Edge Engine Suggestions

I think having next/pervious weapon buttons would help since i've noticed DDF doesn't like alot of new weapons throu the IDKFA/IDFA cheats. I also would like the see a HUD , even a simple one like Heretic's(you know, just health and ammo)
I think the Edge Team should take these into consideration.

1) next and previous weapon keys: will add to the to-do list (I could use these too)

2) new hud that is completely designable via DDF is already in the to-do list (I can't wait for this in QDOOM!)

Now that is survice :-D

Fanatic said:

1) next and previous weapon keys: will add to the to-do list (I could use these too)

2) new hud that is completely designable via DDF is already in the to-do list (I can't wait for this in QDOOM!)

Is it possible to do in the next EDGE more fluent mouse control (like m_filtering in ZDoom)? I feel my mouse too jerky :(

I think the mouse code has improved for the next version.

For me, the mouse movement was too fluid-like, not jerky at all.

Is it possible to include into the next Edge core more port-specific predefined tags (like this neat 'dummy' sectors etc.)?

Fanatic said:

1) next and previous weapon keys: will add to the to-do list (I could use these too)

2) new hud that is completely designable via DDF is already in the to-do list (I can't wait for this in QDOOM!)

Ah, finally I got ahold of you.

Since everybody else is opening their mouths about edge, im gonna put my $0.02 in.

--Attack types/modifications
Beams: There needs to be beam-like attacks for lasers and the such (infinite velocity, continious stream, lasts frame duratoin of the attacking frame).

Penitration: There needs to be some sort of penitration factor connected with the "shot" attack

Explosions: We need to be able to adjust how large an explosion is without modifying damage.

---Other things I feel you guys forgot:
*The ability to do "shoot(<insert attack here>)" with frames in the things.ddf so that we aren't limited to 3 attacks.

*Ditto for the attacks.ddf

*The ability to define damage modifiers for things/armor types for things that are specificially resistant to some forms of attack (paper, rock, scissors effect; makes bulletproof armor possible).

*You have given us the ability to jump, but not to duck/crouch.

*Projectiles don't set off linetags activated only by shooting (so I can't make visible bullet projectiles that set those off :(

*There are a whole list of others but I don't want to piss you off too much here.

blod said:

Is it possible to include into the next Edge core more port-specific predefined tags (like this neat 'dummy' sectors etc.)?

Email me a list of what you think should be added, not just for yourself, but generally useful for anyone: marcpullen@mindspring.com.

I'll review them and add if appropriate.

sirgalahadwizar said:

1) beams: I think this is on the to-do list, I remember you mentioning this before

2) penitration: same as above

3) explosions: so you want to make (for example) an explosive that has a large damage radius, but not much damage? (gimme a better example so I can understand what you want)

4) attacks: you can, just use ATTACK(attackname) with different (attackname)'s in THINGS.DDF, and SHOOT(attackname) with diffeent (attackname)'s in WEAPONS.DDF. You should be able to use as many as you want in EDGE 1.24.

5) armour specials: good idea, will suggest

6) ducking: we've discussed this at great length amongst the team, part of our problem is we would need duck frames for the player (walking/shooting/pain/dying) -a lot of work no doubt. I think this one is on the to-do.

7) projectiles setting off line triggers: yes they do, set your line TYPE=SHOOT; and ACTIVATORS=PLAYER,MISSILE; -the only drawback is a projectile has to hit the line dead on, the damage splash won't do anything (like a barrel blowing up right next to it)

---Explosions: Yes, like one that does 64 damage (at center), but effects a size about 2x the size of a "standard" rocket (64 damage effecting same area as a 256 explosion would do). My reasoning is that percussion explosions can behave this way since they don't have any fragmentation to boost their killing power.

---Attacks: Hmmm, didn't know that, wasn't in the ddf docs either (at least I don't think).

---Ducking: Now, as lame as this might sound, I can offer to draw ducking sprites for various things (put into edge.wad?).

You told me to clarify myself and I did. Now I wil start compiling my list, most of which will be geared towards the mod makers who want lotsa new gunz and stuff. I will not mention anything not seriously needed or would be extensivly used by others
(like freeze rays turning guys into ice, and returning to life like in duke3d, that's not a serious issue).

