Things about Doom you just found out

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BaronOfStuff said:Where the Shotgun is hidden? Until I started being lazy and used map editors, simple curiosity and exploration is how I found secret areas. Sometimes it pays to backtrack through levels and listen for any platforms/doors.

There's also the shotgun room's lift; I guess if you're screwing around you might notice it, but it's not terribly visible provided you aren't in the shotgun room itself.

On listening for doors: even with the music muted, doors are rather quiet for me provided you aren't standing a foot from them. Might be a problem with my speakers, though.

[_bruce_]

BaronOfStuff said:

The plot thickens! I can't believe I never noticed this oddity in all the time I've played.

Don't worry I even overlooked it while sitting in front of the stuff for ~10+ hours a day in my initial ChocolorDoom phase.
Haven't had the nerve to check out how exactly this hud behavior is implemented code wise - only thing I can say it's a result of only partially updating the needed gfx.

[40oz]

Archviles tend to switch to different targets immediately after being damaged even in the slightest, unlike most monsters that will stick to one target unless they're damaged severely. I didn't just figure this out, but it is something that is strange to me but not significant enough to make a thread about. Does it have to do with how many different states the archvile's attack has?

[qoncept]

40oz said:

Archviles tend to switch to different targets immediately after being damaged even in the slightest, unlike most monsters that will stick to one target unless they're damaged severely. I didn't just figure this out, but it is something that is strange to me but not significant enough to make a thread about. Does it have to do with how many different states the archvile's attack has?

Makes me wonder if there's an unknown stat that sets the chance a monster will switch targets.

[Gez]

qoncept said:

Makes me wonder if there's an unknown stat that sets the chance a monster will switch targets.

Nothing in the Doom code is unknown.

There is an Arch-Vile-specific mechanism for that. In ZDoom is it generalized as the QUICKTORETALIATE flag.

For a more technical explanation of how this works in vanilla, the P_DamageMobj() function has this code:

    if ( (!target->threshold || target->type == MT_VILE)
	 && source && source != target
	 && source->type != MT_VILE)
    {
	// if not intent on another player,
	// chase after this one
	target->target = source;
	target->threshold = BASETHRESHOLD;
	if (target->state == &states[target->info->spawnstate]
	    && target->info->seestate != S_NULL)
	    P_SetMobjState (target, target->info->seestate);
    }

BASETHRESHOLD is defined to be 100, and threshold is a countdown which is decremented (and possibly nulled) every time an actor calls A_Chase, thanks to this code:

    // modify target threshold
    if  (actor->threshold)
    {
	if (!actor->target
	    || actor->target->health <= 0)
	{
	    actor->threshold = 0;
	}
	else
	    actor->threshold--;
    }

As you can see, the damage code normally waits for threshold to be back to 0 before switching the hurt monster's target to its latest bully, but arch-viles don't wait for this. Also, if the monster's current target is dead, the threshold is reset to 0 at the next A_Chase call.

The great thing with the arch-vile is that it can lead to surprising behavior. Like, you get engulfed by the flames, and oh crap there's no cover but boom, it's another monster behind the vile that suddenly explodes. Or vice-versa, you're seeing an arch-vile infighting some other monster, shoot it in the back, and boom, you explode with no warning.

[vdgg]

This was discussed here and here.
There is still one thing I don't understand, though. If a cyberdemon is busy fighting a monster X, and this monster dies after the second rocket, the third rocket is sometimes redirected at the player and sometimes fires at the dead monster X. Is my observation correct? What's the explanation then?

[BaronOfStuff]

vdgg said:

There is still one thing I don't understand, though. If a cyberdemon is busy fighting a monster X, and this monster dies after the second rocket, the third rocket is sometimes redirected at the player and sometimes fires at the dead monster X. Is my observation correct? What's the explanation then?

I can't say for sure as far as technical nonsense goes, but if you let the Cyberdemon finish its volley without attacking it yourself, it'll lob all remaining rockets in that volley at the corpse.

If you attack, you become the next intended victim because the Cyberdemon's threshold has been set at 0 almost immediately after killing the previous foe. Probably something to do with Cyberdemons facing the target between each rocket (to prevent them pointlessly firing at a wall).

[Scypek2]

I've noticed that mancubuses have 3 claws on the front of their foot, and 3 claws on the back. Weird.

[40oz]

Gez said:
The great thing with the arch-vile is that it can lead to surprising behavior. Like, you get engulfed by the flames, and oh crap there's no cover but boom, it's another monster behind the vile that suddenly explodes. Or vice-versa, you're seeing an arch-vile infighting some other monster, shoot it in the back, and boom, you explode with no warning. [/B]

Yeah it's cool except I've been in situations where I depended on this happening and it didn't when I wanted it to.

COMMMMEEE ONN CHAINGUN GUY SHOOT ALREADY

[Devalaous]

Just found out ZDoom now supports my surround sound headphones. Everything is now infinitely better.

[myk]

vdgg said:
If a cyberdemon is busy fighting a monster X, and this monster dies after the second rocket, the third rocket is sometimes redirected at the player and sometimes fires at the dead monster X. Is my observation correct? What's the explanation then?

I don't think so. You'll need to provide a demo where this appears to happen!

[Memfis]

I think I've seen something like this too, I'll try to find an example in my demos.

EDIT: oh lol, just look at this: cyberdemon redirects his attack from me to a DEAD revenant

[myk]

Yeah, it's switching targets. I'm so used to seeing cyberdemons fire over corpses that I more or less forgot they can switch during attacks. With barons it's very evident because they have that ass-shot reaction.

