Hearts of Demons - BARON [1.1.0] 7/29/22

[Brohnesorge]

New update before I have another job streak and can't work on it at all.

Changelog

---

-Added new weapon:Slot 5 M202 FLASH Multi-Rocket Launcher! Main fire shoots a napalm filled rocket, with alt-fire shooting a Krak Missile. Krak does tremendous damage, but has no AoE. As always, this is an early version and expect tweaks and visual upgrades. Be careful not to kill yourself with the napalm!
-New sprites for Explosive Baron Ball/Fireball! Should be easier to tell it apart now.
-Slot 5 Explosive Baron Ball cost raised from 5 to 10. Felt it was too useful, and opted to raise it's cost over lowering it's damage.
-Slot 3 Belial Main Fire shoots 6 more pellets. This is to further it from the vanilla SSG, and make it seem more like a weapon only a Baron could use.
-Slot 7 Devastation impact damage raised. As in the damage it does on direct hit, not it's AoE damage. More effective against Cybers and Spiders!
-Slot 7 Devastation secondary ball arcs changed. Should be more useful in low ceiling rooms.
-No longer roar when falling/jumping. Significantly less annoying!
-Direct impact damage of Slot 6 Explosive Baron Ball/Fireball raised. It said Cyberdemons would kneel, but didn't do nearly enough to warrant that comment. Now it does.
-Slot 6 Immolation now has GL Effects. Bright!
-Megasphere actually works now. Gives 100 mana instead of blue armor.
-NIGHTVISION! F key to trigger night vision! I couldn't figure out MENUDEFs to make the key mappable, so for now you'll have to deal. Though what else do you put on F?
-HOTFIX: First frame of Fireball hand sprites was off colored. Should be fixed now.

Download https://www.dropbox.com/s/xdhhckyno8pyz ... 3.pk3?dl=0

[shotfan]

Wow, another update! You work quickly! I need to test the new version, then I will edit/post again (I will do this later today).

---EDIT---
Comments:
- M202 is perfect in performance for me, in both firemodes: primary for crowd control, secondary against lone strong monsters. Powerful, but not too powerful.
- Increased mana cost for Plasma Bomb (as I name the Slot 5 spell) is apt. The spell does huge damage, enough to warrant this change. The altfire uses 20 mana now, but I assume this was intended as well and fits anyway.
- Devastation is even more useful now, with modified trajectory and increased direct hit damage. Seems just about right for me now.
- The new sprites for Slot 5 are weird. The idle ones are decent, but the firing ones not so much: the signet on the right hand suddenly becomes silver again when firing instead of pink, and these hands are clearly human ones. Also, they have different skin colour than the rest of Baron's natural/magical weapons (actually, current slot 5 has the right skin tone, it is the rest that is too red). Are they placeholder?
- M61 (Vulcan Cannon) has too low damage actually for a 20mm gun. It is hard to say how much more damage should it inflict, but some for sure. In my opinion M61 should kill a Pinky in one-two shots. Maybe around 120 points of damage would be enough? The gun could be balanced by adding a spin-up time before firing (I would say around 60 tics), which could be activated via altfire function.

Powerups issues:
- The Enchantment Rune should be permanent and toggeable. It will already have a big drawback in the form of spending both physical ammo and mana at the same time.
- Environmental Suit replacement: a sphere/relic that grants infinite mana for limited amount of time, maybe 60 seconds. May extend to the rest of ammo types, but would make more sense to be limited only to mana. Besides, the spells have the most powerful weapons already (Immolation and Devastation), so having unlimited ammo also for guns is not really necessary.
- Blursphere replacement: Hmm... maybe a necklace with a gem that has soul-controlling abilites. That would explain why other Hell Nobles are subjugated instantly to your command. So: "Amulet of Power"? Also, I think it should last for a whole level. 2 minutes is not enough time to make good use of Nobles against other demons in many wads: they are slow, and it commonly takes much time before they pathfind successfully to you through multiple rooms, when they are alerted. It would be frustating to have such an awesome power to be wasted by stupid pathfinding issues. By the way: is there a chance that custom derived monsters (like Pyro Demon, Brusier Demon, Hell Paladin etc.) to be affected as well? (some actor class-wizardy would be involved, I think).
- Edited Berserk: there is no reason for time limit. A single-level duration is good enough. It is more convenient that way, and level limit works sufficiently good for me.

