SopMOD version 1.1 Release

So I'm just about finished tinkering with this weapons mod and ready to upload a respectable product to the /idgames archive (I'm just not quite happy with some of the BMP lumps yet ... a few more dabs of paint might do the trick).

This is one of very few decent weapon mods that are not exclusively directed at ZDoom or Skulltag. It works in Skulltag, but I'm pretty sure that the BFG9000 is going to remain unchanged, if not altogether glitchy because it's not a pk3 archive file. Too bad I can't get Skulltag working to test it at the moment (I just switched to Ubuntu and now my OpenGL backends are broken).

The videos in this post are all incredibly outdated. I plan on updating the videos after I upload to the archive. I'm using pretty much all of my free time finalising the package at the moment.

But before I upload, a question. I'm considering adding a couple of DeHackEd patches to the mod that would make it compatible with the Batman Doom TC and of course the Twilight Warrior TC. But in order to do this, I must use the dehacked patches from the original TCs and upload modified versions of them. Is this acceptable, or do I have to get permissions to use those resources?

###### Original OP ######

Here's a short demo of my first doom mod (of course it's a weapons mod), which is still in the very beginning stages of production:

The demo is tool-assisted in case you're wondering. I just used 25% speed to do the recording because the full-auto looks like garbage right now and I can't pull the trigger fast enough to make it look like full-auto.

Backstory: I've played around quite a bit with those quaint little dehacked files. It felt like a good place to start with DooM tinkering; it doesn't require any tools and there is only so much functionality. I'm thinking that it's probably time for me to move on and get working on an actual WAD project.

So I'm starting small. Really small. I grabbed a copy of Don Tello's M16 WAD (sprite courtesy of Bad Karma) and I wrote a dehacked patch that will replace every weapon (except for the chainsaw and rocketlauncher) with the M16. It was originally going to be a mod that replaces the pistol with an M16 with unlimited ammo. That got boring pretty quick, so I had to replace all the weapons with the M16 so that I could find ammo in every form and use it. Wasn't long before I noticed that changing weapons really looked a lot like reloading -- in Vanilla Doom.

Then I decided to get bold and use every dehacked patch in my arsenal to create a new way to cheat and uncheat at the same time (to keep the game fairly balanced overall in difficulty). Here's the lo-down:

Ammo -- just don't ever miss and you might actually see a full mag.
Life/Armor -- reality mode. Invulnerability powerups are a godsend.
Damage -- extremely rapid firing rate and ridiculously low monster hit points. (One rocket + 8-12 rounds = dead Cyber)

My apologies for the horrible sound quality in the video. My first time recording from the desktop and I can only record audio through the lappy's built-in microphone ATM. I used FFMPEG to do the recording because GLC created the output file but didn't put any video or audio in it for some strange reason.

Anyways, I'm posting this mainly for feedback on just how interesting this mod would be to the community. If nobody really wants it, I'll just keep it to myself; if it sounds popular, I'll be more likely to pop back in this thread with annoying n00b questions on WAD editing. Cheers.

Interesting. Wouldn't work very well in many slaughter maps which is what I'm interested in, but could provide some insane TAS demos. How did you decide on a magazine size of 15? Seems a bit low, though with the backpack it would go up to 30. Limiting the mod to reality seems a bit harsh, maybe lower starting/normal max health to 50 and soulsphere health to 100? If someone wants to do a reality run they'll make sure to notice a hit, though some areas with lots of medkits/stimpacks could confuse that. Probably wouldn't need to change how armor works.

This looks surprisingly well done for a DEH mod - reloading's handled in a way I've never seen before (weapon slots to select magazines?). I'd have to wonder, though, why you couldn't allow the player to carry more than one M203 grenade and bake the reloading animation into the weapon frames (since you've probably got a crapton of them left over from the weapons you axed).

While you're at it, it shouldn't be too difficult to reorder the ammo types so that the M203 takes cells (the lowest ammo type on the status bar) and swap around the rocket/cell pickups to suit. Then you can redecorate the status bar so the ammo types read MAG1, MAG2, MAG3, and M203, and the illusion is complete.

It's been a long time since I saw a DEH mod, let alone one that looked this interesting.

My current plan is to create two separate WADs for this mod: one will make the overpowered weapons and the other implements the reality mode. Playing with only reality mode enabled isn't impossible (until you run across a river of slime in maps like E2M6), but it can be pretty fun (player's mass is also greatly reduced so he'll go flying when he buys it). Playing with only the enhanced weapons enabled is still fun but it's just far too easy even on nightmare.

The one hit-point reality mod is designed primarily for multiplayer. I'm thinking what would happen to a deathmatch strategy if the players had automatic rifles instead of pistols with one point of health ... and then I eliminate the "pray and spray" by cutting ammo down to just about nill.

There is no way that I can see slaughter maps working with this mod under any settings. It's either way too easy or downright impossible. I've played Drown in Blood and the Nuts trilogy with this mod (with unlimited ammo and reality mode off, of course) and I didn't even break a sweat. It is just extremely difficult to give DooM a "one shot, one kill" feel while keeping the gameplay balanced.

I currently have three settings for the ammo availability. This demo is using the most limited setting to show how the ammo is almost perfectly balanced. I pretty much start each map with the exact same supplies -- plus the ammo that I leave behind is enough to supply a second player in a coop game. (It turns out that the incredibly limited backpack prevents coop players from hoarding all the ammo.) The middle setting is basically double the ammo of this one (and the BFG becomes an M16 with infinite ammo). High setting is half of normal DooM's default ammo settings ... I can just sit around writing my name in the wall with all the extra ammo.

