Scavver's Paradise V3 Beta - A Survival Horror Mod

[Abba Zabba]

The new HUDs look awesome! They remind me of another HUD for another game (something custom,) but I can't remember it. Excellent style and functionality, bars/fills are always a welcome sight. The textured slate gray pattern suits it well.

Would chainsaws be considered for a damage type that gibs husks when downed? Appreciate the extra concessions for disposing of them when they're downed. The amount of times I've had a jump-scare or death from one reviving early in a level and making a pilgrimage allll the way through the corridors and paths of a map just to scratch me is a surprisingly common occurrence.

That new underslung 12ga attachment for that battle rifle is much appreciated. As much as I liked the 'dedicated' shotgun weapons, they ate up quite a bit of space to keep them around, particularly the 20ga streetsweeper. That and, shells, even 12ga, only fall to about mid-tier capability for damage output and ammo conservation, leaving larger and/or faster weaponry to surpass them. Excellent addition.

[CaptainNurbles]

Would chainsaws be considered for a damage type that gibs husks when downed?

Heck I'm a big fan of Hideous Destructor but I'd never considered making the chainsaw able to gib downed enemies to keep 'em from coming back to life. I'll look into doing that, though it will be a fair bit of work since it'd require me making a new damage type just for the chainsaw and then having to rewrite monster resistances to treat it like standard slice damage. Easy, simple, but tedious. Thank Christ I've got a backlog of podcasts to burn through!

[thugsta]

Why not just make the Chainsaw be part of melee damage, so they are all grouped in the same umbrella? it'll be more easy and make sense since it is a melee weapon after all and is in the same slot if i remember correct.

[CaptainNurbles]

Why not just make the Chainsaw be part of melee damage, so they are all grouped in the same umbrella? it'll be more easy and make sense since it is a melee weapon after all and is in the same slot if i remember correct.

Chainsaws utilize the "slash" damage type, which is used by edged melee weapons. I could have it so that all edged weapons could chop up husk corpses, for convenience sake, though make it so that it would require a high enough amount of damage that the chainsaw would be the most useful tool for such.

[thugsta]

Why not just make the Chainsaw be part of melee damage, so they are all grouped in the same umbrella? it'll be more easy and make sense since it is a melee weapon after all and is in the same slot if i remember correct.

Chainsaws utilize the "slash" damage type, which is used by edged melee weapons. I could have it so that all edged weapons could chop up husk corpses, for convenience sake, though make it so that it would require a high enough amount of damage that the chainsaw would be the most useful tool for such.

Yes that sounds like the best bet as it will make more usefulness of keeping a melee of somesort on you to get rid of husks and having to use up some bulk space so it will be great dealing with managing inventory space or risking husks coming back

[CaptainNurbles]

This... I am happy with...

Several, SEVERAL months in the making, I am finally ready to release the 2.0 content update. I have extensively tested it for any bugs, exploits, and issues that have been brought forth from the enormous amount of new content, bug fixes, weapon and armor improvements, item additions, additions to the damage system, new monsters, you get the point. A full changelog is below, and there is so much new and different shit that I had to break it down into different categories to make it easier to read. I do recommend going over it if you're updating from an older version.

Whether you're a new player or a long time fan, I do highly recommend you read over the PDA logs to get familiarized with the new affliction system and to learn how to best counteract them. Don't want to be infected with a demonic parasite and panic not knowing how to cure it!

Not a single surprise that this is gonna break your saves.

I'll do up a basic gameplay video at a later date, this is gonna be a busy weekend for me. Screenshots will come up soon, however!

ALSO I did my best to keep the Credits lump as up to date as I possibly can, BUT it will not surprise me if there are credits that I had simply forgotten to throw in. If I did forget to jot your name down, please let me know and I'll be sure to slap your name into the Credits file and proceed to apologize profusely to the point of annoyance.


