No More Hitscans [GZDoom 4.14]

[Jekyll Grim Payne]

This mod requires GZDoom 4.14 because it relies on new ZScript features that are only available in this version. Cannot be made compatible with earlier releases.

Note: this is WIP. I'm still pushing updates from time to time. That's why there's also no separate release on the Releases page.

No More Hitscans is a universal minimod that replaces all monster hitscan attacks with projectiles. This does not rely on replacing bullet puffs or any other tricks, thanks to the new WorldHitscanPreFired event. Use this if you don't like hitscans, or want to play with a weapon mod that doesn't offer a lot of hitscan options to the player, for balance purposes.

Download: https://github.com/jekyllgrim/NoMoreHit ... s/main.zip (This archive contains the mod's repository. Just add it to your load order as usual, no need to unpack. You can change the extension to .pk3 if you like.)

This mod is not just cosmetic: these replacement projectiles carefully recreate the behavior of the original attack in such a way that the only change is visuals and travel time (see below).

Features:

• Hitscan bullets are replaced with visible bullets that have travel time. These bullets follow the original attack's path precisely.
• Adjustable bullet speed in mod options.
• Adjustable opacity of tracer models (set to 0.0 if you want them invisible).
• Just like hitscans, these bullets do not have size. Collision is realized with the LineTracer class, and does not rely on default projectile collision.
• Bullets will inherit and respect features of the puffs used by the original attack, such as various collision flags (ALLOWTHRUFLAGS/THRUSPECIES/THRUGHOST), damage type, the puff's DoSpecialDamage override, if one is used, and others. There may be some odd cases with highly customized hitscans that use a lot of flags and custom puffs which won't work properly, but generally it should cover all regular cases.
• Bullets will spawn puffs/blood, as well as produce blood and puff decals like the original hitscans.

In the future I plan to add more visual options for the projectiles.

[Shadez12]

Is it possible to make it affect the player as well?

[Jekyll Grim Payne]

Is it possible to make it affect the player as well?

Sure, but I'm not sure this really fits the scope of the mod, considering this is meant as a balancing tool, while with player weapons the modder has full control over them. It also won't look very good because the tracer will originate from your eyes, disregarding the position of the gun's sprite. Overall I don't really think it'd be particularly useful. The WorldHitScanPreFired wiki page shows how to do it.

[krokots]

This will surely go to every mod pack I'll play. Super simple & super useful!

[cosmos10040]

Wow seems to work with drla monsters! Great job!

[Shatter-Thought[V-4]]

This looks amazing, especially with the options for choosing bullet speed. I appreciate they act like hitscans so it doesn't completely nerf bullets in decor-heavy areas with stalagmites, light sources etc.

I am going to use this with the tougher enemy packs I have to see if it can make them more maneagable and fun.

Thank you!

[dawnbreez]

Holy shit, finally! I've been hoping for a way to get a hitscan's damage since I first tried my hand at universal hitscan replacements with BulletZ.

[Enjay]

This is very nicely done. I've tried it with a few mods - some of which contain some enemies that are really quite different to the Doom originals, and it seems to have handles them all very nicely.

I noticed some truncation of floating point warnings when I loaded the mod:

Code: Select all

Script warning, "NoMoreHitscans-main.zip:zscript.zs" line 144:
Truncation of floating point value
Script warning, "NoMoreHitscans-main.zip:zscript.zs" line 194:
Truncation of floating point value
Script warning, "NoMoreHitscans-main.zip:zscript.zs" line 217:
Truncation of floating point value
3 warnings while parsing scripts

And I have a few questions of I may.

Although I have played with it quite a bit just in a testing kind of way - and not "in anger", I haven't quite figured this one out: how much difference does it make to gameplay? The mod does an excellent job of recreating the hitscan attacks of enemies; so much so that (aside from the tracers) I can't really tell that enemies are not using hitscans. Can someone who has played with it a bit more give their impression of how much it changes/improves gameplay? Does it help with dodging, for example, or anything else? Are there any down-sides that anyone has noticed?

