Update Log

(This is an archive of updates from 2007 through 2008.
For the main index please see here.)

29 December 2008:

• Bugfix: Worked around a weird GZDoom sound glitch when DSBAREXP and the distance explosion sound were playing at once.
• Bugfix: A misnamed actor meant that you didn't get nearly as many rockets as you should.
• Bugfix: Finally got around to fixing the small ammo counts.
• Instead of the fire button on an empty weapon, the kick attack is now available whenever you press Use in front of an enemy.

27 December 2008:

• Bugfix: A recent ID(K)FA change meant weapons did not show up with a cheat.
• Bugfix: Some accidentally deleted zeroes put explosion smoke in the wrong place.
• Added a kick attack that you automatically use if you press fire while your weapon is empty and you are not automatically reloading. A stronger version of this attack is available as the altfire for the fists.
• You now have twice as many medikit uses, each of them giving half as much health while maintaining the same efficacy in patching up wounds.
• Made the rocket launcher reload faster to make more of its extremely limited use.
• Restored some of the player's vertical leap.

25 December 2008:

• Bugfix: Summoned marines used the normal rifleman attack sequences and could hurt each other and the player.
• Bugfix: Rifles treated as grenade rifles when checking ammo capacity during pickup.
• Bugfix?: The turrette spawned smoke in an odd location when killed.
• Tweaked the jumping and mantling values a bit. Mantling is now affected by load, but to a lesser extent than jumping.
• Changed the megasphere from vanilla behaviour to the equivalent of getting two soul spheres and a black armour.
• SVN link now leads to something other than Nash's thread.

23 December 2008:

• I love CheckPlayerInput(). Please go to the menu and rebind your reload key to +reload and whatever key you use to sprint to +speed.
• To toggle automatic reload, hold the reload key about a second or so during a reloading sequence.
• Mantling is in! Walk right up to a ledge about 26-40 units higher than the floor you're standing on (roughly between groin and shoulder level) and hold the jump key to climb the ledge. If you're not up against a ledge, you can leap forward by holding forward and jump at once.
• There is a delay of just over two seconds between jumps. This delay is halved if you are mantling.
• Bugfix: Firefox did not recognize the backslashes in the URLs on this page.

22 December 2008:

• Bugfix: Newer ZDoom versions handle A_Jump differently, crippling HD's pickup system. (Thanks to Woolie Wool for spotting this one)

09 August 2008:

• Bugfix: You couldn't throw a frag grenade in hand when you had no other ammo left.
• New cheat, hd_nobleedcheat, which when toggled stops you from bleeding.

26 July 2008:

• Bugfix: Infinite loop in the rifle reload sequence when you were automatically reloading.

19 July 2008:

• Revamped the health system so that healing items are no longer "instant HP packages" and the soul sphere is no longer a licence to ignore basic principles of cover.
  • Natural regeneration is now slower when you have less health.
  • Healing items no longer give you instant boosts, but rather let you regenerate quickly until the item's power runs out or (with the meds and stims) you reach 100%.
  • The soul sphere and potions do not bring you above 100 health. Instead, you have an unseen "reserve" of quick-regenerate health points that you can keep around even when your health is full.
  • The berserk pack behaves similarly to the soul sphere, except much more rapidly, and unused reserve points fade away over time. While berserk you are less sensitive to pain and recover more quickly from fatigue.
  • And, finally, the wound system. Now when you are hit, there is a chance that you'll take lasting damage that eats away at your health for a long time. Wounds can only be repaired using the medikit or the blue healing items, or through natural regeneration.
• Shotgun guys now actually miss, instead of having a disproportionate spread.
• Bugfix: Plasma "fwoosh" turnoff sound would play if you die even while the gun was off.
• Bugfix: You could kill a cacodemon just as it started its power attack and the power attack sequence would continue in the caco's wake.

14 July 2008:

• Screw hd_gimmmebackup. Summoning backup is now done through a selectable item. I am open to suggestions as to how to get the backup to work better, instead of the current instant "Raise shields!" cheesiness. I am particularly open to suggestions that do not involve me making sprites. :D

18 June 2008:

• Bugfix: The menu control bound a key to "hd_backup" instead of hd_gimmmebackup.
• Bugfix: Grenade altfire still let you throw grenades when you had no ammo.
• Sped up the altfire punch a bit and increased the lunge.

16 June 2008:

• Bugfix: Mancubus and arachnotron corpses were still shootable.
• Tweaked the grenade movement. Now they roll more and bounce less.

10 June 2008:

• Bugfix: It was still possible to get the Slayer in Doom 1 using give or idfa. You'd be missing some of the animations and sounds, but functionally it worked just fine.
• Bugfix: A duplicate state name meant that the frag grenades had a 20% chance of not spawning a fireball and debris.
• Bugfix: Small archangel flames weren't doing damage.
• New friendly marines to make the game easier! Once per map in single or coop, you may type hd_gimmebackup in the console to teleport in three AI riflemen. These marines will not be able to hurt you (but you can hurt them), and move a bit slower than the usual NPC marines.

08 June 2008:

• Minor update to SNDINFO for editing purposes.

02 June 2008:

• Bugfix: Cookoff timer did not reset on respawn, meaning that if you were cooking off a grenade when you were killed, your next grenade had that much less time on it.
• Added a normal and fullscreen status bar. When we can use mugshots again I'll start to distinguish the two.
• SVN link now leads to Nash's thread.

