What about the Mars base?

The Manual said:

THE STORY SO FAR

You're a marine, one of Earth's toughest, hardened in
combat and trained for action. Three years ago, you
assaulted a superior officer for ordering his soldiers to
fire upon civilians. He and his body cast were shipped to
Pearl Harbor, while you were transferred to Mars, home of
the Union Aerospace Corporation.

The UAC is a multi-planetary conglomerate with
radioactive waste facilities on Mars and its two moons,
Phobos and Deimos. With no action for fifty million miles,
your day consisted of suckin' dust and watchin' restricted
flicks in the rec room.

...

A few hours ago, Mars received a garbled message from
Phobos. "We require immediate military support. Something
fraggin' evil is coming out of the Gateways! Computer
systems have gone berserk!" The rest was incoherent. Soon
afterwards, Deimos simply vanished from the sky. Since
then, attempts to establish contact with either moon have
been unsuccessful.

Okay, so there's a base on Mars that presumably still had people on it after the Marine's unit left for Phobos and the only reason no one was communicating back from the moon base was because everyone there was dead.

So...was the Marine's buddies the only troops in the entire sector? Did he not think to contact the Mars base and inform them of the situation or call for backup? Was the radio equipment destroyed? Furthermore, wouldn't the people on Mars, having lost radio contact with the Marines that were sent in, send backup or call for help from outside sources? Did the Mars base get overrun after the Marines left and there's an entire installation in the classic Doom universe that has been left unchecked and abandoned filled with unimaginable horrors?

Or am I not the first one to notice this strange inconsistency in the story? Is there a WAD file in the archives that deals with this exact scenario I'm not aware of? Yes, I know plot isn't a big element in Doom but it was something I thought of randomly and thought would be fun to share. You can correct me if I was wrong. :D

Johnatone said:

So...was the Marine's buddies the only troops in the entire sector?

Yes. It says so in literally the very next sentence after the snippet you quoted: "You and your buddies, the only combat troop for fifty million miles were sent up pronto to Phobos."

Johnatone said:

Did he not think to contact the Mars base and inform them of the situation or call for backup? Was the radio equipment destroyed? Furthermore, wouldn't the people on Mars, having lost radio contact with the Marines that were sent in, send backup or call for help from outside sources?

It's usually sci-fi writers who have no sense of scale, not the readers. Fifty million miles is a huge distance. It would take more than 5 minutes just for a distress call to reach Earth. If Earth tried to contact the Mars base, it would take them another 10 minutes to realise they weren't responding. At constant 3 g acceleration (the maximum that could be survived for an extended period of time), it would take 9 hours for reinforcements to arrive on Mars, though that would require nearly a million metres/second of delta-V, which is only barely possible with a fusion drive. Any conventional propulsion technology will be at least two orders of magnitude slower (reinforcements will take over a month to get there).

Also keep in mind that fifty million miles is actually about as close as Mars ever gets to Earth. Depending on where Earth and Mars are in their respective orbits, the distance might be up to five times greater. The marines are actually lucky that reinforcements aren't even further away.

Johnatone said:

Did the Mars base get overrun after the Marines left and there's an entire installation in the classic Doom universe that has been left unchecked and abandoned filled with unimaginable horrors?

Read the story again. The Mars base (in the Classic Doom universe) is just a radioactive waste dump. It is likely that the only reason for a military presence at all is to provide security for the personnel (which itself would likely be only a handful of people, with the majority of the work being done by remotely-operated robots).

TL;DR: Space is lonely.

Foxpup said:

The Mars base (in the Classic Doom universe) is just a radioactive waste dump.

Huh?

Clonehunter said:

Huh?

Manual said:

The UAC is a multi-planetary conglomerate with radioactive waste
facilities on Mars and its two moons, Phobos and Deimos.

There is no indication that Mars itself was ever used for anything else. The military research labs are stated to be on Phobos and Deimos, not Mars. There are certainly no marines stationed on Mars besides the players (the text makes that explicit), which seems highly unlikely if there is indeed a military base (or anything of military importance) on Mars.

Maybe Doom3 happens at the same time as Doom?

Jimi said:

Maybe Doom3 happens at the same time as Doom?

Nope. There are too many inconsistencies for it be part of the same continuity.

Maybe episode 3 is actually Mars. "Deimos is floating above Hell itself!". This is not to say that demons are necessarily Martians; just that what you think it's inferno is just the red planet.

printz said:

Maybe episode 3 is actually Mars. "Deimos is floating above Hell itself!". This is not to say that demons are necessarily Martians; just that what you think it's inferno is just the red planet.

Two problems: Deimos is stated to have vanished from the Martian sky; and Doomguy reaches Hell by rappelling from the moon, which would be a tad difficult from an altitude of 20,000 km.

Foxpup said:

Two problems: Deimos is stated to have vanished from the Martian sky; and Doomguy reaches Hell by rappelling from the moon, which would be a tad difficult from an altitude of 20,000 km.

