Adding SkullTag's runes: Questions!

[Major Cooke]

I'm currently in the process of adding ZScripted SkullTag runes that work exactly as their counterparts do for submission. But there are a few questions I have...

1. Would it be wise to add an option to enable auto switching of runes when picking up another?
2. Whom should I ask for permission to use the sprites from? I figure just asking Torr might not be enough so I'd rather be 100% safe than sorry.

And if I cannot secure appropriate permission, I'll need to go on the hunt for spriters. I do have a few in mind if needed, but hopefully it won't be necessary.

[Gez]

I'm currently in the process of adding ZScripted SkullTag runes that work exactly as their counterparts do for submission.

If I remember correctly, ST's runes work from a specific pool of powerup types, instead of sharing it with, well, powerups. That's one bit I'd suggest to change, if you kept it.

[Graf Zahl]

Agreed. What we do not need here is a separate pool of powers, they should go into the same one if they don't already exist.
Some of the underlying powerups already exist, but a few have been deliberately not ported, e.g. the weapon spread rune - and any submission adding that hack feature as it was will be rejected by default. Just a small warning. If you want to port it, we need a better approach.

[Major Cooke]

If anyone has any ideas for what to do with the spread rune, I'm open for ideas. What does it currently do?

My plan was to actually inherit from powerups themselves.

[Graf Zahl]

It added some hacks to the actual firing functions - which is an absolute no-go because it's too restrictive and very, very dirty.

[Major Cooke]

How would you prefer it be handled instead? Or should it be outright excluded?

[Graf Zahl]

The most obvious thing would be to make that rune activate the regular weapon powerup and define the alternative fire modes as the powered up sister weapon.
But I have no idea how that might interfere with existing mods that already use the feature.

[Gez]

Realistically I'm not sure how the spread effect as it exists in Skulltag could be handled cleanly. Perhaps it's best to leave it behind.

[Graf Zahl]

The only clean way would be, like I said, as a powered up sister weapon with its own attack sequence. But that'd come with its own set of problems.

[Major Cooke]

My first thought was, what if there could be an in-between point where the functions call on a virtual that's executed on the powerups, like ModifyDamage is called for taking damage. But... that might generate recursion issues.

I think I'll leave it out for now in the mean time.

[Major Cooke]

How should I handle adding credits for where they're due? In the event I get permission to add them into GZDoom. And, should they be part of the GZDoom extras .pk3?

[Zenon]

Whom should I ask for permission to use the sprites from? I figure just asking Torr might not be enough so I'd rather be 100% safe than sorry.

I thought you would have to ask Carnevil. Didn't he copyright them or something?
If I remember correctly, there was some issue relating to Carn that stood in the way of Skulltag's assets being included in Zandronum rather than being in a separate pk3. I could be wrong though.

[Gez]

The assets themselves are mostly derived from Doom alpha sprites, IIRC.

[Major Cooke]

Interesting. I'll see if I can reach out to Carnevil then, if he's still around.

Also been pondering about adding ot her zandronum elements, i.e. doomsphere, and the skulltag specific health/armor bonuses, wonder if folks would approve...

[ZzZombo]

I think two things are needed for the theoretical spread powerup:

* Allow weapons to opt out from implicit powerup handling, meaning it handles that itself somehow.
* If the weapon doesn't opt out, hitscan/projectile attack functions aim the attack by whatever angle the spread is supposed to be to the left/right and then finally perform the normal attack. Since IIRC they use a helper attack function there is no need to add a dirty hack to all the attack functions and the changes can be consolidated to the respective hitscan/projectile helper functions.