WhiteHot custom monster attacks input

[Canadian*Sniper]

Now before someone shuts me out about how I come up with all these mod ideas but never I walk the walk, I'll let you know I'm going to implement the good ideas into the WhiteHot mod.

In coop modes in WhiteHot, I'd like to have all of the monsters have at least one custom attack which they didn't have before. Examples can be found in fvf, supercoop, and rquake where ogres sometimes fire rockets, scrags teleport when hit, and shamblers use an explosive attack.

I'd like to get input on my ideas as well as for you to post your own ideas in this thread. The available monsters are:

• Chthon - boss.qc
• Fiend - demon.qc
• Rottweiler - dog.qc
• Enforcer - enforcer.qc
• Rotfish - fish.qc
• Ogre - ogre.qc
• Death Knight - hknight.qc
• Knight - knight.qc
• Shub-Niggurath - oldone.qc
• Vore - shalrath.qc
• Shambler - shambler.qc
• Grunt - soldier.qc
• Spawn - tarbaby.qc
• Scrag - wizard.qc
• Zombie - zombie.qc

Same rules apply from the death message thread: your ideas that I implement will be credited.

I'll start~

boss
Increase health to 5. When having 3 health left, summon the shamblers and zombies (without telefragging them) into the arena. Perhaps do something drastic when having 1 health left.

Note: Chthon originally has 3 health (1 health in easy mode) which decreases by one every time the player uses the lightning column on it.

demon
I got nothing

dog
Players attacked by dogs are poisoned. The player will lose 1 health every second until they grab a health box.

enforcer
When the player is in attacking range, have a #% chance to use Stim Packs (yes, taken straight from Starcraft) which decrease their health by 10 but double their movement and attack speed temporarily.

An alternative to increasing the attack speed would be use SuperCoop's enforcer ai where they have a Super Laser Gun which shoots just as frequently as the Super Nail Gun.

Stim Pack — Marine and Firebat ability; it lets the affected units fire and walk twice as fast, with the cost of 10 hit points. [Wikipedia]

fish
Same as the dog, players attacked by fish are poisoned. The player will lose 1 health every second until they grab a health box.

ogre
I have nothing

hknight
Death Knights would have a #% chance when attacking to summon Pentagram powers. They would give off a powerup light and would be impervious to damage for 30 seconds. After using this power, the Death Knight would not be able to summon it again by chance until 4.5 minutes pass by.

knight
Knights would be given a crappy version of the Death Knight ranged attack. Another alternative is to have them phase closer to you, idea taken from rquake.

oldone
I got nothing

shalrath
Vores have the power to focus their efforts on the player and slow their movement dramatically. The vore cannot move or attack while focusing on the player. This attack happens by #% chance when the vore would attack.

shambler
This is pretty evil. The Shambler has a 1% chance when attacking to focus their efforts on a player (similar to the vore). The shambler would freeze the player from moving, have the player float up a bit then cause 50000 damage on them a second later. The player's death would look similar to a telefrag. The shambler can use this attack from any place it can see the player. The shambler's model would be looping in the charging state while using this attack (the model frame that the shambler does before striking you with lightning).

soldier
Similar to the enforcer, Grunts can use stim packs which would double their movement and attack speed temporarily.

tarbaby
Cause explosive splash damage when attacking a player.

wizard
Taken from SuperCoop, have the wizard phase around the player when attacked.

zombie
When a player is killed by a zombie, another zombie spawns where the player died. Another idea is to give the zombie a melee attack which resembles biting. Braaaaaaaaaaainssssssss

[=peg=]

for the fiend:
how about making the the fiend being able to grip the player with its "claws" when its within range and then doing a couple of quick turns to shake the player around (doing sizable damage) then releasing the player from its grip, slingshotting the player all over the place..

for the ogre:
how about giving the ogre a #% chance of fireing a "bouncing betty" instead of the normal nades..

[Senban]

I've been thinking about Fiends recently, and wondering how good the old sprite modeled flame thrower would look in modern engines.

For Chthon I'm thinking about dropping some of the Vore code on to his missile attack. (Although I'm also thinking about putting a range limit on the vores attack.)

It's worth looking at the original monster .mdls, Id left in a whole bunch of unused animations when they shipped the game, some of which appear in my mod* (reloading grunts, some of the death knight moves etc) but theres also a lot of interesting stuff left to work with particularly the knights kneel animation, and the full magic attack animation (shooting slime bolts only uses 6 out of 13 available frames)

*90% of the new monster code in SuperCoop comes from Patrick Martins "Cranked" patch.

[Lardarse]

For Chthon, I at least partialy recommend being able to take him down with normal weapons. You need to give him a lot of health (DPMod has 10000 and that's barely enough for single player).

I suggest 25000 (15000 on easy), with it taking half damage from explosions and +50% from LG, and the lightning columns doing 4000 (no, I don't mean 5000) to it per attack.

Then have it warp in monsters as it gets damaged, and have it go into "panic mode" at 5000 or less.

And better than just usng the monsters that are used for the end effect is to actually have new monsters be created as and when it needs them.

[Canadian*Sniper]

It's worth looking at the original monster .mdls, Id left in a whole bunch of unused animations when they shipped the game, some of which appear in my mod* (reloading grunts, some of the death knight moves etc) but theres also a lot of interesting stuff left to work with particularly the knights kneel animation, and the full magic attack animation (shooting slime bolts only uses 6 out of 13 available frames)

I went through all of the monster mdl files. I noticed the following:

• Death Knights point their swords straight forward (I've noticed this in modified hknight ai)
• Knights kneel down like you said (then stand up looking around )
• Grunts reach into their rockets to reload ammo or pup in a magnum/explosive slug
• Scrags stretch upwards. Very interesting.

