Things

[Guest SoulMuncha]

Hello! Yet another question from me...

When you put Things in a level, you can set what difficulties they're on, whether they're deaf or not etc.

How exactly is this information handled? With linedefs, they can take triggers and sectors get flags, but what controls this stuff in Things? I was just thinking that maybe mods for Doom could take advantage of this to make monsters affect sectors and stuff, or that if a monster dies it kills other monsters or... something. I was thinking along the lines of my earlier post about how killing stuff opens things or ends the level or whatever.

[Lüt]

That's another option that would be possible with scripting systems like ACS or FraggleScript but unfortunately isn't available as a feature in most regular Doom ports. Again, I have no idea how to write scripts so I can't help you there.

[ReX]

SoulMuncha said:

How exactly is this information handled? With linedefs, they can take triggers and sectors get flags, but what controls this stuff in Things?

What you describe is strictly a feature of source ports (with the notable exceptions in DooM2 of Commander Keen w/sector tag 666, and the Mancubus & Arachnotron w/sector tags 666 & 667 in Map07; DooM & Ultimate DooM have their own).

The way they work is as follows -- if the thing can be picked up (e.g., weapon, power up, health, armor) then the action is triggered when the thing is picked up. The action can be in the form of activating something in a sector (light level, crushing ceiling, etc.), or in the form of activating other things (e.g., "waking" up dormant enemies, spawning other things, etc.), or changing a sidedef texture (e.g., activating a scrolling wall).

If the thing is an enemy, then the action is triggered when the enemy dies. Using scripts you can trigger multiple actions from a single thing; you can even trigger actions after multiple things have been picked up or destroyed. If you're not using scripts, then you can typically only trigger a single action.

Check out the many excellent source ports available, at:

http://www.doomworld.com/ports/index.shtml

[Wildman]

ZDoom has this capability; it is called the "Thing Special". Any thing that can "die" (monsters, items you can pick up, etc.) can be set to execute a Special. A Special in ZDoom is a command that does something. It is analgous to a trigger in normal Doom.

If the special is ACS_Execute, it will execute an ACS (Action Code Script) script in ZDoom. On a simple level, scripts can be thought of as batch commands where you can execute mutliple commands at the same time time. However, ACS is really a simple programming language. ACS has variables, branching and scoping so extremely complex wads can be built.

Sometime ago I produced a copule wads where you went head to head with random Doom monsters. The wad featured a scoreboard and various game options and it was done completely in ACS.

ACS is quite easy to learn even for a non-programmer. I have a scripting primer that explains in simple language what a script is and how to create one. You can find it on the ZDoom Knowledge Base on cdrom (zdkb*.zip) or the ZDoom homepage. If you have done some programming, then ACS will look quite familiar.

(Hey, what is this God on Earth stuff anyway? Ling, are you mad at me for making fun of you in the Doom 3 forum? :) I'm Just Some Guy.)

[Lüt]

Wildman said:

(Hey, what is this God on Earth stuff anyway? Ling, are you mad at me for making fun of you in the Doom 3 forum? :) I'm Just Some Guy.)

He's finally filling out custom titles for frequent users. There was an uproar in the General Forums about not being able to edit your titles.