This is a mod that I've originally put up together for myself for a few years. It's been developed for the better part of the decade and started off with me simply porting several mods together. It then evolved with some re-balancing and modifying the scripts. The final few touches were to port the entire thing into Sikkmod, a necessity when it comes to Doom 3 these days. Some of the changes are eerily similar to another mod which has been released: Perfected Doom 3. However, that is not intended (in fact, I didn't even know of PD3 existing until I ran into a review of it.
So, the list of changes is as follows:
// WEAPONS
- All weapons come without a crosshair by default. A crosshair will appear if you hold right click, which will zoom the weapon in and for some weapons, will also decrease spread.
- The flashlight can now be turned on and off. If the flashlight is off, pressing FIRE with it will launch a light flare at short range. The flare can be used to deal some free damage at range, but travels slowly and a very short distance. Ideal for dealing with zombies/bodies.
- The pistol is now fully semi-automatic and will fire as fast as you can pull the trigger. It's damage on headshots has been enhanced, making it viable as a backup weapon all the way towards end-game. Ammunition has been reduced to 12 + 120.
- The shotgun now loads only one shell per animation loop, not two. Damage has been left more or less untouched, but the spread is drastically reduced, especially so if you zoom in which emulated Classic Doom's shotgun's viability at medium range. Will sometimes push the enemies away from the player at close range. This and the sub-machinegun is your bread and butter weapon for the early game until EnPro. Ammunition has been reduced to 8 + 40.
- The sub-machinegun now behaves like an assault rifle. It's more accurate, deals more damage and is an excellent headhunter weapon. Think of it as an automatic pistol with much more plentiful ammunition. It comes equipped with a fancy camouflage paintjob. This and the shotgun is your bread and butter weapon for the early game until EnPro. Ammunition has been reduced to 30 + 180.
- The chaingun deals considerably more damage at a rapid fire-rate. It's spread has been increased somewhat, which can be mitigated by proper use of the right-click zooming. This is your first "panic gun" and is excellent versus larger enemies such as pinkies or the vagary, or against large groups of enemies. Ammunition has been tweaked to 100 + 400.
- The plasmagun is your all purpose weapon, capable of delivering appropriate firepower against any threat, at the expense of relatively rare ammunition draining rapidly. It deals damage heavier than even the chaingun, but it's projectiles don't travel nearly as fast, limiting it's use at distance. It's also ill suited to use with Night Vision goggles, as the plasma bolts glow in the dark and will overpower the night-vision light amplification device, rendering you blind. The plasmagun however, comes with two new functions:
- Plasmagun shield generator: Generates a see-through energy shield at the expense of 5 cells. The shield will let through live (or dead) entities such as the player, zombies or demons. But it will block inanimate entities, such as bullets, rockets, grenades and fireballs.
It does NOT protect you from shockwaves, only from the impact itself. So chances are if something explodes near-you, the shockwave will still travel through the shield and kill you. The plasmagun itself is an excellent synergy with the shield, as standing very close to the shield will allow the plasmagun to fire through the shield, without the enemies being able to fire at you.
To use the plasmagun shield generator, hold your "Fire" button with the plasmagun equipped, then release it before the plasmagun is fully charged.
- Plasma railgun: The opposite of the shield, the plasma railgun is the plasmagun's answer to long range engagements or large enemies. After a brief charge-up period and 10 plasma cells consumed, the plasmagun will release a powerful railgun blast, which if it is aimed upon a hostile entity's head, has the potential to kill just about anything.
By virtue of it's function, the rail bolt is armor piercing, which means that aiming for the limbs of the body will pierce the enemy, without necessarily killing it, while the bolt will continue on it's merry way. Be sure to aim for the head for best results.
The rail bolt will travel through enemies and through light cover (moveable objects) without issues. Pay attention to what is behind your enemy. If the enemy is at close range, and there so happens to be an explosive barrel behind them, you may blow yourself apart.
