Which projectile travels faster: BFG or Plasma gun?

Or do they both travel at the same speed? I was messing around with those two just today and it suddenly occurred to me to wonder which traveled faster. And then it occurred to me that I couldn't actually tell one way or the other.

Obviously the Plasma shot will get to its destination quicker seeing as the BFG has a charge-up time, but I am purely talking about the relative 'airspeed' here.

They both move at 25 units (or 25*FRACUNIT). So neither the BFGBall or PlasmaBall is faster.

Surprisingly (for me, at least), the wiki gives their velocity as equal, at 25 map units per tic. I never noticed, and wouldn't be able to tell that. The ball's size is deceiving O_o

Well the bfg projectiles size probably balances out with its higher amount of power than the plasma projectile.

How about the Rocket? 25 units as well?

Also, I was always in doubt, of which weapon killed the non-splash damage takers (Cybie/Spider Mastermind) faster, the rocket or the Plasma?

Rizera said:

How about the Rocket? 25 units as well?

20.

20 map units per tic? No wonder doomguy regularly outruns them, can't he run like 50 per tic?

He can outrun rockets but not plasma/bfg, unless wallrunning.

Rizera said:

Also, I was always in doubt, of which weapon killed the non-splash damage takers (Cybie/Spider Mastermind) faster, the rocket or the Plasma?

wepsvcybspd.zip

TimeOfDeath said:

wepsvcybspd.zip

Thanks a lot for making these wads!! Now I got the answer. :)

TimeOfDeath said:

He can outrun rockets but not plasma/bfg, unless wallrunning.


wepsvcybspd.zip

Wallrunning allows you to outrun plasma and BFG shots? Whoah. T.I.L...

TimeOfDeath said:

He can outrun rockets but not plasma/bfg, unless wallrunning.

Yeah, but even rocket outrunning requires doing the SR-40 trick.

Nomad said:

20 map units per tic? No wonder doomguy regularly outruns them, can't he run like 50 per tic?

Not really.

• Running: 16.666 mu/tic
  
• Walking: 8.333 mu/tic
  
• Strafe-running: 13.333 mu/tic
  
• Strafe-walking: 7.9999 mu/tic
  
• SR-40 effective: 21.34 mu/tic
  
• Wallrunning: ~30 mu/tic(CAPPED BY MAXMOVE)
  

Maes said:

Wallrunning: ~30 mu/tic(CAPPED BY MAXMOVE)
[/list]

I've gone faster than that wallrunning.

GhostlyDeath said:

I've gone faster than that wallrunning.

Not in a unmodified port implementing the vanilla mechanics, you didn't. There's an active speed capping imposed by the MAXMOVE constant (30* FRACUNIT) in P_XYMovement, so even if you force Doomguy's speed to exceed that limit somehow (by forcing momx/momy), it will not actually be applied but instead be capped before even applying damping or friction.

If there's another mechanism in place that can affect doomguy's position that does NOT pass through P_XYMovement (other than teleporting), I am not aware of it.

But don't take my word for it. As a source port author yourself, you could implement a speed-o-meter and measure the effective map speed yourself (not just the momentary impulse values assigned to momx/momy).

Edit: looking at P_XYMovement again, I realized that the caps only apply to each direction separately, so it's possible to get an effective 42.2 mu/tic if you manage to wallrun at a perfect 45 degree angle...but wallrunning is very hard to trigger on non 0 or 90 degree walls. Or at least I didn't have a chance to test that when I took the measurements: running along 0 and 90 degree walls was capped to 30 mu/tic.

In this post I referenced a demo featuring a running speed of 40 units per tic when "thing running" along the west->east axis. I don't think this is particularly unusual (the speed boost when wallrunning compared to normal strafe-50 - i.e. 23 upgt - feels very large) - it's just something I could reference without additional research.

If you're right about the 30 upgt cap, it might relate just to the player's movement (forward and sideways), and not the map axes. For further empirical testing, I'd suggest Looper's recent built demos (such as this one). If nothing he does there produces a speed of more than 42 upgt, then that would be rather suggestive.

