Monster Idea

I was wondering weather it would be possible to make a zombie with a sniper rifle where there is a laser pointing from the gun and if the player walks into it he is shot. If I was gonna make this I would probably use decorate script and make it a little like the archvile attack where the damage comes from the red line rather than the actual monster. But I could be barking up completely the wrong tree. also it would be cool if it could move from side to side to make it hard to get through door ways, but that could well be impossible. Also it would have to be blocked by walls so the laser couldn't just cut a straight line through the map.

I was just wondering whether anyone had attampted this, I just thought of it when I saw a super-shotgun zombie whilst playing skulltag.

This is just the kind of a monster we need......a monster that can snipe you! Aren't we already going through enough of that kind of crap in maps were the mappers place chainguners where you can't see them?

Thats why I thought a sniper with a visible laserbeam would be a good idea so you could try and find another way around the beam so you don't get shot or have to dodge around a moving one to progress and not get shot. obviously to be succesful the monster would have to be put into a good map where there was some way of killing it without having to run through the beam, eg a way to take them out from behind or a crusher or a door that blocks their beam.

I don't know if i can help you with exactly what your talking about but if you want a sniper zombie that aims with a lazer your could do what i did with the Archvile in Exotic Monsters. in that case you would make him fire several customs missiles in his Missile state. these custom missiles would have the speed set at 999, be invisable, and do no damage. however the death state of that missile would simply be a red dot. This would to some extant simulate the effect of him taking aim with a lazer scope before firing. you would have to make monster sprites acordingly though. like while firing the invisable custom missiles it would show the zombie with the rifle up to his head and a red light coming out of the scope. how many custom missiles u would need would depend on how long you want him aiming before he fires the real bullet. i know this isnt exactly what your talking about but i could work

A map is not a good map unless you can get railgunned from 2000 units away and have to start the map over.

I think the whole laser should be visible so that when you encounter one it shows a red line going from the zsombie to where ever he is pointing and it is only if you walk into the visible red line then you would be shot. I only say this because I am sick of hidden chaingunners and things that can blast your face off from the other side of the map with no warning, here there would have to be a visible red line that you must walk into before it can shoot you. I know it wouldn't be as realistic as not seeing the red line and only seeing a red dot, but it would make a fairer map, especially if he shot what ever moved into the path of the red line whether it be the player, an imp or a cyberdemon.

esselfortium said:

A map is not a good map unless you can get railgunned from 2000 units away and have to start the map over.

yep. i've never liked maps with large numbers of hitscan enemies since they slow down gameplay. imagine those pesky chaingunners on a ledge everywhere in plutonia had railguns instead.

let's be creative with monsters. plasma and ssg zombies are more gameplay-friendly imo.

I think if used right and if the full beam of where they could shoot the ycould be used effectively as an obstical which needs to be overcome before you can move on to the next area, in the way a key door works,so you need to go and destroy the zombies whose lasers you can see across the path you want to take and so making it impassible until a way has been found to destroy them without tripping their lasers. I will admit that if used poorly this would be the most frustrating monster ever, bar none but if used in the right places I think it could be really good, as long as the warning signs are plenty big enough in the space where they can shoot you so that you dont wander in, get shot and be really pissed off.

I'd rather it be like the laser trip mines from Duke Nukem.

i just wish the laser tripmines themsleves were in doom cause in duke nukem those were SO MUCH FUN in deathmatch. something similar would be a pretty cool weapon idea

thats a pretty damn good idea. trip mines would be a good weapon/obstical. but would probably be difficult to build, for starters would they be classed as monsters or weapons or just dangerous things like exploding barrels?

I might have an idea on how to make one, although it probably wouldn't work on slopes very well or floors at all.

Torr Samaho said:

yep. i've never liked maps with large numbers of hitscan enemies since they slow down gameplay. imagine those pesky chaingunners on a ledge everywhere in plutonia had railguns instead.

I don't need to imagine that. Having played WADs like Super Sonic Doom which have their share of too many railgun monsters and other annoyances I think I can safely say that sniper monsters tend to destroy gameplay unless they are used in very small numbers.