01 June 2008:

• Until I can download a later version of ZDoom on the Sourceforge site, there will be no mugshot.
• Made the shot-on-the-run jitter less unforgiving. The old method meant that any movement, even an inch to adjust your aim, meant you had to wait until your aim "settled" again before you could shoot straight. Now if you take less than two steps - in other words, one cycle of the movement animation - the jitter does not happen.
• Changed the hand grenade function. Primary fire is the same as it was before, while altfire is split up into steps:
  • Hold the key for just under a second to remove the pin.
  • Once the pin is removed, hit reload to put it back in or tap altfire again to start the timer.
  Throwing is now exclusively up to the primary fire button, except for the "idiot's throw" meant to discourage unintentional one-hit suicides.
• Raised the rocket and grenade launchers' projectile origins to make them easier to aim.
• Bugfix: A_CheckSight was still causing desyncs. Will have to wait until a widely available version that supports the new A_JumpIfTargetInLOS flag.

30 May 2008:

• Uploaded a new vid. Upside: more gameplay, no thirty-second limit. Downside: software mode, I'm really not at my best at all.
• Discovered the new +NOINTERACTION flag. HD should be running less horribly slowly now, though the biggest problem - the debris - is unaffected.
• Bugfix: The frag grenades still had +NOBLOCKMAP and always looked funny. If there was any reason for keeping that I've long forgotten it.
• Bugfix: The player's view would drift upwards every time they walked off a ledge.
• Added back in the revenant ball's track-only-while-in-LOS behaviour. Hopefully whatever was causing the desync has since been cleared.

28 May 2008:

• Now that the SBARINFO bug's gone, let's go back to the small, unscaled, not-totally-ass-ugly status bar.
• Smoothed out the imp and NPC marine spawning code.
• For some reason the mod frequently and apparently randomly freezes for a minute or so with the newer ZDoom SVNs. I have no idea what causes this.

08 April 2008:

• Bugfix: Sometimes your "parting shot" grenade would carry over into your next life.
• Compatfix: GZDoom now requires the tid to be specified in ACS_ExecuteAlways.
• Compatfix: Redid the SBARINFO.

15 February 2008:

• Bugfix: Various glitches involving the rifle's inherited states.
• Bugfix: Typo on one instance of the rifle sound.

14 February 2008:

• ZDoom's playerclass bug has been fixed as of r735. You can start with other weapons again!
• Changed the babuin to use the demon sprites.
• Added a twitch effect at low health; also the pain jerk is a bit more fluid.
• Will be refraining from further updates until the new DECORATE format is out. Still wondering if a DECORATE mantling hack would be worth it...

20 January 2008:

• Internalized the custom status bar now that all relevant major SBARINFO issues have been resolved.
• Bugfix: The chainsaw would enter a zero-length loop after being activated.

14 January 2008:

• Added spent shotgun shell effects.
• Removed the red crosses from the health powerups. The new symbols are a lightning bolt for the stim, a caduceus for the medikit, and a biohazard sign for the berserk pack.
• Bugfix: Playing with -host 1 without setting the hd_lives cvar would cause the wipeout sequence to appear after the first death.
• Bugfix: Hitting reload while the super shotgun was full would cause you to slow down until you actually reloaded or switched weapons. As a side effect of this fix, mashing reload while you have a melee weapon or the hand grenade out will no longer toggle automatic reloading.

09 January 2008:

• Putting up a TDM-compatible version now that the TDM bug's been fixed. (r683)

08 January 2008:

• I think this version should be desync-free. I've had to give up a few special monster properties, and framerates will dip a bit more than before on some machines, but as far as free-for-all DM and co-op are concerned, you should not run into any abnormal desynchronization. Note that this requires GZDoom 1.0.30 even without the custom status bar.
• Until a certain issue related to playerclass names is resolved, you are now restricted to the Assault class.
• The cvar hd_autoreload is no longer used. Automatic reloading is still available as an option, but is now off by default. To turn it on, use hd_reloadon or hd_reloadtoggle, or mash the reload key about four or five times during a reload sequence or while holding a non-reloading weapon. Unfortunately, there's no way to save your preference.
• The cvar hd_killerbarrels is now only applicable in singleplayer. In multiplayer the mutation rate is always 5; if this is too low I'll bump it up a bit. 5% is now also the default for a zero or unspecified cvar value.
• Maximum health before stimpack use now down to 60 and maximum health before medikit use down to 40.
• Changed the pump shotgun's reloading sequence, letting you load up to three shells in rapid sequence before retrieving more. At low health, you will only be able to load one or two at a time.

03 January 2008:

• Due to a bug in the ZDoom SVN, to play HD in multiplayer please extract hd.wad from the zip and run only the wad in GZDoom.
• It seems I haven't gotten around the lives problem yet. If you want to use the lives sytem, each player must set the hd_lives cvar to the same amount before the game begins.
• Applied the inventory-related speed modifications to jumping. Also added a small accuracy penalty for shooting in midair.
• The super shotgun now has a slightly greater accuracy penalty if you shoot it while moving. If this makes the weapon too weak compared with the others I'll tone it down, but it is still vastly better than the pump in this respect.
• Slowed down the player even further while crouched, balanced out by better recoil control.
• Changed the sprinting fatigue calculation back to checking your actual rate of movement rather than counting see state frames.
• In light of all the new mobility restrictions I've decided to make the big heavies do a bit more:
  • The chaingun now fires much more accurately in both modes.
  • You no longer need to hold still while charging the BFG. Instead, if you need to abort the charge just hit the reload button. Note that you can't abort when your health is low.
• Bugfix: Miscredited the "hot manly lead" obit.

