Work continues on the Dhewm3 HQ port. So far everything is still smooth.
The past week has been spent adjusting the enemies. Two new demons have been ported from the Rivensin mod. The Baron of Hell and Pain Elemental are in and working fine. Both are great to use as bosses. A few more enemies are planned to get added in a later date.
In HQ's 1.1.00 patch Fragging Free's bot code was supported. A few them are used in it's updated Demo level. The bots are far more intelligent and use all the Doom3 player weapons unlike zsec. The port will see it modifed a bit more and improved ease of use for mappers.
A new enemy type called soldiers will replace the use of bots for the mapper. While they behave the same, their models and stats are already set up for the mapper to use. Their armor is color coded, weapons set up and different head meshes already in. The goal was to fill in the gaps left open for 2d platformer solider enemy types.
2 new keys have been added to enemies which will have an impact on gameplay. The first is for zsec and bots. The mapper now has the option to make them always crouch or never crouch when firing. This adds a bit more strategy for enemy placement when combined with enemy turrent and also the other new key added.
The noaim key is in for ALL enemies. A majority of enemies found in side scrollers only shoot in one direction... straight ahead. When this key is set, that is exactly what it does. This makes the use of ducking and jumping more useful for players to dodge enemy fire. This one of the many small changes coming that makes a big impact on gameplay.
More small changes to AI are coming. Same goes for almost everything else. building a platformer/sidescroller is a different beast than a fps or thirdperson shooter. It requires very heavy balancing. If something is off by even a little bit, it starts a domino effect and slows the pace to a crawl. Run n Gun!