Personally, I hate snipers in any game unless I'm the one holding the rifle. Sniper rifles in a multiplayer game just kills half the fun for me.

No, I don't like CS.

The biggest problem with a sniper zombie is this. When you come across a sniper in Halo, or DFBHD, or Battlefield your best option was to get a sniper rifle of your own and take him out. Doom 2 currently doesn't have any good sniper (at least none that im aware of) so if hes firing from to far away from you then taking him out before he kills you might prove to be a problem.

And going to what Graf said pretty much any monster thats overused destroys gameplay. the biggest example that comes to my mind ( and i know im gonna get heavily bashed for this) is Scythe who feel they have to put 10 cyberdemons (a monster thats suppose to be very very rare in a wad) in a level to make it hard. while there maps themselves might have been awsome there over use of things like the Baron and Revenant were kind off a turn off for me. So image what it would have been like if they had there hands on a sniper zombie at the time of making that wad. god I shutter to think about it. however they could be fun in small numbers. like a good place would be on level 11 O of Destruction on the tower were the imp and soulsphere are.

Perhaps I should show my idea with an illustration. For the sniper zombie to shoot, you need to walk through a visible line, which is made to look like a laser from the zombies laser site. The problem with it would be making the zombie point the line in the correct direction and making the shot actually work. I actually quite like the idea and think I could execute it well if someone would help me with the decorate coding for the monster as I have only a little idea of what to do. Maybe if it was made and I put it in a small demo level then it would make sense.

hmmm the firing of the shot could be done in a way very similar to the way Bephomat fires his cubes to targeted areas layed out on the map that should make him fire at a single spot. be sure not to use the A_look function so he doesnt face you when he fires if your not in the target area. this would however mean you could have only 1 sinper per level unless theres a way to assign target actors to each monster that im not aware of. As for the red Lazor, if you want a physical red line going from the zombies scope to were he is actully aiming. the only way i can think of to make that even remotly work is to edit to draw a red line on the zombies sprite itself on all the angles were the red line would be visable. the problem is the red line would have to be very long. and because there are only 8 angles it would stray from the target area the more you move while viewing a certain angle of the zombie ( if that makes any sence) causeing it to look weird.

This is ofcourse all theoretical stuf that ive came up with in the last 10 minutes. its not guarnteed any of this will work.

I'd forget about the red line and give the zombie sprite a highly visible laser target designator for about a second before firing - gives the player a chance to take evasive action - plus a bolt-action rifle with a fairly slow rate of fire to compensate for the heavy damage it inflicts.

yes that would probably be a better idea ehen you think about how hard it would be to make that red line using the doom engine and actually making it work. I will probably have a go at implementing that idea. Do you think the attack would have to be like an archvile where the red dot is the actual agressor rather than the physical monster?

I'd use the red dot as non-damaging attack frames - followed by a hitscan attack when the sniper fires. It's main purpose is to let the player know there's a sniper about, provided they're looking in the right direction. The use of a hitscan attack also allows the sniper to miss and maybe hit the barrels you're standing in front of. <ouch>

Yes, that would probably be the best way to go about things, I will start a decorate script for it after I have tried out this Left 4 Dead demo and I will see how it goes. If I encounter any problems (which is quite likely as my scripting skills are poor) then I shall post them here.

I've got a bit of script down now, does anyone know of any sprites of zombies holding rifles that are free to use or anyone who would be willing to make them or even some that would be easily modifiable?

esselfortium said:

A map is not a good map unless you can get railgunned from 2000 units away and have to start the map over.

I quit playing doom ever since I realized getting railgunned from 2000 units away doesn't happen nearly as frequent enough.

PhilibusMo said:

I've got a bit of script down now, does anyone know of any sprites of zombies holding rifles that are free to use or anyone who would be willing to make them or even some that would be easily modifiable?

There aren't many zombies that don't fire from the hip, the Bestiary's Rocket Zombie is one but the launcher appears to be glued to his shoulder. The Epidermis Emporium has a bit more variety with Twilight Commando and US Marine skins that could be adapted to suit your purpose. There are no text files but I assume they're free to use and modify so long as you credit the authors - wouldn't hurt to ask.