DOWNLOAD HERE (Updated 10/2/22)

Changelog:

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GAMEPLAY Changes:
* Afflictions) Take certain damages, receive certain debuffs! Fix with meds, prevent with certain armors. Read over the Afflictions, Meds, and Armor PDA logs for advice on how to treat and prevent these!
* NEW HUD) Painfully done up by my dumb ass who has no idea what he's doing with this crap. Custom HUD armor icons were drawn up by my good friend Filip.
* .357 Speedloaders are now loaded not with custom hotkeys, but on the Ammo Manager. Alt reload swaps between mag manager and speedloading.
* Armor Repairer and Ammo Manager now have a bit of text at the top to help clarify what it is you're actually holding in your hand, to help out first time players and reduce ambiguity.
* Healing effects can now stack, save for saline packs and blood packs.
* Non-healing consumables (pain killers, adrenal boost, antirad pills, zerk stim, void sphere) have a system in place to prevent accidentally using two or more at a time, to prevent accidental wastage. Pain killers can be overdosed, however.
* MODIFIED LOADOUT: Dead Man Walkin') Starts off with low health, a bleeding wound, and a PDA log explaining how you got into this position.
* NEW LOADOUT: Infected) A rush against the clock to cure your parasitic infection. Starts with minimal supplies.
* NEW LOADOUT: Unprepped) Starts with nothing at all, just your fists and your PDA. Functionally identical to previous versions of Dead Man Walkin'.
* Difficulties have been clarified.

ITEM Changes:
* HEV suit has an additional protection against Slime damage (certain damaging floors use this) since new monsters have radioactive projectiles.
* New Armor Type: Imp Leather Coat) Protects from fire and looks damn snazzy!
* New Armor Type: Arcane Robes) Now you see me...
* New Armor Type: Energy Vest) Nearly complete protection against energy-based sources! Good luck with not being able to repair it.
* New Armor Type: Combat Fire Suit) Military Grade Demonic Protection, with added rebreather!
* New Armor Type: Blast Suit) Fuckin' hell, this heavy-ass suit better be worth it.
* Fireproof Armor, Combat Fire Suit, and Marine Armor all have varying resistances against radiation damage.
* Battle Armor is now considered a Tier 5 armor alongside Marine Armor, and now spawns on Megasphere Spawns instead of Blue Armor spawns. Also has a new sprite.
* Marine armor has been modified once more to make it more specialized towards non-physical attacks. Physical protection is comparable to the Combat Armor. New sprite, too.
* Ballistic armors (police vests, security armor, armored fireproof suit, combat armor, battle armor, marine armor) offer better protection against piercing attacks, since ballistic armor is kinda meant to do that.
* Police Vests require 25% battery to repair rather than 30%.
* Fireproof Armor and Marine Armor now have built in rebreathers to supply air to the user. Useless on most maps, but for those with ZDoom map features, can be handy!
* Ballistic-Weave Jacket has slightly better damage resistances against melee and small caliber attacks.
* Gunner loadout now spawns with an imp leather coat.
* Armor can now only be picked up when not wearing armor. The code written for this can be expanded upon later if I decide to make it so that armor can be carried in your inventory.
* NEW ITEM: RegenSphere) Cause hurting is now healing! wut
* NEW ITEM: DrainSphere) Your health is now mine.
* NEW ITEM: ShieldSphere) Great protection, but only for a few hits.
* NEW ITEM: ReflectSphere) Sympathetic pain brought onto others.
* New Sprites for Medigel.
* Backpack has been updated to give 20mm plasma cartridges, 84mm HEAT rockets, 40mm incendiary grenades, and incendiary crossbow bolts.
* HEVSuit exploit has been fixed (Before if you were to wear an HEV suit and then drop the inventory item, you would still have radiation protection as if you were wearing the suit.)
* HEVSuit now slows the player down immensely for a few seconds when putting on or taking off, since it does take time to put a big bulky suit on.

