baja blast rd.

Back in the olden days they used sound tubes!

But we enlightened modern mappers know better...

These are really satisfying. 

On Discord, we got to talking about the longest distance over which an archvile will initiate an attack unprovoked, and I got really curious about exactly what it was. (Someone mentioned a speedrun that relied on an AV jump and how it'd be really useful to know the exact distance.)

"About 1024 map units" is the commonly understood distance that I've seen referred to the most. 

Like, it's what mappers have historically used when making cursed challenge encounters that spam ridiculous numbers of perched viles and place corpses as a cue so you can stay out of vile attack range to escape a horrific death. (When I say mappers I mean  Dubbz.) 

Some references give the value 896 -- the Wiki as I'm typing right now, but possibly will be fixed later; and a highly watched Doomtube video --  but outside of any ports that alter the behavior, that number is wrong and based on a misreading of the source code.

Focusing on these lines in the source code would suggest 896:

 if (actor->type == MT_VILE)
    {
    if (dist > 14*64)    
        return false;    // too far away
    }

But that glosses over these lines that come before it.

    dist = P_AproxDistance ( actor->x-actor->target->x,
                 actor->y-actor->target->y) - 64*FRACUNIT;
    
    if (!actor->info->meleestate)
    dist -= 128*FRACUNIT;    // no melee attack, so fire more

    dist >>= 16;

Which basically mean the check (if (dist > 896)) only happens after we subtract 64 and then 128 from the distance -- which would mean its true range is 1088 (896+64+128 = 1088). Thanks Rayziik for spotting the 64 too.

It's worth testing stuff like this because taking the code at face value can hide a misreading. It's pretty easy to empirically check that 896 is way off and "about 1024" is correct (but not precise). But verifying the exact range was harder.

In a test wad where I placed the player start some distance from a carefully monster blocked vile, I can get the vile to attack 1088 units away. This is easy on -skill 5 since the vile will go into its attack with no delay, but on UV the archvile moves around a bunch and will spend most of its time slightly further than 1088 units away from the player and not able to attack. You might want to use DSDA-Doom with the game sped up. I got up and got something to drink instead and eventually heard myself being attacked, showing that was in range. With the player start 1089 units away instead, even the NM vile just jiggles around forever, so that's out of range. 

Also, it's not quite as simple as there being a consistent maximum range.

The P_AproxDistance function basically maps to something shaped like this:

The range is at its highest at direct cardinal directions (1088) and falls off to about ~1024 at 45-degree offsets from that.

But yeah, it seems like the theoretical maximum unprovoked range is 1088. The way it works out in practice, it has a steep dropoff in its likelihood of attacking you that far away outside of NM (and still kind of a dropoff on -fast), since it can't be perfectly monster-blocked without being stuck, and it'll be too busy backing slightly out of range pulling off its sick dance moves.

Looking for a tiling (both horizontal and vertical) "white fluffy clouds in a blue sky" type of sky. 

Your HUD is amazing lol

From Tetanus m05. (This is spoilery since this is still in the RC stage.) BK on a pillar, BK doors, diving suits, all in one compact view at a central juncture of the map. Prior to this, you will have probably encountered an extensive passage of damaging -- well, it's not damaging floor, you'll see. So in one moment, when you see this, everything crystalizes into a directive about how you're supposed to play the rest of the map (which is quite an accomplishment because there's still quite a bit of map to be played from this point). Thought this was a really good bit of conveyance, telling you what might otherwise take a sentence or two of ZDoom console text through just visual staging and proximity.   

Cacove

Boom-format speedmap

500+ monsters, beatable in under five minutes

cacove.zip

Alright gather round folks for mapping class. When you are having trouble getting started on a map, think of something you know your map will contain and then create it. 

I'll quote Ernest Hemingway who once said, of writing, "All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know."

It is sometimes useful to try to apply quotes from one context to another, so let's give it a try here. 

"All you have to do is make one true zombieman spam teleport battery. Create the truest zombieman spam teleport battery that you know." 

Profound af. 

Thanks for reading.

(From "Beezleboat" by Muumi, map12 of Boaty McBoatwad.)

It's alive and it's aboat.

Since this is rounding out closer to completion, I'll announce here that I'm maintaining a summary of wads that came out this year (or close enough), so that lots of stuff can be found and downloaded in one convenient place. 

