The "Ask a Simple DOOM Question" Thread

[BoxY]

Does anyone know what difficulty Romero's Ultimate Doom par times were set on? I'm having a go at beating them all for fun, and quickly realised I have no idea what settings I'm actually competing against, though I'd assume UV by default. It barely matters, but I got curious. I did some googling and even checked the original manuals, but there seems to be extremely little documentation about them in general.

[Chip]

@BoxY I'd imagine it would be at HMP. That's the average difficulty, so it would make sense.

[Hell Interface]

Does swingshotting actually work?

[Zolgia108]

Simple question here:

Do you guys know of a megawad which mixes doom and hexen monsters? I was thinking about creating some maps with no hitscanners and with hexen disciples replacing them and i would like to know if it was already done in an extensive way. Thanks! 

[HQDefault]

What the fuck is the original chaingun

 

It looks like someone tried to build an assault rifle and stuck a rotating barrel on the end

I don't even think it necessarily uses chains, it looks like the one Doomguy uses is magazine-fed

[Maximum Matt]

Yeah straight up, like the same clips as the pistol.  Doomguy is obviously a lord at reloading (as he can slap those shells into the double-barrel while running sideways down a staircase avoiding gunfire and fireballs, and never drop one)

[Jello]

1 hour ago, HQDefault said:

What the fuck is the original chaingun

It looks like someone tried to build an assault rifle and stuck a rotating barrel on the end

I don't even think it necessarily uses chains, it looks like the one Doomguy uses is magazine-fed

Yeah, that sprite has always confused me. The "chaingun" in the game looks like it has six barrels, multiple muzzles, so one would assume six muzzles; one for each barrel. The Chaingunner's chaingun has 4 muzzles from looking at the sprite, as well as an ammunition belt; one would assume it's a belt fed and not magazine fed weapon. But when he drops it, it's a single muzzle magazine fed firearm. And the Spider Mastermind has six muzzles, like Doomguy's appears to be. But the sprite only has one.

 

And yeah, the magazine thing. It looks like a 20 round magazine, although considering the size of the weapon maybe it's 30. But why do zombies with rifles drop 9mm ammunition? Or maybe it's an old game and there's no sense in figuring it out, because they were a bunch of 20 somethings starting their own company and went with what worked. But yeah, that sprite has always bugged me due to the inconsistencies in which the chaingun appeared.

[Unix]

How do you enter all the three secret levels on the original Doom? (The three episodes)

[Faceman2000]

On 10/12/2020 at 1:53 AM, Unix said:

How do you enter all the three secret levels on the original Doom? (The three episodes)

YouTube has plenty of walkthroughs that’ll show you how to do this, as does the DoomWiki.

[spineapple tea]

In GZDoom, how can I have it autoload a PK3 file on start up?

[zigg1zagg1]

https://zdoom.org/wiki/How_to_autoload_files 
This should help, basically you have to add a line into your gzdoom-username.ini file (where username is whatever the user on ur pc is called ofc).

[Krenium]

When I watch videos of many people who are very skilled at Doom, they often punch the air while they are waiting for monsters to infight. Is there a practical reason for this?

[Foxpup]

5 hours ago, Krenium said:

When I watch videos of many people who are very skilled at Doom, they often punch the air while they are waiting for monsters to infight. Is there a practical reason for this?

 

Punching (unrealistically) alerts monsters the same as firing a weapon, and so can be used to lure previously dormant monsters out of hiding. If it's a TAS (tool-assisted speedrun), punching can also be used for luck manipulation. (Both of these can be done with other weapons, but punching has the advantage that it consumes no ammo.)

[Gez]

On vendredi 25 septembre 2020 at 7:56 AM, HQDefault said:

What the fuck is the original chaingun

 

It looks like someone tried to build an assault rifle and stuck a rotating barrel on the end

I don't even think it necessarily uses chains, it looks like the one Doomguy uses is magazine-fed

It's a weapon that doesn't make sense.

 

Actual chain guns are 1. not man-portable, 2. have a single barrel, none of that rotating malarkey, and 3. need an external power source to run (that's where the "chain" comes into play).

 

The weapon is basically inherited from Wolfenstein 3D's chaingun:

Which also doesn't make sense, but it's Wolfenstein and nonsensical Wunderwaffen are a big part of the setting.

 

The inspiration probably comes from the minigun (which does have rotary cannons), but "mini" probably felt like not macho enough, so it got renamed "chaingun", possibly because of the chainsaw grip it's been given by Hollywood to turn it into man-portable weapon in Predator, Terminator  2, and others.

