Things about Doom you just found out

[Koff3Katt]

How to use the blockmap bug to your advantage! Never knew what caused weapons to miss shots like that.

[wrkq]

3 hours ago, Rytrik said:

I'm sure this is well known by now (and I hate to quote a 7+ year old post, even while the overall thread is still alive. I apologize if doing this isn't kosher), but correct me if I'm wrong... isn't the plasma elevator triggered when you open & cross the secret wall in the sergeant's room facing the plasma elevator in Waste Tunnels? That's always worked for me. I've never had to click any torches to trigger the plasma elevator.. 

 

See, there's something weird going on in there.

 

The "sergeant room" as you call it can be reached in two ways.

One is running via the window in the starting corridor and onto the "balcony" of the room.

The other is getting all the way to the blue key, and walking through the window there.

You can't get to the blue key early as the window is too far above the floor of the "sergeant room" to climb into it in vanilla.

 

Both of those entrance routes seem to be officially approved, as they both have a trigger line to open the trap wall, revealing the sergeants, and 2 stimpacks.

Hilariously the stimpacks have the ambush flag ticked. They're sure gonna jump at you when you least expect.

 

Now, there are four triggers that work on Sector Tag #7, which is shared by the wall between sergeant room and starting corridor, and by the elevator from starting corridor to plasma room.

- the button in the plasma room to let you exit

- both of the two green torches in the blue key room

- the wall between sergeant room and starting corridor from the sergeant room's side.

 

The torches and the "let me out" button all use the "fast lift" action.

The wall differs, it uses the "regular slow lift" action.

 

So it feels a bit like the original hard-secret concept was:

- you must get to the blue key room, press use on the torch

- then run through the window to sergeant room, through the wall that opened, and into plasma lift

- while on a short timer, and having to avoid the drop-trap into the dark corridor

 

And at some point - by mistake or to make the secret easier - someone added the use-action on the sergeants' wall.

 

That wall action is already there in the "d2temp" levels that I've learned about recently thanks to my MAP28 thread, so it wasn't a last-minute change, but who knows?

Maybe it was one of the id guys editing this in secret to get early plasma in deathmatch?

Edited January 4, 2021 by wrkq

[Rainne]

Noticed by sheer accident: In Hexen, if you flag items as Dormant, they'll still work but won't frame-animate (for example, mana pickups don't spin), only bob up/down. And this only happens in vanilla/Chocolate, not GZDoom. (Dunno about any other ports.)

 

Use this information wisely.

[Valhen]

At the end of Plutonia's map 16, if you fall down the nukage pit, the nukage doesn't actually damage you, and you can't get back to the platform, essentially getting softlocked.

[Rytrik]

1 hour ago, Valhen said:

At the end of Plutonia's map 16, if you fall down the nukage pit, the nukage doesn't actually damage you, and you can't get back to the platform, essentially getting softlocked.

 

Noted. A lesson to always save at the beginning of each new map to prevent softlocks like this, regardless of whether or not I'm using saves throughout the map. Good discovery.

Edited January 5, 2021 by Rytrik

[HAK3180]

I just found out that whether or not you are running changes the angle of strafemoving.

 

The angle order seems to be, from greatest to smallest:

Strafing = 90° (of course)

Strafewalk-50¹ = >50°??? (based on significantly greater angle than the below, observed)

Straferun-50 = 45° (based on the wiki)

Strafewalk-40¹ = ~43°??? (based on very slightly less angle than the above, observed)

Straferun-40 = 38.7° (based on the wiki)

Moving forward = 0° (of course)

 

Also, Strafewalk-50 seems to be more faster² than Strafewalk-40, compared to Straferun-50 vs. Straferun-40

 

I found this chart about the different speeds from Maes from a few years ago, though I don't believe it includes what I have called Strafewalk-40 and Strafewalk-50. It seems to be using "strafe-walk" to mean strafing straight to the left or right without running, and "strafe-run" to mean strafing straight to the left or right with running.

 

 

^{1 I realize these terms are not accurate, but I don't know what common verbiage for this is, if anything}

^{2 Yes, a proper use of "more faster"}

[DOEL]

On 1/3/2021 at 11:30 PM, Koff3Katt said:

How to use the blockmap bug to your advantage! Never knew what caused weapons to miss shots like that.

 

Yea @Coincident's analysis videos are among the best out there, can't wait for more. his pacificst Icon of Sin video is really good too

 

[Retro Dino]

On 9/25/2011 at 11:32 PM, Grain of Salt said:

 

quack

[Optimus]

Simple things maybe that escaped me.

 

1) Grab a shotgun dropped from an enemy and it has 4 shells (just like the placed shotgun shells). But grab a placed shotgun (by the map creator) and it gives 8 shells. Similarly with other weapons. The placed weapon gives double the amount of ammo from the same one dropped by an enemy (chainguns too for example).