I've been focusing more on tracking down obscure smaller releases lately. If you want to help contribute, though, five wads (or series) need suitable screenshots in 4:3. 

Those are the DBP series (gonna be 15 total shots, so 1 for each wad out so far and pick 1-2 more), HFFM - Cut (5 total), The Unmaking (6 total, if you have Doom 64 EX), Action Doom 2: Urban Brawl Reloaded (5 total), and Blade of Agony (6 total). 

(Screenshots for the PUSS series are on the way from the project organizer, so don't worry about those.) 

okay I've done my weekly practice

now gonna go back to 

- using saves regularly 
- dropping down below UV when I don't feel in the mood for UV's intensity in a set

- using 'resurrect' when I inexplicably forget to save for a really long stretch (and then whittling down my health to what it was) 
- (re)playing certain slaughtermaps with OP gameplay mods for fun

- caring whether HNTR is implemented at least minimally in sets I play

- -nomo or IDDQD just to chill to design and architecture without fighting anything

and other actually-cooler things I do more often these days :) 

Not a very believable impersonation attempt lol

just a cloud nothing suspicious going on

 project idea: Scuba Steve, Steve D, Steve88, and any other Doom Steves, make a megawad where every map is a stovepipe 

BTSX e2m25 + horses = Stable Journey

not gonna post this in the Micro Slaughter Community Project thread because I don't like derails, but this is not meant to be a giant subtweet, just a bit of explanation of my previous comment on how "micro slaughter" is a thing that exists.

some works in the genre:

- phmlspd, Fruit Salad, Rush

- Water Spirit, Oceanside

- Survive in Hell

- the slaughtermaps in sets like Plutonium Winds

- (a bunch of standalones like) Brown & Red and Caco Bell 

- the New Gothic series is more small than big, especially movement 2. notable CPs like the Slaughterfest series and Slaughtermax have as many smaller slaughtermaps as big ones, especially in the earlier parts, where there is a deliberate skew.

- including speedmaps, like three-quarters of my own maps going back to 2015 are consciously "microslaughter" so I personally know it's not a new thing ;) 

- they are super common as entries in community projects, e.g. when Cannonball maps for Doom 2, it's often in that form; 50 Shades of Graytall have a lot. then there are almost ubiquitous one-offs in other works, like BTSX e1m32.

(this not an exhaustive list)

(and not everything in that list is completable in 5 minutes, but that is an arbitrary benchmark and I'm not going to endorse retroactively classifying something differently because it takes 6 minutes.)

so yeah, I'd get why someone who is mostly familiar with slaughter in the form of Sunder and Bastion of Chaos and such would think the idea of "smaller slaughter maps" is especially new or unusual. but I don't like the idea of suggesting it is or selling that angle, because that effectively minimizes (heh) and effaces a lot of past work in the genre. 

also the typical "big" slaughtermap, for example Combat Shock 2 or the not-quite-as-short parts of the Slaughterfests and Slauightermax, has generally been more like 20-30 minutes long than a huge Sunderian epic anyway.

one thing that MSCP does is offer more of it; apart from a few (phmlspd, Rush, Survive in Hell, Italo Doom), having a dozen and a half smaller slaughtermaps in a project, and pretty much nothing else, is unusual. and I think that sort of dedicated distillation of concept, paired with the quantity, can be thought of as relatively novel. the first five wads on the big list above are generally quite a bit easier than MSCP, so I'd consider them better "soft intros" to the form for newcomers, but MSCP works as a spicy and short trial by fire.

AWOOGA

This is a map called Skintryway. 

It is a remake of Doom 2 map01's layout from memory. It is also a 15-minute speedmap. It turned out surprisingly playable considering those constraints, so I felt like sharing it. 

A mistake I found amusing: I accidentally placed a chaingun instead of a chainsaw because "chain" and I didn't have time to look closely. 

Hope you enjoy. 

skintryway.zip

In the off chance that anyone (especially a new mapper) sees this review and my status update, the implication here is silly and harmful. Smaller mapsets, and standalone maps, are 'complete wads' too, and 17-map megawads are perfectly fine. 

What are some of your favorite small and mid-sized maps? 

Or the coolest, most impressive, most fun, most creative, etc., whatever direction you want to go.

Standalone map, part of a megawad, anything in between, doesn't matter.