Lock and Load 5 in progess

pilottobombadier · Post by **pilottobombadier** » Thu Jul 19, 2007 19:28

Okay, Lock and Load 5 is in progress. *edit* It's being readied for EDGE 1.29.

Anyway, I have some placeholder graphics (ie. shitty) for casings for the pistol, smg, assault rifle, minigun and shotguns.

I'm working on adding in new enemies, so I'm downloading my ass off right now grabbing monster sprites. And when I say new, I mean the original Doom monsters will be there. I'm also looking for decorations, specifically foliage (Doom has enough gore, so I'm not exactly concerned about that).

Now, the major development here is that I've finally figured out how to make levels. Doom Builder is becoming my new best friend

I've taken a break from that, though, so that i can concentrate on getting the graphics I need.

Now, I want to ask some opinions (no I'm not going to ask if I should bother continuing on with this mod).

-One of the monsters that I've decided to incorporate is the Cyber Mastermind (Cyberdemon torso on Mastermind chassis with chaingun AND r/l). This guy'll be rapid-firing rockets and bullets continually, I think. Good idea or not? Or should i have it firing in bursts? How tough should i make the SoB? I'm thinking 3500 HP (Cybie has 4000, Spidie has 3000), is that too high?

-I'm planning on lowering ammunition limits; all weapons that us magazines will have a count that reflects a maximum of 4 reloads (so 4 magazines worth, if you will), and ammo backpacks will just give you ammo. And yes, I'll be eliminating monster resistances and immunities - for the mostpart - there'll be a boss that's immune to fire and resistant to plasma, but that's about it.
Anyway, weapons that don't use magazines because they run off of power cells or belts of ammunition won't see quite a drastic drop, but it'll be noticable. Good idea?

That's kind of all for now. Being that I'm getting into level design - and right now, it's pretty much vanilla doom design but using some of the functions that EDGE has to offer - you will see duct-crawling and possibly a bit of platforming - a lot more possibility has opened up.

Oh, one other thing: Does anyone know where I can find a list of all the Doom things - creatures, items, decorations and all - organised by number so I can decide how to allocate all of the objects that I'll be putting into the game? It'll also be a big help with level design, too.

Oh, and one other thing. Do the .oggs have a bandwidth cap?

Visplane_Overflow · Post by **Visplane_Overflow** » Fri Jul 20, 2007 9:51

Mmm, it's always good news to hear of someone making a mod for EDGE. You can make guns discard old, half-empty magazines when you reload, if I recall correctly. That would nicely make it so it feels less like you have 120 rounds, and more like 4, 30-round magazines. Immunities make sense, but they can be a pain in the ass, which is my opinion after playing the last Lock and Load game ;p The CyberMasterMind's attacks being burst or continuous will be of little consequence since the Doomguy's health/armour values do not allow you to stick around in front of a boss for too long (People will most likely be hiding behind corners, or steadying themselves behind pillars). As for your other questions, I won't be of much help there.

Oh well, have fun modding.

pilottobombadier · Post by **pilottobombadier** » Fri Jul 20, 2007 15:21

When you say discard half-empty magazines, do you mean that when you reload, whatever ammo remains is pitched, or are you talking about the manual reloading that's part and parcel with 1.29?

That i already know about and I will definitely be making use of it.

Regarding the Cyber Mastermind, the reason why I asked about the burst firing was because it's going to simultaneously fire a hitscan attack and a projectile (missile) attack, and while you can dodge the missiles, you really can't do much about the hitscan attack, pillars or no. Either that or it'll have a pair of projectile attacks because its rate of fire will be lower because the frames don't allow for it, so I might upgrade the machinegun to, say, an autocannon or something.

Post by **wildweasel** » Fri Jul 20, 2007 18:47

Hmm, how about you make both attacks projectiles? The rocket launcher would act as usual, but the autocannon would fire very fast "tracer" rounds so that the player at least has a chance to dodge if he's moving at top speed.

pilottobombadier · Post by **pilottobombadier** » Fri Jul 20, 2007 18:53

I think I was trying to express that in the above post, but was too muzzy;
I posted that when I woke up.

The autocannon seems perfect because the rate of fire would have to be lowered because 5 rockets a second is a hell of a lot of splash damage volume to avoid, and i should have a suitable sound located somewhere in one of my older versions, actually. I think I had a cannon weapon in the third version.

Anyway, I'm going to look into that things directory, if I can't find it, I'll have to make it. Mapping is new to me, but when the program allows for you to go beyond the stuff that's in it (it's really cool how flexible Doom Builder is and of coruse youse guys already know that...), but it'll turn into a clusterfuck if I can't keep things organised, that I'm pretty sure of.

Visplane_Overflow · Post by **Visplane_Overflow** » Fri Jul 20, 2007 23:07

I do believe I said that you can force the game to 'discard' your old, half-empty magazines. By that I meant, that I believe you could use DDF to do something like this: You have 60 rounds, which divides into 2 clips, you fire 22 rounds from the magazine in your gun, then reload. The remaining 8 rounds are 'dropped', never to be seen again, and your character clicks in a full 30-round clip - the last of your ammo at this point. That should clear things up, I think.

