking any additional risk if moving is appropriate for the situation.

I guess I just don't bleed much, then (I always play on the UV equivalent). Either that, or bleeding just doesn't show up for me sometimes, because I surely have bled to death without notice before.

[Matt]

@Marrub: does the obituary say "%o died of %p injuries"? One possibility is that something else is killing you that you can't see, or that whatever hit you first took out enough hitpoints that you've bled to death before becoming conscious of any pain flash that is obviously not connected to any attack.

@Big C: As it happens I did just code a fix improvement to that. Still a lot of fratricide when front-line fighters run across the line of fire at the last moment, but at least they don't wipe out almost all of their own team at the start of Map15 anymore.