[v1.0.0] NecroDoom - Ye olde mech-suit mod.

[wildweasel]

The newest ZDoom SVN is about fifty versions in advance of yours.

[taufan99]

The newest ZDoom SVN is about fifty versions in advance of yours.

Thanks! I almost don't know if DRD Team updated the site.

[Armaetus]

If you think suit don't make the player feel more powerful, why not up the damage on all suit weapons slightly?

[Tormentor667]

Brilliant work, very well done Xaser, just as usual

One complaing though: Widescreen Incompatibility

[Zaero]

Well I tried the mod and must admit it has great potential. On the downside is, the weapons does not feel powerful, as some users already found out. The best thing would be to make them at least as powerful as equivalents in vanilla Doom. Also I think the shotgun weapon (the one available on-foot) should be a part of Necrosuit itself so the list of weapon replacements would be:

Chainsaw: Blades
Pistol: H-V Guns
Shotgun: Cyclones Shotgun
SSGun: Multi-rockets
Chaingun: Dual Chainguns
RocketL: Mortar Cannon
Plasma: Dual Lasers
BFG: Nuclear Launcher

Also I would recommend some changes:
-Multi-Rockets should launch a pack of 20 (like SSG's pellets)
-Dual chainguns should have a damage and fire rate like the BD Minigun
-Shotgun and Cannon explosions should be swapped
-Cannon should deal the damage of 2 Doom rockets
-Lasers damage rate per second like the D's Plasma rifle
-The launcher should fire single missile per shot, but with a huge explosion and deadly radius. Also should kickback a lot!

New features:
-When on-foot, the soldier should use a set of other weapons from games like Eradicator etc
-Big ammo pickups should be replaced by Mech ammo, small ammo pickups replaced by the ammo packs for soldier
-Mech weapons obtained from floor pickups, soldier weapons obtained from enemies
-Replace monsters with the ones from Necrodome, Cyclones and Eradicator
-Replace some decor items with the ones from Necrodome
http://spriters-resource.com/pc_computer/necrodome/

[Armaetus]

How does the suit gain back health, or does it not?

[Kate]

Picking up Repair Kits (medikit/stimpack replacements) repairs the suit when you're in it. It will also respawn at 100% integrity back at the starting point after 60 seconds if you eject from the suit and detonate it.

While on foot, your only health is what you have at the start of the level. Your out-of-suit health gets restored when you complete the level. If you complete the level outside of the suit, you will start the next level back inside it at full health and whatever integrity your suit was previously at (100% if your suit was destroyed and hadn't respawned yet).

[Armaetus]

I also take it this works fine under GZDoom too?

[Kate]

I tested it, works fine, given you have a recent SVN.

[Xaser]

Hey there -- thanks for the feedback. Been a while since I've messed with this, and it's good to see it back on the menu.

I'll respond to a lot of the things listed, though I'm afraid a lot of them fall into the "won't change" category. I'll describe the reasons why the best I can, but there are definitely some good suggestions in there that I've taken to heart (or at least noted down for the future).

The best thing would be to make them at least as powerful as equivalents in vanilla Doom.

They are. Much more so in fact -- the H-V gun is better than Doom's chaingun! I still have no clue why this has been reported more than once. All I can figure is that the mod's balance (where weapons are balanced to be roughly equal in power but with different roles) contrasts with Doom's linear scale of damage increase so much that it's causing a weird effect wherein people expect the "higher tier" weapons (lasers, cannon, etc.) to also follow the same power scale and cause ludicrous damage when compared to the better-than-chaingun starting gun.

Upon reviewing things, I can probably get away with increasing laser damage a bit (since Doom's PG indeed has higher DPS) and I'm going to eventually redo the missile pod's behavior so it'll be somewhat less tricky to aim (though I intend to keep a hidden flag that will re-enable the old behavior). I feel the need to restate that the mod was originally started with deathmatch play in mind, though, so given certain weapons' useful qualities (like the Cannon's hitscan nature), there's not much I can do to up the power without ruining it entirely.

