Things about Doom you just found out

[Leon]

Encryptic said:

Probably not the right thread for it, but I don't want to start a new one for one question - is the Revenant's heatseeker a random chance or does it have a definite probability of happening? I just experienced the phenomenon of getting a Revenant fireball to orbit me so I was curious.

I always thought it was every second fireball that causes it's "heatseeking" function to work

[Gez]

The homing behavior depends on the tic at which the projectile was launched.

[Leon]

Gez said:

The homing behavior depends on the tic at which the projectile was launched.

Um... you lost me

[Gez]

The game works at a frequency of 35 Hz, meaning there are 35 "tics" in a second. (Think of them as of the tick-tock of a clock.) Each of these tics is a single step in the simulation.

Tics are numbered from the first tic of the game.

See this for more info.

[Archy]

To simplify this for Leon, every 12 hundredths of a second (0.12 seconds) the missile will be homing.
Example:
A missile launched at 0.01 seconds will not be homing, but if it is launched at 0.12 or 0.24 or 1.08 seconds, the missile will be homing. The timer starts as soon as the game starts.

One tic is 1/35 of a second, and the missile will be homing if it is launched on the 4th, 8th, 12th, ect tic (every 4 tics).

1/35 of a second is about 3/100 of a second so 4 tics approximate 0.12 seconds. A tic is the smallest unit of time in doom.

[mouldy]

I saw 2 Barons of Hell fighting each other the other day, think thats the first time I ever saw that happen. Not sure how it started, I'm assuming one of them took a swipe at me and hit his mate by accident. I didn't even know that was possible.

[Archy]

mouldy said:

I saw 2 Barons of Hell fighting each other the other day, think thats the first time I ever saw that happen. Not sure how it started, I'm assuming one of them took a swipe at me and hit his mate by accident. I didn't even know that was possible.

What engine (source port) were you using?

[mouldy]

Archy said:

What engine (source port) were you using?

zdoom latest version. I was playing Base Ganymede and saw them both chewing away at each other for ages. Most amusing.

[Archy]

mouldy said:

zdoom...

Explains everything...

[j4rio]

It's not that uncommon bug that monsters of same kind infight each other. Just needs some help from barrels.

I've also recently noticed depths of reverent's AI. You are far means that he constantly shoots you, but when you get close, he doesn't shoot a single time unless you cause him to go to pain state, after which he'll shoot you once and as long as you remain close, he'll remain not shooting. I've always thought they are kinda random for some reason.

[Gez]

mouldy said:

I saw 2 Barons of Hell fighting each other the other day, think thats the first time I ever saw that happen. Not sure how it started, I'm assuming one of them took a swipe at me and hit his mate by accident. I didn't even know that was possible.

The only way that could happen is if one of them blew up a barrel that hurt the other.

[mouldy]

Gez said:

The only way that could happen is if one of them blew up a barrel that hurt the other.

That must be it, that wad holds barrels aplenty.

[LigH]

Some source ports can be enabled to support infighting of the same kind by a DeHackEd entry, I believe. But I am not certain what this entry means in detail; so far I assumed that DOOM engines contain a bitmask to exclude same-kind infights?

Misc 0
Monsters Infight = 221

[Tristan]

however, in ZDoom (and ZDoom based ports) you can change infighting via the console. If you type the following commands in:

Infighting -1 (this stops infighting completely)
Infighting 0 (default, monsters only attack other types)
Infighting 1 (Monsters infight, regardless of type)

[The_MártonJános]

Some flat interests:

- No level was left without any prescence of CEIL3_5 in E1, but CEIL3_6 is doubtlessly an E2 phenomena. Also, you would never see CEIL3_5 being used in any cases of a floor flat in E1 - but you're chiefly compensated for this in E2 (especially E2M3!)
- FLAT5 was never used as a ceiling flat. FLOOR5_3 was in E3M3 (for two cages right from the entrances that are never populated by monsters), and, as an incredible "innovation", E4M9 have used FLOOR5_2 as the ceiling of the central ring with the teleporter, but otherwise, these three would only make floor textures throughout Ultimate Doom. Exceptions are for reinforcing the rules.

[EDIT]Oh, and... I've finally gotten to know how to obtain the stuff that is stacked in the dark room's alcove in E4M4.[/EDIT]

[Gez]

The baron of hell and hell knight have different animations from the 6-to-8 angles!

The baron's sprite lumps are BOSSA1, BOSSA2A8, BOSSA3A7, BOSSA4A6, BOSSA5, and so on for A, B, C and D. But the knight's sprite lumps are BOS2A1C1, BOS2A2C8, BOS2A3C7, BOS2A4C6, BOS2A5C5, BOS2A6C4, BOS2A7C3, BOS2A8C2, and likewise for the B and D frames. Only 16 sprites for the walk animation (instead of 20) this way, and it is more accurate too (since the A and B frames are exact mirrors of the C and D frames in the baron's case).

Archy said:

Explains everything...