Not pictured: the external power source to make that gun work, and that Jesse Ventura couldn't possibly carry along with the gun.

[Krenium]

Why do people play wads on complevel 9 instead of complevel -1? I don't get it at all. Please explain like I'm a complete moron.

[baja blast rd.]

55 minutes ago, Krenium said:

Why do people play wads on complevel 9 instead of complevel -1? I don't get it at all. Please explain like I'm a complete moron.

 

complevel 9 enforces the settings that a map would have been tested with if cl 9 is suggested. 

 

cl -1, which is better thought of as "that version of prBoom+'s default" than a proper complevel, is visibly quite similar, but differs in meaningful and potentially disastrous ways. 

 

The most critical is infighting behavior. With complevel 9, monsters will infight the expected way -- a freshly alerted cyberdemon, hit first by a hell knight, will turn its attention away from you and attack the hell knight. prBoom+'s default with cl -1 is a lot different. It enforces a new set of rules called "smart infighting behavior." Unlike in the complevel 9 scenario, monsters will pretty much act as if they were damaged by the player. The cyberdemon struck by the hell knight will often stay trained on you. That can be ruinous, or at the very least, create dynamics that were not tested.
 

cl -1 also breaks in specific edge cases. Sunlust has a quirky encounter that relies on a candle being able to telefrag a monster in the map30 slot. This failed to work as intended with cl -1 in one person's playthrough. 

 

Beyond specific known edge cases, there is also the issue that cl -1 relies on info in the player's compatibility settings, which can be anything. That can clash with what has been tested or even lead to breakages. For example, death exits do not work in cl -1 if "dead players can exit level" is set off for whatever reason. cl 9, enforcing its own suite of options which allows dead players to exit, would sidestep that issue. 

 

Finally, what happens if you have all the sensible defaults you haven't fiddled with and have decided that cl -1 won't break on this particular mapset -- and you are right about that. Fine, but there is no guarantee of a port's settings remaining constant into the future. complevel 9 is a historical standard that is, at least in theory, designed to be impervious against possible changes. Even GZDoom updates mess up specific wads, sometimes in minor ways, sometimes in larger ways, due to changes in default options.  

 

On 11/28/2020 at 11:45 PM, Krenium said:

When I watch videos of many people who are very skilled at Doom, they often punch the air while they are waiting for monsters to infight. Is there a practical reason for this?

 

99%+ of the time it does nothing. Even with vanilla settings, where monsters go dormant after kills, a monster immediately wakes up again if sound has already propagated through the sector they are in. (That is why you will hear a lot of background cyb mooing in runs like these.)

It is something more like a tic that caught on. In a sense, it feels awkward to stand in place or do weird little dances, under no pressure, waiting for infights. So punching preserves the regular flow of the game where, at all moments, you are doing something physical. Further reading.  

Edited February 11, 2021 by rd.

[Maes]

Is Doom really 3D?

[Maximum Matt]

Only to the naked eye.

[Pirx]

On 9/13/2020 at 8:43 PM, Hell Interface said:

Does swingshotting actually work?

 

does the same damage as any shot that hits.

[ignatiOS]

Whats the easiest way to kill an archvile?

 

 

 

Im asking for a friend.

[Grazza]

If you have some invulnerabilities to spare, just stand right next to it and let it blast you a number of times, and it will kill itself with its own splash damage. Your friend is welcome.

[Blackroat]

Do the speed of Arch Viles change on Nightmare?

 

Playing the Vile Challange Wad, I did not take a speed difference.

[dmslr]

1 hour ago, Blackroat said:

Do the speed of Arch Viles change on Nightmare?

 

Playing the Vile Challange Wad, I did not take a speed difference.

Hey, @Can't play on Nightmare. While you were gone, Doomer Boards released in your honor a wad specifically made for Nightmare.

https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/d-f/dbp25_dbd

[lokbustam257]

On 7/13/2020 at 5:36 PM, Redneckerz said:

When Romero gets Johned too much, weird things happen... and he is not making you his bitch when that happens.
 

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where did you get that image lol?

[lokbustam257]

who draw SP_FACE1? (please don't send an image of that shit)

[lokbustam257]

On 2/26/2021 at 1:14 PM, IggySqiggles said:

Whats the easiest way to kill an archvile?

 

 

 

Im asking for a friend.

-Spam rockets

-Nuke them with BFG