02 January 2008:

• Completely redid the multiplayer scripts. Haven't tested it yet - hopefully it will work without desync this time. Even if it doesn't, everything's been improved considerably: the check no longer requires you to hit the respawn button, and the player's inventory resets depending on class (i.e., as if you had died in singleplayer) after being wiped out in co-op.
  • Because the teaminfo lump is optional, I've had to refer to the teams by letters rather than colours. With ZDoom's own teams: Alpha = blue; Bravo = red; Charlie = green; Delta = gold; Echo = black; Foxtrot = white; Golf = orange; Hotel = purple. For HD's teams: Alpha = green; Bravo = brown; Charlie = black; Delta = blue; Foxtrot = white.
• Bugfix: The lives system used to be disabled if you had sv_noexit on.

01 January 2008:

• Switched over from rar to zip, so that HD can sit in your hard drive as a single file.
• Moved detailed information from _hd.txt to _hd_manual.txt. Underscores only to keep these two files on top of the list.
• Added skill levels! These don't work with the latest GZDoom, so if you want OpenGL rename or delete the mapinfo.txt in the zip.
  • On that note, if you want to try HD on a normal, modern Doom map (i.e., the uberhard killfests that are all the rage these days), the easiest skill setting can be used to reduce the damage to more "reasonable" levels.
• Added a new status bar. It restores some status bar information that's missing from ZDoom's fullscreen HUD while obscuring things that you shouldn't have a specific number for anyway.
• Permanently got rid of killerbarrel.zip. Instead, you now have a new cvar: hd_killerbarrels (set by the host player like hd_lives), as a percentage chance that you want any particular barrel to act as a monster. There's still a slight chance at zero or no setting; to disable completely, set the cvar at -1. Do try to make sure you kill any healer imps nearby when you destroy a barrel.
• The cvar hd_manualpickup is no longer used. As well, I've restored the default size of a pickup from radius 8 to radius 20 - the switch issue is still there, but the times where both your inventory is maxed out and the times where the item is fully blocking a switch are each rare enough not to be worth the constant pixelbitching; where they overlap is almost negligible.
• You can now reload your weapon by using an item that's always in your inventory, in an effort to minimize the number of new keys you need.
• Your normal speed is now affected by your equipment currently in use.
  • The vulcanette and BFG are the bulkiest weapons, followed by a tie between the plasma gun, rocket launcher, and chainsaw, followed by the grenade rifle/pump shotgun and finally the rest which do not affect speed at all.
  • The original Doom blue armour (which you can still get with the IDFA cheat) is the most cumbersome, followed by HD's blue armour and then the black armour. The two green armour types are equal.
• Got rid of the shootable corpses. Far too much trouble for what it was worth. Please set sv_smartaim to whatever you like.
• There is now a substantial difference in the amount you get between a weapon that has been stored and one that was being used by the recently deceased.
• Totally revamped the armour pickup code. Now you cannot pick up any armour worse than what you've already got. As well, I finally got around to making the HUD reflect the kind of armour you're wearing.
• Respawn now checks for the best weapon you have that has ammo in it.
• Rifle and chaingun sounds no longer cut themselves off quite as much.
• The wipeout script has been moved from respawn to death. This may cause some major glitches.
• Cleaned up some of the ACS to use slightly fewer scripts.
• Got rid of the music.
• Bugfix: After all this time I finally learned that the class selection de-synced between computers. Seems to be some ZDoom bug about display names. Anyway, fixed.
• Bugfix: Bots now respawn!
• Bugfix: The grenade rifle had no special attached to it and was impossible to pick up on its own.
• Bugfix: Turning on sv_infiniteammo looked like ass because it was visibly replenishing ammo with each reload.
• Bugfix: The grenade rifle pickup was set to remove the player's existing non-attached rifle, which screwed over anyone who had neverswitchonpickup on.
• Bugfix: Respawning in co-op would also load your ammo into weapons you didn't have.
• Bugfix: Cacodemon is now Doom 1 friendly again.
• Bugfix: You would lose your BFG charge when you got hit. Originally intended, but given the explanation (see last update) it didn't make any sense.
• Bugfix: MISXA0 was a modification of the mancubus fireball, but would appear while running the mod in Doom 1. That sprite is now blank.
• Bugfix: The cyberdemon was easily defeated on open ground by circlestrafing very close. (Yes, I consider this a bugfix.)