Fanatic said:

Email me a list of what you think should be added, not just for yourself, but generally useful for anyone: marcpullen@mindspring.com.

I'll review them and add if appropriate.

Marc, do you think it would be possible for one weapon attack to use more than one kind of ammo, for example a high-powered rifle using 1 bullet and 5 cells per shot.

-And maybe add more or defineable ammo types. I imagine this would be easier once ddf-customizable hud is instituted.

-And gliding, I've mentioned it before but I feel like being persistent. ;)

-Maybe a reload button?

Multiple ammo types: Yes, I did it with the Thunderbolt in QDOOM (not in the public test).

Basically, I called a spawner in the weapon shoot frames, it did the actual attacking. Monsters can have multiple attacks, so the near one was the bolt spawn attack, and one right behind it was a chainsaw-range attack. One was for the visual bolt (a projectile essentially) and one was for the physical damage.

We should be able to do it cleaner tho, but that would be a major undertaking to rework the ammo types for multiple types within one attack.

Gliding: expirement with low gravity or negative gravity and viscocity in SECTORS.DDF, you may find what you need already

Reload button (versus automatic reload as it works now): I know the Covert Ops team already requested this one, should be on the to-do

Fanatic said:

I think the mouse code has improved for the next version.

For me, the mouse movement was too fluid-like, not jerky at all.

too damn smooth for me :P

Firebrandt said:

Marc, do you think it would be possible for one weapon attack to use more than one kind of ammo, for example a high-powered rifle using 1 bullet and 5 cells per shot.

-And maybe add more or defineable ammo types. I imagine this would be easier once ddf-customizable hud is instituted.

-And gliding, I've mentioned it before but I feel like being persistent. ;)

-Maybe a reload button?

You can call different weapon attacks using two zero tic frames, hence use two different ammo types.

Definable ammo type are planned.

Gliding has been noted (again :).

Reload button is on the to do already.

Thanks Marc. :)

Are you sure about the two zero tic frames because ammo is defined for the weapon only not the attack. Could you post an example?

Ah, we need to move the ammo type from the weapon to the attack, this would work very well.

Try this for an example, changing the pistol from just SHOOT, to make it use the pistol attack, then the super shotgun attack.

STATES(ATTACK)=PISG:A:4:NORMAL:NOTHING,
PISG:B:6:NORMAL:SHOOT(player_pistol),
PISG:B:6:NORMAL:SHOOT(player_shotgun2),
PISG:C:4:NORMAL:NOTHING,
PISG:B:5:NORMAL:REFIRE;

I'll request to have attacks moved from weapons to attacks (or some similar solution), so this will work properly.

Firebrandt said:

Thanks Marc. :)

Are you sure about the two zero tic frames because ammo is defined for the weapon only not the attack. Could you post an example?

Uhhh, you can use multiple types of ammo this way:
*You have to have a normal attack, and a sceondary attack with appropriate veraibles enabled

GUN1:a:4:normal:nothing,
GUN1:b:0:bright:sec_shoot, //makes it shoot your second attack
GUN1:b:2:bright:shoot, //now it shoots your normal attack
and on, and on, and on...

So far with this system you can only use two types of ammo at same time (like rockets AND cells). My rail-pistol currently uses 1 bullet and 1 cell when you fire it.

And if it's one attack to be fired (like one bullet). Then make the second attack bogus - like a dummy "null" puff and a shot attack that does 0 damage.

Fanatic said:

Email me a list of what you think should be added, not just for yourself, but generally useful for anyone: marcpullen@mindspring.com.

I'll review them and add if appropriate.

Uh, sorry. Every time I sat down to compose a big list of ideas my damn "infinite writer's block" went into effect (damn thing follows me everywhere, maybe a curse?).

The Tic problem I posted (I was too lazy to go onto sourceforge and reply, this is easier) was spurred by someone telling me that you can have tics with decimal values (hmmm, maybe you or someone from edge/ the old dosdoom project?).

Since I cannot seem to come up with all these damn things in one sitting, then I am going to machinegun them at you in pieces as I recall and realize them. I will probably post them periodicially either on this site, on sourceforge (high-risk for criticism), or e-mail.