The rail bolt itself has a very short range explosion once it hits a solid surface such as a wall, a floor or an immovable container. The explosion is short range but extremely powerful. Do not hug walls or cover while using the railgun, or you may inadvertently blow yourself apart.
The railgun's bolt can travel through the shield. At close range, the endeavor is very similar to standard plasmagun fire. At long range, the plasma bolt will have to break the shield to travel through it, which will weaken the rail in the process. It can then break a second shield, but that will destroy the rail in it's entirety.
- Automatic plasmagun: Because the plasmagun's alternate fire modes are baked into the trigger, it's not immediately obvious how to fire simple single-shots or automatic plasmagun shots. For single shots, simply click the "Fire" button to dispense singular plasma shots. For fully automatic fire, double-click your fire button and hold on second click.
Essentially, after the first click, holding the fire button will tell the plasmagun that you want to continue firing standard plasmagun shots and will ignore the shield and railgun until you release the "fire" button.
Overall, the plasmagun/shieldgun/railgun system now carries a 50 + 300 ammunition total.
Rocket Launcher: Not many changes have been made to the rocket-launcher. It's most notable change is that the area of effect range has been reduced, allowing the rocket launcher to be used in more circumstances and it's direct-hit damage has been increased significantly, especially so on head shots. This is your dedicated Boss Fighting weapon and can be used, albeit inefficiently, as a panic-gun when fighting multiple enemies at mid range.
Ammunition has been reduced to 5 + 20.
Grenades: Those are your dedicated AoE large scale damage weapons. The ideal use for the grenades is retreating from the enemy and dropping the grenades down possible approach routes. Those work well against enemies in cover as well, but it is almost always better to use grenades on large groups of enemies. Another excellent use for grenades is maiming groups of zombies (details below). The AoE range has been increased as has been the damage: DON'T BLOW YOURSELF UP. Ammunition counter has been reduced to 10.
BFG: Little has changed for the BFG, aside from it's ammo counter. It's still a dedicated powerhouse able to deal with any problem. Ammo counter has been changed to 4 + 12.
// ITEMS
- The player now has a built-in flashlight on their helmet/armor. This flashlight will use some energy to function and can be toggled on and off (Mouse side button by default, can be changed in sikkmod options). The energy will replenish, eventually, but will take some time to do so. You can use your regular flashlight (infinite power source) or your flashlight flares in the meantime.
- The player now has access to a light-enhancement night vision system. It feeds off of the same battery that your portable flashlight does and as such has limited power (About 60 seconds of charge time, the battery will recharge fully from 0 in 5 minutes). Another inconvenience of the Night Vision goggles is their sensitivity to light, which will effectively blind you when exposed to light sources. Be careful if you're using the plasmagun or fighting enemies which use luminescent projectiles.
- Your armor now has a built-in medical system which you can recharge with medical kits scattered around Mars. Pick up the medkits and use them at your discretion (default button, middle mouse button). The medical system holds a maximum of 100 HP worth of medical aid.
- Your armor is now much more sturdy, negating up to 75% of damage that you would otherwise take. This keeps you in the fight longer, but also means that your armor will be defeated much faster when you do take damage. To that end, your maximum amount of armor has been increased to 200 and all armor shards now give out 10 armor instead of 5.
- You can carry a single vial of adrenaline with you at all times. Adrenaline reduces all damage taken by 0.5 as well as replenishes your stamina and prevents it from decreasing while under it's effects. Press X (default) to use adrenaline whenever the occasion demands it.
- Humanoid enemies now may have a change to carry objects which may help you on your mission. Those range from ammunition (pistol, shotgun, smg), armor shards, medical kits to adrenaline vials. Interact with a dead body to attempt looting it.
// ENVIRONMENT
- It is now necessary to interact with items directly in order to pick them up. To do so, look at the item and press the interaction button (default E). Most pickup items can be interacted with, as can be bodies and moveable objects.
