How do I add more actions to enemies with WhackEd4?

[Z0RGUSSY]

Even though I've messed around with WhackEd4 a bit, my knowledge is still limited with it in what I can do and how to use it way better. Let's say I want a new custom enemy for a map that I would make and it would replace Commander Keen. The issue is that Keen has alot of frames that don't have actions and I would need more actions for the new enemy. Let's say the enemy would fly and fire projectiles, how would I be able to create this new enemy that replaces Keen? Or is this not possible with WhackEd4?

Edited December 11, 2023 by Z0RGUSSY

[Doomy__Doom]

Ability to add codepointers to arbitrary frames requires BEX (Boom and up). Vanilla dehacked cannot do that because of limitations related to physically modifying original exe - you can only change (not even delete/clear) original codepointer placements. Doom 1.9 configuration in Whacked follows vanilla restrictions and produces vanilla-compatible patch format.

[Z0RGUSSY]

43 minutes ago, Doomy__Doom said:

Ability to add codepointers to arbitrary frames requires BEX (Boom and up). Vanilla dehacked cannot do that because of limitations related to physically modifying original exe - you can only change (not even delete/clear) original codepointer placements. Doom 1.9 configuration in Whacked follows vanilla restrictions and produces vanilla-compatible patch format.

Welp, that's a shame. But it is good to know. 

[plums]

Worth noting that most limit removing ports/modes can handle Boom format dehacked, e.g. Crispy Doom, dsda-doom with complevel 2, etc. So if you're going for limit-removing and you don't mind excluding hacks like DOOM32.exe, you can use the Boom format and put code pointer actions wherever you want.

[Z0RGUSSY]

22 minutes ago, plums said:

Worth noting that most limit removing ports/modes can handle Boom format dehacked, e.g. Crispy Doom, dsda-doom with complevel 2, etc. So if you're going for limit-removing and you don't mind excluding hacks like DOOM32.exe, you can use the Boom format and put code pointer actions wherever you want.

I want my alot of my maps and wads to be vanilla-compatible and I've already got an answer from another person. But thank you for telling me about this.

 

[Noiser]

You can add new action pointers by taking something you don't gonna use from other entities. For example, you can free a lot of slots by removing the second frame of the idle animation - or taking the unused bossdeath frames in Doom 2, from the Baron\Cyberdemon\Spiderdemon. The idea is geting creative and finding ways to manipulate the frames without altering the game in a greater scale.

Edited December 11, 2023 by Noiser

[magicsofa]

You can easily add frames with actions by stealing them from other things. This is pretty much the Whole Thing with dehacked, and if you are smart about it you can squeeze in quite a lot without making too much of an impact on the things you are stealing frames from.

 

The easiest thing to steal from is the archvile flame. It is a very long sequence and every frame has an action. If I remember correctly the sprite also repeats in twos, so you can steal every other one and just double the duration of the remaining frames. The caveat is that the fire doesn't follow the player as accurately (A_Fire centers the fire on the archie's target). If you didn't want that you could just leave the durations and either reorder the sprites or have faster animating fire. Either way, you get a ton of frames out of it while only sacrificing something that is purely cosmetic.

 

There are lots of other places you can steal from, but most of those will be more useful actions or just more noticeable to the player.

[Kappes Buur]

While already mentioned, WhackEd follows the restrictions of vanilla limitations.

You could start to embrace the relatively new MBF21 standard, which is rapidly 

findingh acceptance among mappers and may be the solution you are looking for.

 

 

https://mtrop.github.io/DoomTools/decohack.html

Edited December 12, 2023 by Kappes Buur