Boom Compat. Rocket Triggered Destructable Wall?

[Grimosaur]

Spoiler

 

I've been trying to make a boom compatible rocket triggered destructable wall just for fun and it's actually working pretty well. It works by the revenant getting pushed by the blast damage of the rocket from the other side of the wall into the silent teleporters. It then teleports into the way of the voodoo doll on the superfast vertical conveyors (tag 3 sectors), blocking it from teleporting back to the starting point, where the now blocked voodoo doll moves to the right via the slower lateral conveyors (tag 6 sectors) and into any walk over lines which can be used to trigger anything you like.

 

The only problem is the inconsistency of when the revenant is damaged by the rocket. The reason the wall is only 1px wide is to make it easier for the rocket to pass through the wall far enough to pass the line of sight check with the revenant when it explodes, since if it explodes too early, the line of sight check will be blocked by the wall, and the revenant will not be damaged or pushed by the explosion. This means that out of about 1/4 times, the rocket will explode against the wall but the revenant will not move into the teleporters. That really sucks because there is a lot of potential with destructable walls like these. For example, any rockets you have can be used like keys into extra rooms, and that could be a really interesting concept in a map with a shortage of rockets -you would have to choose between using them in combat or saving them for any potential destructable walls with extra health and secrets behind them. Or the amount of rockets you have at the end of a big fight can be used to access a chain of reward rooms. But you can imagine having only 1 rocket left, shooting it at the wall, and by complete luck the rocket fails the line of sight check and it doesn't trigger.

 

So I guess I'm asking if anyone has any ideas of how to get the line of sight check to pass everytime. I've tried putting a tiny crack in the wall, and that does work, but that means you can just shoot the revenant with a hitscan weapon to trigger it which defeats the whole purpose. I suppose maybe an angled slit using two wall layers could work, but if anyone has any better ideas lemme hear them!

 

 

EDIT: Alright, I've got it working perfectly now! Shooting the rocket now triggers it 100% of the time! The only downside of the design is that hitscan bullets don't show bullet puffs when firing against the wall because of the opening above the wall which allows for the LoS check to pass (hidden with a mid texture), but honestly that might as well be an upside because it's a cool way to discover hidden rocket doors. rockets also pass through the wall when firing right up against it, but I can just make a self referencing sector in front of the door to prevent you from getting up too close, with pillars either side of the wall so you won't get stuck on nothing if you run up against it. I'll post a wad download in a bit when I've got all the instantly lowering floors working.

Edited July 12, 2021 by Grimosaur

[Mordeth]

I used to do this with a barrel as trigger, until I simplified the setup using a death special and some acs.

 

First I constructed the wall with the post-destruction gap. Then made the gap closed by raising the floors of the affected sectors. Next to the gap is a small hidden conveyor leading into the wall, carrying a small invisible solid object (I reused the Lost Soul 'corpse' for this one, with smaller radius and tiny height). Normally this small blocker object would be carried by the conveyor inside the wall and thus trigger some action linedefs, which in turn would instantly lower the walls and teleport in some special explosion sprites. However, the blocker object could not move because it overlapped with a barrel. If the player shoots the barrel, the objects gets released and carried by the conveyor.

 

You'll notice that the barrel doesn't release the blocker object until its death animation has played out, leading to a delay before the wall crumbles. I solved that by cutting the death animation of the barrel short, and instead on death spawn in a new thing with smaller radius that displays the barrel's death animation. This will release the blocker during the barrel's death animation and thus result in the wall crumbling as soon as the barrel dies. Unfortunately, for strict boom compatible stuff this means sacrificing a Thing that spawns something on death.

 

You could hide a special invisible smaller 1-hitpoint 'barrel' and a similar setup behind the wall, but getting the splash damage from a rocket reliable hitting the hidden barrel will be extremely finicky to set up. Plus side: you won't have to sacrifice a Thing that spawns another thing on death. Or try a similar setup with a tiny 'barrel' just covering the entrance of the conveyor belt for a more reliable setup; however your player will notice getting blocked while moving / sliding against that wall. Plus, your 'barrel' will attract player's autoaim.

[Grimosaur]

Ok! I've finally got something that works consistently, with barrel explosion effect and all. Also without using any custom Things (Though I probably should have, I've just got no clue how to do that kinda stuff). The time until the wall lowers is pretty inconsistent, but it's always before the explosion graphic of the rocket disappears so that's good enough for me! The explosion sounds behind the wall make up for it pretty well I think... that is if the barrels do explode, but I think I've got it consistent now, they haven't failed to explode in this version for me yet. Limitations of this design are it can only be destroyed from one height level, so if used in a level you'll have to make sure you can't shoot it at any other height which kinda sucks. It's also super convoluted and once destroyed no monsters can pass through the opening but AH- I don't careee, it worksss.

 

You can download it here and see if you can improve it in some way but I think this is rreeaallyy pushing the limits of completely vanilla boom with no custom stuff, so I think this is about as good as destructable walls can get without using custom Things. Tested in PrBoom+ and does not work in Gzdoom because the voodoo doll gets stuck on the conveyors for some reason.

[Nine Inch Heels]

38 minutes ago, Grimosaur said:

The time until the wall lowers is pretty inconsistent, but it's always before the explosion graphic of the rocket disappears so that's good enough for me!

You can add a delay to the setup if you use the shoot trigger to release a voodoo doll on a scrolling floor... Might require some tinkering to get the timing just right, but it might be worth your while, if you want it to look more "plausible"