MONSTER Changes:
* Arachnihilator has been removed.
* Forgotten One has been removed.
* Squire has been removed.
* Abaddon has been removed.
* Heavy Revenant has been removed.
* NEW MONSTER: Arachnotwin) Double the gun, double the pain.
* NEW MONSTER: Flying CyberImp) Plasmatic death from above.
* NEW MONSTER: Wraith) Void death from above.
* NEW MONSTER: Plasma Drone) Rapid Delivery of Death.
* NEW MONSTER: Hell Guard) Defensive protector of Hell with a variety of attacks and defenses. Sticky!
* NEW MONSTER: Watcher) Always watching, always seeking, always weakening.
* NEW MONSTER: .45 Stealth Rifle Zombie) Hard to hear, hard hitting, still easy to dispatch.
* NEW MONSTER: Carrier) Better watch out.
* Cacolich flames are now radioactive. Make sure you've got your radiation pills handy!
* Cybruiser's shotgun now has a sound cue to give the player time to avoid it.
* Caco species critters and Mancubi species critters should stop infighting.
* Husk bodies can now be gibbed or burned before they resurrect themselves. You can also now check if a husk is down for the count or not by kicking and checking for blood.
* Cyber Brute's shotgun attack has 3x the delay before firing as well as a sound cue.
* Cyber Brute's rifle attacks ACTUALLY WORK NOW.
* Hybrid in its enraged state is more aggressive and uses projectiles.
* 10mm/4.6mm Pistol Zombies and 12G Pump Shotgunner's 10mm pistol attack damage randomization has been fixed, thus preventing the issues of them being able to nearly one shot players with poor/no armor.
* New sounds for Hell Knight, Baron, Cybruiser, Cyber Baron, Arachnotron, Imp Trite, Archvile, Revenant, Cyberdemon
* Imp Trites are much more aggressive.
* Tortured Soul's projectile and poison clouds now deal Slime damage, same as the radioactive floors.
* Hectebus's projectiles are now radioactive in nature. They are also rarer now as a result, and the projectiles themselves are weaker to compensate.
* Archon of Hell has 500 fewer health points.
* Imp Brawler now has a seldom used super fireball attack.
* When a Husk is down but not out they can be gibbed by slashing attacks.
* 4.6mm Assault Pistol Zombie has new sprites and uses unhelmeted zombie sounds.
* Archon of Hell's big feck off plasma ball has been GREATLY reduced in damage.

WEAPON Changes:
* Recoil has been bosted for several weapons.
* 5.45mm Assault Rifle has new sprites and sounds. Functions the exact same, just looks more distinct from the 5.45mm sniper.
* Handguns have had improvements to sprites and animations. Common themes include being held with both hands and new animations for different reload animations (slide is pulled back on empty reloads.)
* .357 Revolver has more intelligent code for spitting spent casings (before it'd spit out spent casings every time you reload, even if you haven't fired any other bullets since the last time you ejected casings. Now, the revolver only ejects spent casings if there are spent casings in the gun.)
* 10mm Combat Pistol's and 4.6mm Assault Pistol's rates of fire has been boosted slightly.
* 9mm SMG now has a bolt-pull animation on an empty reload.
* Weapons now have more realistic magazine handling. A partial reload will give you a full mag plus one in the chamber, and reloading with an empty mag and one in the chamber allows for slightly faster reloads, depending on the gun. Not all guns will have sped up animations, but it's nice to have that level of weapons handling.
* 7.62mm Battle Rifle's 40mm grenade launcher has been replaced with a 20mm underbarrel cannon. It better be fuckin' worth it, was a RIGHT pain in the ass to code.
* NEW WEAPON: Valhalla Industries DL-45) For the stealth enthusiasts!
* NEW WEAPON: UAC-S4 Shrapnel Cannon) Please don't fry yourself to a crisp.
* REWORKED WEAPON: TazeFist -> PowerFist) Powered Punchy Goodness
* NEW AMMO: 40mm Incendiary) CRISPY FRIED PUNKS.
* Chainsaw no longer pulls the player in towards its target.

