1. Message during gameplay, 2. Unusual weapon

Ah I see. If you're going vanilla as possible, unfortunately that sort of rules out both of these things, at least if you want them to be done as it sounds like.

Vanilla cannot do messages on screen and it can't do new weapons. You can use DeHackEd though to modify existing weapon behavior, but I know nothing about that, only DECORATE. Otherwise you're limited to sprite replacements.

So you could make rockets invisible and replace the Rocket Launcher with a hand sprite but 2 problems arise: Cyberdemons would fire invisible rockets too and the rockets would be the same speed as normal. DECORATE (and by extension, ZScript) allows you to do anything you want without needing to replace or change existing stuff.

From what little I know, basically DeHackEd "borrows" frames from other things to use to make changes. But as I said, I'm a DeHackEd noob so I might be wrong about something.

1. You can use HudMessage ACS special to do this, but it can't remove the message the same way the menu melts down. You'll have to fade out instead.

https://zdoom.org/wiki/HudMessage

2. The only way I know to do that is with an entirely new weapon made in DECORATE that fires extremely fast projectiles that use the explosion sprites in the projectile death state. That is, if you mean like pointing a finger and then an explosion happens, without sacrificing the normal Rocket Launcher.

The first tool will be useful - if it works in Doom 2 config. If not, well, we can't have everything.

As for point 2, I'm replacing all the weapons, so yeah, I think I'll take this route. Thank you.

12 hours ago, Szuran said:

The first tool will be useful - if it works in Doom 2 config. If not, well, we can't have everything.

In Doom 2 format maps, you can't use ACS. Only in Hexen or UDMF.

But you could do it with an OPEN type script that runs on every map via LOADACS that checks against levelnum or some other identifier to determine which chapter title to print.

It wouldn't appear at a specific point on the map but it would work on Doom 2 format provided you are playing in a ZDoom based port.

I'm going as much vanilla as possible. Limiting myself on purpose to not get overwhelmed on the first project. So no chapter title here. Thanks.

I don't intend to use cyberdemons... yet. I'll have to find my way around the problem. I don't know much about DeHackEd. Well... Going away from vanilla just a tiny bit could be admittable. By vanilla I meant mostly gameplay mechanics (no vertical look or jumping) and software rendering.

Sounds like simple DECORATE and no ACS is the way to go for now. You can always feature expand as your knowledge does.