Also I think the shotgun weapon (the one available on-foot) should be a part of Necrosuit itself

This is actually something I've been wanting to do for a while, in the form of an inventory item that, when used, replaces the alt-fire fist with a quick shotgun blast (which could be useful for situations where you've got, say, Chainguns equipped but need to blast a chaingun sniper off a ledge or something). I don't have graphics for it just yet, though, so something will have to be done on that front first.

-Multi-Rockets should launch a pack of 20 (like SSG's pellets)

I used to have this as the Pod's altfire before adding the melee attack, and it was even less useful than the current tough-to-use fire. I'd have to slow the fire-rate way down to make this viable, which I kinda don't want to do since there's already plenty of low-firerate, high-power weapons.

-Dual chainguns should have a damage and fire rate like the BD Minigun

See above; Necrodoom's chainguns have both a higher fire-rate and damage output than Brutal Doom's minigun (I'm assuming this is what you mean by "BD"). The fire-rate is likely a placebo effect caused by BD's minigun sound, which suggests a much higher fire-rate than the weapon itself actually achieves. Dunno about the damage, but BD's minigun is a lot more accurate, which might make it seem more powerful in general if you're putting a lot of distance between yourself and your enemies.

-Shotgun and Cannon explosions should be swapped

I'm using the same puffs for the weapons that Necrodome itself uses, and swapping them would actually further obscure the Cannon's purpose: I'm actually starting to strongly lean toward the thought that the Cannon's puff should be changed to something smaller, because a lot of people have made the assumption that the cannon is a wide-radius crowd control weapon instead of the sniper gun it actually is. Part of that's because of the slot it replaces, but having a more cannon-y puff would drive the point home better.

-Cannon should deal the damage of 2 Doom rockets

As a hitscan attack? Sounds pretty OP to me, but I may have to cave in and play around with damagetypes for DM at some point since this weapon seems to be one of the most often-complained-about ones.

-Lasers damage rate per second like the D's Plasma rifle

I've bumped it a bit. Not too much, since the laser has the large advantage of having a much quicker projectile, but it should be closer now.

-The launcher should fire single missile per shot, but with a huge explosion and deadly radius. Also should kickback a lot!

Perhaps. The dual-missile thing was originally to allow players to aim at two targets at once, but it's really hard to pull off correctly and a higher-damage single missile with halved ammo amounts might be the better way to go. Might work better as a BFG-slot weapon that way, even though it's not meant to be a BFG. ;P

Then again, changing it too much might obsolete the Nuke weapon I've added for ST DM, since it does basically what you've described.

-When on-foot, the soldier should use a set of other weapons from games like Eradicator etc
-Big ammo pickups should be replaced by Mech ammo, small ammo pickups replaced by the ammo packs for soldier
-Mech weapons obtained from floor pickups, soldier weapons obtained from enemies

That's a bit outside the mod's scope. The idea of being able to jump out on foot is a sort of last-ditch escape attempt (the idea originating from Necrodome, which had something very similar except you were even more squishy), and adding more weapons and such would detract from that. I can't really add more on-foot weapons anyway because of how morphing works.

-Replace monsters with the ones from Necrodome, Cyclones and Eradicator
-Replace some decor items with the ones from Necrodome

The decor wouldn't make sense in Doom maps, but a Necro/Cyclones enemy pack might be a neat thing for a side add-on. I'll note it down.

I tested it, works fine, given you have a recent SVN.

It should work fine in the latest official, I believe (unless there's an odd bug somewhere). I actually stuck to 2.5.0 features for the mod, since I want Skulltag to be able to catch up eventually.

[EDIT] Oh wait, it might not. I forgot that I'd used Inventory.ForbiddenTo up until one point, and the latest public beta might still have that in there. So yeah, SVN it is.

[Kate]

[EDIT] Oh wait, it might not. I forgot that I'd used Inventory.ForbiddenTo up until one point, and the latest public beta might still have that in there. So yeah, SVN it is.

I like how I have better memory of your projects than I do my own =p

[Captain Ventris]

I thought that this felt really good to play. It was like being robocop. You'd just stomp into the room, unleash hell, and stomp away, it was great. I really liked the weapon set and how it was balanced, so you felt the need to switch back and forth, instead of finding the best weapon you often have ammo for and just using that the whole time. This is good stuff, keep workin' on it!