[Brohnesorge]

I'm glad you like the M202. It was surprisingly frustrating to make and it still didn't turn out exactly like I wanted it to. But it's good enough for now.

The Vulcan is weird, development wise. It was significantly more powerful in a pre-release version, and even had +RIPPER at one point, but it rendered all other weapons, both guns and spells, moot. Especially with +RIPPER. I also feel like it lacks the kick of a true M61, but balance is a thing. I'll take it back to the drawing board; first thing I'd experiment with is slightly buffing damage and buffing fire rate. It sits at 4-32 damage per bullet at a shot per tic (so around...2100 RPM, which is in range of a real M61's up to 6000). I could bump damage up to 5-40. It's a real bitch because of it's absurd fire rate, the DPS shoot through the roof at the slight touch and can ruin the internal balance. Like with the above values, DPS would go from 140-1120 to 175-1400. But lowering the rate of fire would be stupid, as that's against the whole purpose of the weapon. Granted, I could even it out by setting it to a solid number or a custom damage formula instead of depending on Doom's. I'm not going for overall balance, as I've said I designed this with monster mods in mind, but I don't want to make the gun too useful. And as much as I like the spin up idea, sprites are an issue. I could just say it has an internal gear spinner or something sci-fi/magical like that. Unless that's really a thing. I admit, I'm not a gun expert, I just play one on TV.

Hmm, maybe if I made chainguns drops sometimes drop mana, that would make the ammo rarer, which would go a long way in balancing out a buff. As well as some wicked recoil. Hmm...I'll experiment with it once I'm done with the ground slam; its on my list of things after I finish footsteps.

The unlimited mana is a great idea. It's so simple, but it's effective and fits with what I'm going for.

As for the hands, that's a mistake on my part. They are the hands from Heretic, and I fucked up turning them pink in the first frame, hence why the ring changes color. I'll fix them and upload a hotfix when I get home from work tomorrow morning. For just the Heretic hands. The claw hand turns greyscale when extracted via SLADE, making it a bitch to edit. For all intents and purposes though, they are a place holder. I want to get the mod more complete before I start going around asking for a spriter, but if one happens to be reading this...*wink wink nudge nudge*

I just read an article. The spinup for a real M61 Vulcan to get up to 6000 RPM is .4 seconds. That's about 15 tics. Damn son.

[shotfan]

I am no gun expert either I have some impressions about to how the real guns should behave in Doom, but I am in no position to be a gunsmith-oracle, as you can see from how I overshot the spin-up time for Vulcan
If you would be fair for M61, then it should be in Russian Overkill I assume that this Vulcan has no power source, so I explain away its low ROF by imagining that the Baron plugs a makeshift crank mechanism into the gun, which he spins really fast to power it up, like a souped-up Gatling Gun And there is no noticeable recoil because Barons are THAT strong! (no in-game explanation for nerfed damage, though )

More seriously: yes, the more rare ammunition could make it a bit more balanced, if you decide to increase its damage. The gun is super lethal and all, but is not going to last long due to its hunger. (even more of the reason to not make unlimited mana powerup extend to Vulcan's ammo supply)

Ah, so these are Corvus' hands? Not exactly human, but you could say there actually are, if you interpret elves as a human race... nevermind

[Brohnesorge]

I just uploaded another hotfix. I had accidentally commented out the M202, so it's ammo would spawn but it never would. I just fixed it.
I didn't notice it until I was playing through Hellbound for procrastination testing purposes.
I must have been quite tired when I uploaded it both other times. Jeez.