Part of the problem with the ammo setups is that it can be confusing which "weapon" I have active when all the weapons look the same. This can be important because if I fired all my "shotgun" ammo and I'm using bullet ammo, I'll switch back to the shotgun automatically as soon as I pick up shells and this can happen at a bad time. It would cost a lot of weapon frames, but I could try and implement two sprites for the M16 ... say one blued-steel (pistol/chaingun) and one chrome (shotgun/BFG). This way I'd have a better idea which ammo type I'm using.

I'm definitely interested in replacing the rocket launcher with an M203 and increasing the reload time using those extra weapon frames. Rockets make a huge difference in gameplay. If I allow more than two rockets, the limited ammo becomes much less of a challenge to overcome. Players can fire a rocket into a crowd and reap the ammo so that they can spray some rooms again. With a handful of rockets, I can max out a backpack in no time at all (that's using the high ammo setting I mentioned earlier).

If I cut the health in half, I'll have to find a way to cut the health packs in half as well. There are several solutions here that I've tested.

• Take health powerups away altogether but leave initial health at 100 ... this actually works pretty well for players that always use a pistol start. It's a nice "reality mode lite" kind of feel.
• Take away all health except the stimpacks and set max health to 50 ... also works, but some levels don't provide too many stimpacks. Explosive barrels and pits of slime will still make some maps completely unwinnable.

Another idea that I've been rolling around in my head: Take away the fist and use the fist frames to reload the pistol. This could add a true reload to a Vanilla mod. Let's say I fire the pistol dry and the game automatically reverts to the fist. If the fist can be modded to "fire" a clip and the player picks up the clip, the pistol will automatically go back to the ready. This provides infinite ammo with a limited magazine.

Toughguy said:

There is no way that I can see slaughter maps working with this mod under any settings. It's either way too easy or downright impossible. I've played Drown in Blood and the Nuts trilogy with this mod (with unlimited ammo and reality mode off, of course) and I didn't even break a sweat. It is just extremely difficult to give DooM a "one shot, one kill" feel while keeping the gameplay balanced.

You're probably going to have to live with making some map sets unplayable; I even have that problem with Agent Diaz, as the reloading makes it difficult to deal with hordes.

It would cost a lot of weapon frames, but I could try and implement two sprites for the M16 ... say one blued-steel (pistol/chaingun) and one chrome (shotgun/BFG). This way I'd have a better idea which ammo type I'm using.

Try just recoloring the magazine (since I think it's visible on screen). It's a tiny little detail that'll make it possible to tell which magazine is loaded.

Let's say I fire the pistol dry and the game automatically reverts to the fist. If the fist can be modded to "fire" a clip and the player picks up the clip, the pistol will automatically go back to the ready. This provides infinite ammo with a limited magazine.

Unfortunately I haven't had much success with making projectile weapons fire pickups - I experimented with making weapons drop medikits, but I can't remember what happened that made it impossible (I recall crashing though).

Thanks for the advice WildWeasel. This mod doesn't look like it's going to be terribly popular, so I'm just about ready to upload it as-is. I tinkered with the graphics a bit and finalized the dehacked packages. Had to boot Windows to get Slade working (I almost said Slige there ... those names are way too similar), and I dumped the Dehacked lump into the wad.

This finished version is quite a bit different from the first. It still does a ton of damage, but much less than before. I compensated for that by greatly increasing the ammo availability.

The chaingun had to go unfortunately. It was inevitably going to fire two rounds instead of one with each shot and it was a "preferred" weapon over the pistol. So now the BFG9000 takes the chaingun frames and it makes a good pray-and-spray weapon overall.

*/Edit: The original Sopmod is available on the archives currently, but I'm still tinkering with it from time to time. This video above is a sample of what it looks like now ... I decided to bump that whole "we need more ammo and less mega-damage" idea. It still wasn't any fun on a slaughter map, so I said "screw it."

Decided to edit the OP and bump this thread rather than creating a new thread. I hope that this is acceptable.

Basically this mod has been completely overhauled since the last post here:

Weapon 0 (Fists): Knife attack
Weapon 1 (Pistol): M4 carbine
Weapon 2 (Shotgun): M4 with extra firing frame (flames)
Weapon 3 (Chaingun): Same as pistol
Weapon 4 (Rocket Launcher): M203 (complete with reload frames)
Weapon 5 (Plasma Gun): M4 with extra firing frame (tracer)
Weapon 6 (BFG9000): M249 (epileptic seizure warning)
Weapon 7 (Chainsaw): Combo knife attack (has teh awesome)
Weapon 8 (Super Shotgun): Same as shotgun

I also tested this with boss battles and some moderately hellish slaughter maps -- it's a win in both cases, but still not quite as good as the standard doom weapons. This mod is basically designed around TAS demos -- speedruns, UV max speed, tyson, and even pacifist demos are incredible to see in this mod. Imagine if Chuck Norris took on the leading role in a John Frankenheimer Doom movie back in 1994 ... and this is what you'd get.

Ooooh, this looks fun. Can't wait to run through Suspended In Dusk with this one.

And that E1M1 video is hilariously frantic. PEWPEWPEWPEWPEWPEWPEWPEWPEW done.

It's uploaded to the new games archive now. That was fast.

I'm skipping the patches for Batman Doom and Twilight Warrior until I get permissions to use the dehacked resources for those mods. I'm planning on posting a short video of Batman Doom patched with this mod to see if anybody's interested in getting a patch for it.