Anonymous Ask: Fav. Mods?

[Anonymous Question] “Do you have any doom mods in particular you recommend? I’m new to even the idea of modding it and don’t know where to start ??”

Gosh, there’s so much out there now! It’s hard to know what to recommend first without dumping way too much text.

Trailblazer is a mod that turns you into a Snake Plissken-style bad ass. I always come back to it, it’s lots of fun and probably my favourite at the moment. https://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?t=47494

High Noon Drifter is a fantastic “Weird West” mod that keeps the core gameplay intact while adding a lot of cool features. https://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?t=57098

Demonsteele is Devil May Cry: Doom Edition. It’s a favorite and by the same author as High Noon Drifter but it’s very different to normal play. Try something else first. https://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?t=46787

Combined Arms wasn’t originally a favourite, but the new update has really improved it and it just feels great. It’s a not a bad place to start as it’s a nice and simple armoury replacement. No extra controls or special moves, just new guns (and an optional monster replacement pack) https://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?t=51066

Final Doomer is a great weapon replacer that gives you a new armory themed around five famous megawads (mega-wad = map pack that replaces all the levels in Doom 2) and a tweaked version of the default armory. https://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?t=55061

If you’re totally new to the scene you should probably also look at Project Brutality or Brutal Doom. Their code is a mess (please don’t try and learn anything from them) but their high profiles got a lot of people back into Doom, including me. These mods basically turn Doom into the Doom Comic Book.https://www.moddb.com/mods/brutal-doom
https://www.moddb.com/mods/brutal-doom/addons/project-brutality

Honourable Mentions (ie, stuff I like but haven’t played lots of yet):
Guncaster – super cool mod that turns you into an OP dragon with a gun. Might feel a bit overwhelming if it’s your first mod.https://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?t=37066
Russian Overkill – a RIDICULOUS weapon mod which I don’t play a lot of but most people adore. https://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?t=29915
MetaDoom – every Doom game smashed into one gameplay mod! I haven’t played the latest updates. https://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?t=53010
Colorful Hell – a monster replacer that adds harder monsters based on MMORPG rarity tiers – combine it with an OP mod like Trailblazer. https://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?t=47980

Off the top of my head, you want to keep an eye on TerminusEst, Combine Keegan and Pillowblaster. They’re putting out some good stuff.

The levels you pick will really affect your enjoyment. Try looking through the Cacowad’s (https://www.doomworld.com/cacowards/) and downloading anything that appeals. ALL the stuff listed for the Cacowad’s is quality – but it’s only some of the good stuff out there.

Finally, Doom Mod Madness on YouTube always manages to find weird and interesting new mods. I don’t watch as regularly as I used to, but it’s been a useful series for me.

The mods above require GZDoom to play. I also highly recommend using the ZDL launcher because eventually you’ll have way too many files in your core Doom folder to do the drag and drop thing. Let me know if you need any help with that.

FRAG: Shareware Edition Update

A new version of the Shareware Edition is here!

Link: http://www.mediafire.com/file/399iith5za9bc8l/Frag+Rules+0+9a0918.pdf

List of changes below…

Core rules
– Added the Leap trait
– Shotguns now multiply their firing rate within optimum range, rather than multiplying their hits
– Magic spells and psychic powers no longer require a Quality check. The Sorcerer trait has been removed and units with the Sorcerer trait have had their points adjusted
– Renamed the Watch action to Overwatch
– Completely rewrote the rules for Watch / Overwatch. Reacting is much clearer now, with specific examples. The changes to this rule should make play much more dynamic
Slow trait now means figures can’t attack consecutively with a slow weapon, instead of not being able to react with it.
– Items that require an action to use now require a Use Ability action, the same as spells / psychic powers.
– Numerous spelling and formatting errors fixed
– New credits section at the front, and formatting adjustments made to the start of the book
– Small story pieces added to the ends of chapters (these are still being tweaked)

Army Lists
– HUGE point cost alterations and re-balances.
– Many spells and abilities have had their rules tweaked (such as the Gateway, Void, and Entropic Vortex spells)
– Various squad sizes tweaked. Most squads now have a minimum squad size that forces their ‘naked’ cost to over 50pts
– Some stat adjustments to specific units (for example, EDF heavy troopers have a better armour stat)
– Weapon stats have been tweaked, for example some Hell weapons have lost the Slow trait
– All human armies have had weapon re-balances to be more consistent with each other
– Every weapon and attack ability in the game has had a complete points cost review
– Lost Marine and EDF Engineers now cause drones within 3″ to replace Mindless with Fearless.
– The Tech Glove now allows an engineer to Give Orders to a drone unit up to 24″ away.
 