He can fall down any distance and survive with just an "oomph", so I don't think that would be a problem.

As an exercise for the reader, calculate Doomguy's terminal velocity as he reaches the surface of Mars, knowing his launch altitude and the gravity constants from both Deimos and Mars.

Well you could basically disregard the gravity of Deimos.
Sadly, my limited physics knowledge only allows me to work out his speed hitting the ground if Mars had no atmosphere.

v = sqrt [2(3.711*23,462,200)]
v = 13,196 m/s -> 29,518 mph or 47,505 kph

Kind of amusing, despite how wrong it is.
The more I think about this, the funnier it gets :P

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Mars' gravity less than our gravity here on earth?

Maes said:

As an exercise for the reader, calculate Doomguy's terminal velocity as he reaches the surface of Mars, knowing his launch altitude and the gravity constants from both Deimos and Mars.

Yes, Mr. Maes =D

Yes. That's the 3.711 in my calculation above. Earth's value is 9.81(m/s²)

Foxpup said:

There is no indication that Mars itself was ever used for anything else. The military research labs are stated to be on Phobos and Deimos, not Mars. There are certainly no marines stationed on Mars besides the players (the text makes that explicit), which seems highly unlikely if there is indeed a military base (or anything of military importance) on Mars.

Hm, but it also stated that the waste facilities were on the moon too, along with all the stuff (One map is called Military Base afterall, which could just be a kind of security outpost. Mars may have had one too, and maybe some other facilities).

Eris Falling said:

v = sqrt [2(3.711*23,462,200)]
v = 13,196 m/s -> 29,518 mph or 47,505 kph

Kind of amusing, despite how wrong it is.
The more I think about this, the funnier it gets :P

Well, it's good enough for our purposes. Good pupil, you may sit down now :-p

FWIW, within the Doom engine you cannot simulate such large falls, simply because the maximum height drop you can represent in a regular level is nowhere near that large (64K units of height difference, tops, which works out to about 6553.6 ft. if you use the 10 units = 1 ft convention for vertical distances (Sorry, Soda ;-), so barely 1.241 miles, or roughly 2 km.

However, unlike horizontal speed, vertical speed is not capped in any way, as far as I recall ;-)

There was some (Boom only?) map which had a kind of "bottomless pit" feature, which however relied on a hack with sector height, and could not be entered normally by walking, but only by teleporting or by voodoo dolls. In that one, in theory, you could attain speeds that break Doomguy's speed counter.....if you attain maximum negative speed, in theory, Doomguy's speed should overflow and become maximum positive speed again....QED: DOOMGUY IS SO BADASS THAT HE CAN REVERSE HIS OWN TERMINAL VELOCITY ON A DIME

Maes said:

He can fall down any distance and survive with just an "oomph", so I don't think that would be a problem.

Okay, now I dropped out laughing. :D

*raises hand*
Maes: What is it, Fellowzdoomer?

Fellowzdoomer: Where is that said map?

Eris Falling said:

Well you could basically disregard the gravity of Deimos.

Only if Deimos is close enough to Hell/Mars for its own gravity to be negated, otherwise Doomguy is stuck there unless he manages to rocket-jump to escape velocity.

Maes said:

He can fall down any distance and survive with just an "oomph", so I don't think that would be a problem.

The distance alone is only one part of the problem. The other part is that Deimos is (or was) in a stable orbit around Mars. You've got to negate your orbital velocity before you can "fall" anywhere. If you disregard drag, orbit-to-surface is just as hard as the other way around.

GreyGhost said:

Only if Deimos is close enough to Hell/Mars for its own gravity to be negated, otherwise Doomguy is stuck there unless he manages to rocket-jump to escape velocity.

And you can't rocket-jump vertically in Doom…

Fellowzdoomer said:

*raises hand*
Maes: What is it, Fellowzdoomer?

Fellowzdoomer: Where is that said map?

Tried to locate it as soon as I mentioned it, oh faithful disciple, but, alas, my memory (and the forum's search function) have failed me. But fear not, for the quest is still on.

Edit: it used to be in this thread, but now the link to the file is down. Printz may still have it, I don't even recall the filename.

I see great potential for a community project!

OK guys.

I loaded up DMapEdit and made a map. Using the Maximum SectorY integer (990/999) and the Minimum SectorY (-20470000), I reached some interesting results.

Shared Results: when I fell from 990/999, it appeared as if Doomguy "jumped" in midair (like I hit the ground). This repeated 4 times (in Chocolate Doom and PrBoom)

Chocolate Doom: As I fell, when next to a wall, the walls had HOMS as I fell, when I finished falling, every time I touched a wall, it "disappeared". Stepping away made the wall "reappear".

PrBoom: No results from Chocolate Doom.

