How protective is resistance to splash damage?

How much damage is absorbed by the Cyberdemon and Spider Mastermind's special boss qualities that make them immune to splash damage? In my experience a Cyberdemon takes close to 50 rockets to bring down, give or take some assuming I miss a few shots. Has anyone tried making a dehacked patch that puts the cyberdemon in a different thingid slot so as to get around that hardcoded quality? How many rockets does it usually take then?

Would other types of monsters benefit from having a splash damage immunity? Perhaps Hell Baron's or Arachnatrons?

ftp://ftp.fu-berlin.de/pc/games/idgames/lmps/tyson/weapons.html

(#) Cyberdemons and Spider Masterminds take only the direct hit damage from a rocket, not the blast damage. This explains why it takes on average 44 rockets to kill a Cyberdemon, 33 for a Spider Mastermind.

But I also found:
http://doomwiki.org/wiki/Blast_damage

Cyberdemons and spiderdemons are immune to all blast damage (which does not include the tracer damage from BFG blasts). Therefore, a greater number of rockets is required to kill these bosses than might be expected.

Which is right? I think the wiki is right.

VGA said:

Which is right?

Both.

A rocket does 20-160 impact damage PLUS a splash damage with radius 128 map units and damage 128 in the center and gradually lesser further from the center.

Cyberdemons and Masterminds simply don't take any of the splash damage, only the impact damage.

EDIT: When a rocket hits a monster, the average impact damage is 90, and splash damage is 128 - that's 218 average total damage of 1 rocket hit. If the monster has splash damage immunity, it's only 90 average damage of 1 rocket hit - that's about 41% of the damage it could have taken if it didn't have the immunity. So, in theory, it should take 2.44-times more rockets to kill a monster with a splash damage immunity than a monster with the same amount of health without the immunity.

VGA said:

ftp://ftp.fu-berlin.de/pc/games/idgames/lmps/tyson/weapons.html

But I also found:
http://doomwiki.org/wiki/Blast_damage
Which is right? I think the wiki is right.

There is no contradiction between both documents, they say the same thing.

The only difference is that the wiki has slightly larger estimates for the average number of rockets needed to kill the boss monsters: 34 for a spider, 45 for a cyber; instead of 33 and 44.

Hm, yes, seems all the copy/pasting I did between browser tabs in that post confused my brain :D

I thought the barons were resistant to splash when I was a kid, I know better now

Doesn't the splash damage get reduced the bigger the actor radius is? So big monsters get less splash damage?

VGA said:

Doesn't the splash damage get reduced the bigger the actor radius is? So big monsters get less splash damage?

Yeah, I think so

VGA said:

Doesn't the splash damage get reduced the bigger the actor radius is? So big monsters get less splash damage?

No, other way around. The radius is taken into account to reduce the distance for purpose of calculating damage, which means that big monsters don't get reduced damage just by virtue of being large.

    dx = abs(thing->x - bombspot->x);
    dy = abs(thing->y - bombspot->y);
    
    dist = dx>dy ? dx : dy;
    dist = (dist - thing->radius) >> FRACBITS;

    if (dist < 0)
	dist = 0;

If there wasn't this " - thing->radius" bit, then yeah. But since there is, it's not the distance to the center of the actor that matters, but the distance to the border of the actor.

scifista42 said:

Both.

A rocket does 20-160 impact damage PLUS a splash damage with radius 128 map units and damage 128 in the center and gradually lesser further from the center.

Cyberdemons and Masterminds simply don't take any of the splash damage, only the impact damage.

EDIT: When a rocket hits a monster, the average impact damage is 90, and splash damage is 128 - that's 218 average total damage of 1 rocket hit. If the monster has splash damage immunity, it's only 90 average damage of 1 rocket hit - that's about 41% of the damage it could have taken if it didn't have the immunity. So, in theory, it should take 2.44-times more rockets to kill a monster with a splash damage immunity than a monster with the same amount of health without the immunity.

Thats why you should use Rockets on Mid-Tier and High-Tier and save your cell from Cyberdemons and Mastermind.

i'm always annoyed when i see mappers giving you rocket launchers to take down the boss enemies, since they're immune to splash damage. it reminds me of the argument i saw in a Doom 2 FAQ that suggested using the RL to kill the Cyberdemon in Tower of Babel, since the Plasma Rifle "blocked your view when shooting." yeah, and it also does full damage to the fucker, so whatever.

