artica3.wad friendly monsters

[hawkwind]

Artica3.wad contains friendly monsters, an imp and three chaingunners, none of which are mentioned in the dehacked lump. My investigations have found, for the imp, that it has the flag # 143 as shown in SLADE, making the imp friendly, and sector 165 is tagged #900, which makes the chaingunners friendly. They even don't retaliate if attacked by the player. Applies to MBF type ports. But the question is ... why ?

Edited March 8, 2020 by hawkwind

[Gez]

The text file has the answer:

Note                    : A few helpers in this map.  I won't give away who they are 
			  though.  The first one really dosen't doo too much(takes out 
			  a few bad dudes, but then he can't follow you)but the next bunch 
			  will definetly be useful to you.

 

[Dimon12321]

They retaliate. I don't know why, but I think there is a tiny chance of doing so. Also, if an Arch-vile resurrects a chaingunner, he won't be friendly anymore.

[hawkwind]

Not much help guys. I have already stated who they are and they do not retaliate. Fire up said wad in, say, zdoom. Keep punching the imp at sector 35. The imp will not fight back ! Same for the chaingunners at sector 160. Also, just now I slightly modified the map. The "friendliness" might have something to do with the nodes. Strange, I know, because after map save those monsters were not friendly anymore. I guess there is just some strange trickery going on ...

Edited March 8, 2020 by hawkwind

[Gez]

6 minutes ago, hawkwind said:

Not much help guys.

???

 

You asked why there are friendlies, I put the relevant excerpt from the text file showing it was a deliberate decision from the author to put in helpers.

 

4 hours ago, hawkwind said:

and sector 165 is tagged #900, which makes the chaingunners friendly

No, the chaingunners aren't even in sector 165, they're in sector 160; and they're friendly because they have the friendly flag, just like the imp.

 

https://doomwiki.org/wiki/Friendly_monster

 

ZDoom didn't implement MBF's friendly monster logic, instead implementing Strife's allied AI logic. That's why they won't retaliate in GZDoom. They can and will retaliate in PrBoom+ or Woof or other true MBF ports.

[hawkwind]

16 hours ago, Gez said:

 

 

You asked why there are friendlies, I put the relevant excerpt from the text file showing it was a deliberate decision from the author to put in helpers.

I asked why were they friendlies, not why there are friendlies.

Quote

 

No, the chaingunners aren't even in sector 165, they're in sector 160; and they're friendly because they have the friendly flag, just like the imp.

My apologies. I meant sector 160.

Quote

 

https://doomwiki.org/wiki/Friendly_monster

 

ZDoom didn't implement MBF's friendly monster logic, instead implementing Strife's allied AI logic. That's why they won't retaliate in GZDoom. They can and will retaliate in PrBoom+ or Woof or other true MBF ports.

Interesting. The wiki mentions ... However, any monster can be marked as being friendly in the map editor by setting flag bit 7 (128) to true.

 

How is this done?  All I could see, using Slade, is that the imp is flagged 143 and the chaingunners are flagged 135.

Edited March 9, 2020 by hawkwind

[Diabolución]

Relevant extracts from MBFEDIT.TXT:

2A. Friendly monster flag

At level startup, every object in a level's map is spawned with the FRIEND
mobj flag set if bit 7 (mask 128) is set in the Thing's flag bits. This
allows two of the same species in a map to be marked as being of a different
persuasion. However, for various design reasons, if a thing is marked as being 
friendly in its mobj definition, then it will always be friendly when spawned
as a map object, regardless of the Thing's flags.

So far, editor support for this feature is weak, but if a value >= 128 can
be entered for a Thing's flags, then generally speaking, you only need to add 
128 to the value to turn it into a friendly thing. Real players are always
considered friendly, regardless of their Thing flags.

 

2C. Dogs

Dogs, which are mobj #140, have Doomednum 888 (i.e. Thing Type #888). They
are not spawned as friendly dogs, unless explicitly marked as friendly by the
friendly thing flag, or unless the entire species (140) is marked friendly.
But this doesn't affect the normal spawning of dogs as friendly coop player
replacements -- players or their bot replacements are always friends.

Dogs have these lumps embedded inside the .exe, which can be modified by wads:

DOGS* sprites with frames A-I (0-8).

 

3A. FRIEND  (0x40000000)  Mobj Flag

When the FRIEND mobj flag is set, a monster becomes the friend of the
player(s), and tries to help them.

Friendliness is a Map Object flag, not merely a Thing flag, because a monster's
friendliness can change during the game. For example, Arch-Viles transfer their
good or evil intentions towards the player, to the victims they resurrect. A
friendly Arch-Vile turns corpses into new friends, no matter what their motives
were when they died, and an unfriendly Arch-Vile turns them into player
enemies. Boss Spawners spawn monsters with the same friendliness as themselves.
Pain Elementals spawn Lost Souls with the same motives.

Friendly monsters with long-range missile capability (missilestates) fire back
only one shot each time they receive a painful hit from a friend such as the
player (monsters with automatic weapons fire back a short burst). Friendly
monsters without long-range missile capability do not retaliate when hit by
friendly fire.

Friendly monsters return to a player if they cannot find any enemy targets, or
if they lack long-range firing capability and they cannot seem to attack any
opponent for a significant period of time.

Player autoaiming does not fire at friends if there are any enemies within
autoaiming range. This avoids accidental shooting of friends by the player,
but does not rule out shooting friends if they are the only ones in sight
or they are the obvious target.

 

[hawkwind]

Thanks Diabolution. I had just realised this myself. Simply put, using Slade, in the THINGS lump just add 128 to the monster flag. Thanks guys.