Destroyed objects disappear with delay

[Американский Шпион]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PH9bCbjGpc4

This case is actually one of the better, but it still very noticable, how vase disappear only moments after the hit. debris also fly off with a delay. shortening this delay will be a good thing. I bellieve this also applies to gibbing enemies

[Frank Sapone]

Is this happening in single player? Coop would make sense since its a svc_frame packet that needs to be parsed so if you're lagged this would happen.

[Американский Шпион]

I only checked single player

[Frank Sapone]

I fixed it so decorations explode immediately. However, the velocity kicking on the physics side still takes a few frames to send it flying occasionally. Try out the new build, I think you might like at least seeing it mostly all go flying instantly.

I'll leave this open, because it's not totally fixed yet and I'm not sure of the root cause for the physics taking a bit sometimes.

The original reason for the vases taking a bit to even respond to exploding was because they had it set that it randomly chose to build up a "mini explosion" that would have spawned sprites to show instability before it exploded. They commented out the line to do the sprite explosion but didn't remove the rest. I removed the rest of it and that made things at least destroy instantly.

This is kind of related, but I did find the cause of why projectiles are giving a lagged feeling when you are hit by them (like slugdeminions missiles, the dwarfs knives, etc.). In Quake 2, they set SVF_DEADMONSTER as the svflag on purpose for projectiles so the player doesn't clip against them. They note this in a comment that if they didn't do it then the prediction would get screwey and you would feel "stuck" in place momentarily. There's probably a few monsters that have unique functions for firing projectiles, so if you find any more that need fixed let me know.

[Американский Шпион]

Yeah, this is already miles better, thanks. As far as I remember, svf_deadmonster was given to hyperblaster projectiles with a patch, so it's totally possible that dk team didn't even knew about that clipping

[Frank Sapone]

Well technically most of the enemies use blaster_fire (or blaster_fire2 which is just a helper function leading to blaster_fire) and it's also used for the regular blaster and the hyperblaster.

I also went ahead and changed the ionblaster itself to do the same thing. It has always annoyed me over the years that if a bounce hits you (or if you're too close to an enemy and gib them immediately with the ionblaster) that you get the lagged feeling.

This has one flaw, it removes the ability to cheat with ionblaster jumps. I don't know if this is really going to upset anyone, as it was a cheat and wasn't discovered until recently. Technically, it should be SVF_DEADMONSTER anyways imo. Everything like that should be except for rocket-like weapons. Such as the sidewinder and the shotcycler, and the freeze gun in episode 4.

Either way, I played all through e1 last night with these new modes and it feels a lot more like a fluid quake 2 experience.

[Frank Sapone]

Also, the regular bolter weapon is the only weapon in the game that uses the SVF_DEADMONSTER trick. So I guess someone knew about it, but maybe they had no time to finish it and were probably so used to it (like we were).

The game itself appears to be based off a mix of quakeworld and Quake 2 v3.14. They did have v3.17 and v3.19 but failed to apply the updates.

[Purkkaviritys]

@maraakate Please restore the Ion Blaster jumping. It's a unique trick to Daikatana like Rocket Jumping or Plasma Climbing that you need to learn to do. I don't feel that it is a cheat. Also speed runners depend on that skill and it is going to upset people who know about it and who use it. Myself included.

Also C4 Launcher and Shotcycler jumps are important and even required in the game. Sometimes probably by purposeful design in several different locations to reach secrets like Solitary's 8th secret. (Especially when you don't have ammunition for e.g Shotcycler in which case you'd use C4 or Ion Blaster.) Hammer, Trident, Ballista and Kineticore jumps are also important.

Please, don't take those away this. I feel this is going now into territory where the changes to weapons (and how they're used) are breaking the game and the way it was designed to work. Some of this stuff is even mentioned in the Daikatana's Official Prima Strategy Guide which was written by KillCreek.

Also the Ion Blaster jump is not "recent" discovery. It's been known to some people for at least several years now.

[Frank Sapone]

Recent as in past couple of years, not from 2000. I am not removing C4 or shotcycler clipping, so you don't have to be worried about that.

I can add a cvar for the ionblaster if you'd rather have the ability for it to be vanilla; but personally I think it's annoying to get caught in it.