[Lardarse]

Hell knights have 3 "attack" animations: The horizontal swing that most people know of, a vertical swing, and pointing straight forward.

Whatever you do, don't have the vertical swing just do the same thing as the horizontal swing...

For grunts and enforcers, you could consider randomly having diffrerent weapons.

[Senban]

For Chthon, I at least partialy recommend being able to take him down with normal weapons. You need to give him a lot of health (DPMod has 10000 and that's barely enough for single player).

I suggest 25000 (15000 on easy), with it taking half damage from explosions and +50% from LG, and the lightning columns doing 4000 (no, I don't mean 5000) to it per attack.

Then have it warp in monsters as it gets damaged, and have it go into "panic mode" at 5000 or less.

And better than just usng the monsters that are used for the end effect is to actually have new monsters be created as and when it needs them.

That sounds a lot like what I'm working on. I'm giving him a lot less health than you suggest (depending on skill and whether it's coop or not I'm giving him 1-5000), but the weapons in DPMod are pretty mental. I haven't thought about teleporting the monsters in, but thats going to be pretty tough, although if it gave me AI for teleporting Shamblers that might have fun applications else where in the game! The main problem I'm having with Chthon just now is getting him to fight sensibly against respawning opponents.

[Canadian*Sniper]

The main problem I'm having with Chthon just now is getting him to fight sensibly against respawning opponents.

That's a problem I somehow solved back then. Chthon would just stare after killing the target. I think I fixed it by putting a "look for new enemy" check at the end of the staring frames. Funny thing about Chthon is it's normal frames are the attacking frame. Also, Chthon doesn't have the FL_MONSTER bit

[Senban]

I had him running with FL_MONSTER for various reasons. You have to add a few functions or he crashes the game. The trouble then is that he becomes very easy to distract because it makes him react to pain like a normal monster so every time he get's shot he changes his target.

[Lardarse]

Senban: DPMod does have insane weapons, but the more mundane weapons aren't that much stronger. Shotguns are 42 per shell. Nailguns are 15 per nail, and SNG does 20 nails per second instead of 10 large nails per second. Ammo limits in Single player are the most insane, though. In the current SVN build (don't know if there's been a release since this was changed), you can hold up to 4000 of each ammo in single player. Chthon at 10000 health does take a bit of killing, but it's still only just a chanllenge for me (even on skill 2). That's why I said 25000...

[Senban]

Without the Thunderbolt a supercoop player can only inflict 6630 points of damage (assuming every last pellet hits, but hey, it's a big target), and my strategy for making Chthon a bastard is going to focus more on him being able to defend himself than having him absorb damage. Plus I may well have him respawning in coop and deathmatch! I'm also thinking about rewarding monsters with a bit of Quad or Pent when they kill players. In terms of him defending himself I'm thinking Heat Seaking rockets, full speed rockets and have him draw off the lightning buttons so every time he gets shocked he gets .ammo_cells and when he has .ammo_cells he can shoot out his own lightning just like a shambler. If I can find a way to tell him how many players are on the server I might add a bit to his health for each player there though.

[Lardarse]

To count players on the server, do a find loop searching for the classname "player"

[Senban]

Yeah but that means writing my own code, I'd rather just copy and paste . This would be an "at some point" project anyway. Getting the behaiviour down and optimizing him for coop with 2 to 4 playres will be grand for now, then I can fix up other aspects of the game and come back to it. Alt-Fire, Reloading and blasters are a high priority just now as is "last man standing" in some of the game modes. I also want to put in chainsaws if I can get a good .mdl for them

[Canadian*Sniper]

Some ideas I came up with.

Fiend - has the ability to disapear for a bit. They can still attack you and they can still be damaged. You can still hear them. This is sort of a ripoff doom where they have the invisible Demons named "Spectres". This idea was influenced by doom, supercoop's teleporting scrag, and rquake's phasing knights.



Scrags - give them a charging attack where they launch at you fast moving in 1 direction. Heh, this is a ripoff of doom as well Pesky Lost Souls.



Death Knights - all monsters near a deathknight regenerate 1 health every second. Monsters can not exceed their max health. This is taken from Warcraft3's Death Knights.

So ya. I'm very unoriginal

[Senban]

Some ideas I came up with.

Fiend - has the ability to disapear for a bit. They can still attack you and they can still be damaged. You can still hear them. This is sort of a ripoff doom where they have the invisible Demons named "Spectres". This idea was influenced by doom, supercoop's teleporting scrag, and rquake's phasing knights.

Have you met the SuperCoop rotweilers yet? The current build of SuperCoop has a nicely pimped fiend which is about 99% finished and looks utterly awsome with Qracks QMB particles.

Death Knights - all monsters near a deathknight regenerate 1 health every second. Monsters can not exceed their max health. This is taken from Warcraft3's Death Knights.

When I get to the Death Knights I'm going to do them on a (pseudo) elemental basis. Flame (good ole fashioned), Thunder (Lightning bolts), Venom (poisoned weapon), and Mountain (slow moving, no ranged attacks, buckets of health). Possibly a 5th Element of super rare Void Knights (with a variety of hideous powers to be dreamed up at a later date)