15 December 2007:

• The +hd_use key is no longer recognized. Instead, press the normal use key to pick up items manually.
• Added a new BFG feature: The BFG is actually a hybrid of standard human technology (like the plasma rifle) and what the UAC has been able to learn about the Anomalies. With a "booster" power supply of 20 cells, the BFG can begin drawing ambient hellish green energy from its surroundings that it can then use for its devastating attack. The conversion isn't perfect, so you'll have to avoid moving or the chargeup will abort - unless your health is low, in which case it takes advantage of your weakness and starts drawing from your health! In a pinch you can still fully load the BFG with normal cells to avoid the delay.
• New hand grenade altfire: cookoff! To use, hold the altfire and aim just as you would primary fire. While you're holding on to the grenade the timer begins ticking, and you can't put the pin back in. If you do not let go, the grenade will be automatically thrown at the last possible moment to minimize the suicide risk. (This is actually a pretty effective way to make sure the thing goes off in midair.) To throw at half power instead of full power, hit the Reload key while holding on to the grenade.
• Hand grenades now roll along the ground. This makes them a lot harder to use under most circumstances (and where they're easier to use it's harder to tell where the enemy is), they now do more fragmentation damage.
• Both types of grenades now move faster.
• Rockets now vary in impact damage depending on speed.
• Reduced the number of pellets in the shotguns from 15 to 8. Damage is very slightly increased, and the side-by-side's altfire packs a bigger punch.
• Got rid of all A_Lower instances in favour of the offsets. The final difference isn't all that noticeable, but if I ever get around to making actual reload animations (heh) it will be easier to convert.
• Changed a couple plasma rifle and rifle frames to show a left-handed shooter.
• The lost soul on the map and the lost soul spat out by the pain elemental are now two different actors.
• Bugworkaround: Hitscan monsters would shoot at corpses lying between them and their targets, meaning that you were perfectly safe behing a corpse without even crouching. From now on, please only play HD with sv_smartaim to 1 or 2.
• Bugfix: When zombies and Nazis bled out and died, the kill would not go to anyone. Now it goes to their last hate target.
• Bugfix: The score script didn't execute every time you killed a monster.
• Bugfix: If you hit Reload while you have the hand grenade weapon out, the next time you throw a grenade you would automatically put the pin back in and abort the throw.
• Bugfix: the weighted class randomization broke the automatic respawn reload. As a side effect of the fix, now when you respawn all your guns are reloaded to the maximum possible extent given your available ammo.
• Bugfix: typing IDFA would say you have 999 of an item to show in the inventory selection.
• Bugfix: rocket acceleration only took x and y velocity into account.

30 November 2007:

• Random classes are now weighted. Assault (rifle and grenade launcher) is the most common and Assassin (berserk pack, no weapons, blue armour) the least.
• Fixed the BFG for deathmatch. Still kinda sucks, but better than before. Weapons will need much balancing.
• Also added a bit of a different charge-up delay for the BFG. I'll warn you now that you will have to stand still for the green energy to get to critical mass before you can move around without it fizzling out.
• Changed the plasma rifle. A lot. Instead of being half-assed at everything except spamming in deathmatch, it's now specialized in pumping extreme amounts of firepower into a single target.
• Dicked around with the rockets. Now they do a bit less impact damage, but also do additional explosion damage in deathmatch.
• It's now a little more difficult to control just how many shots you fire with the chaingun while it's spinning.
• Both bullet weapons have been beefed up a bit, the chaingun with its rate of fire and the rifle with its power - in other words, moving away from the parity I'd wanted before which was Not Working As Hoped. Recoil for both also increased.
• Zombies, Nazis, imps, and babuins now alert other monsters. I've got mixed feelings about this: it does turn things often from hard to unfair with all these guys rushing you en masse, but (especially with the rifle zombies) this creates a lot more variety on familiar maps. If it starts sucking too much I'll take this out.
• Changed the way I implemented the shootable corpses to the more obvious and less bug-prone method.
• Debris from a shot no longer forms a perfect compass rose on the ground.
• I think I've addressed the slowdown that you experience when something bleeds on a moving lift.
• Tweaked the revenant missile aesthetics a bit.
• Bugfix: starting items would not appear after respawning in deathmatch.
• Bugfix: dead marines were still pushable.
• Bugfix: the marines still used the skeleton whoosh when attacking in melee.
• Bugworkaround: Because of the hacked-up inventory system in HD, weird things would happen if you drop certain items, especially weapons. I've simply made all such things undroppable for now. This does not affect weapon dropping in deathmatch.

19 November 2007:

• Corpses now block shots.
• Tweaked the cyberdemon's and spider mastermind's see states a bit. The spider's accuracy is still pretty awful, but now it tries to close in to make up for that fact.
• To make it suck less, the plasma ball now starts off straight and only begins moving erratically after a certain range. This range increases on baby and nightmare/deathmatch modes.
• Speaking of deathmatch, I've decided to reduce the plasma gun's capacity to forty cells, so it's not quite as cheap to spawn with it.
• Major changes to the BFG. It's now also super effective against cyberdemons and barons! Downside? Longer lag, fizzles out if you move too early in the charging process, 60 cells a shot.
• Updated the link to the ZDoom forum thread at the bottom of this page.

16 November 2007:

• Learned about three wonderful little keywords known as momx, momy, and momz. Rockets are now aimable again! Bad news is that I've also updated the behaviour in the mage imp and cyberdemon... ;)
• Added a separate file, hdmooks_standalone.zip, for use with other mods.

09 November 2007:

• Bugworkaround: Due to a bizarre glitch in ACS regarding weapon names you would always switch to fists from the chainsaw after sprinting. I've changed the internal name of the chainsaw replacement to "Lumberjack" instead of "Chainsword" to get around this.

13 October 2007:

• Now rockets accelerate vertically as well! The aiming is a bit finicky, though, and I have no idea how to improve it.
• Bugfix: Turrette should no longer spawn while you've got -nomonsters activated.
• Bugfix: Turns out I can't make the hd_lives cvar be "server side" so I've developed a workaround involving spawning things at player 0's position. Also, don't run HD with something that also uses spawnid 223.
• Bugfix: Deathmatch lives counter wouldn't go away with screenblocks 12.
• Bugfix: Spider Mastermind still used the vanilla Doom puff.

05 October 2007:

• Just noticed that the latest version of WildWeasel's Diaz puts the hand grenade in front of the rocket launcher in the explosive weapons slot. I'm going to follow this, since with the frag you can at least put the pin back in. If you've previously played HD, go into your zdoom-username.ini file and remove the [Doom.HideousDestructor.WeaponSlots] section to effect the new setup (which of coure you can also do manually ;) ).