[Frank Sapone]

But yes, the trident, kineticore, etc. that won't be changed as they are needed and you don't really get in cross fires from them too often with ricochets (except the Kineticore, and there is a few spots in the game I believe it's needed to reach some shortcuts).

I think the ion blaster shouldn't have it, but again... I can add a server-side CVAR? I think the game plays much more smoothly not being clipped against it.

[Purkkaviritys]

I just tested it and... yes, indeed it makes the game little bit smoother but I feel that the technical value it adds is smaller than the removed gameplay value of being able to jump upwards with Ion Blaster or climb walls with it. Speed running episode 1 will become a lot harder without it (especially the shaft in e1m7b) and I wouldn't want to kill the weak interest speed runners have towards Daikatana by making it harder for them.

There are also certain secrets in a game where Ion Blaster skips a lot of bullshit loading screens like for example the travel from e1m1c to e1m1b and back to e1m1c just to fetch a Goldensoul which you don't need any longer by the time you reach the point where you're able to have it without the Ion Blaster jump (The passage to secret 7 behind Helipad). Also you cannot use this way to skip the rest of the map since the exit door is closed and switch to it is inaccessible before player goes and actually fights the Thunderskeet by the bridge. This reinforces my belief that the devs knew about the Ion Blaster jump.

This Goldensoul in e1m1b is low enough for players to see and grab it by either slight reduce of their own health by doing the Ion Blaster jump or spending the first skill point to acro (EDIT: I just tested this and player needs two points in acro to make that jump leaving Ion Blaster jump only real viable option for quick access to it).

There is a slight penalty/cost for doing it which is probably why there are also berries on top of that cliff for full recovery before picking up the Goldensoul for 200HP max which will then slowly start counting down as you travel down the map through the double turrets (when playing on hard difficulty).

These are just some of the reasons I think the vanilla behaviour should be preserved and be the default setting. I don't oppose if you make a CVAR that alters this behaviour. But I really think that Ion Blaster jumps should be the default behaviour.

[Frank Sapone]

I don't think they knew or used it often. But I will personally ask Romero, and then we can vote on which should be the default behaviour.

Milkey wilkey has helped point out the fact that the game has a very lagged feel in single player. Most of it is related to this clipping/prediction issues.

[Purkkaviritys]

I see. Ask Romero and post his reply here as a screenshot which also shows your question. And please explain the issue in full to him.

This has become the standard routine at the moment for known speed runners such as DraQ and Cubeface (who got to go to AGDQ to do a DK speedrun which was pretty amazing)...

https://youtu.be/iptwbPL9t8E?t=19m50s (Official YT channel ver.: https://youtu.be/2ShiB1nchRI?t=33m25s)

https://youtu.be/ZCvYhx_3JkY?t=14m53s

And I like I explained it's presumed to work like this already. Much like Rocket Jumping was originally considered "a cheat" or "a bug" which was then adapted as a standard part of the gameplay. And it's now assumed to work like it does.

Ion Blaster jump can cause small lag at times but it doesn't make the whole experience feel constantly "very laggy" (even thought it demonstrably has a part in creating to that feel occasionally). It makes fun and creative gameplay which I'm very hesitant to give up.

I personally think people should be able to discover and experience this without having knowledge about the existence of a CVAR that switches the behaviour. It's also changes like these why some people (albeit very small minority group) rather might end up playing 1.2 instead of 1.3 while claiming BS about "original experience" (based on Youtube and Steam comments I've read).

[Frank Sapone]

@Purkkaviritys I changed the behavior back to the default with a cvar, sv_ionblaster_clipping. This can be changed to 0 to not clip against it (the way I prefer). I'll work on adding an options menu for new game startup that would allow you to toggle this ability, plus the other new single player options we have documented, but no UI element for it (i.e. the sidekick teleports on exit, etc.).

There is a new build, I did find a legitimate bug of accessing destroyed memory on exit. So try the latest windows build, let me know if the crash issue is resolved for you.

[Purkkaviritys]

@maraakate Thank you very much. Much appreciated. The crash during exit doesn't occur in the latest Windows build any longer. Also thanks for normal Ion Blaster.

[Frank Sapone]

Sounds good. Glad it's working properly for you now.

[Frank Sapone]

Fixed. Will be in next build.