Stop Shooting Each Other Dammit!

[Boingo the Clown]

I have been switching my monster over from DEHackEd to DECORATE for the new version of my mod and it brings up a question.

Is it possible to get my monsters with scan line attacks (bullets) to stop shooting each other?

That is to say if there is another monster between itself and the player the monster will either not fire or its shot will have no effect on the other monster, or perhaps that it will even shoot through the other monster (without affecting it) and hit the player.

Does anyone know if this is possible?

The ZDooM wiki mentioned a flag "DesignatedTeam", but when I tried it it did not seem to work.

[Gez]

You could use [wiki]A_WolfAttack[/wiki].

[Enjay]

If you just want to replicate the DEHACKED "Monsters Ignore Each Other" behaviour, you can use the MAPINFO "noinfighting" map peroperty.

[Rachael]

I think he means a property like Half-Life monsters where the AI scans their hitscan lines before firing; if an ally is detected in the way the attack automatically fails and they move to a "safer" position to initiate the attack.

I've been meaning to replicate this behavior in A_Chase and submitting a code patch for it but I've been so busy I just never got around to it. This would be one of many steps in creating more intelligent monster behavior in Doom. Perhaps a good feature suggestion?

The Half-Life version only checks for allies in the way afair, probably a more ideal behavior would be to check if any object is in the way whatsoever; ally, enemy, or otherwise; possibly even letting the player control this behavior, whether it'll allow the creature to shoot at any enemy or only its target.

[Blue Shadow]

I think he means a property like Half-Life monsters where the AI scans their hitscan lines before firing;...

Something that could possibly achieve that has already been suggested, here.

[Gez]

That is to say if there is another monster between itself and the player the monster will either:

1. not fire
2. or its shot will have no effect on the other monsters
3. or perhaps that it will even shoot through the other monster (without affecting it) and hit the player.

(list formatting mine)

1. This needs a new feature.
2. Possible with custom damage types and custom damage factors.
3. Possible with A_WolfAttack for hitscans, and MTHRUSPECIES for projectiles.

[Enjay]

Unfortunately 1 is the only one that could truly give the impression of an intelligent enemy who decided not to fire because his buddy was in the way and would work for projectile attacks as well as hitscan (because the check and the attack would be separate).

I haven't really had the opportunity to check out FDARI's code submission. How does it look?

[NeuralStunner]

It's worked well so far, though I haven't been able to try the latest one since my usual test engine (yan Cordell's Tower of Babel) is currently broken in other ways.

Although if you'd like to make a GZDoom experimental build of it and upload it to the DRD page, that'd be great too.