The FRIENDLY Tag

So, as part of an ARK TC mod for DOOM, i'm adding demon taming. The idea is, a normal kill is just a kill, and after a while, the demon will re-spawn, to prevent the player from genociding the world and having to start a new game. BUT, if GIBBED, an enemy will not re-spawn - rather, it will summon a friendly version of the same monster - possibly with a few stat changes for balance, like in ARK - who will be the "tamed" version of the monster. But to make a monster summon a friendly monster, it, too, must be friendly. Is there anything I can put in the XDEATH code to make the monster turn friendly while it is dying, so the summon will be friendly? I have the re-spawning mechanic down fairly easily, with a 1000 tic delay so the player can leave the area. I may raise the dealy to 2000, but thats easy. What I cannot figute out how to do is make a bad monster summon a friendly one. Anyone know how to make it gain/lose tags midway through death?

Well, I found out how to get it running a different way - feel free to bin this.

Out of curiosity, what was the solution you went for? I would have used A_ChangeFlag during XDeath, if that's not what you wound up doing.

I did something much more unneccesary and complicated. I will probably in the near future use that instead. Anyhow, the only other person on the project cannot help at the moment - would you be interested in contributing? I need to cannibalize(with full credits) the piece of code from Brutal Doom marines that lets you tell them to stay/follow by pressing the use button - it would be great to have that on tamed creatures, and I don't know enough about DECORATE to very easily extract it on my own. Once that last issue is ironed out, I can release a demo version and focus building a giant series of biomed caves and tunnels for the games open world. Any chance you could help on that?

I honestly can't commit to helping out with any projects on a regular basis, but I could potentially help out with little things on a case-by-case basis (and if I can't, someone else around here may be able to help). As a rule, though, I try not to pay any attention to Brutal Doom, so I'm not sure what version you may be looking at as a reference, or what rights they allow other modders for borrowing code (assuming they didn't borrow the code in question themselves, of course, which I can't say offhand). I guess there's no harm in taking a look.

Well, this is really the only thing i would need- i want to do most of the work myself. I don't know if Sarge will be upset - but hey, if he is, I'll remove it or apologize r whatever. Its his code, so I can understand. I believe a few versions of Brutal Doom have been released since I last played, but I know one thing it includes is tied up Marines who give you some armed backup, have occasional dialogue, can be told to stay or follow, and drop ammo sometimes. The only part i need is the stay and follow - so tamed demons can be used for things like base building, i.e. putting a Chaingun Arachnotron in a room where Satyrs spawn - once hunger is implemented, that would be a meat farm. And of course you don't ALWAYS want a tamed demon following you - it might kill a creature that YOU wanted to tame before you get the chance. It seems like a really important element

Oh, and although I was dropping hints about this on the shoutbox, if you haven't already, you might want to hit up the ZDoom forums about this too. I haven't had the time or wherewithal to really look into this much yet, and I don't want to string you along thinking I'll definitely have anything for you. I can pose the question there if you're not comfortable doing so yourself, but either way, it's looking more and more like somebody else will have to help out with a solution--I'm becoming increasingly tapped-out.

OK - I'll look into posting it on the forums. Pretty sick for a while now, so haven't been online - just so y'all know I have not yet abandoned the project.