I call upon the Doom Community once again.

Openprojects.net. It's the IRC channel where many doomworld people go to chat about open projects, doom and basically whatever doomers and computer geeks feel like talking about. I like the idea of open projects. I've been trying to start my own open project but it's been slow to go. Two people showed enthusiasm so far and started working on it independently but I'm hoping more people will take a stab at this project. The project idea is to modify the plasma gun in the hope to improve DM fights as well as SP play.

Herein contains my ideas for converting the Plasma Rifle into a satisfying alternative to the Plasma Gun: a high powered Laser Rifle.

Let's talk about the graphics first. Instead of blue balls of plasma I'm envisioning flat, wide, glassy blue lasers of the same width and color as plasma. Thus the ammo would be of the same size and the value would not need to be changed. I was thinking the speed at which these lasers would travel through the air would be much faster, possibly 2.7 times faster. (I only have an idea of how fast that is. Extensive testing of the new weapon will be needed to get all the values just right.) The Laser Rifle should be rapid fire like the plasma but not quite as fast. The rate of fire oughta be reduced by about 30% (again, this is a tentative value. Extensive testing will be needed.) Damage by the lasers should either be unchanged or reduced to a value no less than 50% more than bullets. The weapon shouldn't be able to discharge for long periods of time. It's a very powerful, high energy weapon. Thus it should get exhausted quickly. Small ammo should hold 6 lasers and large ammo should hold 30. (Remember, in DM on skill 5 that would be 12, and 60 respectively)Maximum ammo capacity for the weapon should be 100 without backpack and 200 with backpack.

As you already know, I would have already finished making this gun myself by now if I could. My computer won't run DeHackEd. If anyone sees this weapon idea as a satisfying alternative to the plasma rifle, and has the means to make it, please consider taking on this project. Thank you.

Try DDF. It's surprisingly easy to edit.

i like zdooms railgun allot.

Third post!

* F L A S H B A C K ' D *

Why should we do your work for you?

Because, like I said, I cannot use DeHackEd with windows XP. Doesn't run. But I'll try DDF.

Hellbent said:

Because, like I said, I cannot use DeHackEd with windows XP.

Yeah that makes a lot of sense.

Seek for the person whoever modified/created the railgun for Zdoom version to give you a hand.

Seek for the person whoever modified/created the railgun for Zdoom version to give you a hand.

Hey, that's a good idea. Thanks. So who would that person be?

Jeez, DDF would be easier to do this with, f00l!

bigbadgangsta said:

Jeez, DDF would be easier to do this with, f00l!

Posts: 5082

Um...wtf was the point of quoting what I said and then quoting my postcount?

Someone else [ViolentLiverStuka!] just did the weapon properties for me. (It only takes about 5 minutes to do) He used DeHackEd to do it. However he is telling me he cannot increase the velocity of the projectiles without losing accuracy! Is there any way around this? I really want the lasers to travel fast. At least 2.5 times faster than the current plasma. Will the DDF program be able to do this? BTW, where do I get this DDF editor you guys speak of?

Thanks for the replies thus far guys. And thanks for not deleting this post Ling or whoever deleted my last post.

Hellbent said:

Someone else just did the weapon properties for me. (It only takes abuot 5 minutes to do) However he is telling me he cannot increase the velocity of the projectiles without losing accuracy! Is there any way around this? I really want the lasers to travel fast. At least 2.5 times faster than the current plasma. Will the DDF program be able to do this? BTW, where do I get this DDF editor you speak of Deadnail?

Thanks for the replies thus far guys. And thanks for not deleting this post Ling or whoever deleted my last post.

Um...dude...you can edit DDF with notepad or word...

Um...dude...you can edit DDF with notepad or word...

Ok.... but how? I open up Word... then what?

ROFL, Word

EDGE.

Quick question, how exactly does this project have anything whatsoever to do with openprojects.net?

Download Edge from that link Slayer did a few posts up. Naturally you'll want the Windows version. 1.27.

Give it a folder and an iwad.

A zipfile comes with Edge, pure uncut DDF. Unzip it to a subfolder in your Edge folder. Name this folder CUNT or whatever the hell your mod is about.

Inside the CUNT you'll find a lot of fun things that may seem complicated at first but will soon be your closest friend.

All of the files in there are plain text. Double click them and tell Windows to always open them with Notepad. The exception is the .scr file, you can still open it with Notepad, but that controls the hardcoded scripts (like the walls coming down on Dead Simple) so you should just leave it the fuck alone. Don't try to understand the CUNT all at once, stay focused.

The ATTACKS.DDF file is naturally all the attacks, both yours and the enemies. You can read through it and find [PLAYER_PLASMA] and edit it accordingly. It's remarkably simple to do some of the things you want, some of the others might require a bit of practice.

The player (ammo count, speed, that fun stuff) info is in THINGS.DDF. WEAPONS.DDF controls your firing speeds, ammo consumption, much more than I'm willing to go into.