I like the idea of having the on-foot shotgun mounted to the suit itself as an alt-attack. Those are some pretty sweet sprites, and its effect was notable enough to warrant inclusion.

[Gez]

I actually stuck to 2.5.0 features for the mod, since I want Skulltag to be able to catch up eventually.

You shouldn't worry. I guess once Skulltag will finally resume updating, it'll do it in one big spurt to get up to speed with current ZDoom.

Plus the upcoming version of ZDoom looks like it's going to be a very stable one, given all the bugs that have been fixed.

[Rangaisia]

Also I think the shotgun weapon (the one available on-foot) should be a part of Necrosuit itself

What purpose would that serve? H-V Gun, Chaingun and the always available metal fist already offer more than enough firepower for close encounters.

BFG: Nuclear Launcher

Why should be the fairly useful Missile Launcher replaced with a weapon that is either going to be completely overpowered or impractical?

Multi-Rockets should launch a pack of 20 (like SSG's pellets)

That would probably cause a noticeable framerate drop. the Rocket Pod doesn't really have much in common with the SSG, and personally I don't see why it should.

Dual chainguns should have a damage and fire rate like the BD Minigun

Why everything needs to be more like Brutal Doom? Personally, I find the dual chainguns as they are to be more enjoyable to use than the BD Minigun.

The launcher should fire single missile per shot, but with a huge explosion and deadly radius. Also should kickback a lot!

Why is one overscaled missile better than two fairly powerful ones? You seem to operate under the assumption that weapon replacements should be 1-on-1 replicas of whatever weapon they replace.

When on-foot, the soldier should use a set of other weapons from games like Eradicator etc

Being able to exit the Necrosuit is intended to be an emergency feature, so it would make little sense to arm your little guy to teeth. How would he fit all those guns in the cockpit anyway? Also, all the weapons are already replaced, so there's no room for new weapons, anyway.

Big ammo pickups should be replaced by Mech ammo, small ammo pickups replaced by the ammo packs for soldier

I'd rather have lots of ammo for the Suit. That's another reason why on foot weaponry isn't that great of an idea.

Mech weapons obtained from floor pickups, soldier weapons obtained from enemies

Again, that would only serve to cannibalize ammo from the Suit weapons.

Replace monsters with the ones from Necrodome, Cyclones and Eradicator

I wouldn't be opposed to this, but you do realize it would be a lot of work. Nobody's stopping you from making a monster patch. I would certainly try it out.

Replace some decor items with the ones from Necrodome

You do realize that would make most maps look like shit, especially if they use custom decorations. Again, you could always make maps that use Necrodome textures and decor. I would love to try those too.

EDIT: Xaser already responded to most of your points while I was typing this. Oh well.

[Xaser]

Accidental ninja-ing, aaaa!

Anyhow, I've gone ahead and uploaded the newest version. A few changes:

• Slots 7 through 10 are filled with totally-not-balanced-at-all-yet Skulltag weapon replacements with somewhat incomplete graphics. Figured I'd DECORATE them sooner than later, though they won't be used in-game 'til Skulltag jumps up in versions. Cheat 'em up, though, if you're curious.
• Getting hurt while in the suit now causes a subtle static-y screen flash effect. Shouldn't get in the way, I hope.
• Rocket Pod behavior changed. Missiles now fire in a random spread instead of the oddball triangle pattern of before, hopefully making it easier to hit things. Still possibly subject to change (esp. since it looks chaotic), but lemme know how well this version works.
• Damage for Chainguns and Lasers bumped up a bit. Lasers now do more DPS than the plasma gun, fitting the power scale a bit better now.
• Use of Inventory.ForbiddenTo removed, making this 2.5.0 compatible as a byproduct of sorts.
• I probably changed something else at one point, since most of this version has been sitting on my HDD for a while. Hopefully there aren't any nasty surprises.

Same link as before, though I'll post it again for good measure. Have fun with it, and give the new Rocket Pod some feedback.