There is a logical explanation for why monsters hear your fists. What would it be?

The above. Anyways, the most logical one I could think of is that monsters can feel even the slightest molecular breeze, and they hate it. That doesn't explain why they can't feel you moving, though.

Maybe monsters are just naturally opposed to violence and anything with violent tendencies (say, quickly moving a balled up fist in their direction) and it throws them into a rage.

I'm just glad that the chainsaw is so quiet and tactful.

Simply, somebody forgot to program in some stealth. If fists were indeed silent, then that'd open up even more gameplay options.

The monsters are sensitive to violent thought impulses that cross Doomguy's mind each time he decides to perform an attack and performs it (= player presses the fire button). Monsters are in fact ignorant to any sounds, even loud or suspicious sounds - they hear them, but cannot be bothered to care about them to leave their idle position. That's why the chainsaw doesn't alert monsters.

I'd like to see a mod where the fists don't alert monsters, and the chainsaw does simply by pulling it out. I'm sure it would be simple enough to do, would such a thing be possible through dehacked/bex editing?

As far as an explanation goes, Doomguy's brass knuckles actually make an incredibly painful high pitched noise that only demons can hear, similar to a dog whistle. They choose to ignore the chainsaw, it's an agreement they all came up with years back. No one really knows why, but they carry it on simply for the sake of tradition.

esselfortium said:

I'm just glad that the chainsaw is so quiet and tactful.

UAC chainsaws are powered by super science and therefore quiet until they are revved. The idle sound and initial start up are just Doomguy imagining sounds through the placebo effect :p [/fanwank]

Doomkid92 said:

I'd like to see a mod where the fists don't alert monsters, and the chainsaw does simply by pulling it out. I'm sure it would be simple enough to do, would such a thing be possible through dehacked/bex editing?

No, because the alert is actually tied to pressing the fire button. Only ZDoom's DECORATE scripts can be used for tricks with alerting / not alerting monsters.

Doomkid92 said:

I'd like to see a mod where the fists don't alert monsters, and the chainsaw does simply by pulling it out. I'm sure it would be simple enough to do, would such a thing be possible through dehacked/bex editing?

That would probably be more desirable behavior. As for dehacked/bex, you could probably use an attack codepointer during the raise state of the chainsaw, but there is nothing that can be done for making the fist not alert monsters.

Strife had a generic codepointer for alerting monsters, typically used by alarms, and alarms themselves were able to be alerted in the same way as monsters. Ironically enough, the punch dagger made a 'whoosh' sound every swing, yet it did not alert monsters in most cases, despite the fist making no sound and still alerting monsters. The only case in which the punch dagger alerted any monsters was if you landed a hit, and Acolytes were in the same sector.

Damn, that would have been very useful for a vanilla compatible stealth oriented Doom wad, something I've thought about for years but just can't figure out any way to execute it properly. I suppose it's an idea that would work better with ZDoom/DECORATE flexibility anyhoo.

Because the fists are like thunder and demand to be heard.

And because the chainsaw growls like the hell-spawn around it and simply goes unnoticed.

Because of the slow ass swing the doomguy throws.

Whats with the two fingers idle frame anyways?

Maybe the brass knuckles have some kind of electronic high frequency device that triggers when you punch. This noise is a t pitch only demons can hear, alerting them to your presence. As for the chainsaw, uh, yah sure, lets go with the growling thing.

Maybe because they can hear him swinging them?
They choose to ignore the chainsaw and choose not to when it changes sound because it sounds like a human using the chainsaw instead of sounding like the chainsaws they used to saw bodies with(they aren't good with chainsaws so they don't know about the stronger noise which sounds new and suspicious)

The effort to swing doomguy's massive hamfists causes him to sweat profusely. The demons smell his man fumes and attack.

Meanwhile, demons are too busy wondering why there is a chainsaw on a planet with no trees to do much about it. The sheer logic of it leaves them baffled. Besides, tech bases are full of random machinery that probably produces tons of random mechanical noise.

Doomkid92 said:

I'd like to see a mod where the fists don't alert monsters

There's one. It's called Strife.

Inkie said:

The effort to swing doomguy's massive hamfists causes him to sweat profusely. The demons smell his man fumes and attack.

Meanwhile, demons are too busy wondering why there is a chainsaw on a planet with no trees to do much about it.

Doomguy has an entire outfit from toes to hair so this isn't a good explanation. The chainsaws were pretty much brought by a bunch of psychoe marines who were to kill people because "It'll be like fucking doom"

Although it's not represented in-game, it is clearly because Doomguy screams "RIP AND TEAR!" every time he punches ;)

Quasar said:

Although it's not represented in-game, it is clearly because Doomguy screams "RIP AND TEAR!" every time he punches ;)

*nods* mmm, mmm, yes, that is probably what does it.

In Wolfenstein (1992), the knife would not alert Nazis when thrusted into air, but would always alert them when hitting someone. In effect, it was useless for stealth, so I guess id did away with this gimmick in Doom.

I would like to think that it's actually because
the Doomguy is yelling "RIP AND TEAR!!!" with every punch. Doomguy doesn't notice because he does it so often, it's like breathing, and we don't hear it because we're seeing the world through his eyes.

Gez said:

There's one. It's called Strife.

That's a knife silly. You can't hear knives. And odds are, it'd probably screw with the whole RPG thing. Shooting a gun in the market alerts Order guards too start spawning, and odds are it wouldn't be fair if you just idly punched the air and had the Order on your back for stabbing mother nature like a bitch.

The punches are so fast they break the sound barrier.

Doominator2 said:

The punches are so fast they break the sound barrier.

Now there's an idea for a mod. All we need is that whip-cracking sound, the Doom palette redone with a sepia tone, and the music replaced with honky-tonk renditions of the original tracks, and lo! Western Doom

If I had the modding capabilities...
EDIT: I may be back...

How do you explain block sound -lines?

ASD said:

How do you explain block sound -lines?

They don't really need explanation, because they're just the engine's imperfect feature to simulate that the "alerting sound" cannot travel at infinite distances. It's imperfect because it's dependant on usage in particular maps, and mappers usually don't bother with them too much.

I meant regarding to the ''fists that anger the demons'' comments.

ASD said:

How do you explain block sound -lines?

With violence coming from all around, their "violence detectors" are blurred and dulled after a certain distance. It would be like using thousands of megaphones miles away. You couldn't pinpoint one specific source.

On another note, maybe your gun doesn't fire bullets. Maybe the monsters are just screaming in frustration because of of such violent tendencies.

That is, until a comrade fires upon them. Then, they become the very evil they sought to destroy...

It's actually a psychological implementation onto the Doomguy himself, wherein he hallucinates the existence of the chainsaw, as the fists, and the fists, as the chainsaw. That's why the passive on the chainsaw remains silent.

My theory, dubbed "UAC Fisting Trauma", is further proven by the experimental berserk packs, where his "fists", or chainsaw in reality, gains 10 fold power - the Doomguy subconsciously remembers how to rev it up and use it properly.

Quasar said:

Although it's not represented in-game, it is clearly because Doomguy screams "RIP AND TEAR!" every time he punches ;)

Either that or some cheesy martial arts film sound effects for every punch... Extra loud, of course :p

BloodyAcid said:

UAC Fisting Trauma

Tell me more.