At the top of every DDF is a link, that'll take you to the Edge homepage and it has an online DDF reference that you can read through and it's full of dandy information.

Have fun with your CUNT folder.

I would've said directory all those times... but folder just sounded better.

DDF isn't a program, it's a format... Doom Definition File.



Oh yeah, here's how you use it =P


C:\DOOM\EDGE\gledge32 -iwad ..\doom2.wad -ddf CUNT

Edge comes in a zip. Inside that zip is Edge and a second zipfile that has the Doom Definition Files for you to edit. Hang onto that, you'll probably end up making a lot of quick little Edge mods.

Unzip "edge_ddf_37.zip" to it's own subfolder of Edge. Then you just use the -ddf DIRECTORY command to have Edge load those files.

Feel free to screw around, like making the normal shotgun fire 400 pellets or something. =)

DDF = edge specific => teh suck

Quick question, how exactly does this project have anything whatsoever to do with openprojects.net?

Ummm... It doesn't. I had to come up with some way to prevent the post from getting deleted again.

Deadnail: Thanks for the low down on the DDF files. You're right, sounds easy to do, but as Erik pointed out, means the weapon will only work for Edge. :(

Oh, does anyone know if I will be able to have plasma projectiles that travel 2.7 times faster than the current plasma? Is this a limitation of DOOM? Does EDGE get around this limitation?

How to make EDGE's graphics as close to normal DOOM as possible? The main thing about the in game graphics that I want changed is the fading effect. Everything gets fuzzy in the distance.

Also, I'm having trouble seeing how to change the speed at which the weapon dispenses ammo. And is there no way to test my weapon against bots? 'addbot' is not a valid in game console command.

I like the changes to the plasma thus far. Still need to lower the rate of fire though. This weapon is way too powerful the way it is now. Thanks again for the help Deadnail.

Hellbent said:

Oh, does anyone know if I will be able to have plasma projectiles that travel 2.7 times faster than the current plasma? Is this a limitation of DOOM? Does EDGE get around this limitation?

You can set the speed of projectiles in the attacks.ddf files. Editing should really been done in Notepad.

Best place to go for stuff on DDF is the EDGE forum page:
http://sourceforge.net/forum/?group_id=2232

Also there is a fair bit of docs for EDGE here:
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=2232

Hellbent said:
How to make EDGE's graphics as close to normal DOOM as possible? The main thing about the in game graphics that I want changed is the fading effect. Everything gets fuzzy in the distance.

Um...the reason why everything is fuzzy is because the mipmapping is on...turn it off if you don't like it.

Also, I'm having trouble seeing how to change the speed at which the weapon dispenses ammo. And is there no way to test my weapon against bots? 'addbot' is not a valid in game console command.

Whatever the rate of fire the weapon has, the ammo will go just as fast. There is a way to add bots in EDGE, but I forgot...I think it is in the readme

I like the changes to the plasma thus far. Still need to lower the rate of fire though. This weapon is way too powerful the way it is now. Thanks again for the help Deadnail.

OH NO! YOU CAPATALIZED THE D!!!!!

OH NO! YOU CAPATALIZED THE D!!!!!

Woops, sorry deadnail.

I didn't understand that last bit about the rate of fire bbg. The chaingun, for example fires about 4 bullets per second. I want it to fire 5 bullets a second.

[CHAINGUN]
AMMOTYPE=BULLETS;
AMMOPERSHOT=1;
AUTOMATIC=TRUE;
REFIRE_INACCURATE=TRUE;
BINDKEY=4;
PRIORITY=5;
ATTACK=PLAYER_CHAINGUN;
KICK=0.02;
STATES(UP)=CHGG:A:1:NORMAL:RAISE;
STATES(DOWN)=CHGG:A:1:NORMAL:LOWER;
STATES(READY)=CHGG:A:1:NORMAL:READY;
STATES(ATTACK)=CHGG:A:4:NORMAL:SHOOT,
               CHGG:B:4:NORMAL:SHOOT,
               CHGG:B:0:NORMAL:REFIRE;
STATES(FLASH)=CHGF:A:0:BRIGHT:TRANS_SET(50%),
              CHGF:A:5:BRIGHT:LIGHT1,
              CHGF:B:5:BRIGHT:LIGHT2,
              CHGF:B:0:NORMAL:LIGHT0,
              #REMOVE;

Okay see that? That is from WEAPONS.DDF.

Look at the states.

STATES(ATTACK)=CHGG:A:4:NORMAL:SHOOT,
CHGG:B:4:NORMAL:SHOOT,
CHGG:B:0:NORMAL:REFIRE;

CHGG is the name of the animation. The second letter is the number of the animation. The 4, 4 and 0? That's the number of gametics the frame is displayed. There are 35 gametics per second in Doom.

Hence, to put a full second delay on each shot you'd crank them way up. To make it fire faster, try changing each 4 to a 3. See how much faster that makes it.