 

2) I was playing a crappy WAD and had 3% health left. There was a river of lava and and invulerability sphere. I thought, cool I can drop there and grab the sphere before the damage starts hitting me. The river of lava also used to have sector type "finish level if dead" (it was a weird placement but crappy level). It would finish the level even after I turned white (invulnerable) and my health still at 3%. I guess, the sector type code, will check if the incoming damage reduction WILL kill you, and will transfer to next level before so. It doesn't actually run the damage reduction code and then decide "Oh,. you are under 0%, so turn this to 1% and then finish the level). I encountered this exactly here at 48:33

 

[ketmar]

"exit if health is less than 10%" damaging floor simply ignores invulnerability and god mode, it is hardcoded in the source code. also, it checks for 10% of health, not for death. so technically you're exiting the map while you're still alive. ;-)

Edited January 7, 2021 by ketmar

[Zylinderkatze]

2 minutes ago, ketmar said:

"exit if health is less than 10%" damaging floor simply ignores invulnerability and god mode, it is hardcoded in the source code. also, it checks for 10% of health, not for death. so technically you're exiting the map while you're still alive. ;-)

 

Actually, it even disables the Godmode cheat (at least in Vanilla). Which is a helpful little thing to know.

[ViolentBeetle]

It also prevents anything from killing you. Although you probably would only notice it with voodoo dolls.

[Edward850]

42 minutes ago, ketmar said:

"exit if health is less than 10%" damaging floor simply ignores invulnerability and god mode

No it only turns off the god mode cheat. It never ignores invulnerability and doesn't even turn off the powerup (which is a different flag).

 https://github.com/chocolate-doom/chocolate-doom/blob/7a0db31614ec187e363e7664036d95ec56242e44/src/doom/p_spec.c#L1076

 

The only thing in P_DamageMobj is preventing actual player death, nothing that ignores invulnerability for that sector effect: https://github.com/chocolate-doom/chocolate-doom/blob/7a0db31614ec187e363e7664036d95ec56242e44/src/doom/p_inter.c#L788

[Leroy]

I just found out demons cannot instigate infighting.

Edited January 7, 2021 by Leroy

[Gez]

3 hours ago, Optimus said:

The placed weapon gives double the amount of ammo from the same one dropped by an enemy

It's technically more accurate, though, to say that the weapon (or ammo clip) dropped by an enemy gives half the ammo as one placed in the map. Though the distinction is only apparent if you hack an ammo amount to be an odd number; e.g. if a placed shotgun contains 7 shells, a dropped shotgun will contain just 3.

 

 

Speaking of ammo amounts, something that is not mechanically enforced but that has been consistently followed by id is the 1-2-5 ratio. That is to say: if the small ammo pickup contains x ammo, then a placed weapon will come with 2x ammo (making the dropped weapon come with 2x/2 ammo, same as small pickup) and the big ammo pickup comes with 5x ammo.

Bullets -- clip: 10, chaingun: 20, box: 50

Shells -- 4 shells: 4 (duh), shotgun or super shotgun: 8, box 20

Rocket -- rocket: 1, rocket launcher 2, box 5

Cells -- charge: 20, plasma rifle or BFG: 40; pack 100

 

The other games on the engine would not follow this convention. Heretic in particular is kinda weird.

Wand -- crystal: 10 (dropped: 3); weapon: N/A; geode: 50

Crossbow -- arrows: 5, weapon: 10; quiver: 20

Blaster -- claw orb: 10 (dropped: 10); weapon: 30; energy orb: 25

Hellstaff -- lesser runes: 20 (dropped: 20); weapon: 50; greater runes: 100

Phoenix -- flame orb: 1 (dropped by ophidian: 5; dropped by maulotaur: 10); weapon: 2; inferno orb: 10

Firemace -- mace spheres: 20; weapon 50; pile 100

WTF is up with that?

[Stupid Bunny]

I've recently discovered, and twice encountered, the all-ghosts bug in Doom while playing two of my maps in Crispy Doom.  My guess is that it's a product of these maps having some long lines of sight with lots of details along the way, or this one chamber that's full of lots and lots of monsters and barrels that were supposed to be exploded but weren't due to another mapping error I have since fixed.  I'm kinda surprised I'd never triggered it after all these years but I guess I'm accustomed to playing in PrBoom+ or ZDoom derivatives or other sourceports that (presumably?) have fixed the bug.

[Telemassacre]

On 4/17/2013 at 2:38 PM, EvilNed said:

If you are killed and the force of the blow sends your body across a W1 Exit tagged linedef, you will finish the map and start the next one from a pistol start.

It can also happen with the Icon of sin.

[Telemassacre]

8 hours ago, Leroy said:

I just found out demons cannot instigate infighting.

in older versions [less than 1.5] the demons actually could because they used a hitscan attack rather than the distance check to target it uses nowadays.

[taufan99]

Just refound this thread while looking for keyword "voxel" through my tab.

[The_MártonJános]

Just realised what was so otherwordly weird about MAP19.

The map mostly has the aesthetic of the first Doom, specifically that kind of "bathroom tiled Hell" that was largely present in E3 and somewhat in E2. The only instances that visibly tell that the map doesn't actually belong in Registered/UD is the RROCK17 flat spread out on the outside of the main building*, a few WOODMET doors inside and the exit section with the "collector map" bars. Even the Doom2-exclusive monsters are used rather sparsely with the beastiary mostly consisting of the ones already present in the first game.

