Freedoom lost soul/hatchling should not be translucent

[Matt]

As of the latest dev build it's not a ghostly skull anymore, but a solid headcrab-like critter.

I'm not sure what the best way to implement this would be - my first thought was to do a replacement in a filter but that seems suboptimal in case any mods were to inherit from "LostSoul".

[Graf Zahl]

IMO the best way would be to finally get rid of the translucent Lost Souls for good. That's just some dumb leftover idea from different times.

[Rachael]

I am on board with this idea.

Of course it might mean getting rid of the whole LostSoulTrans system but there might be mods that actually do use that so simply changing the definition to make lost souls solid might be sufficient.

[Graf Zahl]

Agreed. The whole system is rather pointless, though, all it says is, "it's up to the user to make this item translucent."
Which means that modders cannot take things for granted. The entire idea was flawed in 1999 when it was implemented and the only reason I never touched it was because it has always been there. I personally make Lost Souls non-translucent and wouldn't miss anything if it went away.

[Rachael]

I'll change the definition of the lost souls then. If we want to eliminate the entire lostsoultrans system - I can do that as well, it'll take longer than changing one line of code though

[Nash]

I don't care about the LostSoulTrans system, I won't miss it. ;)

[Enjay]

I must admit, I have always wondered why that existed in the first place. I mean, the monster is mostly bone - which tends not to be translucent (and the alpha souls even left little piles of bone shards when they died (hence, I assume, the "dead lost soul" actor in doom.exe)). Ooh, three levels of parenthesis in one sentence!

From memory, quite a few ports at the time were introducing similar gimmicks - Doom Legacy had a reasonably cunning system (for the time) where the torches had opaque stands but translucent flames. I think, maybe, the lost souls had a similar treatment?

It was certainly an idea from different times - a time when ports were new and Doom features were being experimented with and several "it would be cool if..." ideas appeared (and many then disappeared).

As for this specific feature, I have no personal attachment to it and would neither miss it nor argue for it to be kept. The only concern would be the one Rachael raised: mods depending on it. But, as Graf said, it has always been a user-preference that modders can't rely on anyway.

[Matt]

Now that the change is in I think this thread can be closed.