Can anyone tell me some deathmatch WADs for GZDoom with Random Item Spawners?

[Gianluco]

I'm making a deathmatch WAD myself and I'm trying to make a random item spawner that respawns with a new random item every time, but I don't really know how to do it, so I'm looking for inspiration

[kalensar]

Heres one I wrote for you that is based purely on the vanilla weapons of Doom 2.

 

Its a tiny bit more complicated than it may seem, and I used a quirk GZDoom engine of both Zscript and Decorate to make it work functionally. It'll randomize all the guns except the BFG.it will not work on ZAndronum.

 

SimpleRandomizedWeapons.zip

[Gianluco]

15 hours ago, kalensar said:

Heres one I wrote for you that is based purely on the vanilla weapons of Doom 2.

 

Its a tiny bit more complicated than it may seem, and I used a quirk GZDoom engine of both Zscript and Decorate to make it work functionally. It'll randomize all the guns except the BFG.it will not work on ZAndronum.

 

SimpleRandomizedWeapons.zip

Thanks, but I was thinking about something more deathmatch-y, like a weapon spawner that spawns an item, then, after a while, it spawns another

[kalensar]

47 minutes ago, Gianluco said:

Thanks, but I was thinking about something more deathmatch-y, like a weapon spawner that spawns an item, then, after a while, it spawns another

 

One of the things with Doom modding is that if you cant find a mod doing what you want then you can always build it yourself. There's lots of people willing to help the eager to learn or help out on ideas. It has currently been my biggest mode right now of helping fellow modders solve puzzles for their projects that they have trouble with.

 

This one of those cases that You got exactly the thing that does mechanics of what you want, but what you actually want is something that doesn't exist according the parameters of how you think it should work. Nope, a "randomized multipurpose spawner" is something that could be built, but nowhere in the OP is there such a reference. Regardless, the base mechanics are the same as what I built at least in a GZDoom system. It can be adapted to Zandronum with a tiny bit of effort, but GZDoom is simply faster and easier to build for. There is no magic spawner already premade( yup I looked as well), and would be built very similar to what I already did.

Anyway, You're looking for inspiration, but don't know how to do it, and then got handed the thing that you basically wanted, but don't know how it works. I built you a teaching tool, and not a finished product excpet that it functions for one simple purpose of randomizing every weapon but the BFG. Adding the Ammo, armors and powerups would work off the exact same premises, but thats just extra work. 

 

The reason it uses ZSC and DEC in tandem with each other is because in a pure decorate format, the "replace" ends up multiplying spawners due to creating loops from reading replaced inheritance states. The ZSC references differently in GZD so the actual calling spawners are in ZSC format, and the base skeleton of everything else is in DEC so that the Engine can reference things cleanly producing the intended results.

 

 

[Arrowhead]

Almost nobody makes deathmatch WADs specifically for GZDOOM.

 

You're a trillion (maybe even a quadrillion)  times better off trying to find something that works in Zandronum.

 

Don't get me wrong, if you want to do something for GZ only, go for it - Kalensar was very helpful, and I suggest you study the little example he made for you.

 

I'm sure there are 'random item/weapon spawners' possible in Zandronum, but that would require some tweaking.

 

Also, I'm just going to out and say it:  a completely randomized spawner is going to be nigh impossible to balance for. I'm a bit skeptical it will make for a fun map.

 

Also, if you do decide to make a DM WAD, make it for ZDaemon/Zandronum/Odamex. Don't make it for a port that maybe 5 people on Earth use for DM...

 

You could also go the Vanilla route, and make something for the DOSBox DM scene, too - that's got a smaller community, but is still quite active.

 

There's no point in making a deathmatch WAD for GZ specifically - even if GZ may have some method of doing this that's easier than what would work for Zandro.

 

Just my two cents, sincerely not trying to rain on your parade.

[Gianluco]

On 2/9/2024 at 11:27 PM, kalensar said:

 

One of the things with Doom modding is that if you cant find a mod doing what you want then you can always build it yourself. There's lots of people willing to help the eager to learn or help out on ideas. It has currently been my biggest mode right now of helping fellow modders solve puzzles for their projects that they have trouble with.

 

This one of those cases that You got exactly the thing that does mechanics of what you want, but what you actually want is something that doesn't exist according the parameters of how you think it should work. Nope, a "randomized multipurpose spawner" is something that could be built, but nowhere in the OP is there such a reference. Regardless, the base mechanics are the same as what I built at least in a GZDoom system. It can be adapted to Zandronum with a tiny bit of effort, but GZDoom is simply faster and easier to build for. There is no magic spawner already premade( yup I looked as well), and would be built very similar to what I already did.

Anyway, You're looking for inspiration, but don't know how to do it, and then got handed the thing that you basically wanted, but don't know how it works. I built you a teaching tool, and not a finished product excpet that it functions for one simple purpose of randomizing every weapon but the BFG. Adding the Ammo, armors and powerups would work off the exact same premises, but thats just extra work. 

 

The reason it uses ZSC and DEC in tandem with each other is because in a pure decorate format, the "replace" ends up multiplying spawners due to creating loops from reading replaced inheritance states. The ZSC references differently in GZD so the actual calling spawners are in ZSC format, and the base skeleton of everything else is in DEC so that the Engine can reference things cleanly producing the intended results.

 

 

Sorry if I came off as rude, but I already tried doing it on my own, but the process started becoming more and more complex until I didn't know what to do next, so I wanted to see how other people did it. 

 

Anyways, I'm gonna try following ArrowHead's tip and convert the whole thing to Zandronum and hope I can make something simpler there.

[kalensar]

4 hours ago, Gianluco said:

Sorry if I came off as rude, but I already tried doing it on my own, but the process started becoming more and more complex until I didn't know what to do next, so I wanted to see how other people did it. 

 

Anyways, I'm gonna try following ArrowHead's tip and convert the whole thing to Zandronum and hope I can make something simpler there.

 

 

Well, heres the problem when working with pure decorate for zandronum: youre gonna run into the issue that I already stated about inheritance getting screwed up and why I use a mixture of zscript and decorate to simplify and bypass the problem to get it to work simply on GZDoom. It all has to do with how Decorate is interpreted by both GZDoomn and Zandro when using the REPLACE function. So when you build a chaingun and replace the chaingun with a spawner, the chaingun now becomes the spawner and new spawners will just keep spawning spawners instead of the chaingun you are trying to actually get. In order to get a vanilla chaingun to spawn on a Chaingun spawner you cant have the chaingun inherit from the spawner that is replacing the chaingun. So in order to get a vanilla chaingun to spawn properly like you want... You have to make a custom chaingun that is a copy of the vanilla chaingun and written out 100% with zero inheritance used. Sure you can just copy and paste the stats from ZDoom wiki for each gun and item and just rename them, but thats about the only way to get what you are seeking for in Zandronum when doing it in pure decorate.

 

The next issue, provided you try to copy paste from ZDoom wiki to make vanilla weapons so that they work on pure DECORATE for Zandronum: GZDoom and Zandronum are different on many flags and functions these days. So if something breaks you need to know the syntax difference between Zandro DEC and GZD DEC functions and flags. EXample: The PROJECTILE flag does not exist in Zandronum. This may or may not apply to the vanilla weapons honestly because I never did this randomizer before and I have made a few Zandronum mods even this year. 

 

Suffice it to say, its not an easy project and I wish you the best of luck on it. I'll even send you a gift that works on ZANDRO is liek what you want so you can see what I mean, except that it does not use randomizers. 

 

Code: ZleekDoom-Zandronum.zip

Edited February 12, 2024 by kalensar