Falling too far (instant death)

[Lavarn]

I noticed in several wads I played that falling to certain places results in instant death. I was wondering how to do this in my level. I know I can make a sector that takes 20% health every second or something, but this would look really dumb as the player slowly dies looking for a way to get out (even though there isn't one). Instead I want to just kill them instantly hehe...
I guess if worse comes to worse I could make a way out but this sort of defeats the whole purpose. Anyone know how to do this trick? Thanks for any help.

[insertwackynamehere]

What you probably mean is telefragging. I'm not that good on that topic, but if you go here there is a little on it, or you could find out more on telefragging. All I know is the basic idea is having two Player 1 starts, where one of them is a voodoo dummy, that can get crushed or hurt, when a player crosses a line that activates the crusher ceiling, in the sector the voodoo is in, thus killing the player. Also, dummies can be used for you to pick up stuff, and much more, but like I said, I'm not good with them, and don't let what I said sink in, in case it's wrong.

[The Ultimate DooMer]

If any are ZDoom wads, they could be using sector action things that run a script that kills you when you touch the floor.

[Lavarn]

Ultimate DooMer said:

If any are ZDoom wads, they could be using sector action things that run a script that kills you when you touch the floor.

Yeah, that's the way I want it to work, but then the level would only be playable with zdoom and nothing else (I think). I don't really want to make this restriction unless I have to.
Maybe there's a way to do it using a voodoo doll. The problem is that the player is jumping over a pit, and I went them to die if they fall in. But the player still needs to cross the sector to get to the other side. So there's no good place to set up the trigger which kills the doll. However, I've never used voodoo dolls before (this is really my first level), so maybe I'm overlooking something.
Also, in the other thread that was related to this, someone mentioned that voodoo dolls are used in megawads like AV and HR. Does anyone know any specific level that uses it? I'd like to take a look...

[The Ultimate DooMer]

Lavarn said:

Maybe there's a way to do it using a voodoo doll. The problem is that the player is jumping over a pit, and I went them to die if they fall in. But the player still needs to cross the sector to get to the other side. So there's no good place to set up the trigger which kills the doll.

Given that in vanilla you can only activate triggers by crossing linedefs, that makes it impossible to do it like that (as linedefs are triggered no matter what the height). AFAIK the only way is the ZDoom sector action way. (unless you use the -10/20% sector)

Lavarn said:

Also, in the other thread that was related to this, someone mentioned that voodoo dolls are used in megawads like AV and HR. Does anyone know any specific level that uses it? I'd like to take a look...

I can't pinpoint their uses there (I've only played them once), but I can offer some other (vanilla) examples:

Plutonia - map 06 uses them to give weapons when you can't see them. (by dropping a sector with a weapon on the edge of it, so the weapon is picked up by one nearby). Map 18 of TNT also does this.

TNT: Evilution - map 30 uses one which gets telefragged if you get a puzzle wrong.

Fragport - map 30 uses one as a timer.

Shadowcaster (Heretic) - has them in open play (as a hazard) and even uses them for puzzles.

[Grazza]

These are the ones I recall off the top of my head:
AV map25 (map24 in the original release): a voodoo doll collects an invulnerability for the player.
Plutonia map28 (IIRC): voodoo doll gets a BFG.
HR map19: voodoo doll collects full weapons and ammo (simultaneously a whole load of lost souls are crushed, suddenly making the pain elementals that you are surrounded by more of a nuisance).

BTW, someone in the forums (maybe Tormentor667) mentioned a way to use a telefrag of a voodoo doll as a way to exit a level: the voodoo doll needs to be in an "exit if health less than 10%" sector. Obviously, you then start the next map with just the pistol. Edit: not true - you exit with 1% health, and therefore don't lose you weapons.

Lavarn said:

The problem is that the player is jumping over a pit, and I went them to die if they fall in.

Just a random thought: rig up a deaf cyberdemon that will only see the player if he falls into the pit. Put a voodoo doll in a place where it will get hit by his rocket.

Still, it seems a lot of trouble to go to just to implement an instant-death trap - something a lot of players hate.

[toxicfluff]

This method ain't bad, and it's very simple:

http://darkwolf.slipgate.org/tut/d_pit.html

[Scuba Steve]

Batman DooM had you fall to your death. It required some deh though, since when you fell to the ground invisible barrels saw you and exploded, killing the dummy you inside a wall. Since everything supports deh, you could try that.

Edit: Oh... *looks up* Yeah...

[Retox]

I remember that in Strife there was a sector special that kills anybody touching the floor.

[Lavarn]

Woh...I was convinced I have to use scripting, but I'm going to give this a try. Do you think this will work even if the "pit" is very large and weirdly shaped?

[Lavarn]

ToXiCFLUFF said:

This method ain't bad, and it's very simple:

http://darkwolf.slipgate.org/tut/d_pit.html

Omg...that's awesome, it works perfectly! Exactly the kind of effect I am looking for. I am eternally grateful... :) Now the only problem is that the pit is so big I'm going to have to place hundreds of these things...
How does it work anyway? When I fall onto the sprites (spawn spot) I instantly die, but when I walk into them I only take a little bit of damage.

[toxicfluff]

Codepointer 127 is the rocket explosion codepointer, so it's as if the spawn points are constantly exploding rockets - killing anything that gets close.

[Mordeth]

Uh, doesn't this also damage a player who is standing on top next to the invisible explosions? Doom does not take height differences into account.

[toxicfluff]

Monster's fireballs could fly over your head in vanilla, I'm sure they could. Dunno about the explosions though.

