[UPDATED 10/03/2012] RSL's Polaris, X-Marines

[GuildNavigator]

Brrr... COOL set... COLD!

Pardon for this easy comment on your work, but surely this time you did a very funny and great job again!

You don't compose your MODs... you POOP them! That's incredible, every time a brand new style and features that make your works always unrepeatable..

About your last masterpiece, I think this is one of the best you've ever done; simple, because the theme of the set is based on a single strong charateristic, cryogenic weapons, and every pieces is well balanced with the other ones. And every time I see innovations in the projectiles themselves: I mean, Laser Tripmines is something of gorgeous and very tactic; more tactic in this way is the Glacier Bombs: the effect is devastating and the smoke follow a very elegant trajectory. The Flaregun, whose projectiles can fix on the ground and lighten for a while the room you're in, or the Vitrification Rifle with whom you can create a barrier of enemies! (nice for a Cyberdemon in the area ).

One thing I complain about this wonderful work: the Shovel has a too low time of attack. I think you could accelerate the hit also by reducing a half a second the time between attack and hit itself. That'd be a more appreciated weapon...

Anyway, I'm looking forward what could probably be the theme of your next work

Keep it in this way!

[GuildNavigator]

Uhm... just wanted to say that it's been a long since I saw a non-boring first weapon. Your Power Handgun seems to break the usual tradition of modders to put an annoying first weapon in their sets

[Hellstorm Archon]

@Hellstorm Archon: thank you! Yeah, I admit the Handgun Zombie sounds a bit quite like a jerk, but... He surely is! Can't remember the original id game character whose sounds I edited and recycled... Anyway, should I find a more appropriate replacement, this could be changed.

I think the id game character you're talking about is the Quake 2 Gladiator. And although the shotgunguy's sounds come from the Doom 3 Z-Sec, they do sound very badass on the other hand, since they've been edited to sound deeper. Maybe the shotgunguy sounds should be the zombieman's new sounds, and the new shotgunguy's sounds could be those of the Doom 3 Commando's, only deeper (like with what you did with the current shotgunguy's sounds).

[Steve1664]

Hmmm. . . now that I think about it, there might be a few too many weapons; I haven't gotten a chance to try them all because I can never find them. I'm also not really feeling the Tripmines and the Marksman Rilfe. They don't seem to jive well with the rest, especially the tripmines since you can easily get caught in the blast while strafing around. Cryo Bombs are the BEST thing, though. Stopping a bunch of ambush enemies cold (no pun intended) is always satisfying.

Paring down some of the weapons that don't fit that well, or finding some way to make them cryo-based, would be nice in my opinion.

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That pun was TOTALLY INTENDED.

[Tapwave]

Just a super-mini-minor complain, shouldn't the thermal patch pickup message say "Thank God" instead of "Thanks God"?
Also, the ammo pickups in X-Marines are itty-bitty-tiny, is this normal?
Additionally, pressing the reload key with a fully loaded stakegun will make it move towards the left brutally then come back to the normal position after a little bit.

[Steve1664]

Just a super-mini-minor complain, shouldn't the thermal patch pickup message say "Thank God" instead of "Thanks God"?

Grammar Policework at its finest. It's a niggle, yeah, but one I've learned to live with, along with the fact that Polaris' weapon pickup messages are rather verbose.

By the way, since I'm a regular at the Penny Arcade forums, I've put in a few good words for Polaris and a whole bunch of other mods and projects I've been following here in the dedicated Doom Mods & WADs thread I have going on there. Not much real activity going on at the moment, but if anybody'd like to join and chime in with some suggestions of their own, feel free!

[rsl]

@GuildNavigator:

Brrr... COOL set... COLD! [...]

Thanks a lot! That sure is the most appreciative wording for a mod like this...

One thing I complain about this wonderful work: the Shovel has a too low time of attack. I think you could accelerate the hit also by reducing a half a second the time between attack and hit itself. That'd be a more appreciated weapon...

You mean the speed of the animation? I admit that could be quickened a bit. As for the time required to charge the shovel before dealing the attack, I'd leave it more or less as is for now, since to me it seems a good delay tradeoff for a blow capable of stopping a demon...