When the cyberdemon shoots over corpses it's just that the target is still the corpse and nothing else replaced it. I suppose the target threshold is erased if the target dies, which makes the cyberdemon immediately switch away from a dead target if attacked by someone else... or when merely seeing the player, which is what happened in the demo.

[Untamed64]

The Revenant Fireball sound is a slightly slower and lower pitched version of the Imp Fireball sound.

Or at least they sound a little similiar..

[Dragonsbrethren]

Nuxius taught me a new PSX Doom limitation.

[Untamed64]

Something my Friend discovered

"In map10 of Doom II, near the place where it connects four paths (one being the arachnotron & revenant arena, and one being the zombie corridors), there are three small squares which don't seem to have anything in them and are visible in the upper most corners of the sectors."

[qoncept]

Untamed64 said:

Something my Friend discovered

"In map10 of Doom II, near the place where it connects four paths (one being the arachnotron & revenant arena, and one being the zombie corridors), there are three small squares which don't seem to have anything in them and are visible in the upper most corners of the sectors."

I don't know what you mean..?

I still don't understand how to get the plasma gun in this level.

[Zahid]

Image at h.u.d looks at the side where player takes damage from....
and mancubus 3rd shoot didnt point directly towards player.....
and before shooting it didn't say "Hagimaru" according to doom.wiki although i didn't convinced about it;p

[Maes]

Untamed64 said:

"In map10 of Doom II, near the place where it connects four paths (one being the arachnotron & revenant arena, and one being the zombie corridors), there are three small squares which don't seem to have anything in them and are visible in the upper most corners of the sectors."

There are indeed three "stray" sectors in MAP10: 48, 102 and 106. They all face the large corridor area, and are small squares crammed up near the ceiling, and appear like "cuts" in the ASHWALL4 wall. You can "climb" them with the IDCLIP cheat.

I'm not sure what their purpose is...they have no special effects applied but they all have a light level of 128 (lower than the corridor, which is 196 and also has strobe/flicker effects). They are placed in such a way as to "envelop" the triangle sectors used for flicker effects. Maybe they are a sort of engine hack to allow the flashing to actually work? Doom has some weird limitations with using light effects in neighboring sectors.

[Platinum Shell]

Maes said:

There are indeed three "stray" sectors in MAP10: 48, 102 and 106. They all face the large corridor area, and are small squares crammed up near the ceiling, and appear like "cuts" in the ASHWALL4 wall. You can "climb" them with the IDCLIP cheat.

I'm not sure what their purpose is...they have no special effects applied but they all have a light level of 128 (lower than the corridor, which is 196 and also has strobe/flicker effects). They are placed in such a way as to "envelop" the triangle sectors used for flicker effects. Maybe they are a sort of engine hack to allow the flashing to actually work? Doom has some weird limitations with using light effects in neighboring sectors.

You know, I always wondered about that too. It was also present in the GB version.

[eargosedown]

Memfis said:

EDIT: oh lol, just look at this: cyberdemon redirects his attack from me to a DEAD revenant

That's actually really cool.

[_bruce_]

Regarding the 3 sectors in Map10...

they are there to make the light effect work since any such blink, strobe, flicker effect needs a neighboring sector which differs at least in 32, or 2 engine internal, units of light level.

[Revenant100]

I just found out that the Lost Soul's front-facing walking frames are different in the Jaguar, 32X, PlayStation, and Saturn ports of Doom:


Console is on the left, and the PC original is of course on the right.

Although I haven't confirmed this myself yet, I assume this sprite change propagated to all ports that were based on the Jaguar version. Of the classic console ports, I believe the SNES version may be the only one to retain the PC's Lost Soul.

[Guest]

Those with OCD may not wish to continue reading this post.

From TNT evilution map 01.



Check the closest pillar relative to the others. I had never noticed this before.

[Memfis]

holy crap Icon of Sin can't spawn hitscanners

[Gez]

Well, it wouldn't make sense for it to spawn possessed zombies, and it wouldn't be fair if it randomly spawned boss monsters. (Plus the arena would have to be designed around random spider mastermind spawns. They take up a lot of space.)

You can make it spawn hitscanners with some dehacked work, though.

[qoncept]

Gez said:

Well, it wouldn't make sense for it to spawn possessed zombies, and it wouldn't be fair if it randomly spawned boss monsters. (Plus the arena would have to be designed around random spider mastermind spawns. They take up a lot of space.)

You can make it spawn hitscanners with some dehacked work, though.

Pssshh.. It would make just as much sense to spawn zombies as anything else. I mean, it presumably has to get the raw materials for any monster. Why couldn't it come up with a dead body?

[Gez]

Because they aren't demons!

It thinks up demons because it is a demon. It doesn't conjure zombies because they aren't something native from Hell. Note that it also doesn't create lost souls, though it can spawn pain elementals which then spit lost souls. Humanity, even damned, is too foreign for it to conjure directly.

A religious take on it would be that the human body, being created in God's image, is something that Hell cannot create. It can only pervert and desecrate it (zombie possession); but not create it. What it can create are mockeries of the human body: hoofed and horned monsters with legs bent the wrong way, unbalanced gluttons with an enormous mouth, obese caricatures with six breasts, etc.

[ComicMischief]

I just found out there's a Cyberdemon in Doom2.wad's MAP15 -- flagged as 'multiplayer'.

I now think it should've been single-player too. :D

[Ribbiks]

iirc there's plenty of extra cybs in multiplayer. I remember one in downtown, as well as the citadel, there's probably more. Certainly took me by surprise first time I coop'ed through