Vanilla death events

Someone said they're hard coded into the game, which I get, but is there a way to put the feature on maps that don't support this? I wanna do some Vanilla mapping, and while I may not even use it, it's good to know.

Yes, there are ways to do it; but no, none of them are vanilla-compatible.

Maybe tag stuff 666 or 667 or whatever the magic number is? I don't know if it's restricted to certain levels or not.

The Commander Keen and Romero Head effects will work on any level.

That's the extent of it. Killing barons only work on E1M8, cybers on E2M8 and E4M6, spiders on E3M8 and E4M8, mancubus and arachnotrons on MAP07.

You can use dehacked to transfer the Keen death codepointer to another monster. Then when all monsters of that type are dead, sectors with tag 666 will open as a door. Works on all maps.

You can also transfer the Boss Brain codepointer to other monsters. Then when any monster of that type is killed, the level ends. You can also give this codepointer to other events, so that certain pickups cause the level to end. But you need to be a little careful, because there are some differences between Boom and vanilla in the way that works; IIRC in vanilla the action will only occur if that frame already had some action associated with it - i.e. you can replace actions, but you can't add completely new ones to a frame.

Regarding the ExM8 restrictions (i.e. checks for the specific monster), they were only added in Ultimate Doom. So if you force Registered Doom behaviour, then you have more flexibility with these actions on those maps.

Grazza said:

IIRC in vanilla the action will only occur if that frame already had some action associated with it - i.e. you can replace actions, but you can't add completely new ones to a frame.

That's the assumption DeHackEd made, but it was not warranted AFAIK. There is no table of which state have an associated action and which don't, there is just a table of states which all have an associated action (which might be NULL, in which case nothing happens).

Yeah, but...


where is the tool that can apply patches with code pointers in states that originally have none...?

You're making me want to program a DeHackEd derivative that can do that too. Then later release some vanilla Doom mods that require that patch, and if run without, quit with a "missing whatever" error, hopefully in Boom too. And to continue releasing such mods, until the patch format becomes significant. In any case, someone (/newstuff) will play those mods, and if they're any good, more people'll want to play it and have no choice but to download the DeHackEd derivative (which will be maintained if I get emails that "it doesn't work"). And I'll place a "you may NOT" clause in the mod text for good measure, so you don't start ZDoomifying it and/or removing the need for the special patch.

Anything is worth it if it leads to playing something based directly on vanilla Doom.exe, which is real Doom.

If you feel you might be up for this, why not start a thread with a title such as "Modified DeHackEd: Feature Suggestions", where people can suggest things that could be added? We have a much better idea nowadays of what might be tweakable in the Doom engine, so there might be considerable scope for altering things.

Of course, it would be up to you what, if anything, you implemented, and in any case the suggestions could be useful for anyone else who wished to take this on.

I'd suggest not making this some kind of "you must use vanilla" crusade though. Just provide some nice options, and people will find a use for it.

Agreed, I'd be the first in line to use such a software if available. Go ahead printz!

Which is better for this, DeHackEd or WhackEd2? (No bias reasoning, please)

If you want to apply a patch to a vanilla exe, then you can only do this with DeHackEd.

Whacked is somewhat more user-friendly (arguably; personally I find DeHackEd simpler, but that's probably due to greater familiarity), and can be used to make Boom-format bex patches, which you cannot make with DeHackEd.

If you simply want to make a "vanilla" deh patch, then there are some pitfalls with Whacked, since if you choose the wrong options, you can end up with a patch in a format that DeHackEd can't apply. But if you know what you are doing, then either can be used to make a dehacked patch, and there isn't an enormous difference in functionality in this respect. Neither is completely simple to use without prior knowledge or learning, or some experimentation to get a feel for how things work.

Note that in order to use DeHackEd at all, you need a copy of the DOS exe, though that can be obtained from the shareware Doom (shareware Doom.exe 1.9 = Doom2.exe), in case you bought a more recent version of Doom that didn't come with it.

Unbiased enough for you?

Grazza said:

If you feel you might be up for this, why not start a thread with a title such as "Modified DeHackEd: Feature Suggestions", where people can suggest things that could be added? We have a much better idea nowadays of what might be tweakable in the Doom engine, so there might be considerable scope for altering things.

Because I know that the idea can have only technical interest and would be more welcome if the source code of game's mechanics wasn't already available.