editing a bot/co-op mod, interested in feedback

this was reviewed in /newstuff some time ago, apparently the reviewer thought it could win a dozen cacowards if not for the fact that summoning a few bots can get you through even HR on nightmare. I've cut all bots' health by 80%, so now a single bot can't normally survive a fight with both a spider and cyberdemon, however the pain chance they can inflict is way too high, most monsters don't get a chance to shoot back, so I'd like some feedback on what a more reasonable pain chance would be, I haven't had much experience with this value myself.

I'd recommend, in zdoom, summoning a megasphere, that will give you access to all bots. [ and ] to select bots, enter to spawn them. Here: http://www62.zippyshare.com/v/33211629/file.html is my health-modified version, and below a few screenies to tempt you into playtesting:

Your first link points to Zone 300, is it supposed to be something else?

plums said:

Your first link points to Zone 300, is it supposed to be something else?

Aww, crap. Fixed.

Bumping out of desperation, I haven't found anything online that relates to the chances of a friendly projectile causing a pain state.

Pain chances are per-monster, not per-projectile.

You can, however, use custom damage types for the projectile and give the monster custom damage type-dependent pain chances.

That does mean, however, you'll have to redefine every monster, making your mod incompatible with other monster-changing mods, be they merely cosmetic or gameplay-changing.

Gez said:

Pain chances are per-monster, not per-projectile.

You can, however, use custom damage types for the projectile and give the monster custom damage type-dependent pain chances.

That does mean, however, you'll have to redefine every monster, making your mod incompatible with other monster-changing mods, be they merely cosmetic or gameplay-changing.

Then how was the author able to make a projectile that rendered, say, a baron of hell unable to fight back? I can't find either of these techniques in the DECORATE file (which I'll post here)

Maybe by just having a weapon that fires really rapidly? I don't know, which helper was it? There's a lot and they all seem pretty powerful for damage.

Edit: Yeah I think it's just a really fast rate of fire. A White Nazi SS Captain was able to solo a Spiderdemon easily, because he just shoots so fast.

invictius said:

Then how was the author able to make a projectile that rendered, say, a baron of hell unable to fight back?

There are other methods than pain chances for that! Clever uses of A_RadiusGive and CustomInventory-derived items can achieve a lot of advanced scripting effects.

plums said:

Maybe by just having a weapon that fires really rapidly? I don't know, which helper was it? There's a lot and they all seem pretty powerful for damage.

Edit: Yeah I think it's just a really fast rate of fire. A White Nazi SS Captain was able to solo a Spiderdemon easily, because he just shoots so fast.

Where would I go to change that? this suggests the following, but their example is for player weapons.

 Missile: 
	  PLAR E 1 A_FaceTarget 
	  TNT1 A 0 A_SpawnItem ("CaseSpawn_R", 0, 30,0)
	  TNT1 E 0 A_custommissile("bia_gunflash",30,0) 
      PLAR F 2 Bright A_CustomBulletAttack (3, 3, 1, 8, "BulletPuff")
      PLAR E 1 A_CPosRefire 
      Goto Missile+1 

Bumping so I can be taught to fish vs having one given to me

Longer states means slower animation, shorter states means faster animation.

So increase the state length and they'll have a slower rate of fire.

For example:

PLAR F 2 Bright A_CustomBulletAttack (3, 3, 1, 8, "BulletPuff")

PLAR F 8 Bright A_CustomBulletAttack (3, 3, 1, 8, "BulletPuff")

Gez said:

Longer states means slower animation, shorter states means faster animation.

So increase the state length and they'll have a slower rate of fire.

For example:

PLAR F 2 Bright A_CustomBulletAttack (3, 3, 1, 8, "BulletPuff")

change that to

PLAR F 8 Bright A_CustomBulletAttack (3, 3, 1, 8, "BulletPuff")

You should see the difference quite plainly.

Thanks for your help, just one thing I haven't found explicitly answered, can you use decimal points? One of the NPC's attacks are too frequent when set to 1, but is practically defenseless/dies very easily when set to 2.

No. You cannot use fractions of a tic.

You can give a state a random chance to last either 1 or 2 tics, though. More info