As for pillars, I wasn't actually thinking of the game's decorative columns or anything of the like, I was thinking of actual pillars that are part of the maps architecture. As for your 'autocannon' idea, instead of a chaingun, then those projectiles better be pretty damn fast, otherwise a good player won't take any damage fighting this heavy bastard.

pilottobombadier · Post by **pilottobombadier** » Sat Jul 21, 2007 0:10

Well, the rockets will be up to speed 40, the autocannon, maybe a little faster and the shots will have some splash damage if it's the route I decide to take.

Seems like the more logical path, though.

Chronoteeth · Post by **Chronoteeth** » Sat Jul 21, 2007 0:39

Makes them seem more me-too though.

pilottobombadier · Post by **pilottobombadier** » Sat Jul 21, 2007 5:53

Whatever Chrono. We're both people that rip graphics and make 'em work, I wouldn't talk about what seems "me-too", especially since all you seem to do are weapon mods.

I try to avoid realism (it is just a game after all), although I might go that route anyway - and I might not. just kicking these ideas around.

The reason why I have placeholder graphics for the casings is because they're so far down on the list of priorities they're lucky they even made the cut.

The current priorities are:

-Finish ripping monster sprites. I'm nearly done, but I have to do a bunch manually because the PNG files have a dark grey back ground; many of the damned sprites have to be touched up after conversion to bmp, and it's taking me 2 hours plus per creature. I only have 3 left thankfully

-Do weapons. Again. I just need to import a few more animations first, then it's coding time.

-Now that i have my things list, I need to assign thing numbers to monsters. That'll be a no-brainer, I just do it as I code.

After that, I have to start getting serious with Doom Builder, and then whip up a demo level, I'm hoping to have this ready in a couple, maybe three weeks because i want to play with the 3d floors a bit more.

And you have to remember Chrono, I'm trying to add a lot while keeping the Doom flavour. This is supposed to be Doom. Just with better weapons and then some.

Visplane_Overflow · Post by **Visplane_Overflow** » Sat Jul 21, 2007 10:36

pilottobombadier wrote:Whatever Chrono. We're both people that rip graphics and make 'em work, I wouldn't talk about what seems "me-too", especially since all you seem to do are weapon mods.

Yes. Though 'making 'em work' is opinion =p

pilottobombadier · Post by **pilottobombadier** » Sat Jul 21, 2007 16:34

Well visplane, it's not hard. I mean, there's frames and actions that go with the frames. It's a pretty binary process.

Admittedly, I've never actually played any of CT's mods, so I can't make a claim as to whether or not they're playable. Even if i had...I'd still just remark on the hypocrisy, we're all friends here...I think...

Chronoteeth · Post by **Chronoteeth** » Sat Jul 21, 2007 20:37

I just mean, do we really need 5 rocket launchers that do the same thing, but only with slight differences? (Over-exaggerating, but you get the point, thats what I meant by me-too - having a lot of guns doing the same thing.)

pilottobombadier · Post by **pilottobombadier** » Sat Jul 21, 2007 21:07

Well, it's not about that, it's about balancing. I mean, unless I misinterpreted that graphics. If I cna make the hitscan work, I will, although it is better to offset the reduced health with increased damage potential.

btw chrono, say what you mean. I'm a little nicer than most people, but if you said that in a more...hostile mod community like Half-Life or Unreal, someone would tear you a new asshole, and they might take your IP and bomb you with spam or worse. All because you didn't say what you meant.

The Cyber Mastermind is just one of the added boss monsters. I did a pretty good job of raiding the Monster Resource page, although I have to fix the frames for 3 monsters yet, which looks like it could work out to about 6 hours of work easily, which is quite daunting, considering it basically boils down to making a dark grey background cyan. About 230, 240 times.

I've added new monsters, too, and depending on what I do with my weapons, I'm still teetering on a couple things, like bringing back the old black pistol, changing the sound, making it semi-automatic only. SMG is getting a visual change-out though, and it will be changed and rebalanced.

Chronoteeth · Post by **Chronoteeth** » Sat Jul 21, 2007 21:22

Usually people know what I meant first time, but i'm sorry.

Visplane_Overflow · Post by **Visplane_Overflow** » Sun Jul 22, 2007 2:30

'Me-too' is just a phrase used by mainly WildWeasel to describe multiple weapons that have little difference in function compared to their brothers and sisters. Alando's guns mod (I can't remember the true title of his work, actually) is a prime example of what he's talking about, if I recall, there were precisely 5 'different' pistols, that had nearly the same behaviour.

Anyhow, you were probably completely clear on the issue but I digress. What other changes do you plan to make to the game? That is, in regards to how it might be played compared to original Doom?