Already noticed a bug: the Megasphere only gives 1 mana instead of 100. And the Backpack gives WAAAAAAAAAAY too much ammo. I'm trying to fix it but it keeps giving 10x what I list. I was on Dead Simple, which has 10 backpacks on top of each other. Whoops.

[Brohnesorge]

Double post, but woooooah UPDATE!
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ee5ofd4q1ewiq ... 4.pk3?dl=0

Changelog:

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Immolation flames bounces off surfaces.
Sounds kinda for M202.
Napalm flames behavior altered. Spread is tighter, slides up stairs, and has a wider and taller damage radius.
Napalm rocket now has gravity, travels faster, bounces off walls and spawns more flames.
Baron Ball speed raised from 20 to 35.
Explosive Baron Ball (regular and large) speed raised from 20 to 25
Spawns changed. Mana has a chance to spawn in place of Belial Flak Cannon and M61 Vulcan. Overall, ammo is less, mana is more.
Flak Cannon shoots 5 more pellets. They don't increase its long or mid range damage by much, but it's point-blank damage is greatly increased.
Flak Cannon Alt-Fire size increased. Again.
Vulcan rework! Damage up 4d8 to 32, fire rate doubled and fire control lowered, ammo lowered from 300/600 to 250/500, and accuracy increased.
Devastation secondary balls bounce off floors and ceilings, making it more useful.
Devastation initial explosion radius cut from 500 to 300.
Backpack no longer give mana. Still double total, though. Working on it.
GROUND SLAM. FINALLY! Alt-Fire on the enhanced claw to slam the ground and deal damage to all enemies around you! Uses mana. Berserk doesn't effect it.
Megasphere bug fixed.

[GOODGOOD]

Jetpack? .50 Cal cannon alternative to the minigun, rarer or easiar to find in an arachotron, slower fire rate, deadly accurate,(subject to change maye like medium accuracy? because of spamming it would be a full auto sniper), mech plasma cannon(maybe not too slow to charge and cost a lot of ammo,BARREL now in compa-- i mean mini edition (as a grenade? timed or impact your choice, or add a button to make it like a cooking grenade (COOKING MAMA STFU), portable medkit idk, a crysis XPAC IDK, spartan laser? too smal, maybe thats it in my mind except... The Blacklight Vial (yep prototype)

[Gideon020]

Any chance of fitting in a toggle-enabled nightvision since so few mappers bother to provide Light Amp items for their maps?

Also, some of the weapons just cut off in places, such as the claws when striking/casting.

[Brohnesorge]

There is one. Just hit F. Sorry, there is no menu spot for it in the controls, but you've got it. I'll make sure to add a menu spot for it next update. I just updated the OP to make that a little clearer.

I have to anyway because next update will also have the enchantment rune, so that's an extra button.

The sprite clipping is a bigger issue. Unfortunately, there's not much I can do about it; I don't have a knack for spriting (I've tried and failed spectacularlly) so I can't extend them and most of them are placeholders, anyway. I hate to say it, but we're all going to have to deal with it for now. This is an early WIP, and when it gets further along I'll start asking around to see if anyone would be willing to help in that aspect.

[Gideon020]

There is one. Just hit F. Sorry, there is no menu spot for it in the controls, but you've got it. I'll make sure to add a menu spot for it next update. I just updated the OP to make that a little clearer.

I have to anyway because next update will also have the enchantment rune, so that's an extra button.

Oh, cool, sorry about that.

EDIT: Other minor quibble is that the minigun doesn't sound beefy enough, and the slot 7 spell take too long to wind-up.
EDIT 2: Also, I tried to use the 'F' key to engage the nightvision, but it said that it was an unknown command.

[Brohnesorge]

In extended testing, I too got annoyed by it's wind up. I want it to be long, but damn it feels like I'll get old before it goes off right now. It'll be shortened in the next release, which if all goes as planned will be released in about 24 hours. No promises. I would release it now, but in my pre-release test where I load it up on my good PC (as opposed to my shitty laptop) I noticed quite a few things. Like the footsteps sound like a prissy horse trot instead of a big pink Minotaur motherfucker. I'll look into getting a new Vulcan and Flak sounds, too. Also the keymapping thing was easier then I thought. Turns out I had two lines in KEYCONF backwards.

