Does anyone else think the explosive barrels are wonky

[jghfugg29833]

I always considered the explosive barrels in DooM and DooM II to  be wonky, for example, imagine there is a zombieman and a barrel next to eachother, you shoot the barrel, the barrel explodes and the zombieman dies, simple enough, but sometimes it can go far and kill and sometimes gib a zombieman that should have lived due to his distance to the barrel and i noticed this while playing in E1M2 and it confuses me.

Edited January 23, 2021 by jghfugg29833
forgot to add some stuff

[P41R47]

Don't know the others, but i find them as something to take care and rewarding to use.

Never seemed wonky to me.

Nothing more satisfactory than having a good placed barrel explode and banquish any enemy around it.

 

Maybe you are not use to play with them?

What source port are you using?

maybe the physics are different allowing the barrels to slide with every shot more than they have to.

[jghfugg29833]

I'm playing with chocolate doom and used to play with GZDoom before that and the "wonkyness" seems to be apparent on there than in chocolate doom, i think it might just be the difference between GZDoom and DOS/chocolate doom.

[baja blast rd.]

Splash damage in the Doom engine is a square (check out the diagram), which can lead to the perceived inconsistencies you are noticing. 

 

Imagine a zombieman at a 45° angle relative to a barrel explosion, his midpoint roughly 110 units away, or about a 78-unit square. Pythagoras if he were posting would be "Hark! The zombieman is too far away to die according to my formula" and he'd be right if splash were a circle, but in the square model, the zombie is effectively much closer and it dies. 

 

This is also why the rocket launcher might be sneakily more deadly to you at close quarters if you're fighting in one of those maps where everything is angled askew. A cyberdemon on a diagonal bridge can be perceptibly tougher than one on a straight bridge. 

Edited January 23, 2021 by rd.

[jghfugg29833]

4 minutes ago, rd. said:

Splash damage in the Doom engine is a square (check out the diagram), which can lead to the perceived inconsistencies you are noticing. 

 

Imagine a zombieman at a 45° angle relative to a barrel explosion, his midpoint roughly 110 units away, or about a 78-unit square. Pythagoras if he were posting would be "Hark! The zombieman is too far away to die according to my formula" and he'd be right if splash were a circle, but in the square model, the zombie is effectively much closer and it dies. 

 

This is also why the rocket launcher might be sneakily more deadly to you at close quarters if you're fighting in one of those maps where everything is angled askew. A cyberdemon on a diagonal bridge can be perceptibly tougher than one on a straight bridge. 

Huh, really insteresting, i never knew it was a square but maybe that can cause some problems no?, anyways thanks for the response and explanation.

[AtticTelephone]

No, explosive barrels are epic, and I never really had a problem with them acting weird unless it's my fault. Also Barrels O' Fun is awesome.

[Rytrik]

1 hour ago, jghfugg29833 said:

but sometimes it can go far and kill and sometimes gib a zombieman that should have lived due to his distance to the barrel and i noticed this while playing in E1M2 and it confuses me.

 

This phrase confuses me.... 

[jghfugg29833]

1 minute ago, Rytrik said:

 

This phrase confuses me.... 

maybe survived would have been better? i'm not really good at english.

[Rytrik]

1 minute ago, jghfugg29833 said:

maybe survived would have been better? i'm not really good at english.

 

I was more eluding to "no zombieman should ever live" ;)

[Marisa the Magician]

Actually all splash damage in Doom is square EXCEPT barrels which are circular.

[jghfugg29833]

LOL

[The Bug]

you're the one whos wonky

[dei_eldren]

It happened to me today, that i was shooting barrels going 'no way that idiot is gonna realize to die from the explosion that far', but it did!  And what rd said explains what i experienced.  Tbh, i was just happy they gibbed...

Edited January 23, 2021 by dei_eldren

[jghfugg29833]

1 minute ago, dei_eldren said:

It happened to me today, that i was shooting barrels going 'no way that idiot is gonna realize to die from the explosion that far', but it did!  And what rd said explains what i experienced.  Tbh, i was just happy they gibbed...

You summarized my feelings about barrels very well.

[Dweller Dark]

I never really gave the barrel explosion mechanic much thought, but the animations look cool as fuck still and I enjoy that sometimes they're placed in a way that makes it so enticing to blow them up and cause a cascade reaction that kills everything near them.

[jghfugg29833]

Just now, DavetheDoomguy said:

I never really gave the barrel explosion mechanic much thought, but the animations look cool as fuck still and I enjoy that sometimes they're placed in a way that makes it so enticing to blow them up and cause a cascade reaction that kills everything near them.

Like Barrels 'o Fun

[Yandere_Doomer]

2 hours ago, AtticTelephone said:

Also Barrels O' Fun is awesome.

i dissent.... even though it was kind of a funny detour from the levels, i found it frustrating as hell.... luckily i was able to beat that bastard of a level...

[wallabra]

@rd. like Manhattan distance?

[DRM-MAN]

Barrels are really only wonky if you're holding the left mouse button with the chaingun or pistol.

[Mr. LBN]

Nope.  When I was young and first introduced to DOOM, and gaming in general, the concept of shoot barrel, it go boom, and make enemies go boom was the most genius concept ever invented at the time for my young mind.  The amount of time I'd just herd as many enemies to barrels, and watch them gib brings back too many fuzzy memories.

 

I actually feel that barrels in DOOM are the exact opposite of wonky, in that they have relatively low health, but not low enough that one shot just makes them erratically explode, the mass is damn near perfect, and they do balanced damage with a controlled explosion that doesn't rely on shrapnel, or some kinda mass diameter to be effective.  I'm guilty of this, but mappers really need to start showing barrels some love (I've noticed even myself not putting barrels anywhere at all).