BALANCE Changes:
* Armor and Health Bonus spawns have a chance to spawn single-use bandages.
* Medical Item spawners have been rebalanced to better work with the new afflictions system.
* Painkillers can be overdosed now, granting additional protection at a hefty cost. Be careful with them.
* Bandages now take twice as long to heal.
* Armor Repair Batteries, Adrenal Boosts, and Void Spheres are harder to find.
* Vitality Spheres are more common now.
* Cybernetic monsters are now weaker to plasma, laser, shaped, and explosive damages.
* 5.45mm Rifle Zombies are slightly more common.
* Zombie ammo/weapon drop chances have been reduced.
* Zombies with unique weapons (5.56mm Carbine, 4.6mm Pistol/PDW, .45 Magnum, .357 Rifle, etc) have a reduced chance to spawn.
* Chainsaw and PowerFist have expanded battery capacity.
* Sledgehammer swings slightly faster and is slightly stronger.
* BFG12000 "Spewer" has had its damage boosted.
* 7.62mm Battle Rifle's cannon reload rate has been lengthened.
* 40mm Grenade Rifle's reload has been sped up.
* 6.2mm Bullpup Rifle's Grenade Reload has been lengthened.
* 20mm plasma cartridges have been buffed in damage.
* Zombies wielding rare weapons (.45 pistol, 4.6mm PDW, 6.2mm Carbine, etc) are rarer to spawn (A 1/6 chance to spawn instead of 1/5)
* Chainsaw spawns now have a chance to spawn Knuckles and Boots upgrades. Again.
* Crossbow's bolts have had their damage boosted to make the crossbow more useful.
* Standard stimpacks heal 30 HP now instead of 20.

MISC Changes:
* New PDA logs done similarly to the weapon logs: Whatever armor is currently worn will have a PDA log enabled while it is worn on your person. The old armor log is still there for referencing armor you don't own.
* Improvements to the PDA advice log.
* The ACS code for the weapon limiter has had old weapons removed from it.
* Plasma Carbine PDA log is now removed from the PDA when the weapon is dropped.
* 7.62mm Sniper Rifle's PDA log is now removed from the PDA when the weapon is dropped.
* MONSTERS data file has been split up into multiple files for the sake of organization.
* Rad Pills now spawn an empty radiation pill bottle on use instead of painkiller bottle.
* 20mm ammo's caliber has been modified, since 20x150mm rounds would be INSANE to fire in a handheld weapon.
* More rotation frames for medical items.
* 20GDouble's second single-barrel firing sequence now fires 8 pellets instead of 9. How did I mess that up?

[Doomguy914]

Just tried this mod out again after a long break from the previous version. It feels really great so far, but I can't figure out a couple of things.

I can't gib Husks. (Assuming of course the brown imp variant that constantly reanimates is the Husk.)

I can't scroll through the PDA. I tried the mouse wheel, arrow keys, W, A, S, and D. Nothing works. I've checked the control layouts and I could not find anything about PDA scrolling.

I'm using GZDoom 4.7.1 and no other mods at all.

This mod looks and feels really smooth. It's nailed the horror element too. Some monsters genuinely get the jump on ya. I'm just left in the dark due to not being able to read the PDA.

[CaptainNurbles]

I can't gib Husks. (Assuming of course the brown imp variant that constantly reanimates is the Husk.)

So with how it's implemented, the best way to check if a Husk is down for the count is to attack it. If it bleeds and gives you a bit of height if you walk over it, still technically alive. You can burn it with Flame attacks, gib it with anything explosive, void attacks will disintegrate it, and you can chop it apart with edged weapons. Any weapon dealing Slash damage will work, including the knife, machete, axe, and chainsaw, but the chainsaw is the only one that can do the job quickly.

I can't scroll through the PDA. I tried the mouse wheel, arrow keys, W, A, S, and D. Nothing works. I've checked the control layouts and I could not find anything about PDA scrolling.

That's pretty bizarre, actually. It should just work fine by left clicking on the article you want to read and scrolling with the mouse wheel. Clicking on the scroll bar also moves the screen down, but you can't click and drag the bar itself. Sadly, I'm not able to replicate this bug in my own testing.

Apparently Nash, dude who made the PDA template code, updated the PDA starter kit a few months ago, so I'll be looking into implementing that into the mod. I know it'll fix performance issues that have been reported and experienced, but no clue if it'll do much for your scrolling issue D:

[Doomguy914]

That might be the problem then. The mouse becomes unusable once I open up the PDA. No cursor to point where I'm moving and need to click. Are you sure that I have the correct version of GZDoom to run your mod? 4.7.1

As for the husks, I tried the chainsaw, machete etc. No chopping gib visuals or anything. Unless you have to wail on them for a full minute. I think I spent 20 seconds chopping away at one before I gave up.