Anyway, stay tuned.

sidenote: lol it turns mfer into smeghead. I've never noticed before.

[Brohnesorge]

It may be another double post, but it's also another UPDATE.
This one features updated sounds so you might want to turn down your volume before play and adjust. They are quite loud.

*MLG AIRHORNS*
Download https://www.dropbox.com/s/ziw65f5pt50m2 ... 5.pk3?dl=0

Changelog

---

More sounds for Slot 5 M202.
Various GL Lights added.
Sprint speed increased.
Slot 5 Explosive Baron Ball alt-fire wind up down from 56 frames to 42.
Slot 7 Devastation wind up down from 70 frames to 50.
Slot 7 Devastation explosion radius lowered, direct hit damage raised again, secondary ball explosion damage lowered and direct hit damage raised.
Slot 7 Devastation secondary explosions set the ground on fire.
Footsteps! New Landing sound!
Nightvision is now mappaple.
Slot 4 M61 Vulcan sound updated!
Slot 3 Belial Flak Cannon sounds updated!
Swiggity swud, we've got a HUD.

Focus of the next update: vaporwave aesthetics. I need a little break from power ups.
NOTE: While the enchantment tome is in the game, and it replaces the radsuit, it currently does nothing. It's just there.

[shotfan]

Are wind-up frames all one tic long?

*MLG AIRHORNS*

My ears, they bleed

[Brohnesorge]

Yeah. One frame is one tic. And Doom runs at 35 FPS even in source ports so, for example, the Devastation wind up went from 70 frames, so two seconds, to 50, or ~1.4 seconds.

[GOODGOOD]

Sorry to say this but for the ENVM Suit might be have to be a mech (I thought i still remembered "Armor are For Pussies" -Duke Nukemand i still did" or make it semi-exo suit (or jus make this into a nanosuit damnit) [INSERT WORD FOR "CAN BE CHANGED INTO OTHER FORM OR DESIGN"] skin layer for, (Originally) intended for heavies. it has a helmet set too (precision targeting: accuracy increased), it'll increase your melee power (PUNCH however clawing maybe in effect increase it's speed? or something. clawing speed+power. what piercing the enemies thickened skin? yeah maybe that could work) running speed (or speed boost?) increased by [Insert here you're the maker of this mod], The Skin layers are hard enough to sustain damage from a High Caliber Rounds to Tank and Anti-Tank rounds (The higher the difficulties you chose will result in only stopping a high caliber only (also energy damage resistance are also a thing), 5 types:Scout, Assault, Marksman, Assassin, And Destroyer.

The Scout:is your basic light class exo, it'll increase your speed and has jump boost and has mini radar (but sonar and has limited range? maybe) on back right shoulder (please make a minimap)

Assault:Carry 2 backpacks? not a problem, same as scout but has increase to melee power and higher speed and somewhat to has a shoulder charged laser on left shoulder (Cause thats the modified version while the original has a mini-minigun... what?)

Marksman:The balance between the the above two. It has a more greater compact radar on it's helmet, and more running speed and has a precision-slow firing-semi auto-rifle on the left shoulder, cloaking ability

Assassin:Like marksman but has Pure-Invinsibility cloak more power and speed but only little bit, and also time slow down ability last for 5 minutes (ain't that need to be nerved), (Needs more cause of forgotten memories thinking about this exo fo to long. Damnit), A silenced shotgun and Stunner mode (GUN?) that can be changed or toggled

Destroyer:The Ultimate Weapon From the Dark Age of Technolo-- i mean nothing. It has all of the ability as the last four suits, it has toggleable slow down or a limited time timestop machine(might need to nerf that) an explosive gatling shoulder with a mini rocket launcher, and on the right it has a lock on cannon. and AN UNLIMITED CLOAK? HERES-- nothing