[Graf Zahl]

To my knowledge this trick only works in ZDoom and Legacy because they are checking the z-position during an explosion. This trick does NOT work in vanilla Doom and most other ports because you'd get damaged when above the pit but not touching the ground.

[Lüt]

You could also just use a port that supports falling damage.

[Mordeth]

Exactly. Just like a Demon on the ground could 'bite' you even if you were standing on a high ledge. Even if you could work around that and get the things not to become active until the player is actually in their sector (eg. with a special reject map), they would still become active when the player is still falling... and kill him mid-air. Unless you build in an explosion delay.

In this case you might pull this off in vanilla Doom by making use of voodoo dolls and silent low-hitpoint high-damage barrels. But a barrel and a voodoo doll inside a dummy sector under a crusher, which activates when the player steps over the edge of a pit. You'll need to time the moment of detonation to the time it takes the player to touch the floor of the pit. You'll need multiple setups with different timings for multiple pits with different depths.

But this still wouldn't work in multiplayer.

Now that I'm re-reading this, the 'perfect' vanilla Doom trick would be the special reject map and putting dormant explosion things inside deep pits. The explosion things have an explosion delay, and do this while attacking. The pit sectors have been manipulated so that monsters inside do not notice players outside (see manual RMB on how to do that). You'll need different explosion things with different timings depending on the different depths of your pits. So, player falls in, activates the explosion things, who will attack/explode with a small delay just when the player hits bottom. It would also work in multiplayer (because after the fallen player dies, they don't notice any other players due to the special rejectmap, and stop attacking), although you cannot guarantee that other players standing near the ledge will not get damaged when another player falls in the pit... you'll need to carefully place those explosion things.

[Lavarn]

But it probably would not work if the player needs to jump across the pit, for example. I don't think I'm going to get this map to work with vanilla doom anyways...so I'll just stick with zdoom and legacy (I know the trick mentioned above works with zdoom, haven't tested it with legacy).

[The Ultimate DooMer]

Well it won't work in Legacy, as manikins don't appear in Legacy. (but if you're referring to the one with exploding things, it'll probably work in both)

[Nanami]

If you're going to use ZDoom go all the way. You can set sector damages to high numbers like 200 or even use Actor Hits Floor and make it kill you.

[DooMBoy]

Lüt said:

You could also just use a port that supports falling damage.

This is true, but what about people who don't turn on falling damage (like me)?

[boris]

I think you can force falling damage in ZDoom using the MAPINFO lump.

[Lavarn]

Nanami said:

If you're going to use ZDoom go all the way. You can set sector damages to high numbers like 200 or even use Actor Hits Floor and make it kill you.

Haha...yeah that's what I was going to do, but I've never used scripting before so I don't really know how to do it. I know that dark7 uses this trick and I got ZETH to look at the scripts...it seemed to me the crucial thing was:

script 1 OPEN {
sector_setdamage (1, 200, mod_falling)
}

Where I'm guessing 1 is the sector tag, 200 is how much damage to do, and mod_falling has to do with the message it displays when you die like "player fell". I tried to convert my wad to zdoom/hexen format with zwadconv (I made my level using WinDEU) and then copyed the code above into the script, but it isn't working. I must be missing something...or maybe I'm doing it completely wrong, I don't know.

[Csabo]

Lavarn: did you compile the script? Just placing the text inside the SCRIPTS lump is not enough. In fact, ZDooM does not use that lump. It uses the one before it, called BEHAVIOR, which is the compiled version of the script.

Also you have a semicolon missing after the function call.

[The Ultimate DooMer]

The only trouble with that way is that Sector_SetDamage sectors behave like the normal -2/-5/-10% health sectors - ie. there'll be a delay before you take the damage, and won't kill you if you have a rad suit on.

The easiest way is to place 2 'Actor hits floor' things in the sector, and set their specials to DamageThing (200). (2 are needed because you need 400 points of damage to guarantee instant death and the highest you can get off one is 255 - unless you use a script)

[boris]

Ultimate DooMer said:

The easiest way is to place 2 'Actor hits floor' things in the sector, and set their specials to DamageThing (200). (2 are needed because you need 400 points of damage to guarantee instant death and the highest you can get off one is 255 - unless you use a script)

Well, just use a damage of 0, which will kill the thing no matter how much health it has.

[Lavarn]

Csabo said:

Lavarn: did you compile the script? Just placing the text inside the SCRIPTS lump is not enough. In fact, ZDooM does not use that lump. It uses the one before it, called BEHAVIOR, which is the compiled version of the script.

Also you have a semicolon missing after the function call.

Oh yeah...I did remember the semicolon in the actual script but just forgot to put it when I copyed it above.
Weird...I tried using ZETH to make the script and I think it automatically compiles it since when I opened it in Wintex there was a BEHAVIOR lump. That didn't work so I actually tried compiling it myself using acc.exe:
acc test.acc
This produces a test.o file which I tried to add to the wad with Wintex (wasn't sure how to do it, but I went to data and loaded in the test.o file under the name DEMO1 and renamed it to BEHAVIOR afterwards). Again, that didn't work. What else could be wrong?

[Nanami]

Actually I have the damage set to 255 in a sector in ZooM and it deals it INSTANTLY, and kills you even with 200 health/armor.

[deathbringer]

Some ports support making objects die when they are touched, so make a load of "land mines" that explode when you touch them, and put those in the pit. I know you can do the touch stuff in EDGE, but those obscure ports with no sound like MBF and SMMU can also use the touch feature