If you already are full on a specific pickup item (for example, you have too much pistol ammunition already, and you try to pick up more) you will instead carry the item in your hands. You can then transport the item elsewhere or throw it by left-clicking.
A popular, low cost tactic is to pick up explosive barrels, find an enemy to throw them at, throw the barrel and then shoot it with a low-cost weapon, such as your sub-machinegun, shotgun or pistol. Satisfaction guaranteed or your spent ammo back! (Small print: Your spent ammo will only be returned to you if you restart the level. We reserve the right to not return your spare ammo at any point and can not be held legally accountable for ammo you spend shooting explosive barrels.)
- Respawning enemies! Can be turned on or off via sikkmod options (random encounters). Turned on by default. Because you now carry much less ammo on your person at all times and because the ammo you do carry is deadly, it is sometimes necessary to backtrack into a level to replenish your ammunition supplies.
Well, now, that's no longer a simple boring task. You can be followed or ambushed at any point. This ranges from spawning an imp or two at random, to walking in a roomful of former humans, backed by two pinkies and a hellknight.
Use your mobility to your advantage. If the numbers are overwhelming, retreating and funneling the enemy into a well placed grenade or a few railgun shots is that much better than getting surrounded and chomped to death.
- Your oxygen now lasts quite a bit longer, allowing you to remain outside for some time. A few outside areas might even contain some supplies if you look around carefully.
- Mars City (First visit) armory can now be unlocked prematurely if you know the code (584, same as in your second visit). All the armor, weapons and medical supplies are yours for the taking. It's recommended that you do indeed to that, as that's your earliest chance at a plasmagun and Nightmare mode may become frustrating without it's shield function to battle shotgunners.
// ENEMIES
- Aside from randomly spawning enemies, there now exist three more "new" enemies, courtesy of sikkmod. Those are:
The Spectre, and invisible version of the pinky. He's extremely hard to notice if you're not paying attention to sound. His "camouflage" will very slowly pulsate from almost completely invisible to somewhat shimmering.
The Pain Elemental, will dispatch translucent homing skulls as projectiles in your direction. Has somewhat more health than a cacodemon and is quite more annoying than one, too.
The Baron of Hell, is a bigger, meaner, souped up Hell Knight. his projectile does more damage, both on contact and in AoE. His fighting power is formidable (if the player gets shot in the head by his projectile on Veteran mode or above, they will instantly die, even with full health and armor).
- Zombies, Zsecs and dead bodies can now be searched for goodies, with a relatively good chance to find a small stash of ammunition, medical supplies, an armor shard or, rarely, an adrenaline vial.
- Zombies now have a chance to re-awaken after they are killed. The best way to prevent that is to gib them. Not all weapons can gib, however you have one with you at all times. Flashlight flares can be used to burn apart zombie bodies.
Other weapon that can gib are the plasmagun/railgun, grenades, rocket launcher, chainsaw and BFG 9000. Grenades are an excellent deterrent against a large group of zombies to continue standing up after being killed.
// PARTIAL CREDITS
Sikkmod Custom was originally something I put together for myself, by merging multiple mods and tweaking them according to my own taste. To that end, almost everything you will see in this mod is adapted, reworked or blatantly ripped off from another creator in the Doom 3 community. All I did is port all of this together, re-balance it, fix some of it and modify it. That is why I originally did not release this mod, as it doesn't truly belong to me, it belongs to the community.
Anyhow, here are the credits of the people I do remember:
- Jared 'Tinman' Hansen - Creator of the TinMen squad, the friendly marines you can spawn via the commands vstr ally_mg, vstr ally_sh, vstr ally_sg, vstr ally_ps
- Headshotfairy - Creator of the excellent Doom XL mod. The original creator of Flashlight Flares and the Plasma/Shield/Railgun
- Sikkpin - Creator of Sikkmod, the base framework upon which I rely to create a lot of re-balancing and gameplay modification. Most quality of life and gameplay features come from that.
