WWHC-Diaz + (NEW!) The VR Missions (help wanted!)

[Enjay]

Fair enough.

[wildweasel]

I can't remember what's new in this version, so take a guess at it yourselves!

http://armory.drdteam.org/wwmods/inprog ... c-diaz.rar

[wildweasel]

Hey, I just realized - since implementing the deaf monsters fix, the enemy spawn randomizers are rather broken - they will now almost exclusively spawn only one type of monster, with the other type of monster being very very rare. For example, playing a map with a lot of zombiemen presents me with a map with over 100 SMG zombies and only one or two with pistols.

What happened?

[DoomRater]

Check your spawner code- probably screwed up the probabilities. I'll give it a more detailed look later.

[Enjay]

The only other problem with using a spawner is that sometimes enemies don't spawn. eg, the sergeant on map02 that is stuck in the barrel is replaced by... nothing! OK, so that's not an important one, but plenty of WADs put enemies under doors or on top of plat forms where they don't have enough room to spawn, but are released when the player triggers the trap. Not sure there is a way around that though.

[Zippy]

The only other problem with using a spawner is that sometimes enemies don't spawn. eg, the sergeant on map02 that is stuck in the barrel is replaced by... nothing! OK, so that's not an important one, but plenty of WADs put enemies under doors or on top of plat forms where they don't have enough room to spawn, but are released when the player triggers the trap. Not sure there is a way around that though.

Use [wiki]A_SpawnItemEx[/wiki] instead of [wiki]A_SpawnItem[/wiki]. A_SpawnItemEx has a flag for ignoring how much room there is to spawn. It isn't used in the example I posted because that example is pre-A_SpawnItemEx.

[wildweasel]

I actually succeeded in making the random spawners actually be random again - turned out that the jump offsets were broken, and changing the offset numbers to custom state labels pretty much fixed it. I'll convert it to A_SpawnItemEX eventually.

I've done some overhauling work on the minishotgun, as I notice that despite my best attempts it still ends up being my most commonly used weapon. My goal is to remove Doom's typical emphasis on the shotgun - and by limiting the shotgun's firing speed by adding a pump animation, I've gone one step closer to that. Now the player is encouraged to use other weapons, but the shotgun isn't entirely useless either.

In the process of adding a pump animation, I also did something clever with my dummy item that I used to determine the firing sequence (yeah, I did it Specialists-style again, click to fire and click to pump) - I can actually tell the reload sequence whether or not to eject a shell when the gun opens. If the player hasn't already pumped the last empty shell out, it'll eject when the reload sequence begins. It's actually simpler than I make it sound, and I dare say I'm wasting my breath raving on about it...but I like it, dammit.

I've got a question for the gurus, though - I want to add decals to all the weapons, but I don't want these decals to appear when the melee attack is used. Can I assign a decal to just the bullet attacks and not the melee?

[The NUtcracker]

I want to add decals to all the weapons, but I don't want these decals to appear when the melee attack is used. Can I assign a decal to just the bullet attacks and not the melee?

You could add 'decal BulletChip/Whatever other decal you want to use' in the decorate code for each weapon/projectile you want to have a decal(or define it using generator in the DECALDEF lump).

[Zippy]

He knows. That doesn't answer his question. His question is "can I make the weapon have different melee and ranged hitscan decals?"

I don't know the answer off the top of my head, but I'm afraid to say that without a separate projectile I think it might not be possible, unless something can be done with puffs again (though decals seem to be attached to the weapon.)

[DoomRater]

But if we attach decals to the puffs, we further break railguns... which seriously needs updating anyway.

[Matt]

But if we attach decals to the puffs, we further break railguns... which seriously needs updating anyway.

One thing I've always wanted was a primitive hitscan function (sort of what A_SpawnItemEx is to A_SpawnItem) that took flags for penetration, direction (towards target or towards specified angle and pitch), bleeding, infighting, and particle trails, with all damage and ownership-related issues being assigned to a obligatorily specified puff actor... which, analogous to missile actors, would recognize its shooter using its hate target.

But every time I want to ask for something like this I end up asking for the world... like I just did. :/

[wildweasel]

Some balancing ideas that I want to bounce off of the audience before I go about implementing them...

1. Tighten up the weapon accuracy - because I have "true" weapon recoil now, getting a shot to land at home is more dependent on the player's aiming skills and how well s/he compensates for said recoil, and less so on a random calculation. What I could do here is increase the accuracy of all bullet attacks (and also make the first shot of the Skorpion be more accurate than rapid-fire).

2. To prevent the weapons from becoming sniper's toys (I'm looking at weapons like the Marteba and the SMG-39), limit their effective range. So people can't snipe Imps from 1,500 meters with a magnum, or annoy other players in DM with long-range pelting with the SMG.

3. A possible upgrade/replacement for the Colt handgun? Have the pistol zombies drop it 3 times out of 255, let it use the same ammo as the Colt (with the same clip size), but be slightly weaker and completely silent? This could solve the problem of Strife having no ranged stealth weapons. But I'd have to figure out how to make the weapon replace the Colt when it's picked up - probably more CustomInventory hackjobs like I've done with the Strife/Heretic weapons, which breaks multiplayer because Weapons Stay doesn't affect them.

4. Does anybody here care about dynamic lights? I have no idea how to do dynamic light definitions, so I'd have to learn...but it'd really enhance gameplay to be able to light corridors with your Psi-Amp (or possibly a little handheld flashlight to replace the light-amp goggles, which Diaz would hold with the pistol).

[DoomRater]

A spawner (1) that spawns an item (2) to pick up that gives you the weapon where the item (2) drops a respawn timer thing (3) which at the end of the timer drops (2) again unless you're not playing multiplayer might work. I've never implemented this before but have wanted to, because it would be a hackish solution (and possibly offer more respawn time control than ZDoom's set controls as well?)

[Snarboo]

You can use A_TakeInventory(Item, Amount) in a custom inventory item's pickup state to remove any item, including weapons. I used it to upgrade the dagger in Let's Get Medieval. Try that for the Colt upgrade. You'll need to do some A_Jump hackery to make sure the player can't pick up either the original Colt(assuming there is a pickup that gives you it) or the upgrade again if the player already has it, assuming the upgrade dropped is just a silencer rather than a silenced pistol.

[Matt]

1) Yes, tightening up the accuracy is good.

2)

1,500 meters

AFAICT in Doom 99% of the time you're not even going to be able to engage anything more than 60 yards away - roughly the distance from the northwest corner of map15 to the yellow-key-locked bridge on the south end.

That all said, I suggest keeping a bit of inaccuracy in the shorter weapons since they're a bit harder to aim very precisely.

...I really wish we could simulate bullet drop now...

3) Besides replacing weapons with custominventory items (and making up for the lack of weapon staying in some other way, e.g., letting people start out with whatever they want) and DoomRater's idea, I'm stuck for answers. Not a huge fan of silent weapons + Doom monster AI myself, but I'm not objecting to it either.

4) YES FOR THE LOVE OF GOD YES uh just don't put them on all the actors please, for the benefit of those of us with less-than-Jesus computers.