Despite these issues, the mod is still amazing so far, and vastly improved over the previous version.

[CaptainNurbles]

That might be the problem then. The mouse becomes unusable once I open up the PDA. No cursor to point where I'm moving and need to click. Are you sure that I have the correct version of GZDoom to run your mod? 4.7.1

OH, check Settings -> Mouse Options -> Check that both Enable Mouse and Enable Mouse in Menus are checked to on or touchscreen-like (for the latter option). With either of those turned off the mouse will not work in the PDA.

As for the husks, I tried the chainsaw, machete etc. No chopping gib visuals or anything. Unless you have to wail on them for a full minute. I think I spent 20 seconds chopping away at one before I gave up.

Husks aren't always guaranteed to rise from the grave, it's a random chance based off of manipulating the Husk's inventory. If you chop at them and there aren't blood puffs, that means they're dead for good. If blood does appear though it will take considerable effort to chop it up. Several seconds with the chainsaw, about 30-40 swings of the combat knife after just giving it a go a second ago.

[Doomguy914]

Enable mouse in menus did the trick! It just feels like that's only related to options menus though.

Honestly, I kept messing up my display options and such when I had it enabled. Only reason I ever disabled it.

So do all Husks have the ability to be chopped up, despite not all of them having the ability to get back up?

[CaptainNurbles]

Enable mouse in menus did the trick! It just feels like that's only related to options menus though.

That's because as I understand how the PDA starter kit works (I didn't write it nor do I understand ZScript) it technically is a submenu you could find in the pause menu! Or something like that.

So do all Husks have the ability to be chopped up, despite not all of them having the ability to get back up?

So when a Husk is dormant ready to rise back to life again, it's technically "alive", just with its height and radius shifted down a peg, made to be untargetable by enemies and to not flinch at pain, and given a defensive buff that protects entirely from anything except for Slash, Flame, Shaped, Explosive, and Void damages. If the Husk is 100% truly dead, not going to rise back up, it is functionally dead for good.

[Doomguy914]

Just played all the way through Doom 2 and only noticed 2 bugs.

1. Stripping down an empty weapon for ammo magically gives you 1 full magazine upon scrapping the weapon. (It's random, and works with more than one weapon. I recall getting some shells doing this.)

2. A discarded pain pill bottle spawned on top of a teleport on GOTCHA, (the one that immediately lowers upon teleporting to it,) and the lift didn't work. Had to noclip out of it. Went through the teleporter again and it
worked just fine. Might want to check if there's an option to prevent used items from spawning on teleports. (If that's even what caused the glitch.)

All in all, super polished and fun mod. It's really fun trying to rack your brain in deciding what weapons and consumables you want to take with you into the next engagement. There are only 3 things I can think of that need some adjusting. First would be increasing the recoil with some of the higher-tier weaponry, ( specifically the 20MM cannon variants.) That thing is an absolute monster!

Maybe also some brief slowdown when applying bandages. It would be quite the cumbersome task, especially mid combat. It's kind of funny that I can toss 3 on in the span of 2 seconds, while in a firefight. Perhaps mix the balance around between stimpacks and bandages.

And my third suggestion would be some sort of super sprint that causes the fatigue status effect for brief time. The reason I suggest this, is because of the slowdown you experience when wearing the hazmat suit. I have a feeling the slow down could break custom wad map progression for anything from timed secrets, to timed lifts out of radioactive waste. I suppose if you have enough radiation sickness pills on you, you could try free-balling your way through the sludge, but I wouldn't advise it.

Fair warning: this mod has a slight learning curve, and even once you think you've mastered it, you'll still have moments where you don't know how to go about the next map. It's not as time consuming as HD, but it still makes maps take quite a bit longer. Being brand new to the mechanics, and fudging up here and there, this mod made normal Doom 2 last about 12 hours. It's well worth the time spent though! I can't wait to add some immersion mods and play it with some of my favorite wads!