But the rocket launcher fires at an absurd rate. It literally spits out rockets like crazy, the DPM must be very high compared to some other guns, right?

Can someone or has someone calculated the time to kill a cyberdemon with the powerful guns?

https://www.doomworld.com/vb/post/1415688

PR is way > RL against cyb/spiderdemon. The RL is better than everything but SSG*/PR/BFG though.


*Yeah technically the RL does more damage per second than the SSG against the bosses, but idk, the SSG is more effective in the majority of practical scenarios.

The plasma rifle is inefficient. If the BFG is available, why not use that one and save ammo, right?

The best boss solutions *and* large crowd control I think are the BFG and rocket spam. Right? Amazing DPS, that's why they nerfed it for the bosses.

Yeah you can say that the PR is often worse practically speaking than the RL against bosses when the BFG is available, due to ammo considerations.

VGA said:

Can someone or has someone calculated the time to kill a cyberdemon with the powerful guns?

So, I've done some calculations on rocket launcher and plasma gun on the cyberdemon.

First, rocket launcher.

Rocket launcher does 20 to 160 damage, average is 90 (not counting splash dmg, obviously). It fires at 150 shots per minute (2.5 shots per second). The cyberdemon has 4000 health. 4000 / 90 = 44.44 rockets to kill a cyberdemon. 44.44 / 2.5 = 17.78.
So, it takes about 18 seconds to destroy the cyberdemon with a rocket launcher, assuming you don't miss and fire constatntly.

Now, plasma rifle.

Plasma rifle does 5 to 40 damage, average is 22.5. It fires at 700 shots per min (11.67 shots per sec). 4000 / 22.5 = 177.78 shots to kill a cyber. 178.78 / 8.75 = 15.24. So, it takes about 15 secs to kill a cyber with a palsma rifle, assuming you don't miss and fire constantly.

Doomhuntress said:

i'm always annoyed when i see mappers giving you rocket launchers to take down the boss enemies, since they're immune to splash damage. it reminds me of the argument i saw in a Doom 2 FAQ that suggested using the RL to kill the Cyberdemon in Tower of Babel, since the Plasma Rifle "blocked your view when shooting." yeah, and it also does full damage to the fucker, so whatever.

"Blocks your view"? The fuck? Whoever made that FAQ needs to get their eyes tested.

No idea if it's still the same these days, but a lot of Survival servers on Skulltag/Zandronum were often full of plebs that would always use the RL on Cyberdemons/Masterminds, and berate me for using the PR over it. You could inform them about the inefficiency and wastefulness of their choice until the fucking cows came home but they'd always reply with "no rl is good against bosses" or some ignorant dumbshit thing like that.

BaronOfStuff said:

"Blocks your view"? The fuck? Whoever made that FAQ needs to get their eyes tested.

It actually does block your view a bit if you stand still and shoot. Same thing happens with the rocket launcher though.

No idea if it's still the same these days, but a lot of Survival servers on Skulltag/Zandronum were often full of plebs that would always use the RL on Cyberdemons/Masterminds, and berate me for using the PR over it. You could inform them about the inefficiency and wastefulness of their choice until the fucking cows came home but they'd always reply with "no rl is good against bosses" or some ignorant dumbshit thing like that.

Many players are careless with the rocket launcher. They just keep shooting and won't take a glimpse around the surroundings. One of the most common scenarios is that there's one dude with the rocket launcher. He's at safe spot and keeps shooting rockets with his 100hp and 0 armor. At the same time he makes a bottleneck between the safe and danger zone. Because of homing missiles or for some other reasons, the player(s) in the danger has to rush through the rocket barrage, which means that the player shooting rockets will suffer heavy if not fatal damage from his own rocket(s). Then this player will call the other player a troll/asshole and starts to troll the other player(s). That's why most of the trolls are bad players because they blame others for their own mistakes.

VGA said:

The plasma rifle is inefficient. If the BFG is available, why not use that one and save ammo, right?

There are a couple of scenarios where the PR makes sense, but they are very specific: one is situations where you have to fight monsters of mostly mid-tier strength in narrow corridors, or mow down hordes of smaller monsters again in cramped corridors, where the BFG's tracers would get wasted, the minimum expense of 40 cells per pop would be unjustifiable, and using the RL would be dangerous (unless you back up each time, which is why speedrunners will prefer the PR).

