how do you use a wad?

[snapzilla]

Yeah I'm very new to this, and I've been looking around but can't seem to find some basic tutorials for using and playing WADs. Can someone direct me to one?

[Edward850]

Drog 'n drop (And in the case you don't know what that is, it means drag the pwad file of your choice over the engine exe of your choice... easy :D)

[myk]

Drag and drop like he says might work, but it could depend on what engine you are using. What executable are you trying to run the add-on with?

[snapzilla]

Doom95.exe

drag and drop doesn't work. it's ultimate doom, and it has the prescreen thing where you can select a wad. I've been trying to get the Aliens wad to work, but it looks like you can only have one wad at a time.

[Edward850]

HAH
HAH
HAH

First, may I recommend zdoom? ( http://zdoom.org )
If you wish to use doom95 for some unseen reason, there should be a custom wads menu. Just stick your custom Pwad into your doom95 folder, then load up doom95 and select the Pwad. Simple.

[esselfortium]

Edward850 said:

HAH
HAH
HAH

First, may I recommend zdoom? ( http://zdoom.org )
If you wish to use doom95 for some unseen reason, there should be a custom wads menu. Just stick your custom Pwad into your doom95 folder, then load up doom95 and select the Pwad. Simple.

._.

Maybe let's try recommending some ports that don't completely break compatibility with wads that weren't made for them...

Chocolate Doom (for the full purist experience, bugs and all)
PrBoom
PrBoom-Plus
Eternity Engine

There are others, but those are some good choices, depending on what you're looking for.

edit: I don't feel like finding the links to all their download sites, but it'll probably be the first Google result for each.

[myk]

snapzilla said:
I've been trying to get the Aliens wad to work, but it looks like you can only have one wad at a time.

Aliens TC includes a DeHackEd patch (a patch used to hack the original DOS executable), which Doom95 won't run. Modern engines do support DeHackEd, so you're need to download an engine. Check here. You've got all sorts, from a faithful port of the DOS engine (Chocolate Doom) to engines with enhanced visuals and effects (ZDoom, GZDoom, JDoom, PrBoom, &c).

[scorpion]

Which source port do you use? Some of them come with a Graphical User Interface (GUI), that can help you out. You can drag and drop, of course, or you could create a shortcut to the EXEcutable file of the source port, edit that shortcut, and type: -file ... (where ... is the location and the name of the WAD file you wish to add. The location isn't necessary if the WAD is in the same folder).

[Craigs]

scorpion said:

Which source port do you use? Some of them come with a Graphical User Interface (GUI), that can help you out. You can drag and drop, of course, or you could create a shortcut to the EXEcutable file of the source port, edit that shortcut, and type: -file ... (where ... is the location and the name of the WAD file you wish to add. The location isn't necessary if the WAD is in the same folder).

He's using Doom 95.exe.

[scorpion]

Craigs said:

He's using Doom 95.exe.

Sorry about that, I'll try and not skip posts again, before posting idiocy.

snapzilla, get a source port.

[printz]

Edward850 said:

Drog 'n drop

I hate this recommendation, especially when I'm using ZDoom. ZDoom is always too far for me and takes a hell to reach it with the dragged wad.

Just use the Command Prompt from Accessories. To run a wad named DEATH.WAD, located in subdir WADS, run Doom as

doom -file wads\death.wad

remembering to use the .wad extension.

[Edward850]

printz said:

I hate this recommendation, especially when I'm using ZDoom. ZDoom is always too far for me and takes a hell to reach it with the dragged wad.

Or you could not fill your zdoom folder with thousands of pointless wads :D
I neat trick I use is to have a second folder for wads (Which I open separately) and drag the wad into the new folder over zdoom. Dragging time reduced to a few seconds. It also helps to clear your folder out via removing wads you haven’t played in over a month (or year in my case).

[ReFracture]

I make batch files for all the megawads I like.

Right now i'm thinking about switching them over to PrBoom-Plus.