*while the RROCK17 covers a large area, it is also bordered by an aquaduct with gray/water design (which is very typically Doom1) countereffecting it somewhat.

I wouldn't be surprised if this map was actually a scrapped one from 1993 saved for 1994.

[Doomsday]

I found out that in MAP02 you can grab the red key without opening the trap.

[Grain of Salt]

On 1/7/2021 at 4:10 PM, Retro Dino said:

quack

 

quack quack quack

[Grain of Salt]

On 1/3/2021 at 6:23 PM, Gez said:

What is hardcoded (in these obscure old iOS ports) is merging sector 2 and sector 1 together on every map that is in the E3M8 slot, even when playing a non-IWAD map, and you can imagine how much breakage that can cause...

 

Wow that's actually a cool thing I didn't know (even if it is about obscure ports!!)

[Maximum Matt]

I just found out that if you use the IDFA or IDKFA cheat while playing on the "I'm Too Young To Die" skill setting, then walk on a damaging floor, Doomguy's face will not go into the pain state.  

[peach freak]

1 hour ago, Maximum Matt said:

I just found out that if you use the IDFA or IDKFA cheat while playing on the "I'm Too Young To Die" skill setting, then walk on a damaging floor, Doomguy's face will not go into the pain state.  

 

That might be because of the MegaArmor that the cheat provides. All damage is cut in half when on I'm Too Young to Die, and MegaArmor also cuts damage in half, so when those two stack, you're only taking 1/4 of the original damage, so on the weakest damaging floors, the Doomguy is only taking a very small amount of damage, so maybe he only goes into the pain state if a certain amount of damage is dealt?

[Edward850]

20 minutes ago, peach freak said:

 

That might be because of the MegaArmor that the cheat provides. All damage is cut in half when on I'm Too Young to Die, and MegaArmor also cuts damage in half, so when those two stack, you're only taking 1/4 of the original damage, so on the weakest damaging floors, the Doomguy is only taking a very small amount of damage, so maybe he only goes into the pain state if a certain amount of damage is dealt?

It's due to the order of operations in which the damage is dealt and when the HUD gets updated. Special floors are one of the very few things that can damage a player at the start of a frame (this gets more complex in multiplayer between player->player damage), so early in fact that this occurs before almost anything else, specifically before the damage counter is ticked down. The damage counter incremented whenever the player takes damage and is what's used to show the red damage fade, but it's also what's used to indicate to the HUD if you just took damage at all to change the pain face. So what happens is that when the player thinker starts, you take damage from a special floor that gets rounded down to 1 because of the mega armour and skill level, 1 is added to the damage counter, and then soon after back in the rest of the player thinker that damage counter is then ticked down back to zero, so the HUD or damage flash never get a chance to see that damage occurred.

 

If anything after the player thinker during the rest of the frame deals 1 damage, it would be recognised.

Edited January 9, 2021 by Edward850

[BoxY]

Just found out that in compats where monsters can get stuck over drops, the stuck monster can still attack until its pain state is triggered, at which point it loses the ability to retaliate.

[The_MártonJános]

So I watched Decino's vid about the Doom sound origins the other day...

The part of the Mancubus death sound effect this video embed automatically skips to when you play it was always familiar to me from Duke Nukem 3D.

Spoiler

For context, I got to play DN3D with sounds (due to our prior computers having shitty quality sound cards that would render the gameplay into a laggy mess) before playing Doom 2 with sounds (same reason as the DN3D one.) Also, fun fact, the same sound card did not affect the SFXes in Registered Doom (though also noteworthy that my copy of DoomII from back then used to have the "milky visuals", as in, broken gamma settings.) All these from around 2004-2005.

Here's a gameplay of DN3D E2L4 with the time set to when a similar sound effect is playing.

Point is: knowing that Doom used sound library SFXes actually hints it for me that the two sounds being this similar might not have been a coincidence, but, in fact, they might be the very same.

Edited January 15, 2021 by Cell

[Diabolución]

I have realised Robert Kiana Carter had released an episode of nine levels for Doom II. Sadly, I am afraid it is gone forever and ever.

 

https://www.quaddicted.com/files/mirrors/ftp.3dportal.net/duke3d/maps/k-o/longhaul.txt

 

        About the author:

           10 levels in Cybex's book  'Lost Episodes of Doom'

           9 levels for Doom ][      'Hell Streets'  (hellst.wad)@AOL.com

           These 6 maps called 'Long Haul'

                            BobME@AOL.com

 

[Faceman2000]

3 hours ago, Diabolución said:

I have realised Robert Kiana Carter had released an episode of nine levels for Doom II. Sadly, I am afraid it is gone forever and ever.

 

https://www.quaddicted.com/files/mirrors/ftp.3dportal.net/duke3d/maps/k-o/longhaul.txt

 

        About the author:

           10 levels in Cybex's book  'Lost Episodes of Doom'

           9 levels for Doom ][      'Hell Streets'  (hellst.wad)@AOL.com

           These 6 maps called 'Long Haul'

                            BobME@AOL.com

 

If the quality is comparable to his contributions to the Lost Episodes, then good riddance. XD