Dehacked, is a new medikit possible

Is it possible to use an existing sprite (green pillar) for a new medikit with 50% health? If yes, how?

Unfortunately items are rather rigid in what they do in DeHackEd: you can alter ammo amounts and text strings when you pick up the item in question, but that's about it. The only option would be to either replace the Medkit and have 2 stacked or replace the Stimpak and have 5 stacked, which aren't really elegant solutions.

Pickup types are inflexible, and they are determined by sprite prefix names (the 4-letter ones). Here is a hack to achieve what you want:

In Misc table in WhackEd/DEHACKED, change Soulsphere health to 50 instead of 100. Go to Thing table, choose an arbitrary decorative thing, give it "Can be picked up" flag. Go to State table and change this thing's sprite to "SOULE0" (which is also how you should name the custom sprite for your new medikit). Import the DEHACKED patch into your wad. Then in your map(s), wherever you want to put the 50-health medikit, put the altered decorative item, and wherever you want to put normal soulsphere, put 2 soulspheres on top of each other (50 + 50 = 100 health).

The downside is that the new medikit will have the same pickup message as the soulsphere, and this fact cannot be changed. At least you can change the pickup message itself in Strings table.

Another downside is that this medikit can be picked up after you get 100% health and can get up to 200% health.

But you can use this approach with regular medikits. Use a different sprite frame to get it a different look, and put them in stacks of two. Bam, 50% health medikits. Of course, if you 75+ health points remaining, you'll only pick one of them at once...

Ok, what I want to do is not possible.

My idea is, to make a chainsaw-only-map where you get an oil-can with +50% health instead of a stimpack or a medikit. But I still need the usual health upgrade for the other maps in the wad.

Thank you.

@Gez: Right, I forgot about that "detail". At least it could work for a Duke Nukem 3D style Atomic Health item, even with a custom animation if enough free states could be obtained for it.

Didi, what port are you targeting on? I think there is one nice MBF extension that could do the trick~

vanilla, most likely limit removing

You could either stack medkits or you can hide them behind walls, so that you are required to bump into the wall to get healed.

good idea, GhostlyDeath, thanks, but what I wanted to do is not possible,
The oil can should give the health. I was thinking about this:

What's wrong with simply replicating one of the existing health items and giving it a different sprite? For example, you could have a canister that would give the player 25 HP. You don't have to remove the original medikit for that. The pickup messages will be identical, but if you replace the string with something generic like "Received 25 HP" it should look decent.

Da Werecat said:

What's wrong with simply replicating one of the existing health items and giving it a different sprite? For example, you could have a canister that would give the player 25 HP. You don't have to remove the original medikit for that. The pickup messages will be identical, but if you replace the string with something generic like "Received 25 HP" it should look decent.

A pickup's behavior in DeHackEd is defined by its sprite.

It's defined by the set sprite belongs to. You can add new frames to the set (MEDIB0 in addition to the standart MEDIA0, for example) and make any item use these frames.

scifista42 said:

In Misc table in WhackEd/DEHACKED, change Soulsphere health to 50 instead of 100. Go to Thing table, choose an arbitrary decorative thing, give it "Can be picked up" flag. Go to State table and change this thing's sprite to "SOULE0" (which is also how you should name the custom sprite for your new medikit). Import the DEHACKED patch into your wad. Then in your map(s), wherever you want to put the 50-health medikit, put the altered decorative item, and wherever you want to put normal soulsphere, put 2 soulspheres on top of each other (50 + 50 = 100 health).

Gez said:

Another downside is that this medikit can be picked up after you get 100% health and can get up to 200% health.

Could you change the player max health to 100?

^Because that would also affect health bonuses and possibly megasphere. I'm not even sure if the behaviour would be consistent in different source ports.

That said, in agreement with Da Werecat, I don't quite understand why didy keeps saying that it's not possible when we told him it is (50HP medikit pickup with different sprite, while keeping the original medikit existing as is), only with side effects (either it will go above 100 health, or you must place 2 on top of each other).

scifista42 said:

That said, in agreement with Da Werecat, I don't quite understand why didy keeps saying that it's not possible when we told him it is (50HP medikit pickup with different sprite, while keeping the original medikit existing as is), only with side effects (either it will go above 100 health, or you must place 2 on top of each other).

Ah, ok. My english is not that good. I might have misunderstood you. I'll take a closer look to your answers and I'll try it out. Thanks again for your help.