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PS: It seems old Randy from zdoom has been taking code out of quake 2 and injecting it into his own engine. Examples are the rail-gun effect was blatantly stolen from quake2 and so was the particles effects for bullets/rockets (if nobody has figured it out yeeet!). Not that it really matters but you guys could best him by including other misc eye-candy effects from other "better" games.

sirgalahadwizar said:

Uhhh, you can use multiple types of ammo this way:
*You have to have a normal attack, and a sceondary attack with appropriate veraibles enabled

GUN1:a:4:normal:nothing,
GUN1:b:0:bright:sec_shoot, //makes it shoot your second attack
GUN1:b:2:bright:shoot, //now it shoots your normal attack
and on, and on, and on...

So far with this system you can only use two types of ammo at same time (like rockets AND cells). My rail-pistol currently uses 1 bullet and 1 cell when you fire it.

And if it's one attack to be fired (like one bullet). Then make the second attack bogus - like a dummy "null" puff and a shot attack that does 0 damage.

There is just one little flaw in your plan. I am already using the secondary attack. Thanks for the advice but I had already figured that method out a while ago. ;)

Fanatic said:

Email me a list of what you think should be added, not just for yourself, but generally useful for anyone: marcpullen@mindspring.com.

I'll review them and add if appropriate.

*The ability to spawn more than one type of puff.

*Instead of "bright" or in the sprite frames, have the option of either a percentage (100% makes it totally bright), or "normal" (conforms to environmental brightness).

*Having "super translucency", or translucency values of more than 1 (like 1.5). Here's how ya do it:
--any colors below a certian brightness amount have a degree of translucency.
--any colors above a certian brightness are made brighter and are solid.
(reason is to fix bright translucnent sprites like bfg blasts that have white centers, right now the center ends up a muddy color).

Fanatic said:

Ah, we need to move the ammo type from the weapon to the attack, this would work very well.

Try this for an example, changing the pistol from just SHOOT, to make it use the pistol attack, then the super shotgun attack.

STATES(ATTACK)=PISG:A:4:NORMAL:NOTHING,
PISG:B:6:NORMAL:SHOOT(player_pistol),
PISG:B:6:NORMAL:SHOOT(player_shotgun2),
PISG:C:4:NORMAL:NOTHING,
PISG:B:5:NORMAL:REFIRE;

I'll request to have attacks moved from weapons to attacks (or some similar solution), so this will work properly.

Marc, is there a possibility of you (or the EDGE guys) releasing some documentation on the SOUNDS.dff? Right now I have no idea what exactly SINGULAR=1 is supposed to do (if it's even implemented?) and how exactly does PRIORITY=x work. Does higher_number = higher_priority or lower_priority? One thing I would think to be useful is having a single sound repeatedly cycle instead of starting new every time a shot is fired (would be very useful for chaingun/plasmagun type weapons). Is that what SINGULAR=1 is supposed to do?

I have to suggest a new STATE for things/attacks. Making a thing/attack deflect incoming projectiles. An example would be the shield defense of the Centaurs in Hexen. ZDoom already supports this in .deh patches. I imagine this could have a broad appeal since you could easily make the last frames of a monster's pain sequence have this state--simulating it pulling up a shield to deflect further shots. :)

sirgalahadwizar said:

*The ability to spawn more than one type of puff.

*Instead of "bright" or in the sprite frames, have the option of either a percentage (100% makes it totally bright), or "normal" (conforms to environmental brightness).

*Having "super translucency", or translucency values of more than 1 (like 1.5). Here's how ya do it:
--any colors below a certian brightness amount have a degree of translucency.
--any colors above a certian brightness are made brighter and are solid.
(reason is to fix bright translucnent sprites like bfg blasts that have white centers, right now the center ends up a muddy color).

*The ability to somehow make tanks, or other entities like them with parts on them that can rotate and engage in other things like attacking.

*The ability to reduce the amount of "weaving" an entity does, I noticed this when I was trying to make a mech and it moved around just like a monster would (constantly weaving back and forth like slow strafing).