Conclusion: Doomguy apparently COULD survive a ginormus fall like this, but why, if he survives a 100 mile fall, why does he die in one-two shots of Cyberdemon rockets? =D

Fellowzdoomer said:

Shared Results: when I fell from 990/999, it appeared as if Doomguy "jumped" in midair (like I hit the ground). This repeated 4 times (in Chocolate Doom and PrBoom)

Something like a bungee jump? I was wondering if that would happen when Doomguy's velocity overflows.

If so, we should do a set of maps and submit them to Steam Greenlight as a Bungee Simulator. ;)

I don't think doomguys velocity overlflowed.

I think:

If PLAYERSTATS = FALLING then
 If PLAYERSPEED = MAX then
  PLAYERSPEED = DefaultValue 'Theory; DefaultValue is reset constantly reset on ground. Stairs change this.
  StopFalling 'Back on ground
  CheckPlayerYPos 'Checks if player is on ground. If not, player stats stay to falling.
 End If
End If

What I'm saying is that players falling speed has a maximum value and if its reached or overboard, it goes back to DefaultValue (0).

You need Fraggle though. This is only if Doom were written in Visual Basic heh heh.

I can upload the map if you wish...

Maes said:

There was some (Boom only?) map which had a kind of "bottomless pit" feature, which however relied on a hack with sector height, and could not be entered normally by walking, but only by teleporting or by voodoo dolls. In that one, in theory, you could attain speeds that break Doomguy's speed counter.....if you attain maximum negative speed, in theory, Doomguy's speed should overflow and become maximum positive speed again....QED: DOOMGUY IS SO BADASS THAT HE CAN REVERSE HIS OWN TERMINAL VELOCITY ON A DIME

If I understand what you mean, then it can also be done in vanilla Doom without crashing: just put a tall sector whose floor height is the minimum (-32768?). Fall into that sector; then the player Z coordinate will overflow back to min(32767, ceilingheight), so you can fall forever. I think the time until the falling speed overflows to negative (some bigass -32768) is too long to bother.

OK if I'm reading all this right, yes the marines from the Mars base all left and went to Phobos, but that still leaves the base there, along with the non-military population, scientists, radioactive waste handlers, etc. So in theory, yes there could be an unexplored Mars base that has been overrun by demons that we haven't cleared yet.

Or am I missing something?

Fellowzdoomer said:

I don't think doomguys velocity overlflowed.

All "generic" z-movement handling for mobj_t's is done in P_ZMovement(), and there are no "top speed" checks to be found there. There are some actions/effects that directly affect the z-speed (e.g. archvile jumps) that don't go through P_ZMovement(), but those are the exception.

In any case, while there are strict explicit controls over Doomguy's horizontal speeds in P_XYMovement(), which also include a "never exceed" speed, there are no explicit checks for the vertical speed (momz) at any point, which is therefore free to increase/decrease till it hits the (fixed_t) overflow limits.

For that matter, there's no minimum z-speed either: horizontal movement has a threshold speed (about 1/16th of a map unit per tic) below which an object ceases to move. There's not even such a limit for z-speed.

Generally, the way Doom handles vertical movement is quite crude: gravity's acceleration is way too strong and is even doubled during the first tic, archvile jumps are done by simply setting the speed without emulating proper acceleration, going up stairs is instantaneous like teleporting, and ofc you stop on a dime if you hit the floor/ceiling (ok, there's some "crouching" on the floor). Even floating monsters do not accelerate properly: they can just float up/down at a small, fixed, constant speed, making them move awkwardly.

The only exception to floating speed is the Lost Soul's attack and projectile attacks in general: those can attain ANY vertical speed necessary to reach their target in the time it would take them to clear the xy distance, so I think it is easier to break the vertical speed limit by having some imps trying to hit Doomguy perched on a very tall pillar. In that case, the fireballs might even start hitting the floor, rather than going upwards ;-)

In addition, vertical (z) speed does not factor anywhere with horizontal (x,y) speeds, and even those speeds are handled in a crude and non-vector way, leading to quirks such as wallrunning and SR40/SR50.

Maes discovers that Doom does not really have what you can call physics :P No actual concepts of forces, momenta (linear or angular), or mass. Just velocities which are adjusted ad hoc to simulate friction and gravity.

In Doom, mass even effects the speed at which an object falls. Ol' Galileo would be puzzling over that.

Quasar said:

In Doom, mass even effects the speed at which an object falls. Ol' Galileo would be puzzling over that.

Actually, the mass property of an object is not used when applying gravity. From Z_Movement():

 else if (!(flags & MF_NOGRAVITY)) {
			if (momz == 0)
				momz = -GRAVITY * 2;
			else
				momz -= GRAVITY;
		}

It is only used when determining how far back it should be pushed after an attack (thrust) in P_DamageMobj() and how high an archvile jump sends an object flying in A_VileAttack(). OTOH, this could make for an interesting DEHacked mod....ultra-light Doomguy for super jumps O_o

/me loads up Dehacked 3.0