@Hellstorm Archon:

I think the id game character you're talking about is the Quake 2 Gladiator. And although the shotgunguy's sounds come from the Doom 3 Z-Sec, they do sound very badass on the other hand, since they've been edited to sound deeper. Maybe the shotgunguy sounds should be the zombieman's new sounds, and the new shotgunguy's sounds could be those of the Doom 3 Commando's, only deeper (like with what you did with the current shotgunguy's sounds).

Sounds like a good idea to me! I'll try to include these new sounds in the next update of the mod.

@Steve1664:

Hmmm. . . now that I think about it, there might be a few too many weapons; I haven't gotten a chance to try them all because I can never find them.

Yeah, the spawners I defined might actually need to be improved. As a result of my playthrough-tests, I noticed that - on one hand - coolant gel tends to spawn a bit too much even on the starting (easiest) maps, while the top tier weapons (Blizzard, Avalanche) and the Mine Discharger seem to be way too rare. I'll try to fix it for the next version...

I'm also not really feeling the Tripmines and the Marksman Rilfe. They don't seem to jive well with the rest, especially the tripmines since you can easily get caught in the blast while strafing around. [...]
Paring down some of the weapons that don't fit that well, or finding some way to make them cryo-based, would be nice in my opinion.

Hmm, I totally agree with you about the poor "ergonomics" of the mines. <LittlePoll>Actually, I thought about possible variations on them, and I've come up with a few possible outcomes:

A) Make the explosive sequences run parallel to the two laser fields sideways (only 2 instead of 4);
B) Ditch the explosion sequences altogether;
C) Leave explosions as they are, but make them do DamageType "Ice" (player is immune).

Which one would you favor most </LittlePoll>

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That pun was TOTALLY INTENDED.

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...and TOTALLY APPRECIATED!

By the way, since I'm a regular at the Penny Arcade forums, I've put in a few good words for Polaris [...]

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Now THAT'S COOL! (Yeah, I know... One of us should stop this sooner or later... ).
More seriously, I really appreciate this! Thank you!

@terranova:

Just a super-mini-minor complain, shouldn't the thermal patch pickup message say "Thank God" instead of "Thanks God"?

Uh, ok! Thanks for noticing, I'll fix that. Sorry, English is not my first language...

Also, the ammo pickups in X-Marines are itty-bitty-tiny, is this normal?

Originally, I intended to use a different "Scale" property value on the same pickup sprite to convey the sense of a bigger or smaller ammo supply. But I must admit I too have found some of them way too tiny when re-testing X-Marines. Again, I'll provide an update ASAP.

Additionally, pressing the reload key with a fully loaded stakegun will make it move towards the left brutally then come back to the normal position after a little bit.

Whoops! I totally missed that. Gotta check it. Thanks for pointing it out!

[HexaDoken]

Aww, a nice cool mod out of he... *shuts up*

Anyway, your mod is pretty cgood. Cryophobia(or whatever it is called) is a nice new aspect of the gameplay, forcing you to decide if you're going to risk running out of ammo all of a sudden or risk turning into a nice ice statue. While playing as that cyborg guy is definitely easier(lesser mobility doesn't really compensate for being able to wear a whoping 700 ammo without any risk to your health), playing the veteran is more interesting. Thus, the whole thing somehow adds to the atmosphere - when I have to watch over the counters, I somehow feel more like being in a low-temperature environment, and sometimes a chill goes down IRL. Or it might be my weather :/
Anyways, quite the only problem that I have with your mod is that weapons seem somewhat underpowered. It might be me again playing too much russian overkill, but still. I haven't got the chance to see all weapons in action yet, but here's a rundown on what I could use and what I think.

Fists are fine.

Shovel is a bit too hard to use with it's extremely slow swing time. If it would be able to one-hit kill a revenant, then, well, it should compensate. But it doesn't as of now.

Pistol is fine as well I think. Horewer, I must state, that most of the weapons are so underpowered/hard to use, so I usually end up using the pistol most of the time. That doesn't feels good to me. Also, pistol tends to miss my mousecliks. Sometimes, I can fire 6-7 shots per second, sometimes, I can do only one. Is that intended behaviour, bug, or my mouse bitching again?