01 October 2007:

• The rifle used to fire at the sluggish pace of the old Doom chaingun. It now fires at a more reasonable 700 RPM. The grenades also move faster and have slightly longer range, but are harder to aim properly. Also, as Assault you start with 150 rounds on your person instead of 120, and 24 rockets instead of 12.
• Both shotguns now fire a bit faster.
• The chaingun's manual-crank fire is now a bit more awkward to use. ;) Still trying to find the right balance between this and the rifle; was tempted to make autofire shoot on average once every tic (for a total of 2100 RPM instead of the current 1050), but it would become a specialized boss-killing weapon rather than the wide-area support weapon I wanted it to be. More so than it is now, anyway. Also note that it has the same sound as the rifle now, instead of the old pistol sound.
• The rocket launcher's altfire reflects the same changes I'd made to the underslung grenade launcher. The rocket rockets have undergone a more significant change: now they start out slow and rapidly accelerate forwards on the XY plane. This makes vertical aiming a pain, and even impossible in some situations (in which you're probably better off with the grenade anyway), but at longer ranges you will notice a significant increase in speed.
• Similar changes have been made with the cyberdemon's rockets, which admittedly make it a bit easier to avoid at close range. Also tweaked the bosses' death sequence slightly.
• Bugfix: The plasma rifle used to take two cells per shot; this was unintentional.
• The plasma rifle's shots are now less accurate but faster. The rifle itself also turns on and off like the newly revised chaingun.
• Took advantage of the new +nopain flag to give the zombies and marines the bleedout effect I'd originally wanted. This makes them slightly easier, since they're not as likely to instantly retaliate after a hit.
• Cacos no longer hurt themselves or each other with their projectiles' tails.
• Bugfix: I'd always attributed this to my computer, but the distance weapon sounds were frequently cut off.

26 September 2007:

• Bugfix: For whatever reason, "TNT1" doesn't work on the player pawn, which meant that you could see the player standing over his own corpse in chasecam and on multiplayer. Used A_HideThing instead.
• Turrette is now Doom 1 compatible and once again replaces the cellpack.
• Beefed up the cacodemon and the mancubus: the caco's power attack was too predictable and the mancubus's pain chance and slow attack meant that the shotgun granted you practical immunity to its damage. Let me know if they need nerfing again.
• Slightly less ammo being spawned for the rifle and chaingun, and hopefully a few more rockets. This is to balance out an increase in the chaingun's damage; ideally I'll find a way to achieve parity of utility between the weapons, or otherwise conclude that it is not necessary.

12 September 2007:

• Bugfix: the grenade launcher didn't also reload upon respawning as the Assault class.

08 September 2007:

• Hideous Destructor is now (subject to thus far unnoticed bugs) fully compatible with Doom! You should see no Doom II material whatsoever should you run this under Doom. The downside? More original sounds. >_>;
• There is no turrette. There was never a turrette.

06 September 2007:

• After finally reading about custom HUDS in ACS I finally made the score disappear when you've increased the screen size to full and HUDless.

28 August 2007:

• Bugfix: Chaingun now no longer pushes you back.
• This is probably going to be my last update for HD, short of some major debilitating bug that crops up. Considering /idgames upload at some point.

25 June 2007:

• Miscellaneous text file changes.

19 June 2007:

• Bugfix: It was possible to pick up usable items even while maxed out.
• Made the babuin just a bit faster.
• I think I'm going to just leave the monster sprites the way they are. They don't actually look that bad, and there are both better and more urgent things to do in the meantime.

11 June 2007:

• What a sucky legacy Cain Kain left. >:O Anyway, Hideous Destructor is what it is again, albeit with the filename changed to hd.wad.

  This map is pretty cool, though.

  All cvars and commands that might at some point have started with vv_ now start with hd_.

• Changed the chaingun a bit to make it much more user-friendly. Now, by default your primary fire shoots the sucky manual-crank shots. By hitting altfire, you turn the gun on and it stays on, letting you fire rapidly at any time until you put away the weapon or hit altfire again.
• You no longer autoswitch when you're out of hand grenades.
• Bugfix: typing IDFA would make you unshootable.
• Got rid of redundant projectile replacements. Now IDFA also gives you access to standard, unmodified Doom weapons.
• Recoloured the zombies.

10 June 2007:

• Renamed this project to Vae Victis from Hideous Destructor. Seemed more appropriate for various reasons.
• I can't believe I never noticed this before. Anyway, found the real reason why you could run up to another player, kill them, and immediately pick up and switch to an empty weapon despite having vv_manualpickup on. Fixed!
• To minimize potential script conflicts when playing this mod on a scripted map, I've compacted all the script numbers into the range 550 through 570, skipping 555.
• You can now carry more than one healing item or light visor between levels, or upon restarting a level after a wipeout.
• Wiped-out players are no longer obstacles.

07 June 2007:

• Made hd_lives also applicable to deathmatch. In free-for-all DM, this is the number of respawns allowed for each individual player; in TDM, each team has a pool similar to co-op. What to do with telefragging passive observers to gain random free frags (almost never happens with the "spawn farthest" dmflag) or using them as invisible obstacles or cover (common as all hell), I've yet to work out.

  Note that lives are ignored if you have the dmflag 1024 (do not allow exit) marked. This is a technical restriction since a wipeout counts as one of the eliminated players exiting the map.

• A first step towards Doom 1 compatibility! Now when you pick the civvie class, your super shotgun is replaced with a grenade-launcher-less rifle. An imperfect solution, I'll admit, but a relatively seamless one.

