Doom Gun buddies

[MasterShazbot]

I have another good idea; I hope this one will not be as complicated as my last one. A long time ago, when we had to play games on those 8-feet tall Atari machines in the arcade places, there was a space game where you could upgrade your little ship with another ship. This little ship would stay attached to yours and attack whenever you attacked.

Doom Gun buddies is like that, only for doom. The gun buddies look like your color, have your skin, and fire whatever UPGRADE you give them. The first part of this mod is actually getting the gun buddies. They have to be picked up like a power up first, which can look like whatever works for them. (I think making them look like miniature doom spacemarines inside of energy spheres would look good) After you get this power up, your gun buddie's stats appear where ever you set your source port up to put them, I.E. in the left corner, above your stats, etc. Their stats show their HP and current weapon, and if it can be implimented, their AP as well.

You can get a total of 4 gun buddies, making you a five-man team. Your gun buddies are stuck to your sides, move and jump with you, and have no-clip so they will not get stuck. Whenever you’re in a tight area, only two of them appear, and you fire, the other two will still fire, but they won't hit anything, so it helps to use them in an area where they can actually fit, so they won't shoot inside the wall.

Once you have a gun buddy, he starts with a pistol. His pistol has inf. ammo, and has the default doom pistol accuracy rules, so you can actually snipe with him by switching to your fists. While targeting something with your x-hair, your GB will shoot what ever your x-hair is pointing at, and will continue to shoot until you stop attacking. All 4 of your GB's will work like this, so some weapons will actually intersect each other if you aim far enough.

To upgrade their weapons, you have to find GB power ups. They look like miniature doom weapons inside energy spheres. If you pick them up without a GB, nothing happens, but you can use them later if you use Zdoom's inventory feature, where they will sit until you activate them.

One GB upgrade will upgrade ALL of your GB's, whether you have all of them or only 1. That means if you have one GB, give him a shotgun attack, and activate another GB, the new GB will also have a shotgun attack, etc. GB weapon upgrades are re-useable. This is explained in the shotgun ammo section below.

GB's themselves are not invulnerable, and the monsters will target them if they can. GB's can take environmental damage, so watch where you take them. Your GB's have their own HP system, which is basically 200 HP, as they have no armor --> UNLESS YOU CAN ADD ARMOR TO THEM, then they get 100 HP and 200 AP. (max value, they actually start with 100 AP.)

When your GB's get damaged, you have to use GB med kits. GB med kits look like the GB weapon power ups. They also have to be activated before they will work. One med kit will heal ALL of your GB's, like weapon upgrades, so it helps to use them wisely. GB med kits will only work once, and are discarded after you use them, so you will have to find a new one once you've used a GB medkit. If the armor system can be used on them, you can also find GB armor upgrades that work like GB medkits. They also only work once, but will repair all of your GB's armor.

GB's start with pistols, and can get the following upgrades:
1) The shotgun upgrade. They fire single-shotguns THAT SHARE YOUR AMMO. As long as you have shotgun ammo, they can use this attack. No matter what # of GB's you have, every one of them will only use 1 shell from your stockpile, unless you use your shotgun shells as well.
I.E. if you use a chain gun with a shotgun GB, every time you fire, the GB will also fire, and every time he shoots, he takes 1 of your shotgun shells. If you had 2, 3, or even 4 of them, you would only lose 1 shotgun shell every time they fired, so you won't waste your own ammo at an amazingly fast rate. If you use a shotgun with them, your own shotgun will deplete its own ammo, along with 1 for all of them. In the event you ran out of shotgun shells, they automatically switch to their pistols. If you get more shotgun ammo, you can use the same shotgun upgrade you used before - you can re-use the same upgrades infinitely.
2) The chain gun upgrade. Now they fire chain guns as well, and like the shotgun, will require your own ammo to attack. Again, no matter what # of GB's you have, it only takes 1 bullet for all 4 of them to attack.
3) Plasma rifles. Your GB's are deadliest with this upgrade, and they still use your energy cells to fire. Same rules of ammo consumption apply.

I left a few weapons out because they wouldn't work with GB's. Rocket launchers are a BIG no, as they would either deplete your rockets too quickly & go overkill on game play, or they would blow each other / you up. The SSG uses too much ammo for them, besides, they make good snipers with their single shotguns, and they're still incredibly powerful if all 4 of them fire 5 shotgun shrapnel pieces per GB (20 max, holy lol). The BFG's are right out of the question because they would overkill the game play and make playing too easy, or they would use your energy too quickly.

Gun buddies would make an awesome doom add-on (hopefully for Zdoom, lol) they would make game play fun and new, and they introduce you to the wonderful world of team management, as they die if you don't heal them, and if you don't keep them supplied, they use all of your ammo!

*UPDATE* I should have added this before, but oh well. When you pick up the gun buddy power up, you have to select it in your inventory, and then use it. The first GB teleports to your left, GB 2 on your right, GB 3 to the left GB's left, and GB 4 to the right GB's right.

*UPDATE* Also, if you pick up an invisible, chemical suit, or invulnerability power up, the effects will transfer to your gun buddies for the same duration as they affect you. IDDQD should also affect them if you ever use it, (you dirty rat) if it's possible.

-MasterShazbot

[Ghostpilot]

It could make a good base for an interesting spinoff mod.
Remake the atmosphere of for example, tyrian in DooM.
But I doubt that the scripting/programming is going to be easy.

[Darkhaven]

For allied marines all you have to do is set down some ZDoom Marines and make them Hate the player (type 1). So no, it wouldn't be hard. And there's a few things that would come in handy through ACS and Hexen's normal sector/line effects.

[Infinite Ammunition]

i expected this topic to be about bobbleheads that attach to doomguy's guns :(