Issues With Paranoiac for Paranoix Consideration

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Issues With Paranoiac for Paranoix Consideration

Post by Rex Claussen »

In this ZDooM post I have summarized a few issues that people have noticed with Paranoiac. If possible, we should try and fix them in Paranoiac as well.
Toyoch wrote:... it took two rockets to kill Nihilanth(shot when he's vulnerable, of course), oneshotted the Gonarch, and I fired twice on the boss Stukabat to kill it. ... Also tested on Gargantua at the end of Paranoid : It took me 13ish rockets which is fair, but each hits will make the garg flying(so fast that it looks like it teleports around on hit).
Ed the Bat wrote:There are also a lot of unusual nuances to how the bosses are coded, which can affect how their battles go. I'd need to take some time to do some testing in order to learn more.
A couple of notes:
1. RPG ammo tends to be on the low side throughout the game, and is coupled with a max carrying capacity of 10 ammo units. This means that the player won't be loaded up with RPG ammo like s/he would be in DooM (with a possible max carrying capacity of 100 units). Still, if it takes only 2 RPG shots to kill off the Nihilanth, this warrants further examination. I have only tried to battle the Nihilanth with the Gluon Gun, and it is very difficult (primarily because the Gluon Gun delivers much less damage in the equivalent amount of time as an RPG shot).
2. You get to fight the Gonarch first in the secret map (Map 18, accessible from Map 14). Ammo can get tight in that map, and I was relying heavily on the Hornet Gun. I did not use the RPG (and perhaps I didn't have any ammo), and as a result it was a difficult fight. Similarly, I did not use the RPG in the Gonarch encounters in Maps 20 & 21. As a result, the fights were difficult, as intended. If a single RPG shot can take it out, then we need to look at this further.
3. The original Nihilanth battle had spawning enemies before and during the fight (not including the enemies that the Nihilanth spawns). Because I always found that fight to be extremely difficult, we reduced the health of the enemy and did away with the "externally" spawned enemies entirely. Perhaps we need to reconsider bringing these back.
ReX wrote:... I also noticed that the bosses seem to "teleport" to another location when hit. A few months ago I had reported on GZDooM that the Gargantua suddenly had no mass, and it was explained that changes to GZDooM's code made our definition obsolete. We changed the definition to be consistent (i.e., Mass 0x7FFFFFFF) with changes to GZDooM. I wonder if something else has now changed.
Has anyone else experienced this bizarre "teleporting" behavior? This was not occurring with earlier versions of GZDooM. I'm not sure that Graf will examine this issue more closely, as he considers this project too large to troubleshoot.
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Re: Issues With Paranoiac for Paranoix Consideration

Post by Enjay »

I just tried the following: Went to a nice open map (I actually used the main hallway in the original Doom2 map32), summoned the Nihilanth and attacked it with rockets. Unless it was doing some special move (like summoning more enemies) the impact of the rocket made the Nihilanth fly towards the player very rapidly - at almost teleport-like speed. The Gonarch did much the same. No idea why it's happening though.

I couldn't see anything odd about the gargantua's behaviour though.

[edit] Got it. Both the Gonarch and the Nihilanth have mass 0x7FFFFFFFF - too many F's. It should be 0x7FFFFFFF. [/edit]
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Re: Issues With Paranoiac for Paranoix Consideration

Post by Rachael »

Ed the Bat fixed this very recently in the repository. There's a few inconsistencies like that he managed to fix.

If at any time you want to see his (and sometimes mine when I get the time) progress so far, it's here: https://github.com/drdteam/paranoidiac/ ... master.zip

(Also - if anyone wants contributor access let me know)
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Re: Issues With Paranoiac for Paranoix Consideration

Post by Blue Shadow »

If the idea behind that very high mass is so the monsters don't get knocked back by damage, why not use the DONTTHRUST flag instead?
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Re: Issues With Paranoiac for Paranoix Consideration

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Blue Shadow wrote: Fri Apr 14, 2017 7:20If the idea behind that very high mass is so the monsters don't get knocked back by damage, why not use the DONTTHRUST flag instead?
Sounds like a worthwhile consideration. However, as I am the weakest link in the DECORATE chain of this Team, I will leave this for others to determine. Meanwhile, as a place-holder, I'll fix the mass of the 2 enemies in Paranoiac.