Vanilla too, smartass:

It's just more difficult to pull off because Doom goes this way:

I'm hurt!
{
   Did I die? If so, explode and tell everybody the culprit is the last person to hurt me!
   Hey, I'm still there. Who did just hurt me, by the way?
}

So the barrel has to survive a first impact by the monster, and then get blown and damage the other monster.

In ZDoom the barrel gets to know who hurt it before it explodes, so you don't get to make a baron mad by exploding a barrel that has been damaged by another baron earlier, like in that video.

[Dr. Durr]

Doom related: That zDoom couldn't do everything the Build engine could do. After seeing some of the better GZDoom mods.

Doomworld related: Sodaholic being loser'd. Then I saw why, and remembered he did the same thing at Sonic Retro just days before he did it here.

[Scypek2]

I just looked carefully at map30 for the first time, and I just found out that:
- leftmost linedef of IoS is too long - I thought that part of the horn is covered with a piece of metal in a texture, and it's all intentional.
- ammo boxes are stacked in themselves.
- there are extra megaspheres for multiplayer.
- when using animated textures, Id (or at least Sandy) was always using the last frame of animation. (I'm using the first one, and you?)

[Gez]

Dr. Durr said:

Doom related: That zDoom couldn't do everything the Build engine could do. After seeing some of the better GZDoom mods.

And inversely ZDoom can do a lot of stuff Build engines can't do.

Anyway, the most basic thing that should be kinda obvious is floor/ceiling decals. Leaving footprints was one of the neat little things introduced by Duke 3D. Pretty much everything else in DN3D is possible in ZDoom.

The more advanced features like those added in Blood and Shadow Warrior (changing sector shapes, etc.) aren't possible yet, though; but they haven't really been used in the corresponding games either.

[elic]

Gez said:

Pretty much everything else in DN3D is possible in ZDoom.

You're forgetting overlapping rooms and moving sectors, two of the game's most important features.

[Gez]

Processingcontrol said:

You're forgetting overlapping rooms and moving sectors, two of the game's most important features.

I don't remember them being used in DN3D itself (though they definitely were in Blood and Shadow Warrior). Maybe in the expansion? I've never actually played through the episodes added by the Plutonium edition or however it was called.

But you can use 3D floors and polyobjects. Not exactly the same thing, sure, but still enough in most cases.

[Tristan]

DN3D Examples

E2L3 - Conveyor Belt and slope
E2L5 - Conveyor Belt

E3L10 - Perfect example of overlapping sectors, each side of the square looks out onto a different environment in the centre

Don't forget that DN3D also use defined paths for moving objects, such as subway trains, 2-way trains and even an enemy (RPV) utilised these.

EDIT: Sorry, the trains are the moving sectors you mentioned, they feature, amongst others in E2L1 (the spaceship shooting at you), E2L2 at the very start, and E3L6 which is a level dedicated to the moving sector abilities.

[schwerpunk]

It's too bad that the Build Engine doesn't have a better editor. Making Blood maps in Doom Builder... A man can dream.

It sure would be nice to get some of these features in ZDoom one day, though.

[ComicMischief]

Back on-topic, I have found out recently how badass the pistol can be against mid-to-far distanced weaker targets (pistol and shotgun soldiers) - actually better than the shotgun, if you click-click-click and pea-shoot the things.

This came about because I'm working on a level set that balances the pistol a bit more; by largely omitting the chaingun. You see, the chaingun does exactly what the pistol does, but faster. When the chaingun is collected, this renders the pistol completely useless.

But it isn't, as I've found. Zombiemen take two shots, sometimes three. Shotgun Guys take three or four. Even Archviles, though they take a while to kill with it, succumb due to a high pain chance. I'll have to try the pistol against some other monsters.

I was thinking of holding off on the chaingun until MAP04. I may hold off even longer now.

[LigH]

Sounds interesting. That could even lead to a whole specific topic (setting) for the level set...

[xxbio Warfare11]

The "Ghost" bug

[Hellbent]

ComicMischief said:

Back on-topic, I have found out recently how badass the pistol can be against mid-to-far distanced weaker targets (pistol and shotgun soldiers) - actually better than the shotgun, if you click-click-click and pea-shoot the things. [snip]

set quality to 480p and jump to 1:15.

[Koko Ricky]

schwerpunk said:

It's too bad that the Build Engine doesn't have a better editor. Making Blood maps in Doom Builder... A man can dream.

It sure would be nice to get some of these features in ZDoom one day, though.

What exactly is so difficult about this? I've heard someone on here mention something about subtractive editing, which seems really illogical for a 2.5D engine.

[aldiboronti]

Speaking of straferunning, as we were a few posts back, being a keyboard only guy I've never been able to master the art of true straferunning. Don't any of the ports have the facility to dedicate a single key to do it?

[Gez]

In ZDoom it can be done with an alias.

Something like this:

alias +srleft "+strafe; +left; +moveleft; +forward"
alias -srleft "-strafe; -left; -moveleft; -forward"
alias +srright "+strafe; +right; +moveright; +forward"
alias -srright "-strafe; -right; -moveright; -forward"

Then bind keys to srleft and srright.