[CaptainNurbles]

Just played all the way through Doom 2 and only noticed 2 bugs.

1. Stripping down an empty weapon for ammo magically gives you 1 full magazine upon scrapping the weapon. (It's random, and works with more than one weapon. I recall getting some shells doing this.)

That's an issue with me relying on DECORATE for the code here. The bullets in the gun are in the player's inventory, not the gun's, so a gun you drop on the ground is just a simple actor that gives you the gun actor, giving you no ammo at all. If it's a functional weapon, scrapping it gives a full magazine regardless of how much of that gun's bullets you have in your inventory. This can only practically be fixed by switching to ZScript from DECORATE, which allows the weapons to track their own individual inventories. Hideous Destructor does this.

2. A discarded pain pill bottle spawned on top of a teleport on GOTCHA, (the one that immediately lowers upon teleporting to it,) and the lift didn't work. Had to noclip out of it. Went through the teleporter again and it
worked just fine. Might want to check if there's an option to prevent used items from spawning on teleports. (If that's even what caused the glitch.)

Off the top of my head I can't think of why an unusable entity like that would cause the platform trigger to fail to lower, but I'll look into it and see why that may have been!

First would be increasing the recoil with some of the higher-tier weaponry, ( specifically the 20MM cannon variants.) That thing is an absolute monster!

That is something I messed around with a couple days before the 2.0 release, bumping recoil up on several weapons. I may have forgotten the Slot 5/6/7 weapons. Either way I'll likely touch on that again, increasing the heavier guns' recoils while also toying around with increasing the quake effect when firing.

Maybe also some brief slowdown when applying bandages. It would be quite the cumbersome task, especially mid combat. It's kind of funny that I can toss 3 on in the span of 2 seconds, while in a firefight. Perhaps mix the balance around between stimpacks and bandages.

So one thing I was considering was redoing medical even farther than I already have and make all medical items force the player to lower their gun to use. In my head I had it worked out like "Use the Bandage item in your inventory, it pulls up a custom Weapon actor that plays a rough animation to simulate the act of applying a bandage, and once you've used the relevant healing item you can swap back to a gun to continue the carnage." With DECORATE it would be incredibly complicated, tedious, but I think it would be worth it for increasing tension in this survival horror mod. I would want to have the items be animated to some degree, since I feel like I've done a decent job of that with some of the weapon animations I'd done up, but realistically I'll probably just do what Hideous Destructor does and use text and sound cues to simulate the acts.

And my third suggestion would be some sort of super sprint that causes the fatigue status effect for brief time. The reason I suggest this, is because of the slowdown you experience when wearing the hazmat suit. I have a feeling the slow down could break custom wad map progression for anything from timed secrets, to timed lifts out of radioactive waste. I suppose if you have enough radiation sickness pills on you, you could try free-balling your way through the sludge, but I wouldn't advise it.

So far in the 1+ year I've been working on this I haven't had any issues on maps with any kind of speed challenges that weren't issues with human error, with or without the hazmat suit. I'll see about toying around with a super sprint thing, though, since that is an interesting idea! Have your slow speed, a run speed you get with caps lock, and then a speedy sprint with shift that forces you to lower your gun but gives you a major boost for a limited time. I doubt I'd be able to figure out a good way to code that in with my current skillset, but it'll be worth the time spent researching and trying things out!

Do keep in mind the speed boost gained from the adrenal boost! That was originally thrown in to combat that as a possibility on top of just being a nice tool to have for getting out of hairier situations.

[Doomguy914]

I'm definitely liking the ideas you have going forward. While it would be awesome to have animation for specific inventory acts, I'm sure you could make do with text and sound to get the point across.

As for the adrenaline speed boost, that requires you to have found an adrenaline pick-up on the map. Not always a guarantee. I can think of a few megawads that rely on perfect precision timing to just barely reach certain lifts.

I really like the idea of putting your weapons away to apply certain medical items. ( A combat stim can be a quick jab compared to the arduous task of wrapping a bandage, so you still have an option for healing mid-combat.)

I also like the idea of an unarmed version of sprint.

Keep up the great work!