[Update] Allied Marines Pack

Firstly apologies to Admin for lack of feedback when a different version of this was submitted in 2022 or 2023. The 17 Marines now consist of 25 Marines. Intention with the update now is to keep the weapon choices more relevant to Weapons or Enemies submitted to Realm667 (so the Duke 3D Pig Cop Tank user submitted last time has been cut).

Extra Marines added:
- Sonic Railgun Marine
- Auto Shotgun Marine
- Plasma Repeater Marine
- Unmaker Marine
- (Custom made) Jetpack w/ (Projectile based) Dual Pistol Marine (New Death sequences created compared to last submission, will crash & explode)
- Quad Shotgun Marine
- Freeze Rifle Marine
- (Custom made) Riot Shield w/ Pistol Marine (Will most likely be replaced as the damage output isn't any different to Pistol user, it's just a slightly more durable Marine that drops Armour Bonuses when killed & the "Melee" charge attack it had last time is removed as it was an unnecessary extra feature)

Will remove or swap Marine's that don't feel right or offer anything unique for a Knife Wielding, Sawed Off Shotgun, Dual Wielding Pistol, Revenant Missile Launcher or SMG Marine as they're the most relevant of the remaining Marines (appearance & Attacks) to Realm667's content that I have in a roster of 37, Marines not mentioned use weapons created for custom WADs I've worked on & am working on so are out of place.

At the moment nothing is converted to ZScript as requested or recommended last time, newer submissions to Realm667 are still using Decorate, Decorate is still working fine with the most stable versions of GZDoom (despite being "redundant") but the main reason being that when trying to rewrite the previously submitted update to ZScript the time it was taking dragging on far too long, any time I'd tested individual Marines written into ZScript that WAD wasn't working properly (despite following examples given on sites such as ZDoom wiki) & the pressure all of the delays, errors & amount of content that needed rewriting everything was putting me under (due to lack of understanding) was too much to cope with. A new updated display picture for the submission will be made once everyone has decided who stays, who goes & how much more really needs to added to number of Marines available to use.

"2024 UPDATES"
Marines 18-25 added.

All Sprites & Brightmaps have been Optimised from PNG Palette to reduce file size. Updated Colours Info text as the Sprite optimisation now effects this option, you'll need to reset the Sprites back to PNG Palette to allow all the non set colours to be used.

Converted to PK3 & all Files added to Folders in PK3.

Sounds used by Ally Marines that are originally used by weapons/enemies on Realm667 are updated, replacing renamed duplicates updated SNDINFO with all changes.

Marine Sound Info updated:
- Bombardier (Heat Seeking Missile Launcher Sound names added)
- BFG10K (Skulltag BFG10K Sound names added)
- Flamethrower (UTNT Flamethrower Sound names added)
- Sniper (Sniper Rifle Zombie Sound names)

BFG10K Marine's Puff reconfigured to Skulltag's BFG10K & an extra state in Decorate to play Cooldown sound when target is killed or if the Marine has lost the target in sight.

Grenade Launcher Marine's Grenade is now a timed grenade.


https://www.mediafire.com/file/rqfrzjwpoujpnkv/Ally+Marines+Pack+(Update).zip/file

Wow nice work, that's quite an update!
Gonna check out the individual marines later, for now I just did some quick runs with my randomizer mod.
A few things I noticed:

• Script warning, "Ally Marines Pack.pk3:decorate" line 1754:
  Numeric type expected, got "Silent"
• The radio chatter/static sounds can get annoying when there are a lot of marines and a lot of monsters in a map, especially since the sounds are played at max volume.
• MarineAllyMG doesn't aim at monsters above/below him
• MarineAllyFist sometimes charges at dead monsters, also to me the charge sound seems out of place since it isn't a loop anymore. TBH the sound could be replaced with something else, everytime I hear it I think a headless suicide bomber is charging at me
• MarineDropFire sound isn't looping correctly, keeps playing after the fire has stopped

At the moment nothing is converted to ZScript as requested or recommended last time

If you'd like some help with that let me know.

I'll limit the active chatter to 3 (so hopefully no more then 3 at a time) & turn the volume down to 0.5.

I'm not sure what's happening with the MG Marine not targeting higher up targets, had this problem with the Jetpack Marine when in flight, so that's the main reason why attacks are projectile based.

I'm not sure if this is redundant code showing it is indeed showing on modern GZDoom ports but I'll have a look & see what's happening, hopefully can find & fix it. Outside of the set up like this, in the projects I'm using all the Marines, their attacks are projectile based as I got rid of the hitscan mechanic on every gun (excluding Railguns) used by player, ally or enemy as a preference of playstyle.

The flamethrower dropfire looping sounds, I've not noticed any problems when testing but I'll allocate the burning sounds to sound slots (6 & 7) & then get them to stop when entering "death" state, hopefully fixing that problem.

Any sounds to replace the AllyMarineFist's charge would be welcome, it being used by the suicide bombers on Realm667 does make it unneeded (and no doubt it does get irritating) or I'll just remove it. I'll add an A_CheckSight("See") after the Lost Soul Charge & in between the 2 punches that follow, hopefully that'll solve attacking corpses the only other trigger is he's jumped to missile attack after a melee attack as there is a A_Jump(64,"Missile") action after a punch is thrown to chain attacks together.

Code from lines 1749 to 1756 (Sonic Railgun Marine's raid fire attack
Line 1754 = AL18 F 5 Bright A_CustomRailgun (random(10,25),0,none,"ff0000","SILENT",1)
Not sure why there's any errors.