Lost Battalion Specific Updates
– Replaced the Elite Guard’s temporary flight ability with the Leap trait.
– Renamed Grunt to REAPER (Rapid Engagement Anti-PErsonnel Robot), to complement the Martian Authority’s more advanced ERASER.
– Adjusted Lost army list presentation; altered formatting, added flavour text for individuals
– Added new options for HERP shoulder mounted weaponry.
– The Blast Field Cannon now costs more and can only be taken by Individuals
Soul Artifacts now require a Use Ability action to use

Probably a bunch of other changes which I forgot to write down… I got a little too into it by the end.

FRAG Fluff Pieces

I’ve been bashing out 100-300 words a night adding little fluff pieces into my rulebook. Despite endless rewrites and angst over word choice, it’s been loads of fun.

How many ways can I reference Army of Darkness and Event Horizon? Apparently lots.

But that’s the point isn’t it? If you’re making something based on 90s FPS games, then you have to reference at least Army of Darkness.

FRAG Intro

You get the phone call at 3AM. It’s not like you were planning on sleeping tonight anyway. By 5AM you’re sat in an EDF bunker trying to look attentive. The commander gives a full briefing, but you’re not interested in the fine details.

“…Intel across the world shows energy signatures perfectly matching the Unity research programme…”

Unity. A joint effort by Earth and Mars to perfect faster-than-light travel, which ended in a complete disaster. Both planets pointed fingers at the other and neither one would say what had happened to the missing stations.

“An unknown enemy is using Unity teleports to insert kill teams into Council signal stations. The hell of it is we have no idea what they even are. They’re not from Earth, but another dimension.”

It sounds unbelievable, but you’ve seen stranger things on assignment. You take another cigar and try to look like you’re paying attention.

Half an hour later you’re on a helicopter en route to one of the assaulted stations, and that’s when Armageddon happens. The radio begins to speak in tongues and light bursts from the ground far below. Something glowing and pissed-off hits the canopy and the pilot screams. Damn, these bad guys work fast.

The transport erupts into flame and tumbles out of the sky. When you regain consciousness, you can hear screams all around you. A city is burning red in the distance and it doesn’t look like there’s anyone left who can stop it.

You’ve only got a pistol but it’ll be enough.

Somebody’s gonna pay for shooting up your ride.

Above is parody of the Quake intro story that I put into the FRAG rulebook.

Everyone Loves Flying Stealth Archviles

Last year I made a Lovecraftian Doom mod to help me figure out how mods are made, and one thing I did then was turn Realm 667′s Flesh Wizard into an alternative Archvile.

I’ve now combined some of that Decorate code with Hexenmapper’s raisable Heretic monsters and made a very fast monster with a decent amount of hit points that resurrects fallen foes, turns invisible, and throws out low damage fireballs. He also has a high pain chance.

In the test encounter he wasn’t able to escape concentrated fire from a rapid fire weapon, but he’s much harder to catch in an open arena with other monsters around. He’s scary but not very dangerous by himself.

So let me know what you think about the FLYING STEALTH ARCHVILE

Learning Doom: Let’s Examine Yuan_Ti_Replacer.wad

Hexenmapper has been working on some monster replacements for Heretic and posting them in the HUMP discord server.

I asked if I could use them, since I want to make an expanded ‘Doom 2′ style monster roster for Heretic and he’s already made an Arch Vile type creature. He said yes, because he’s a really cool person.

I’m going to walk you through the inside of a simple monster replacer mod. Let’s have a look at what sort of stuff is inside…

1) First I’ll have to open SLADE, so I can rummage around the data file.