Shotgun ended up being my favourite weapon of the mod, but it still feels underpowered. While a single blast is devastating and blah(two-hit killing hellknight is not something to be joked with!), the three-seconds reload is a bit too much. Might I ask to make it possible to break the reloading process after loading first pair of shells to make a quick shot?

Stake gun. Second most used weapon, mostly because it's quite the only way to get rid of coolant gel early on.While it's fast, accurate and stuff, and certainly more powerful than the handgun, it still feels greatly underpowered, even less powerful than a original doom chaingun. Higher damage average of a single shot is a bit not enough against not that high clip size, lower firerate and higher random damage range.
Also, is it ok that I can't reload it while having less than 50 coolant gel?

Flaregun. Oh dear. This is probably the second flame-based weapon in the world that managed to dissapoint me that much. The damage is aburdly low(a single flare is not enough to take care of a demon), it's being dealt in a absurdly long time, the firerate is not-that-absurdly-but-still low. The gun basically has no practical use other than a flashlight launcher. Even quake 2 blaster was SOMEWHAT useful other than lighting the way - but in your mod, the flaregun will be the last thing I draw ever. I'll rather go meleeing than trying to kill someone with it.

The thing that looks like a plasma gun. This is the only weapon in the whole mod that feels like a REAL weapon, not a toy. While it's short ranged, it wields the power. Tough monsters are solidifed in ice with it really quickly(sometimes making me think that this weapon is even a bit OP!), projectiles rip trough enemies, and the reloading isn't a bitch on this one. But ice statues make this weapon somewhat hard to use, especially in close quarters. The fact that statues are hardly breakable drives me nuts alot. Really. Can I request an altfire for this gun, that makes a quick kick/punch/swing/whatever that can break any statue with a single hit?

The grenade launcher. Seems pretty OK for me, altrough can't say for sure as I haven't played with it much.
EDIT: Whopsie, lol, just found that it's actually laser tripbomb launcher! o_0

Glacier bombs. Cool stuff. While not very good in a straight combat, nothing better can be found to block monster teleports. Probably the best weapon of the mod - it's a pity that theese are rare.

I realize that you might wanted to tone down the weapons to make game harder, which is a good touch actually, but, in my opinion, difficulty should be increased not by underpowering weapons, but rather by overpowering monsters. Because underpowered weapons are just boring.

Also, an item that gives you all the keys? You're got to be kidding.

Welp, good work overall. Keep it up man.

[Steve1664]

C) Leave explosions as they are, but make them do DamageType "Ice" (player is immune).

Cryo-mines get my vote, simply because they fit with the theme and the negated damage to the player makes them much more desirable to use in heavy action situations. Maybe enemies can get flash-frozen like with the freeze rifle? That'd certainly help keep some pressure off while you scramble to take care of the stragglers who manage to survive.

Also, while I also think the stakegun can use just a bit more punch, I don't think the rest of the arsenal is underpowered. The Assaulter is terrific for trick shots, and you wind up having plenty of nitrocubes for it anyway, and ye gods does that shotgun do a number on just about anything.

[HexaDoken]

Oh, yeah, the minipoll stuff. I never actually managed to get hit by my own tripbombs, even including the fact that I used the tripbomb launcher purely as a classic grenade launcher, but if something has to be done, then I vote for cryo-mines too. But not just switch the damage type and leave it alone, but rather make them REAL cryomines, that freeze things for good.

Also, steve1664, I didn't say a thing about that gun that is fed by nitrocubes. I didn't found it yet. The only reason why words "grenade launcher" appeared in my posts is because I originally thought that the tripmine launcher is actually grenade launcher. Whopsie.

EDIT: Oh lol. Just after writing it got the nitrocube launcher. Only one thing to say.
AWW YEA

Still, it brought up a minor issue. You know, when you gib a revenant, with those nitrocubes for example, he breaks in half.
NO BLOCKING FOR GIBS.
The legs of revenant blocked the doorway and I had to noclip out.

[insightguy]

Aww, a nice cool mod out of he... *shuts up*
Also, pistol tends to miss my mousecliks.

I've seen this pistol behavior in a lot of his mods. Its annoying!

but generally this is a kick ass mod.(i played Polaris in a dark air-coned room, OH WHAT FUN IT WAS!)

on an unrelated note, I found the left hand annoying so as of now I am flipping all your hands to right hands.

