Jump to content
Search In
  • More options...
Find results that contain...
Find results in...
DeathevokatioN

Killing a Spider Mastermind with one BFG shot

Recommended Posts

Is this possible in all source ports? Because it works in zdoom but I've heard somewhere that you need atleast 2 charges to kill a mastermind with boom? This is all assuming you're right up close, within punching distance of the spider. I'm asking this because a map I'm working on has a combat situation where you have one charge to take out a Spider, and it's perfectly possible to time this shot so that you can charge up the bfg from around the corner and then race towards the spider and blast it before it has a chance at shooting you.

Share this post


Link to post

It seems possible to more or less reliably kill a spider MM in one BFG shot up close in some situations when there's some kind of height difference/movement - lowering floor or something, it's rather specific though.

In normal conditions most of the time it will take two shots.

Share this post


Link to post

Yes, it is possible in vanilla but is much less likely than in Zdoom. This is due to changes made in Zdoom 2.0.51 whereby the program ignores the blockmap for the purpose of the relevant calculation.

http://games.moria.org.uk/doom/research/shooting-through-things

To make it more likely in vanilla (and ports that haven't altered this behaviour), you need to be aiming in a purely north, south, east or west direction, for the SMM to be entirely (or mostly) within a block of the blockmap, and of course to make sure it gets hit with the fireball and a full dose of the BFG tracers.

http://www.doomworld.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=648543#post648543

In that post I put forward the view (based on rough calculations) that from a random angle of attack and with random positioning of the SMM w.r.t. the blockmap, a SMM has about a 3% chance of being killed with one perfectly aimed BFG shot, as opposed to 62% with Zdoom (though I wasn't taking into account Zdoom's different random number generation - empirical testing suggests it doesn't make a big difference to the percentage chance). 62% should be the chance of a one-shot kill in vanilla with the "ideal" conditions I mentioned above.

Anders's post in this thread sheds light on how the vanilla PRNG behaves (and why therefore a one-shot cyberdemon kill is a theoretical impossibility, rather than merely highly unlikely).

Zdoom has recently introduced a compatibility option for this: "use doom code for hitscan checks".

DeathevokatioN said:

I'm asking this because a map I'm working on has a combat situation where you have one charge to take out a Spider, and it's perfectly possible to time this shot so that you can charge up the bfg from around the corner and then race towards the spider and blast it before it has a chance at shooting you.

Not a good idea. In no ports, and not even in ideal conditions, can a one-shot kill ever be guaranteed, as it depends on the random number generator.

Share this post


Link to post

I did it in the XBLA version of Doom on Dis, and got a ridiculously high score for doing so. Definitely in lots of engines

Share this post


Link to post

You could try lowering its hit point total so that one-shot kills are more likely to happen.

Share this post


Link to post

I'd say better forget about the idea. This is so hard to accomplish in anything but ZDoom that it's guaranteed to frustrate the players - which is always a bad thing.

Share this post


Link to post

Thanks for the responses. :)

I'll probably just put four rockets down for incase you can't take it out in a single shot because having enough ammo for two bfg blasts would ruin the ammo balance for the rest of the level I'm making if you're able take it out in one single shot.

Share this post


Link to post

1 BFG shot and 4 rockets won't be enough most of the time, either. When I reintroduced the original hitscan checks I ran some tests and the damage to the Spider from one BFG shot was less than 2000 most of the time.

So, unless you are planning to make your map exclusively for ZDoom I strongly recommend to forget about such nonsense. You will never make it work in an even semi-robust fashion.

Share this post


Link to post

Either way there's still enough super shotgun ammo (20 shells) to take it down even after the rockets. BFG was actually originally placed there to speed up the process as opposed to standing around a corner and taking pot shots. I know my OP was poorly worded, but killing it with 1 shot every single time I tested was surprising so I posted here to find out more about bfg behaviour on other ports so I can take it all into account for ammo balance.

[edit: sorry I didn't see your first post in this thread Graf, I actually agree with you]

Share this post


Link to post

Okay, I just tested it with "use doom code for hitscan checks", thanks Grazza for pointing that out... I'll actually just give 2 bfg blasts for the player to use for on it + rockets and make up for ammo balance with some revenants. ;)

Share this post


Link to post

The first One practical example of killing a Spider Mastermind with a single BFG shot has been documented here. The demo was recorded with prB+ but is fully vanilla-compatible.

Share this post


Link to post

Heh, I just did this a couple of days ago in Plutonia Revisited MAP23 (in Chocolate). I didn't figure it was a totally-freak occurence but I'm used to ZDoom. :P

Share this post


Link to post
Never_Again said:

The first practical example of killing a Spider Mastermind with a single BFG shot has been documented here.

Need to correct this for historical accuracy...

Definitely not the first. Possibly the first was in Doom Done Quicker (released in 2000; recorded in one-map segments, but no TAS features otherwise - E3M8 was recorded by Adam Hegyi), but I'd be surprised if there weren't earlier demos.

Share this post


Link to post
Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×