TNT map 27 Mt Pain seemingly limitless lost souls?

TNT Map 27, Mount Pain, is one of my favorite levels of TNT. I was just playing through it and realized that at the end when you're battling on that catwalk around the lava pit, there's seems to be a never-ending supply of lost souls coming from outside. If I camp out and try to kill them all, they eventually start coming less frequently, but never seem to stop.

What's the deal here?

There's either a Pain Elemental somewhere that's out of your view... The level is quite big as it is.

Or maybe you're mistaking it for a small lava structure made of big stairs. It's near the outdoor edges of the map. The stairs seem to be tagged heavily with teleporters. There, a bunch of Lost Souls keep teleporting all over that structure.

There are no pain elementals on MAP27. 42 lost souls on skill 4&5, 32 lost souls on skill 1,2&3.

Oh ok then those were Lost Souls from around the map, but they're clearly not limitless.

Yeah of course they're not limitless, I was just curious where they were all comin from and was too lazy to look into it myself. I was certain the wealth of doom knowledge here could answer it faster than i could figure it out.

Thanks.

So this map breaks the original limit of 21 Lost Souls on Vanilla Doom? I never knew it was possible.

There is no limit to the amount of lost souls you can put in map. The "21 lost souls limit" is how pain elementals can only make lost souls if there are 21 or less already in a map.

That's an interesting nuance to it I guess.

Processingcontrol said:

There is no limit to the amount of lost souls you can put in map. The "21 lost souls limit" is how pain elementals can only make lost souls if there are 21 or less already in a map.

This perhaps being part of the reason there are no pain elementals on this map.

Processingcontrol said:

pain elementals can only make lost souls if there are 21 or less already in a map.

That's out by one. They can only produce a lost soul if there are 20 or fewer. That's why 21 is the limit. If there are 20, they can produce 1. If there are 21, they cannot produce any more.

Actually nobody answered my question about where they're coming from? I can see some teleporter action on one of the structures outside the map which I assume is supposed to be Mount Pain. But what triggers them to start teleporting in and by what mechanism?

I guess it depends on how you play...

The outside area filled with lost souls is connected with the playing area - there are many windows. Once the lost souls see you (they are marked "deaf"), they are awakened and start floating towards the player (some of them are stopped by teleporting linedefs which move them backwards and stay by the "mountain" for a long time. However, because there are more lost souls than teleporter destinations, most of them ignore these teleporting linedefs). Then they join the action using one of many windows. Unless I missed something, the only way they can *teleport* into the playing area is using one of the linedefs surrounding a mancubus (2009-2012).

A lot can be observed by recording a demo and playing it back afterwards (prboom-plus), and either use the automap, press IDDT IDDT to trace the movement of the monsters or switch to camera mode and take a look e.g. at the mountain. Some of the lost souls should stay there "trapped" forever.

vdgg said:

Some of the lost souls should stay there "trapped" forever.

They should, but because of the noclip bug, eventually they emerge.  This is really obvious if you stand around on the exit platform for 20-30 minutes until one jumps across and hits you.

Face23785 said:

That's an interesting nuance to it I guess.

It means for example that you can put 30 lost souls somewhere late in the map, then put a few pain elementals at the start. Player rushes to kill them before they can create a horde of pesky skulls... and eventually notice that the monsters are entirely harmless and useless, so he should have concentrated on some other threat instead.

For my contribution to Caverns of Darkness, map 5, I remember trying to make an endless LS spawner. I used pain elementals behind one-way walls. I'm not sure what structure I designed to get the LS's to spawn, if it was teleporter lines only big enough for LSs, or if it was the area they teleported to being only big enough for LSs. I thought I'd gotten it to work, but looking at the final product it's just lost souls with no PEs. I didn't finish the level and had to pass it on to Chris for completion since I was shipping off to college. I don't remember if I made the change or not.

Face23785 said:

Actually nobody answered my question about where they're coming from? I can see some teleporter action on one of the structures outside the map which I assume is supposed to be Mount Pain. But what triggers them to start teleporting in and by what mechanism?

Looking at it in the editor, with the exception of 3 LS in sector 41, all remaining LS in the map start in the large outdoor section - with most of them starting on the aforementioned lava staircase of teleporting fun.

I'm almost thinking the original intention of that structure was that the LS on it would not get off it, and simply teleport aimlessly around it. And since LS don't count to kill % that's a feasible outcome... a fancy, living decoration :o)