[HexaDoken]

Marksman Rifle. Clearly underpowered. While sporting such a low firerate, killing hellknight with 8 shots? What the hell? And as for perfect accuracy - we have pistol, which has perfect accuracy BTW, is faster and has cheaper ammo.

Please, when calling A_WeaponReady in Nitrocube launcher reloading state, use WRF_NOBOB so the weapon doesn't twiches awkwardly when you reload and move at the same time.

[chronoteeth]

The marksman rifle is loads more powerful when you zoom in

[rsl]

@HexaDoken:

thanks for the good feedback! My answers point-by-point:

Shovel is a bit too hard to use with it's extremely slow swing time. If it would be able to one-hit kill a revenant, then, well, it should compensate. But it doesn't as of now.

Well, since it's often seen as a precious ammo-saver especially against melee-only opponents like demons and spectres, I decided to tune this secondary melee weapon on them. As a consequence, a single hit can put to rest a demon or spectre, but to be used effectively, the weapon tricks you a bit on timing (also to justify the use of the steel claw after you acquire it). Still, I've discussed in an earlier post the possibility of at least speeding up the charged blow.

[...] pistol tends to miss my mousecliks. Sometimes, I can fire 6-7 shots per second, sometimes, I can do only one. Is that intended behaviour, bug, or my mouse bitching again? [...]

I guess I wanted it more-or-less intended as of now. That is, if you stop the firing string for a bit more than before, the weapon definition forces you to wait even more... But I realize I should change it! I'll include this change in the next release, too...

Shotgun ended up being my favourite weapon of the mod, but it still feels underpowered. While a single blast is devastating and blah(two-hit killing hellknight is not something to be joked with!), the three-seconds reload is a bit too much. Might I ask to make it possible to break the reloading process after loading first pair of shells to make a quick shot?

Concerning power and timing, I really am satisfied of how it turned out in the end, as it is now (a couple times, I managed to kill a mancubus by unloading this weapon on it). However, allowing to break the reload sequence is something I would definitely consider integrating...

Stake gun. Second most used weapon, mostly because it's quite the only way to get rid of coolant gel early on.While it's fast, accurate and stuff, and certainly more powerful than the handgun, it still feels greatly underpowered, even less powerful than a original doom chaingun. Higher damage average of a single shot is a bit not enough against not that high clip size, lower firerate and higher random damage range.
Also, is it ok that I can't reload it while having less than 50 coolant gel?

I had some doubt on this, too. I'll probably increase the power of each round by a slight amount... And yes, 50 coolant units are required as a minimum, since you're supposed to reload the weapon in a "magazine-like" fashion...

Flaregun. Oh dear. This is probably the second flame-based weapon in the world that managed to dissapoint me that much. The damage is aburdly low(a single flare is not enough to take care of a demon), it's being dealt in a absurdly long time, the firerate is not-that-absurdly-but-still low. The gun basically has no practical use other than a flashlight launcher. Even quake 2 blaster was SOMEWHAT useful other than lighting the way - but in your mod, the flaregun will be the last thing I draw ever. I'll rather go meleeing than trying to kill someone with it.

I toned it down a bit mostly because of the "chain-reaction" effect you can exploit with it - start fire on one zombie or imp in a group, and fire will most probably propagate to all others afterwards. Anyway, rounding its damage towards higher values for the next release shouldn't harm anybody... But demons! Also, I want to increase the average duration of a lighting flare.

The thing that looks like a plasma gun. This is the only weapon in the whole mod that feels like a REAL weapon, not a toy. While it's short ranged, it wields the power. Tough monsters are solidifed in ice with it really quickly(sometimes making me think that this weapon is even a bit OP!), projectiles rip trough enemies, and the reloading isn't a bitch on this one. But ice statues make this weapon somewhat hard to use, especially in close quarters. The fact that statues are hardly breakable drives me nuts alot. Really. Can I request an altfire for this gun, that makes a quick kick/punch/swing/whatever that can break any statue with a single hit?

I too feared it would be overpowered. While it's great for dealing with tougher foes one-to-one, it gets a bit cheap with multiple waves, mostly because of the ripping effect (allows you to hit living opponents behind vitrified ones). Also, I had somehow conceived the claw as the weapon of choice for breaking glass statues. In the end, I think I could:
1. Give all glass statues the +DONTRIP flag;
2. Have the Claw and Vitrificator altfire switch to each other.