04 June 2007:

• New lives system! Start a co-op game, and in the command line include +set hd_lives <whatever number of lives you want>. Delete the cvar or set it to 0 to have the usual unilimited respawns. If you change the cvar ingame, the change takes place the next time you load a level.

  Here are the rules for the lives system:

  • The number is a pool for all players. What hurts your buddy hurts you.
  • Every time you respawn, you use up a life. Run out of lives, and you respawn as a passive observer.
  • Once everyone's a passive observer, the team is considered wiped out and you must restart the level. However, you restart with the equipment you had when you were wiped out rather than when you had started the level - which could be good or bad.

• I had completely forgotten just how frustrating HD was at certain points. So after considering the original intent and what earlier bits of HD were meant only to compensate for the super-fast player, I decided on the following changes:
  • Slowed down the aiming times for the humanoid monsters. The old reaction time to accuracy ratio was better than what most people can do, let alone a drooling inarticulate zombie.
  • Speeded up the baron balls and made them track much less aggressively. Not actually easier or less frustrating, but more consistent with how HD's gameplay normally differs from regular Doom.
  • You always respawn with a full mag and able to fire immediately, to ameliorate monster-spawncamp situations (a serious pain in the ass in many of the Slige maps I test HD on). This normally takes ammo out of your reserve supply, but if you don't have enough to fill the mag you get some free ammo to top it off.

• I've eliminated individual scores. The only thing you were able do to get a higher score than your teammates was to get them killed off in a way that couldn't be traced back to you - the exact opposite of the teamwork the scoring system ought to be rewarding. So until I can come up with some brilliant way to incentivize teamwork, consider the individual score gone.

22 May 2007:

• Changed the keyconf so it now adds instead of resetting weapon slots.

14 May 2007:

• Graf has just released GZDoom 1.0.24! Go get it now! (And download the real HD too, if you've been using the crappy old compatibility version this whole time)
• Added doomednums for the three imps: fighter 23001, healer 23002, mage 23003.
• Added doomednum for the turrette: 23004.
• Added doomednums for the three tangos: rifle 23005, shotgun 23006, rocket 23007.
• Added doomednums for the killer barrels: nukage 23008, flame 23009.
• Tinkered with the turrette's movement and the spider mastermind's death.

13 May 2007:

• Finally started trying this thing out with non-vanilla-Doom maps. Turns out I'd neglected to include the "#library" line making HD incompatible with any map that has its own behaviour lump. Fixed that, and also allowed imps (spawnids 204-206) and lost souls (spawnid 203) be assigned tids through regular map placement.

06 May 2007:

• Rearranged this webpage a bit. Hopefully it'll give people a better idea just what to expect before they bother downloading.

01 May 2007:

• New screenshots! The old ones can still be found here
• New cvar! Set hd_dontshowscores to 1 to turn off the score display during co-op, 0 to turn it back on.
• Players are now never at risk of getting hurt by their own BFG. The bad news is that the ball's attacks don't penetrate and the rails are only a visual guide. But in certain situations they can do far more damage.
• Added a few other weapon resistances. Cyberdemons, spider masterminds, and cacodemons are all somewhat resilient against small arms, while mancubi and imps are resistant to heat being the type of damage they typically deal.
• Right now the only player weapon that does thermal damage is the plasma rifle. The grenades tend to cause damage more by fragments, and the BFG's damage is of a kind of its own...
• Bugfix: The plasma rifle would not turn off if the player got killed while it was on, instead just lowering.

27 April 2007:

• New key and cvar! If hd_manualpickup is set to 1, you will not automatically grab weapons and armour when you run over it. You must walk up to it as you normally would, then hit +hd_use (default bind e) to pick up the item. The commands hd_autopickupon and hd_autopickupoff are shortcuts to setting and saving the cvar instead of doing it all manually.
• Oh God how I hate Doom's armour system. Anyway, right now if you walk into any armour you will switch to it, even if it sucks compared to what you've got. Think of it as an incentive to use the new system or something. D:
• Because of this, I decided to switch the armour around so that each as its own merits and flaws. Now you are faced with a choice between protection now and total damage absorption in the long run.
• One thing that's always bugged me and I've finally gone and fixed it: in Doom, shotguns actually penetrate much better than any other weapon because whatever pellets aren't needed to kill one enemy go right through it to the next. Well, you can't do that anymore. To make up for it, the shotguns hit a bit harder now.
• The three shotgun attacks - pump, single-double, double-double - are now very close in the damage they do. I'm going to focus on things like rate of fire and recoil to balance them out.
• Tweaked the appearance of the shotguns on the floor. Now that I look at the first-person sprites they're actually about the same length from trigger hand to muzzle, which means that the actual barrel length is longer for the double. After that it was just a matter of making the floor sprites match.
• Vastly improved the sound just by moving the distance sounds out of the weapon channel where they should never have been in the first place.
• Re-named the hd_autoloadon/off commands as hd_autoreloadon/off.
• Added scoring penalties for the hand grenade, and changed some monster point values to better reflect their actual difficulty.