But I still don't know how to address the ease with which they can be brought down with RPG shots. Of course, for the Nihilanth I can increase the health points (e.g., return its HP to 7,000), knowing that just a couple of shots are capable of bringing them down. I can also resume the "external" spawning of the weaker enemies in the Nihilanth arena to make the final battle more challenging, even with RPG rounds available. I don't know how to do this for the Gonarch fights.
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Re: Issues With Paranoiac for Paranoix Consideration

Post by Enjay »

I have to admit, I'm having trouble replicating the bosses being as easy to take down as the report describes. Yes, a few well placed rockets does the job quite quickly, but it is a few rockets, not one or two.
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Re: Issues With Paranoiac for Paranoix Consideration

Post by Rex Claussen »

Rachael wrote: Fri Apr 14, 2017 5:39Ed the Bat fixed this very recently in the repository. There's a few inconsistencies like that he managed to fix.
I have downloaded the Master file to which you have linked. But meanwhile, would you tell me what Ed the Bat & You have fixed just in Paranoiac? I am trying to clean it up for upload to the idgames archives.

Thanks.
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Re: Issues With Paranoiac for Paranoix Consideration

Post by Rachael »

Everything is here, the particular ones he found are here.
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Re: Issues With Paranoiac for Paranoix Consideration

Post by Rex Claussen »

Wow, Ed the Bat has been busy.

Okay, I see the many instances where the mass definition used is the old one (not supported any more by GZDooM). I will make the changes to the actors that are in Paranoiac.
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Re: Issues With Paranoiac for Paranoix Consideration

Post by Rex Claussen »

One issue I discovered after the Paranoiac release is that it's possible to listen to 2 or more messages from Col. Stinson/Undernet simultaneously. I'm guessing that the scripts for these messages need to have something in them that suspends/terminates the other message scripts. I will look at this, but I can see extended trial-and-error before me. Therefore, if someone with more ACS logic & syntax experience than me can look at this issue I'd appreciate it. Thanks.

Also, in Map20, when the vines break after the Gonarch dies, there is a weird "sky" texture in the ceiling of the hole that is created. This is definitely a GZDooM issue, as it did not exist in earlier GZDooM versions.

Also, in Map17, the gasoline column next to the generator near the exit does not display the rising levels of gasoline properly. Again, this is a GZDooM issue.

In Maps 20 and 21, the sectors with under-liquid slopes continue to display as black.
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Re: Issues With Paranoiac for Paranoix Consideration

Post by The Ultimate DooMer »

Rex Claussen wrote: Fri Apr 14, 2017 0:283. The original Nihilanth battle had spawning enemies before and during the fight (not including the enemies that the Nihilanth spawns). Because I always found that fight to be extremely difficult, we reduced the health of the enemy and did away with the "externally" spawned enemies entirely. Perhaps we need to reconsider bringing these back.
If they're brought back, I would spawn them quite rarely (perhaps based on time taken or boss health) and they would stay dead afterwards. (the original behaviour spawned a bunch of new ones if you killed them all iirc)
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Re: Issues With Paranoiac for Paranoix Consideration

Post by Rex Claussen »

The Ultimate DooMer wrote: Mon Jul 17, 2017 23:37If they're brought back, I would spawn them quite rarely (perhaps based on time taken or boss health) and they would stay dead afterwards.
Gez had crafted ACS code to spawn enemies in a more "manageable" way. Even with that I found the fight to be frustrating, and I decided to abandon the additional spawning entirely. However, I left Gez's code in the map's script, albeit commented out. This might be a good time to revisit this idea.
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