The other is if you only have energy cells left, and you have to reliably hit some far-away enemy, or shoot and take cover immediately (e.g. against archviles), while being sure that your projectiles will deal damage. The BFG is useless in both scenarios, due to the range and because the majority of the damage (the tracers) will be lost if you are forced to take cover before the ball strikes.

It is also a better "panic gun" than most, esp. at close range and with a lot of obstacles. In case of a miss, unlike the BFG and SSG, you're not left with a nearly 2-sec cooldown, but you will only lose a few shots, while still being able to connect the stream and deal non-indifferent damage (and stun enemies). It's more effective at pinning down heavy enemies like Baron and even Archviles in emergencies, if for some reason you cannot BFG them right away.

BaronOfStuff said:

"Blocks your view"? The fuck? Whoever made that FAQ needs to get their eyes tested.

I had some panic times with cyberdemons where my plasma bullets were concealing the rockets coming from the monster, I was almost hit a few times.

Anyway, fighting cyberdemons is dangerous. Rockets can get mixed with his rockets. Plasma tends to hide his rockets. The BFG requires close range and good timing. The SSG may be safer because you can shoot and hide, but it's also very tedious and I wish mappers will not do this often.

ChekaAgent said:

So, it takes about 15 secs to kill a cyber with a palsma rifle, assuming the ceiling doesn't fall and then you're both trapped and not able to kill

FTFY

Maes said:

FTFY

Don't forget to fire your rocket missiles.

This is actually why I usually use the rocket launcher against the bosses, because using the PR or the BFG feels cheap. If I ever finish making a fucking map, and if it has a cyberdemon in it, rest assured you'll be fighting it with the rocket launcher, and it won't be because I'm uninformed, it'll be because I want it to be a decent challenge.

Face23785 said:

This is actually why I usually use the rocket launcher against the bosses, because using the PR or the BFG feels cheap. If I ever finish making a fucking map, and if it has a cyberdemon in it, rest assured you'll be fighting it with the rocket launcher, and it won't be because I'm uninformed, it'll be because I want it to be a decent challenge.

Congratulations on making a boss encounter we can almost certainly call tedious without even playing it first. Being forced to use an inefficient weapon =/= challenge. At all. It's just invariably dull and time-wasting to have to lob 40+ rockets at a Cyberdemon. How about placing the Cyberdemon somewhere so that it can't be easily two-shotted with the BFG? How about taking inspiration from maps such Cat And Mouse and have the Cyberdemon warp around the level unexpectedly?

Face23785 said:

rest assured you'll be fighting it with the rocket launcher

No, I'd probably be fighting with the SSG, or the shotgun and chaingun if that's not an option either.

^ Rocket launcher kills the Cyberdemon 1.8-times faster than a chaingun or 2.25-times faster than a shotgun would, though.

Also, it takes about the same time to kill him with RL as with the SSG, it fact RL is a bit faster.

So, even though you practically waste ammo, at least you don't waste time.

(EDIT + FACTUAL CORRECTIONS)

scifista42 said:

^ Rocket launcher kills the Cyberdemon 1.8-times faster than a chaingun or 2.25-times faster than a shotgun would, though. (But slower than SSG or PG, for sure.)

Rockets aren't instant, though, and between that and the placebo effect from knowing about the lack of splash damage the smaller arms just feel more effective.

Arctangent said:

Rockets aren't instant, though,

How does it affect the balance?

Arctangent said:

and between that and the placebo effect from knowing about the lack of splash damage the smaller arms just feel more effective.

Effective can mean "ammo effective" or "time effective", and the ingame setup may dictate which one matters more.

scifista42 said:

How does it affect the balance?

Considering how random monster movement is, this mean that I can shoot like four rockets while dodging its own and none of them can hit, depending on the distance.

scifista42 said:

Effective can mean "ammo effective" or "time effective", and the ingame setup may dictate which one matters more.

Effective as in "boy man rockets feel like they do nothing to these things better use my other weapons."

Arctangent said:

Effective as in "boy man rockets feel like they do nothing to these things better use my other weapons."

Effectiveness is not based on what you feel.