Ratchet & Clank: Hot and Bothered mod for Doom II

After many delays, life changes, and ideas bad and good, Hot and Bothered 3.0 is finally here! The overall feel of the mod has been altered significantly in all areas while still keeping to the same idea, so let's get straight into it. Here's what's new, what's different, and what's gone.

MOD STRUCTURE

Let's start with something a bit more behiind the scenes. Up until now, the mod's file structure has been suboptimal to say the least. Long story short, the main file consisted primarily of a collection of WAD files that held everything. The last update released for SLADE made it apparent that this needed to change. You'll now find rc.pk3 follows established conventions set out by gzdoom.pk3. On top of this, duplicates have been removed, audio files have been re-encoded to a better format, and documentation is no longer a gigantic mess.

You'll also find that all references to my old username, ThatBlindGuy, have been replaced with my new one, Mango, as well as my new real name. For those not in the know, I am MtF trans and have been in transition for over a year. This has prompted a chage to both real name and username.

CHALLENGE MODE

A feature of most Ratchet & Clank games is that of Challenge Mode, a form of New Game+ designed to make the game considerably harder. When active, the player's maximum health cap increases from 300 to 500 and non-boss monsters gain 50% base health and 25% more damage. If that wasn't enough, Challenge Mode introduces elemental affinities to the combat. Normally, different damage types only decide the chance to stagger targets, but on a second playthrough, they serve to affect damage as well. This option can be enabled for a first playthrough but this is not recommended.

Yeah, the trophy's ugly. It's just a placeholder for the time being.

WEAPONS

For the most part, everything is still recognizable as the same arsenal from 2.0, but nearly every weapon has been rebalanced in terms of ammo capacity, damage, speed, or some other property. Projectile trail and debris particles have been simplified, greatly improving overall performance. You can see some of the more noteworthy changes below, including a new altifre for the Tesla Claw.

Here are the most noteworthy weapon updates.

NANOPAK

After much consideration, a new gadget has been added to the orange slot alongside the Armor Magnetizer. The NanoPak, once obtained, uses small and large nanotech, as well as the new Optimized Nanotech Supplement, to store a charge worth up to 25% of the player's maximum health. When the player's health falls below the stored charge, it is expended to heal them. NanoPak charge is shown on the HUD as a green bar over the player's health.

MINIMAP

For years, I've wanted to include a minimap in my mods, and thanks to fellow Doom modder Kodi, that is now possible. This is a ZScript module with a host of options for adjusting the map to fit your needs. It also pulls from your automap settings for line and background colors.

KIS COUNTER

As has become the norm with many HUDS, you can now toggle KIS (kills, items, secrets) counters.

BOLTS AS MONEY

Yes, we're finally doing it! But not just yet. Annihilation Nation, as it was originally planned, is being scrapped for the simple fact that it was not a realistic project to work on. The new Annihilation Nation will feature a more canon-friendly arena structure with a walk-in shop where all weapons and gadgets can be purchased. As a result, bolt drops now give money in addition to XP. As a temporary debug option, you can view your bolt count on the HUD during normal gameplay.

The result of this is the removal of the toggle between bolts and auto XP. This is not the only mutator to be removed, as "Skin of Your Teeth" has been replaced with a minimum start health slider, and "Always Pick Up Ammo" is now forced on since capsules are no longer wasted.

LIBERATOR 2.0

Many of the mod's difficulty options have been reworked to place more emphasis on gameplay mutators which have been expanded since the last update. The most significant change to these has been that of Liberator mode. Before, this was a nastier Fast Ultra-Violence with infinite ammo. This has been replaced with a vanilla Nightmare experience, with the excepton of instant monster reaction as this was causing some glitches with turrets. Double XP is awarded in addition to double ammo, but only for Nanotech since weapons won't be leveling. Instead, they will be locked to V3, then boosted to V5 for Challenge Mode. Exterminator follows suit, being its own take on Ultra-Nightmare.

Here's a look at E1M3 being run on the new and improved Liberator difficulty.

Other changes that need no detailed explanation:
Sound design has been made less deafening
Monster damage RNG has been completely removed
The wrench can reflect projectiles back at the shooter, doing random (but always greatly increased) damage, scaling with the weapon's level
Punching monsters is now much more likely to give mini ammo capsules and can even drop Nanotech Supplements
Punch damage is decreased significantly but made much faster
Summoners such as Pain Elementals and Archviles have a limit to how many monsters they can create, falling back on their own attacks afterwards
Mr. Zurkon has brand new voice lines performed by DoctorPups

This is but a taste of all that's on offer with Hot and Bothered 3.0. For all the details, see the changelog here

WHAT'S NEXT?

I won't promise that this is the end of gameplay changes. New ideas will reveal themselves, and I can't just say no. That being said, now that I have a more achievable goal for Annihilation Nation, focus will shift to that. Progress may still be slow since I am working on a bunch of things right now: teaching, writing, VRChat avatars, and I would like to learn Spanish at some point.

The plan for releasing the campaign will work as follows. This does not include patches or minor updates which may be released in the interim.
3.1 - Hub area, shop, Zone 1
3.2 - Zone 2
3.3 - Zone 3
3.4 - Zone 4
4.0 - Zone 5, completed campaign

Some time before the release of 3.1, another article will be posted outlining the plans in greater detail.