For the vast majority of reasonable/human sized enemies, the tracers come from the correct place and look great. However, in order to make some big enemies, or some very short enemies, or enemies that have their weapon visually off to one side, they may have been set up so that their attack originates from somewhere different to where it appears to. With invisible hitscans, this isn't a problem. The player just assumes that the attack is coming from wherever their muzzle flash (or whatever) appears. With tracers enabled, it becomes obvious that the attack is coming from somewhere else. Even the Doom SpiderMastermind sufferers from this a little bit (not too bad).

---

However, in the vast majority of cases, the tracers look great. So, I was wondering if there could be any way to exclude certain enemies from showing tracers, without disabling them for all enemies?

In a similar vein, I played one mod where one of the enemies had a bright blue muzzle flash when they fired, but the others used a more typical yellow/orange one. The yellow tracers looked a bit odd coming from a weapon that gave off a blue flash when it fired. Again, is there a way that an enemy could be flagged to use a different colour of tracer?


Ideally, for the last two questions, it would be great if the mod supported some kind of list lump where enemies that should have invisible (or altered) translucency levels for their tracers could be specified, and a separate section for tracer colours. That would allow people to make mod-specific configuration files for this mod. However, if that wasn't doable, then even something like "if an enemy has this flag/this inventory item, then do not draw tracers" could allow modders to explicitly exclude individual enemy types from having the visual effects.

The above is merely a suggestion and by no means a demand. It would be great if it could be included, but if there is no appetite for doing it, that's cool. No expectations. It's a great mod regardless.

[Someone64]

It seems that actors that use +DONTHARMSPECIES and then use the Player species to do this (so in my case, DRPG Summoned Friendly Marines) will hit you with friendly fire if you're using this mod.

[Gollgagh]

It seems that actors that use +DONTHARMSPECIES and then use the Player species to do this (so in my case, DRPG Summoned Friendly Marines) will hit you with friendly fire if you're using this mod.

I was noticing this as well with some other companion mods. Is there any kind of workaround that you've been able to find?

[Someone64]

Although I have played with it quite a bit just in a testing kind of way - and not "in anger", I haven't quite figured this one out: how much difference does it make to gameplay? The mod does an excellent job of recreating the hitscan attacks of enemies; so much so that (aside from the tracers) I can't really tell that enemies are not using hitscans. Can someone who has played with it a bit more give their impression of how much it changes/improves gameplay? Does it help with dodging, for example, or anything else? Are there any down-sides that anyone has noticed?

Besides the bug report I sent, I haven't seen any downsides besides visual consistency. The answer to how it affects balance varies greatly since the mod has settings for projectile speed and maps are of various sizes. From experience, if you strafe from a far enough distance and set the enemy projectile speed low enough (the default is pretty slow so I even upped it), you'll dodge a lot of shots. I actually had an issue where even in Doom 1's small maps, my allied marine who uses hitscans kept missing shots because the monsters were dodging them from just moving a bit at default projectile speed, which is why I had to turn the speed setting up. There are also plenty of Doom maps where the distances are very high and this helps greatly when a monster mod that uses horrible, evil, ultra accurate minigunners in place of chaingunners becomes an issue in open maps and this mod actually allows you to avoid that.

The visuals alone make a gameplay difference as the additional visual feedback allows you to tell where gunshots are coming from more easily than sound alone. If you're playing in a bigger map or things are just getting noisy and especially when you're not using a damage direction overlay mod, this mod helps greatly in allowing you to pinpoint where bullets are coming from. I think Project Brutality does this but only cosmetically (the bullets are actually hitscan but it shows tracer visuals, which makes it a bit confusing when you dodge them but get hit before the bullet arrives lol) and I noticed it helping gameplay in this way even then. I'd actually love to see a version of this mod that does the same thing as PB where the hitscans can be set to only be cosmetic.

EDIT: Correction... the cosmetic hitscans are the player's own projectiles. The enemies use real tracers. Oops.

[Enjay]

Thanks for the info. That certainly helps.