Grazza said:

In this post I referenced a demo featuring a running speed of 40 units per tic when "thing running" along the west->east axis. I don't think this is particularly unusual (the speed boost when wallrunning compared to normal strafe-50 - i.e. 23 upgt - feels very large) - it's just something I could reference without additional research)

Thing running is much faster than wall running and is usually much easier to perform. Especially in Coop situations, you can thing run off another Doomer, in fact both Doomers can do so at the same time. So you could probably beat MAP01 in maybe 4 seconds doing this.

Maes said:

Not in a unmodified port implementing the vanilla mechanics, you didn't. There's an active speed capping imposed by the MAXMOVE constant (30* FRACUNIT) in P_XYMovement, so even if you force Doomguy's speed to exceed that limit somehow (by forcing momx/momy), it will not actually be applied but instead be capped before even applying damping or friction.

In an unmodified port implementing the vanilla mechanics, yes I did.

Also, I measured actual distance between tics rather than momentums, but only on a two dimensional plane.

Grazza said:

If you're right about the 30 upgt cap, it might relate just to the player's movement (forward and sideways), and not the map axes.

Well, it's hardcoded and out there for public scrutiny :-p

However, it applies only to the x and y axes separately -not to their vector sum, which, per-se, is uncapped. However, its contituents momx/momy are not.

If you perform a "vanilla" wallrun accross a perfectly N/S or W/E wall, then only one of the axes will be activated significantly, hence the 30 mu/tic cap I measured. If there's a slope, then both axes can be activated, with a maximum possible vector sum of ca. 42.2 mu/tic.

This is also the reason why -among others- Doomguy can't reach the "nominal" impulse speed of 50 mu/tic.

GhostlyDeath said:

In an unmodified port implementing the vanilla mechanics, yes I did.

Also, I measured actual distance between tics rather than momentums, but only on a two dimensional plane.

I think I addressed those points in my edit. The individual momx/momy components are still capped at 30 mu/tics, and while their vector sum can reach 42.2 mu/tics, in theory the places where this would be possible should be few and far between (executing a perfect wallrun on a wall with a 45 degree y/x slope). Wallrunning strictly on one of the x or y axis would result in the single component 30 mu/tic cap.

My measurements also came from distance (x-y) euclidean measurements but as I said, I didn't exactly push the wallrunning scenarios. In the few places in IWADs where I know it's possible (e.g. MAP01 corridor, E2M8 perimeter) it never went beyond 30 mu/tic.

GhostlyDeath said:

Thing running is much faster than wall running and is usually much easier to perform.

I know you mean wallrunning against a solid wall, but wall running against an impassible 2-sided line gives the same effect as thingrunning, right?

In Looper's demo that Grazza referenced both Indigo and Red achieve 60mu/tic on MAP30.
High speeds (>32mu/tic) are also necessary to be able to run through blocking lines / solid walls.

marineController said:

In Looper's demo that Grazza referenced both Indigo and Red achieve 60mu/tic on MAP30.

Can you provide a measurement procedure/actual speed logging for that or explain how such a speed could be achieved through Doom's movement routines? Speed per axis can't exceed 30 mu/tics, even if their vector sum can, but of course even this DOES puts an absolute top cap of 42 mu/tic.

Unless you count teleporting...that can be up to 32k mu/tic fast in every direction ;-)

Maybe techniques such as gliding or pathological map geometry can run afoul of P_XYMovement's checks and bypass the MAXMOVE limit?

xdre outputs speed/momentum/coordinate values, check map30 in that demo around tic 22250 to witness speed 60. Map29 start is good as well (42+ along one axis), there could be more examples. Map29 utilizes wall wobble trick to build up speed and then uses buddyrunning (wallrunning off the other player while he's wallrunning off you).
And seems like it only can be done in coop? Normal wallrunning essentially doubles your speed, and probably buddyrunning throws in another doubling factor as well.