How can I make the Spider Mastermind not infight?

[LittleInferno]

I was making a boss fight map and the bosses were to be two Spider Masterminds. I know they can infight with each other, and when a monster projectile or hitscan hits one, it starts infighting with the monster that sent it. Is it possible to stop that?

(Hmm, Masterminds don't have much of a master mind.)

[VGA]

Are you using Dehacked, Decorate or what?

[Ribbiks]

I'm pretty sure you can't disable this in dehacked, I think the self-species infighting is hardcoded for all the hitscan enemies. Looks like decorate can definitely do it though: http://zdoom.org/wiki/Infight

edit: apparently there are some clever tricks, some of which work in MBF as well, see: http://www.doomworld.com/vb/doom-editing/33215-infighting-and-dehacked/

[roadworx]

First off, I hope this map is designed well enough, because two Spider Masterminds in one map are no fun.

But anyways, I thought the same enemy types couldn't infight with eachother?

[AD_79]

roadworx said:

First off, I hope this map is designed well enough, because two Spider Masterminds in one map are no fun.

It really depends on the map. As an example, BTSX E1M07 (Metal Mothers) is a multiple mastermind map and it's great (seven Masterminds on UV with an additional two in multiplayer/solonet).

[scifista42]

roadworx said:

But anyways, I thought the same enemy types couldn't infight with eachother?

Correction: Same enemy types cannot hurt each other with their projectile attacks. However, hitscan attacks can hurt enemies of the same type and make them infight. Melee attacks also work against enemies of the same type, but it only happens after infighting is already triggered (because to perform a melee attack, the monster must already know its target, and melee attack can never accidentally hurt anything else than the monster's true target).

[roadworx]

scifista42 said:

Correction: Same enemy types cannot hurt each other with their projectile attacks. However, hitscan attacks can hurt enemies of the same type and make them infight. Melee attacks also work against enemies of the same type, but it only happens after infighting is already triggered (because to perform a melee attack, the monster must already know its target, and melee attack can never accidentally hurt anything else than the monster's true target).

Oh. So then how would we fix this? Hmmm...

[scifista42]

Indeed, there is no way to disable Mastermind infighting without ZDoom's / other port specific features (like ZDoom's DECORATE, MAPINFO), unless you make them fire projectiles instead of hitscans (which can be done even in DEHACKED). You can also place them into the map cleverly, restrict their movement so that there is never a direct line of sight between their hitboxes, so that they cannot accidentally hit each other.

[40oz]

You can design the area in such a way that the player is in the line of fire between the two masterminds, but there are walls or pillars that block the line of sight between the two spiders, reducing the chance that the two can shoot each other. You can use some other monster in between them to make it not an immediate safe spot.

Edit: Keep height differences in mind. The spider masterminds are also less likely to shoot at each other if they are initial shooting down at the player.