Also, an item that gives you all the keys? You're got to be kidding.

Yet it happened to me that no matter how much I was looking for a key, at times I would get stuck behind a certain door in a megaWAD now and then... And so, this is my "legal" solution for such cases, provided you find one (very rare! ). The airborne thruster serves more or less the same purpose, only for unreachable planes...

when you gib a revenant, with those nitrocubes for example, he breaks in half.
NO BLOCKING FOR GIBS.
The legs of revenant blocked the doorway and I had to noclip out.

I happened to find out about that, too. Will be fixed for sure!

Marksman Rifle. Clearly underpowered. While sporting such a low firerate, killing hellknight with 8 shots? What the hell? And as for perfect accuracy - we have pistol, which has perfect accuracy BTW, is faster and has cheaper ammo.

What Chrono said Try the altfire stance, you won't be disappointed!

Please, when calling A_WeaponReady in Nitrocube launcher reloading state, use WRF_NOBOB so the weapon doesn't twiches awkwardly when you reload and move at the same time.

Good point - shall be done, too. Also, I have to fix the same thing in some of my older mods...

Welp, good work overall. Keep it up man.

Thank you!

@danyudanyu0821:

generally this is a kick ass mod.(i played Polaris in a dark air-coned room, OH WHAT FUN IT WAS!)

Thank you! Air-coned, eh? Must try that too...

on an unrelated note, I found the left hand annoying so as of now I am flipping all your hands to right hands.

Heh heh! The only game I know of, that was ever fair about this was Unreal (allowed to specify if the player was left- or right-handed, and displayed the HUD weapons accordingly).

@Steve1664:

Cryo-mines get my vote, simply because they fit with the theme and the negated damage to the player makes them much more desirable to use in heavy action situations. Maybe enemies can get flash-frozen like with the freeze rifle? That'd certainly help keep some pressure off while you scramble to take care of the stragglers who manage to survive.

Seconded! I have an idea about that.

[...] I also think the stakegun can use just a bit more punch [...]

Seconded again!

[HexaDoken]

And yes, 50 coolant units are required as a minimum, since you're supposed to reload the weapon in a "magazine-like" fashion...

Welp, it still seems strange to me that you can't load a half-empty magazine.
Also, due to this behaviour stake gun turned out to be the fastest weapon in wasting coolant gel - fire once and reload, -50.

2. Have the Claw and Vitrificator altfire switch to each other.

Welp, I actually thought more like a quick claw-punch for the vitrificator altfire, which allows you to quickly break a statue or two without switching to the claws or any other weapon. If all I wanted is to be able to switch to the claws quickly, I'd just hit 1 - shovel isn't always with me and if it is that's not much a problem. The problem is that I find it annoying to constantly switch between two weapons.

Yet it happened to me that no matter how much I was looking for a key, at times I would get stuck behind a certain door in a megaWAD now and then... And so, this is my "legal" solution for such cases, provided you find one (very rare! ).

My solution is am_cheat 2.

What Chrono said Try the altfire stance, you won't be disappointed!

Whopsie! Didn't noticed it. I'll try it when I'll punch it out from some rifle zombie again.

EDIT: Yep, indeed, I wasn't dissapointed.
Also, I have stumbled upon a Statue of the Frost Hellnoble, or however it's oficially called - and I must say that he definitely needs a revamp in his targeting system.
I threw him in a room, thrown a switch that activated some silly stuff, including a monster teleport, said "Kill them, my servant!" and... ran away. Later, when I returned to that room and saw monsters running around, I thought that my warrior bravely died on the battlefield... but when I entered the room where I summoned him...
"HOLYSHIZNIT WERE YOU JUST BUMPING IN THIS WALL ALL THE TIME??!?!?!!?!?!"

As it appeared after looking at the double-IDDT'd map, he just targeted the nearest monster(even trough it was behind several walls) and completely ignored the presence of other monsters, who soon teleported in the room. And other monsters ignored him too, as he didn't attacked them. Not good at all. Perhaps, a few A_ClearTarget would help. Also might be good to not make him aggro on the nearest monster on spawn, which could make him useful for ambushes.