I feel like such a pussy for playing HR2 in zdoom right now. A single BFG blast can kill a mastermind in zdoom, complete bullshit.

[Kira]

Mike.Reiner said:

I make batch files for all the megawads I like.

Right now i'm thinking about switching them over to PrBoom-Plus.

I feel like such a pussy for playing HR2 in zdoom right now. A single BFG blast can kill a mastermind in zdoom, complete bullshit.

Hehe I've recently completely switched to PrBoom-Plus, indeed zdoom is best for... zdoom wads.
(oh, and I make also batch files for all my fav megawads :D)
Recommandations of esselfortium are good imo.

[Belial]

Mike.Reiner said:

I feel like such a pussy for playing HR2 in zdoom right now. A single BFG blast can kill a mastermind in zdoom, complete bullshit.

:)

[Reckoner]

Batch files are the way to go if you have a lot of WADs. I like to keep mine organized into separate directories and it is nice to be able to just run the appropriate batch file rather than find the PWAD and type the path to it. Not only that but with WADs that have trickier setups (multiple WADs, DeHackEd patch, DeuSF merging, etc), I can just set up the command-line once so that I don't have to go and figure it all out each time I play it.

[BoldEnglishman]

Mike.Reiner said:

I feel like such a pussy for playing HR2 in zdoom right now. A single BFG blast can kill a mastermind in zdoom, complete bullshit.

I thought I killed it a bit too fast sometimes... I think a Cyberdemon can be done in 1 as well (or 2).

[40oz]

Zdoom and vanilla doom are different in terms of monster health and/or weapon damage??

[myk]

JohnnyRancid said:
Zdoom and vanilla doom are different in terms of monster health and/or weapon damage??

In the standard game some shots can go through their targets due to less perfect collision handling code, so in ZDoom the BFG tracers all usually hit the big monsters (an average damage of 2720, plus 450 for the ball* on a close range shot), while in Doom enough traces get by to make it more likely for the bosses to survive one more shot.

* Or 3170, which in total is more than the Spiderdemon can take.

[Hellbent]

one thing I don't like about zdoom is the rockets seem to be weaker and the objects seem to be thrown farther. It often takes 6 rockets to fell a Baron of Hell instead of 5.

[BoldEnglishman]

Actually I think that's totally down to "pseudo-random"-ness. I usually fire 5 rockets into a baron, and add 1 more if it survives. Same with the Arachnotron, sometimes it takes 2 rockets to kill, sometimes 3. I don't think it has anything to do with engine differences.

[deathbringer]

I think there was something on the legacy forum years ago about a "bug" in doom which is "corrected" in several ports, in which a large monster like the Spider Mastermind, which spans several map units, might not be hit by BFG trails which arent in the same map unit as the explosion of the BFG ball (yes i know the trails come from the player, not the ball). In ports this is corrected and BFG trails hit something if they... hit it, which means you can potentially do a much larger amount of damage to a large target.

Though who BFG's masterminds anyway? with a pillar for cover you can SSG them from quite a long range and all the pellets will still hit it. Save the BFG for some 20-chaingunner horde (ie, what you see every third step in HR2) who can do you far more damage than a mastermind would

[myk]

deathbringer said:
Though who BFG's masterminds anyway? with a pillar for cover you can SSG them from quite a long range and all the pellets will still hit it. Save the BFG for some 20-chaingunner horde (ie, what you see every third step in HR2) who can do you far more damage than a mastermind would

You can do that, but it's rather conservative; using the BFG on the Spiderdemon and a few Rockers on the Heavy weapon dudes would be give you a much quicker mop-up.

The original info on the shoot-through glitch is here.

[Belial]

deathbringer said:

Though who BFG's masterminds anyway?

Who doesn't? Besides a horde of chaingunners can do a really good job of killing itself without any outside help :P

[kristus]

Indeed, I usually use the BFG on masterminds just to make them go away. Chaingunners are easy enough to deal with with almost any other weapon.