24 April 2007:

• Fixed a bug: Hand grenades and archvile flames would last half as long in baby and nightmare because I got lazy and used ammo as their timer flag.
• Another bugfix: So that's why gunflashes have to be separate animations. Anyway, your view is no longer permanently lit up after turning off the plasma rifle.
• Changed the shotgun pump animation, as mentioned earlier. I think I'll keep the current 8/9 capacity, as it provides a balancing advantage as a CQB weapon even despite its huge spread.
• Made HD compatible with the infinite ammo dmflag.
• Forgot to mention earlier that the three imp types each have a new, distinct charge-up attack. The fighter/drunk fires a triple shot, the mage fires a bigger cluster (that ironically is noticeably easier to dodge than the fighter's), and the healer imp has a slow-moving shot that stops rockets.
• Failed my societal expectations by working on this instead of watching Game Seven. D:

22 April 2007:

• Updated the text file, including the copyright/permissions section.
• When hd_noautoreload is on and the weapon is empty, you will no longer reload the super shotgun upon hitting the fire key, since it now has a "magazine" capacity of two. However, I've kept this reloading behaviour for the altfire to keep it consistent with the underslung GL and the BFG.
• Got rid of the jerky motion of the monsters. I have no idea why I thought that looked better... it did make targets a bit harder to hit, though.
• Extended the pain state of the marines/tangos to better reflect the player's own ability to recover from pain. Also toned down a few other monster reactions that made sense in the context of the normal Doomguy's movement but look out of place now.
• Changed the running shot inaccuracy to apply to each weapon separately. As a rule of thumb, the bigger the weapon, the more you should stand still. Also created a jitter effect for the chainsaw. Note that running shots take one tic longer to pull the trigger than stationary ones.
• It seems that every time I make changes like these, the lost soul becomes much deadlier. May tone it down slightly, as well as other monster changes that were originally justified by the player's vastly superior speed and agility.
• Am considering reducing the pump shotgun's mag capacity to 4/5 instead of 8/9 and making its damage a bit closer to the double's. Probably not unless I bother changing the shotgun's pump animation as well (cf. GZDA's variant of Eriance's shotgun graphic), which could increase the pump's rate of fire without making it look ridiculous.
• Am also considering a cvar option where you can't pick up an item just by running over it but must hit the use key. It would, for instance, solve the problem of someone losing their superior emergency armour for the crappy security armour prematurely, or backing into a BFG in the middle of a close-quarters fight. Problem is, the user will have to go through the bother of rebinding their use key for this to work. Maybe if there's a big enough incentive for this...

20 April 2007:

• Now any shooting while moving will be adverse to accuracy. Stop for a split second to aim and you'll be fine.
• Reduced the double shotgun to only ~15.556% more damage than the pump. However, this goes up to 20% when firing both barrels at once. Also slowed down the reload considerably: now the weapon is still pretty damn good if you know how to use it, but not a categorical pwn-all.
• Switched the double shotgun's fire and alftire around, for consistency with the default in GZDA (and just because I use the single shot more often). If this is too annoying or confusing let me know and I'll switch it back.
• Old bug I finally fixed: the sprinting code would override the slowdown code for using health items.
• Added the grenade launcher sound for the rocket launcher.
• Got rid of the bug where you could reload the non-existent grenade launcher on your otherwise grenade-launcher-less rifle.

16 April 2007:

• After discussions here I decided to change the way rifles and grenade launchers are handled. Instead of creating a useless weapon that acts as an inventory flag, each weapon is now actually its own weapon: type "give [rifle/grenaderifle]" in your console and that weapon will be usable. This should make almost zero difference on the user end, except that I decided to make the grenadelauncherless rifle a bit quicker on the draw. And speaking of drawing, this change will make it much easier to create separate first-person sprites for the grenade rifle (there's got to be a shorter term for this thing) when I get a bit more time and motivation.
• Experimented with a new sprite for a longer super shotgun. Experiment failed D: Again, when I have more time and motivation, but this one's definitely well down in the "maybe" list.
• Replaced the launched grenade bounce sound with the one used for the hand grenade.

15 April 2007:

• Changed the blood, explosions, and smoke over to A_SpawnItemEx. Will do the same for items like the rifle stash when I feel like it.
• New super shotgun! It's super! (probably long barrel frames later too)

09 April 2007:

• Armour now has the following values:
  • Green: 36% soak, 120 points
  • Blue: 50% soak, 160 points
  • Black: 80% soak, 80 points
• Added a new weapon: hand grenades! They're currently in the bottom of slot 5; I'm tempted to use slot 1 like in Infiltration 2.86, but I'm not that sadistic. Hold fire to gain power; let go to throw, or hit reload and let go to put the pin back in. Altfire throws faster and with the same force no matter how long you hold it. Be careful of the bounce.
• The double-barreled shotgun now has an altfire to shoot only one barrel.
• Changed the recoil and spread for the two shotguns to reflect the "super" shotgun's shorter barrel length.
• I'm really starting to see why id gave it that magical third buckshot load. I tried reversing the two guns in their keyconf priority to reflect which gun was actually more effective, but that just ruined me when muscle memory kicked in and I got killed trying to figure out which shotgun I was using under the pain flashes.
• I could've sworn I'd fixed that chainsaw bug already... well, here it is again.
• You can now sprint with the fist or hand grenade equipped. The fist also no longer momentarily blinks out of view.

07 April 2007:

• Summonable marines have different skin tones! Summoning using normal actor names will randomize which skin tone to use, while adding "Brown", "Black", or "White" to the beginning of the name will summon a marine with that skin tone specifically. Unfortunately I can't get this to work for players yet, and just can't be bothered to do the same with zombies. And it's still a sausage party.
• Tweaked the plasma rifle a bit. The tail is more dense now, so see how much you can take advantage of it. As well, you may now regenerate while the plasma rifle is on.
• Changed the player animations to show sprinting and to get rid of this little twitch the player would always make when they stop shooting.
• It used to be that firing made you easier to hit since you're calling attention on yourself. Now it makes you harder to hit, to represent the enemy trying to get away from your fire (which they don't actually do, but meh), making defensive attacks a bit more useful.
• Weapons are now easier to control while standing still.
• Reduced the rifle's recoil from 36 to 28. It was a bit much, given all these other recent changes.
• Combat armour now only gives 120%.

