[Not a bug] Chaingun: Most Accurate Weapon

[Xaser]

I have found that if you fire the chaingun semi-auto (ie, multiple presses of the fire button), each bullet has perfect, pinpoint accuracy. The bullets only spread if you fire it as normal. I don't really consider this a bug, as it is fun as hell in single player, but it is annoying as hell in deathmatches. Imagine one guy who is in a hiding spot overlooking a wide open area, who snipes anyone who runs by with the chaingun, and nobody can figure out where the guy is. (I wasn't that one guy, otherwise i probably wouldn't be complaining much.) Could you include an option to turn this off in the next version of Zdoom?

[wildweasel]

I discovered that myself, and found that it's the way Doom handles its refire code. It only makes the weapon accurate for the first shot, and holding the trigger makes it inaccurate. I would appreciate somebody fixing this for DM matches.

[Hirogen2]

Or simply say that the first shot is always precise.
Something related had been discovered by [DM guru] Bahdko, it's called the "SSG Swing", where s/he found out that if pressing the fire button and releasing it causes more damage. Probably also due the first-shot-is-precise?

2. Do not complain, if you got a Railgun, a Chaingun REALLY is worthless

[Enjay]

Yeah, it's not a bug as such. Doom starts spreading the hitscan weapons if you keep fire pressed down past the initial fire sequence, but keeps it accurate for the first.

So the same thing applies for other hitscan weapons but it's really only useful with the chaingun because no one really uses the pistol as a main weapon and the shotguns have a spread anyway. Knowing this is not only useful in DM, but good if you want to pick off distant enemies without wasting too much ammo.

This spreading after the first shot is something worth considering if you are using dehacked to make a sniper rifle. The usual way of doing this is to have a number of frames with 0 duration to fire a number of pistol shots simultaneously. So with the first firing you end up with, say, 10 bullet shots all hitting exactly the same spot (visible as a nice dark decal if you shoot at a wall). If your modified weapon has a refire code pointer as part of the sequence, when you hold the fire button down, the second shot spreads the individual pistol shots that make up your powerful rifle shot, changing it to something a bit more like a shotgun but with a different spread pattern (visible as a spread of decals on a wall). To avoid this problem, remove the refire code pointer from the weapon fire sequence. This forces the player to press fire every time he/she wants the weapon to fire.


Edit: 2 people jumped in whilst I was typing all that junk.

[Biff]

My opinion - this should not at all be altered for deathmatch. I use it purposely. Not for camping, but for shooting at distance. Up closer the chaingun is best used in a barrage of fire, while moving rapidly and trying to minimize the damage you take from others. At larger distances, just "pumping" the trigger is effective and anyone has the option to do it. It allows more fun by a variation in style. I like it all, in the face with the double shotgun, single shotgun at more distance, rockets for splash and flushing out areas, plasma for sweeping up the bodies, BFG tracers to terrorize. Chainsaw and berserk mostly for laughs.

[Xaser]

Good idea about the Sniper Rifle, Enjay! The only problem about this is if you make it shoot 10 bullets at once, won't it use 10 units of ammo? There might be a way to bypass this, but I don't know.

BTW, after viewing all your posts, i don't really consider that a bug anymore, since anybody with the chaingun can use it. I Really need to think twice before posting something here.

[Enjay]

Good idea about the Sniper Rifle, Enjay! The only problem about this is if you make it shoot 10 bullets at once, won't it use 10 units of ammo?

Yes it will. I just get round this conceptually by saying the ammo number doesn't represent individual bullets, but an ammo value for each shot.

With Zdoom able to set minimum ammo values, you can set dehacked to prevent Zdoom changing to, or firing the weapon if you have less than the required amount of ammo (thus avoiding -ve ammo in your inventory).

You can also set how much ammo each pickup item gives you if you feel that needs to be rebalanced at all.

So, most of the problems are get-roundable.

[Ultraviolet]

This has long been known.

Worry not, Biff, there's no way Randy will change it because it is in the original behavior as well.

The refire function was designed to check to see if the fire button is being held, then return to the weapon's "first firing frame," as is specified in dehacked. It also sets a certain inaccuracy for the next shot. The process is repeated each time the frame with the refire codepointer runs by.

[Xaser]

With Zdoom able to set minimum ammo values, you can set dehacked to prevent Zdoom changing to, or firing the weapon if you have less than the required amount of ammo (thus avoiding -ve ammo in your inventory).

Good Point, but how do you set it to avoid the negative ammo numbers? I currently have a weapon that takes 3 ammo per shot (shoots 3 bullets), and it almost always ends up going into the negatives when I run out of ammo.

[FUTURE-EDIT] Hmm... I wonder if it still does this...

Wait a minute, isn't this the original chaingun thread? Oh dear!

[Enjay]

Good Point, but how do you set it to avoid the negative ammo numbers? I currently have a weapon that takes 3 ammo per shot (shoots 3 bullets), and it almost always ends up going into the negatives when I run out of ammo.

In the weapons section of your dehacked patch, put something like this:

Weapon 3 (Chaingun)
min ammo = 3

That will mean Zdoom will never change to the chaingun unless you have at least 3 ammo units for it, and will change away from it when you have less than 3 available (just like the BFG normally does for 40 cells).

You may also be interested in the "Ammo use" value. It sets how much ammo each firing of a weapon uses up. This is on a firing frame by firing frame basis, so if you have 10 firing frames (as in the sniper rifle example - or even 20 like I have with my sniper rifle ) you will still use 10 (or 20 ) ammo with the ammo use value set to 1. But what you can do is change any weapon to use as much ammo as you like, with the restriction already mentioned - eg the BFG using 10 cells (already an option in dehacked) the supershotgun using 1 shell, the regular shotgun using 50 shells if you really want. Note this does not affect how the weapon actually performs, it just changes how much your ammo is reduced by everytime you fire.

eg

Weapon 3 (Chaingun)
Ammo use = 2
min ammo = 4

[Xaser]

There. The weapon's fixed. No more negative ammo. Thanks Enjay! Sniper rifle is coming along great!

[FUTURE-EDIT] In case anyone asks, I absolutely totally did not spell "thanks" with an 'x' instead of a 'ks.' That never happened. *ahem*

[Ultraviolet]

I wonder about maybe using a former-human's bullet firing codepointer instead in order to get the sniper rifle effect at a lower ammunition cost, or maybe a shotgunner's firing codepointer to double the number of pellets in the normal shotgun's spread and still have it only cost one shell.

[Xaser]

You can use enemy firing pointers for weapons? That's odd. I've once tried to make the pistol shoot cacodemon fireballs using the caco's firing code pointers, but all I got was pistol animation, eg. It won't fire anything, whatsoever. I ended up having to edit the plasma bullet thin to look exactly like caco-balls and make the pistol shoot those, but as a result, the plasma gun shot caco-balls, too. Wait... Maybe that was only in the old version of Zdoom...

[FUTURE-EDIT] One of my smarter moments back in the day. Although the last sentence kinda kills it. There's this neat thing called 'testing' I hear they do nowadays.

[Mighty Duck X-treme]

Maybe that's the problem.

BTW, you made a double post at the Splash Damage thread.

[Xaser]

Oops!

Post Deleted.

I pressed the Submit button, and it didn't do anything for a long time, so I hit it again, and it worked. Turns out the first one worked, too... darn. I guess i shouldn't be so trigger-happy.

[FUTURE-EDIT] I still do this sometimes.