*The ability to give an entity different levels of AI, with standard doom monster AI at the lowest, and Bot or higher AI at the top, with variations inbetween. We can make more higher quality monsters this way (heath and weapons can go only so far, increasing intelligence can make even a simple fireball deadly).

*Jumping monsters (that only jump when required to, to get over fences for example).

*Monsters that pickup weapons and use them, I think a zombie should be able to pickup a plasma gun and shoot you. This has to do with normal monsters - not the bots. Maybe whenever it goes to shoot the new gun it uses the characteristics of a gun from weapons.ddf

-----
possible bugs:
*When you mlook up and shoot with a projectile weapon, the projectiles never hit the "dot" (aiming cursor: cross, angle, dot). They always aim to high.

*It is hard to shoot an enemy below you because most of the time the projectiles will hit the top of them and do no damage (unless its a explosion), I have wasted whole energy reservoirs of plasma on an imp that takes no damage from the headshots.

Obituaries! Both monster, custom monster and suicidal/environment ones too! :D

The "beam" type weapons that you mentioned would be in the new version need to be really customizable.

There should pretty much be two options:
*A plain beam that is drawn from the attack point along the attack path.
*A beam made up of a "string of pearls", using a declared PUFF= to show the beam.
*Put both together (very cool looking, but kinda intensive).
-----

The plain beams should have a way to define their color, their translucencey, fading (altervisibility?), the impact graphics, thier penitration, their accuracy, additive level (i'll tell later on), and a way to blur the beam.
*color - by an RGB value, or a value from the main palette.
*translucency - standard translucency is fine.
*fading - would look cool, but kinda hard to do?
*impact graphics - death states?
*penitration - the proposed penitration/thickness system.
*accuracy - standard accuracy.
*additive level - an additive color effect that works in tandom with translucency.
*blur - is the beam blurred with background regardless of rendering system?
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The string of pearls should make all puffs it utilizes start on their first frame simultaneously. It should include most of the same concepts as the straight beams with some extras.

*spread - a way to adjust the distance between puff displays (pixel distance?).

The combined option should allow for all of these to co-exist

-----
I siad I had some new ideas so hear me out.

There should be an option to make an object/attack more than just translucent - but additive too. SO many times have I gotten sick and tired of making a translucent fireball only to have it's white center look like mud. Personally I opt for this to be usable in any graphics-referencing ddfs (except for sectors maybe).

The weapons-ddf needs to allow for translucent (or maybe even additive) effects. Just something I discovered when trying to make a crystal sword. Additive would work well for energy-like muzzleflashes.

Indefinite allowance for the use of misc. sounds like "sound1" command used by SSG. Should work across most of the graphics-using ddfs (attacks.ddf, things.ddf, weapons.ddf). Oh, yeah, the number on the end should go all the way up to nine, and even then some nucklehead will probably use all of them.

Stop bouncing objects from exploding on walls (the sidedef thingy).

A way to make tank-like enemies that have a turret independant of the body. This coincides with a way to make enemies go back and forth less of the time (tanks just don't act like that). I can imagine a whole host of uses for this (even one of the wolfenstein TCs uses tanks).

A way to make enemies spin around when they turn around to attack you (make the side rotations show up when they spin around instead of just doing a direction inversion).

The "SHOTCOUNT=" function needs to be extended to projectile-style attacks as well so that we don't have to put half a million "spare_attack" with dummy 0-tic frames on effects that spawn lots of things.
I made an napalm launcher weapon that when it exploded, sent about 16 explosion sprites in multiple directions that bounced. It used 16 frames that were zero-tic and took up an enormous amount of space. Man, a shotcount would have been good there.

The accuracy variable should be fixed so that you can define any range of angles. 360 by 360 for example would make an attack go anywhere in a spherical volume. This would work great with "shotcount" because it makes examples like my napalm launcher easy to manufacture. As it is right now, if you try it all the projectiles go striaght up at really high speed.

A way to modify how much of an area an explosion effects without changing it's damage.

***Hard to implement?:
Make sprites with rotations, actually rotate depending on their trajectory so we don't have any more straight-facing rockets that go downwards.

I don't expect *all* these in the next release, but hope they all get implemented eventually anyway.