05 April 2007:

• I don't know what I was smoking when I thought that the rocket launcher was bug free. Anyway, it shouldn't disappear now if you decide to panic and mash the fire/reload keys while reloading.
• Added obituary to plasma trail.

03 April 2007:

• De-suckified the plasma rifle. Now each shot can take out a zombie sergeant with one hit, and an imp usually two. Arachnotrons are usually survivable but rarely without some unpleasant surprise.

01 April 2007:

• The release-and-press-fire-again method of reloading now works for the double-barreled shotgun and the BFG as well as the grenade launcher.
• De-suckified the chaingun. Ammo capacity increased by 50%, firing made vastly more controllable, made a few cosmetic changes including a reload sequence that looks more like it's using the rifle mags. Now also includes an altfire which is much slower but has no windup time.
• The rocket launcher and chaingun now follow the same pattern if interruptible reload as the shotgun.
• Rockets and grenades now explode the same way.
• None of these changes has yet to be implemented in the GZDoom versions.

31 March 2007 (Part II):

• Got rid of that first rail shot in the BFG. The BFG now also has a four-second risk period where people killed in that time cause the shooter to lose points.
• Created a version compatible with the latest GZDoom.
• Anyway: bugfixes. A typo caused stimpacks not to be depleted on use and to give as much health as medikits. No, the player should not have it that easy.
• Second bugfix. A_Jump offset miscount that prevented manually turning off the chainsaw... didn't notice this until I made the GZDoom version that had to remove all the direct state jumps.

31 March 2007:

• New movement system, as promised. Your default sustainable speeds are now a walk and a reasonably human run. However, you can double your speed by sprinting: hold the z key (or, if your z key is already bound, whatever you can bind to +hd_sprint) and move. Try to sprint for only a second or so at a time: use the new speed too much and it can actually drain your health.
• Increased the grenades' speed a bit for (slightly) better range.
• Added a slight delay for hitscan and rocket weapons for a better overall feel.
• Reduced the automatic spread of the rifle to make its accuracy more dependent on user skill.
• Slight changes to sergeant and imp to make them a bit more survivable given the reduced player speed.

30 March 2007:

• Added a new cvar, hd_noautoreload. Setting this to zero or leaving it undefined means that firing an empty weapon has you attempt to reload it, as before. Setting it to one, however, means that you must press the reload key to reload. I've died quite a few times reloading when I should have switched weapons, and it's probably asking too much to have the player train to release the fire button at exactly the right time to avoid such a fate.
• Made an exception for the rifle's underslung grenade launcher. If it were to follow the pattern of the other weapons, on hd_noautoreload 1 you'd have to reload the rifle first, then the grenade launcher. Instead, now all you need to do is release the altfire and press it again to reload the grenade only.

28 March 2007:

• I lied. The new Map15 shot showing bullet spreads is from only 1000 units - a scant sixty-two and a half feet according to Scott Ampoker's Doom metrics. Seems my zoomed-in mode really is reflecting the real-life FOV that my game screen takes up.

25 March 2007:

• Changed the co-op scoring system a bit. Now if someone dies right after you fire a grenade or rocket (after two or three seconds respectively), you lose another 100 points as well!
• Bots can now use healing items in their inventory.
• Finally fixed the keyconf lump. Hideous Destructor will no longer tamper with your default binds.
• Got tired of bumping the ZDoom thread all the time and created this expanded page instead.
• Changed the archvile's attack. Now the large flame zigzags towards the player, spawning small flames at range and making the old "jump" attack when it closes in.

23 March 2007:

• Weapons now reload properly in baby and nightmare skill.
• Rifle is a bit more powerful on full-auto, but still weighted in favour of singles and short bursts.
• Chaingun no longer has wind-up time - even without it it's already balanced against the rifle in terms of efficiency v. absolute stopping power. Chaingun zombie still slow, however, for sheer playability reasons.
• Rocket launcher now shoots faster but reloads slower.
• Plasma rifle now also deathmatch-friendly. To make up for the reduced damage its explosion is slightly larger.
• Fixed a bug with the plasma rifle: if you died while firing, respawned, and switched back to the plasma rifle, it would automatically turn on.
• Lost soul now 26 units tall, increased from 20 which made it far too dangerous for its power level. (For reference, if I were to scale it straight from vanilla Doom it would actually be just under 34 units, but I'd really rather not award kills for shooting the top of a flame.)
• Made the zombies' "parting shots" a bit less frequent. I probably shouldn't be penalizing people for hitting their targets...
• Killing Nazis is now worth points, instead of merely providing the pleasure of taking the moral high ground.

21 March 2007:

• Changed the rocket launcher's capacity to 5/6 from the old 4/5.
• Made the reloads work properly in baby and nightmare difficulty, as discovered here.

20 March 2007:

• Added a scoring system for co-op. Still have to figure out how, if it's even possible, to create a new intermission screen showing everyone's scores.
• Fixed a bug in the rocketeer's A_Jump frames causing it to run away all the time.
• Got rid of the increased-spread hold states for the shotguns, instead increasing the muzzle climb.
• Changed the firing sequence for the rifleman and zombie so they do more than fire the same three-round burst every attack.

15 March 2007:

• Muzzle climb!
• All weapons are now deathmatch-compatible.
• Thought that the new portable health made things too easy. Now you have to stop to apply them.
• Made getting hit a bit worse. Don't get hit.