[GZDoom] Monster counts

[dmslr]

I want to have PrBoom-style kill counter:

• doesn't count lost souls and resurrected monsters as kills;
• total number of monsters is permanent and doesn't change because of summoned lost souls and resurrected monsters.

Is it possible?

[maxmanium]

You can autoload a wad with a DECORATE patch that removes the COUNTKILL flag from the lost soul, but nothing can be done about the resurrected monsters. It's not worth the effort anyway because said patch will overwrite any DEHACKED changes made by other loaded wads.

[Gez]

You can most probably do that in ZScript. Redefine the arch-vile so that it uses a customized version of A_VileChase that removes the bCOUNTKILL flag from the monster it resurrects.

[dmslr]

10 minutes ago, Gez said:

You can most probably do that in ZScript. Redefine the arch-vile so that it uses a customized version of A_VileChase that removes the bCOUNTKILL flag from the monster it resurrects.

Sadly ZScript is beyond my capabilities. How do you think, would Graf Zahl (or drfrag in his LZDoom) consider implementing this counter as an option?

[Gez]

Implementing this as a general purpose option at the port level would require duplicating the monster counter and introducing a new count flag; which I'm gonna call SMARTCOUNT because I don't have a better idea. When a monster is killed, if it has the COUNTKILL flag it increases the monsters killed counter by 1; and if it has the SMARTCOUNT flag it also increases the monster killed smart counter by 1. Both flags are then removed.

 

This SMARTCOUNT flag would be set automatically at actor spawning if they have COUNTKILL. However, arch-vile resurrection would reset the normal COUNTKILL flag but not reset the SMARTCOUNT flag, so a resurrected monster would count only on the normal counter and not the smart counter.

 

The same idea could be applied to lost souls. Those placed in the map could get to count normally, while those spawned by a pain elemental could get only the regular COUNTKILL flag but not the SMARTCOUNT flag.

[maxmanium]

1 hour ago, dmslr said:

Sadly ZScript is beyond my capabilities. How do you think, would Graf Zahl (or drfrag in his LZDoom) consider implementing this counter as an option?

 

Definitely not, I remember looking this up and finding threads in which he expressed not.