[Not a bug] Instand death crushers in Doom

[Graf Zahl]

Ok, this is not a real bug, just a result of different crushing behavior in Doom and Hexen. I want to create an instant death crusher like the one in Hexen's MAP03. The problem is that with Doom's crushing behavior this is nearly impossible. Instead of getting crushed most of the time I just get stuck. Could you make this either a map option so that Hexen's behavior is available in Doom or make it so that ultra-fast crushers always behave as in Hexen? From what I experienced any crusher that closes in less than 3 tics is practically useless in Doom.

[Enjay]

Why not use a type 9996 "Actor hits ceiling" thing to start a script to deal out enough damage to kill the player - would that work?

Or activate the crusher with a script and also increase the sector damage to something that guarantees a kill?

[Graf Zahl]

Why not make this kind of crushers available for Doom maps?

[HotWax]

Why not make this kind of crushers available for Doom maps?

Because it's unnecessary. Instead of putting the crusher start special on a line, use a script activation instead. The script starts a lightning-fast crusher and then kills the activator 3 tics later. Problem solved.

[Enjay]

I was avoiding suggesting things that would kill the player regardless of location, just in case it might intentionally be possible for the player to escape the crusher somehow.

[Graf Zahl]

Problem not solved - because it just kills the activator.

What if there are other monsters below the crusher? They should be killed, too.
What if you wanted to do more complicated stuff with this crusher? Not possible either because it doesn't kill for sure. Ok, some of this stuff could be done with sector action things but that would be a major headache.

If you are interested in what I am trying to do: Have you ever seen the 'chompers' scene in the movie Galaxy Quest? But as it would in real life it should kill anything that comes between the crushers with 100% certainty and I see absolutely no way how to do that.


IMHO a crusher that does not do any damage is a bug. The problem comes simply from the fact that Doom's crushers were so slow that stuff like this didn't matter. The makers of Hexen realized this and changed the crusher's behavior so that it works more reliably. ZDoom adds nearly all Hexen features to Doom, including ultra-fast high-damage crushers but they don't work. Now, for compatibility reasons it cannot be changed totally to Hexen's system. But I'd say for crushers that clearly don't work with Doom's current logic it should. If this was a major change to the code I might agree but this would just be a minor change in 2 lines of code to make it work.

[Kate]

This would make a useful mapinfo entry imo

[Graf Zahl]

As I already suggested.

[Nanami]

If Enjay's "actor hits ceiling" suggestion works, it'll kill whatever's in that sector that hits the ceiling.

[Graf Zahl]

Still a workaround of an unnecessary problem. What's the point of a crusher that doesn't crush?

[Chris]

Could always script it so that when the crusher reaches the floor, you set the sector damage to 999, then reset it back to 0 when(if) it goes back up. Or leave the Actor Hits Ceiling thing dormant until the crusher's crushing..

[The Ultimate DooMer]

The deaf/dormant flags work differently for sector actions (deaf = monsters can use it, dormant = projectiles can use it), so you'd have to use setthingspecial to give it it's damage special when it starts crushing.

[randi]

Just give the crusher a higher damage value. For example, those crushers on Hexen MAP03 use a crushing damage of 100--10 times the standard Doom crushing damage. There is no difference between the way Hexen and Doom crushers work.

[Graf Zahl]

There is no difference between the way Hexen and Doom crushers work.

Really?

Code: Select all

					if (crush >= 0 && gameinfo.gametype != GAME_Hexen)
					{
						m_Sector->floortexz += m_Sector->floorplane.HeightDiff (lastpos);
						m_Sector->AdjustFloorClip ();
						return crushed;
					}

Can't you make this a MAPINFO option instead of making it gamemode dependent?

[randi]

Okay, so they are different. You should have specifically mentioned how Hexen won't keep moving the ceiling if something is in the way instead of assuming I would remember.