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2) Then I’ll find my data file. Luckily I keep everything well organized…

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3) Here’s what the inside of a Doom (or Heretic, or Hexen, or Strife…) wad file looks like:

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4) This is the DECORATE file. Decorate is a language added to sourceports that let’s you create new monsters and effects without much technical know-how. Pictured below is an Arch Vile type monster that resurrects enemies

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5) Hexenmapper has been hard at work; every non-Boss in Heretic is now replaced by an identical copy with a resurrection animation (their death animation played backwards). Because the other two new monsters replace Heretic’s ‘ghost’ enemies, those monsters’ resurrectable versions are disabled (but can easily be turned back on)

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6) Let’s have a look at the graphics for the new Yuan-Ti Monsters. As you can see, it’s a “Frankensprite” of the Ophidian and the Brown Chaos Serpent enemies.

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7) The side view had some sprite tearing I thought. However, other views of the Yuan Ti are very well done.

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8) Holy cow, that’s how it attacks? That lightning attack looks cool as hell

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9) The Arch Vile type monster is a smaller version of Hexen’s Korax

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10) The third new monster is an Archer, based on the Hexen II enemy. This is from Realm 667 and modified from the existing Archer resource.

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11) The Credits List

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So for reference:

DECORATE contains the programming for the monsters (health, movement, properties, lists of sprites to use for each animation cycle, etc)
SNDINFO is ‘sound information’ which assigns labels to the sound files so that the Decorate file can tell the game which sounds to play
GLDEFS tells the game to light up the area around monsters when they’re using their magic attacks
The rest is sound and graphics data that get used by DECORATE and SNDINFO.

Will I use it? In a modified form, probably.

I was thinking of using the Korax sprite for a boss monster so I might change swap the graphics. I certainly can’t ignore the work put into making each Heretic monster resurrectable though!

I think the archer would make a good “shotgun sergeant”, perhaps if I made their attack more like an ethereal crossbow attack.

I may have already put in a monster that does what the Yuan-ti does, so that one might not be used.

FRAG: Sidhe Army List Preview

I’m going to drop a link to the alpha for the Sidhe army list before I start focusing on getting it prepared for final release. The release version is going to have quite a lot of changes from the alpha.

This version of the Sidhe list has existed for a while, but I wasn’t happy with having a straight Heretic / Hexen rip off and wanted to give the Sidhe their own unique feel. They needed more depth and I wanted them to play a greater role in the FRAG universe (especially as the RPG notes have started getting bigger).

I figured that somebody might be interested in comparing the old Sidhe list with the new one that will appear in The New Technology, so I’ve decided to release this alpha list for people to enjoy and comment on.

Get the alpha list here:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/ra04r9tyc1cpq7p/The+Sidhe+Alpha+List.pdf

FRAG: Martian Authority Army List

I have a day off so I finished writing up another FRAG army list: the Martian Authority. The only ones left are the Ebihara Group and the Sidhe (who already have a completed ‘alpha’ list, but I think it needs a lot of improvement).

The Martian Authority are flexible in how you want to portray them. Their core troopers could be fielded with literally any near-future sci-fi model, or you could give them all power armour and build them from Gates of Antares or Mantic Enforcer models (maybe I’ll finally start painting my Deadzone kickstarter).

Late Night Painting

Maybe I shouldn’t paint at midnight? I definitely shouldn’t take pictures at midnight.

These guys still need basing, obviously. One day I’m sure I’ll hold on snapping pictures till after anti-shine and basing but I just get super excited after painting.

The figures in these pictures are: (a) plastic i-Kore/VOID marines with space knight helmets from Puppetswar.eu (the plastic bodies are quite low detail, if you have big money I recommend using entirely Puppets War parts) (b) a Maelstrom’s Edge Hunter robot (c) a Games Workshop Cairn Wraith and (d) a Mantic Games Strider mech.

Or in FRAG (a) Argent Knights (b) a GRUNT bot (will probably rename these to Eraser or Reaper bots) (c) a Screaming Phantasm and (d) a Mechatron (vehicle for human armies).

The rules for Argent Knights, Phantasms and Mecha are coming out in FRAG Episode 2.