I'll limit the active chatter to 3 (so hopefully no more then 3 at a time) & turn the volume down to 0.5.

Overlapping sounds aren't really an issue, it's more the amount of chatter over a longer period of time. If for example you have 20 marines running around the map, each one of them will say "Contact!" everytime they see a new monster. So you'll hear that voice line at least 20 times in a row in the beginning, then many times more while they run around the map looking for new targets.

I'm not sure what's happening with the MG Marine not targeting higher up targets, had this problem with the Jetpack Marine when in flight, so that's the main reason why attacks are projectile based.

I just tested this again and it seems this only happens when the aiming pitch becomes too steep, so they'll just shoot the wall in front of them. But in most situations it should be fine I guess. Maybe make them back off a little more often so they can keep away from high ledges with monsters on them.
 

Line 1754 = AL18 F 5 Bright A_CustomRailgun (random(10,25),0,none,"ff0000","SILENT",1)
Not sure why there's any errors.

"SILENT" in quotation marks is a string, that won't work because flags require an integer value. Flags are just numbers internally, and the flag you want in this case is RGF_SILENT.
This should work:

The "Patrol" state sends most (Chainsaw & Jetpack excluded) of the Marines wandering like Strife Citizen NPCs so also resets their engagement in hostiles if there is none nearby, I'll remove that altogether for everyone so they'll just continue looking for targets like any normal Enemy does & not keep alerting you when they've found a new target.

It was an idea carried over from Alando1's Allied Marine packs where most of the 1st sets of Sprites came from but it doesn't add much apart from alerting the Player that another enemy is within their sight. That will stop the sound overlapping earache lol

The "Patrol" state sends most (Chainsaw & Jetpack excluded) of the Marines wandering like Strife Citizen NPCs so also resets their engagement in hostiles if there is none nearby, I'll remove that altogether for everyone so they'll just continue looking for targets like any normal Enemy does & not keep alerting you when they've found a new target.

Alternatively you could just replace A_Look in the patrol states with A_LookEx(LOF_NOSEESOUND). This will keep the current behavior but without playing the see sound when they acquire a new target.

That alone won't solve the issue of larger groups of marines initially spamming "contact!" though. But I have an idea to solve this, I'd let only one marine say "contact!" when they see a new target, and all other marines in the direct vicinity stay silent. Like one guy is the speaker for the squad.
But as long as the code is in Decorate I wouldn't even attempt to try this. In Zscript it shouldn't be a problem to do though.

Another way to mitigate it a bit would be removing the BOSS flag from every marine, that way you'll only hear the sounds when they are close by. But then it wouldn't feel like receiving radio messages anymore...

[SUBMISSION UPDATES]

• Removed Redundant "Patrol" states from all Marines, decreasing file size, reducing noise overload when new targets are spotted.
• Removed MarineAllyFist "Charge" Attack sound (used by Beheaded Kamikaze & Suicide Bomber) no replacement sound added so Sound Def removed. Sight checks added after each punch & throughout Missile State, if no target is in sight he'll stop attacking.
• Removed the increasing spread range when MarineAllyMG uses Burst Fire so shots are more accurate & consistent, it's a quick 3 shot blast attack (spread was increased as requested when originally submitted).
• MarineAllyFlamethrower Flamethrower Drop Fire (spawning flames that burn for a short time) will extinguish without any burning sounds still looping.
• MarineAllySRG has Railgun flag errors corrected.
• MarineAllyASG Has had Missile states changed to match Shotgun Marine, will attack faster when targeting (like the Shotgun Marine) before or during shooting state & reload pause duration decreased slightly.
• MarineAllyShield will constantly Face Target when attacking, Pistol spread reduced slightly.

I did experiment with the +BOSS flags but they were originally in place so you hear when marines are activated (from Dormant states in particular or if you use scripts to teleport them in as back up etc) or killed, removing the flag takes that away.

Just a side critique here: If all you're using the BOSS flag for is to make those marines play their see, death and active sounds at full volume, then you can just drop the flag and instead use the FULLVOL flags.

Blue Shadow wrote:

Just a side critique here: If all you're using the BOSS flag for is to make those marines play their see, death and active sounds at full volume, then you can just drop the flag and instead use the FULLVOL flags.

 

OK, good to know, thank you. The majority of the Flags were copy/paste from Alando1's Allied Marines volume 3 WAD (made around 2016 or earlier, I don't have the WAD saved as that was wiped off an old PC), they used +BOSS flag, so I just carried that over with the original submission, then picking the Behaviour & Defence & Attack Flags that suited each Marine. No A_BossDeath actions or +BOSSDEATH Flag was added in the Decorates so apart from the full volume, I had no idea what else it was used or needed for.

Anyway, with that in mind I'll still be leaving Sight & Death at Full volumes (as was accepted with original upload before Update was added again) but the Active sound won't be at Max volume, so there will be even less interference from radio static from Active sounds alongside a limit to a Max of 5 (which I forgot to add with recent changes).

The main goal of this submission (original that has been accepted & this update) is to give players some easy access to Ally Marines or Enemy Marines to play about with however they wish.

[SUBMISSION UPDATES]

• +BOSS Flags removed
• Full volume Sight & Death Flags added
• Active Sound Volume dropped to 0.5
• Active Sound Limited to 5
• Volume for MarineAllyFist Knuckles crack (before jumping at target)  dropped to 0.5
• MarineAllyFist has had extra checks (now checks distance of targets) before jumping straight into the Leap attack