QuakeStyle ZX v9.0: "Kicking Class and Taking Aim" file

Merry friggin' Christmas. Here's v9.0. She's had a lotta changes under the hood. Most importantly, the required engine version.

PLEASE READ THE DOCUMENTATION AND THIS CHANGELOG THOROUGHLY!! There are a myriad of important changes at multiple levels. The ingame "Game Info" menu is useful for an outline on the game's multiple elements, a la the codex in a Mass Effect game.

Savegames from older versions *WILL* break with this update. There's mods to scripting in the weapon wheel, and a major rework of the mod's entire file structure. The weapon wheel is now fully integrated; you no longer need an addon file for it. The only addons are now Classy Bastards and Bolognese, as well as the levelset patches.

As always, please check the credits for assets used; for assets known to require permission beforehand, it has been secured. If you'd like an asset removed, contact me on ModDB or Twitter, and I'll try to find or BS up substitutes.

As a final and rather-wistful note, I must bid adieu to GZDoom 3.6 and 3.7 support with this update. The new minimum is GZ 4.x or LZ 3.88b; not that anyone wanted to use the disaster that was the 3.7 branch anyway, but some mod advances just don't jive with the last of the GZ 3.x line anymore. I really am trying to keep compatibility as wide as I can without compromising the game.

GZDoom v4.9 is completely unsupported. It broke a lot more than it fixed. Please use any other 4.x-branch version or LZDoom 3.88b (both available on the ZDoom website).

ZX log, version 9.0, "Kicking Class and Taking Aim"

key:
+ : buff
- : nerf
= : neutral change
* : addition
/ : fix / modification
$ : removal
Multiples of the same symbol : more severe change. I.E. a three-slash "fix" is a much bigger fix than a one-slash.
Mix of symbols : mixed change

--WEAPONS--
+/All silenced weapons, Classy Bastards ones included, now have a visible muzzle puff whenever they fire, as an A/V improvement.
+The Disintegrator now packs some palpable knockback on hits.
=The Napalm Launcher now uses two rockets per shot again and loses some RoF, but gains impact damage and a slightly loftier trajectory and range.
+/The MRL and the GigaBlaster both have improved visuals.
+The chaingun's five rounds of "spin-up" fire are now more accurate than sustained fire, but aren't pinpoint. Think of it as a "chaingun cha-cha, cha-cha-cha".

--AMMO--
No changes.

--HUD--
**Side ammo counters now have colorful little "HUD turd" icons, inspired by and in some cases modified from those in Russian Overkill. Their capacity numbers are also much smaller now (but still readable) to open up real estate for the rest of the HUD.
*+Health counter on the modern HUD now displays your maximum health in addition to your current health.
*+Armor counter on the modern HUD now displays your current armor's save percentage alongside the remaining armor.
/A couple HUD elements have been rearranged and tucked in, and others look better and more polished.

--ITEMS--
+Blurspheres now foil seeker projectiles while active. It doesn't make sense that a homing shot can home in on an invisible player.

--MONSTERS--
=Railgun guys now do less damage, but have more health.
-Civvie zombies now can't attack quite as quickly.
-Auto shotgun guys are now overall less accurate with their fire, and they also have a slight delay after ceasing fire now.
+-/Multiple monsters have had their health and speed statistics altered to bring most of the bestiary to parity, balance-wise.
+/The Incubus has a completely new attack pattern, firing spreads of micro-rockets instead of just being a reverse Mancubus. The rockets aren't as damaging as the firebombs, but they're faster, more numerous and harder to dodge.
/Call it a sudden attack of conscience or remorse, but I've decided to replace the little hanging Commander Keens with their FreeDoom equivalents-- alien test subjects. They don't behave any differently, but I'd rather not have the player motivated to kill children.
++BFG guys' shots are now a bit slower, but they are now potentially much more deadly, doing 20d8 on a direct hit (from 20d5), potentially one-shotting a lightly-armored player; that's before the BFG effects come in, still halved in number and 80% less powerful than the player's, but still quite deadly.
//Afrit, Pyrodemon and burning barrel flames all had infinite-height splash damage, otherwise known as OLDRADIUSDMG, forced on, as in vanilla Doom. That has been changed, and now nothing at all has infinite-height splash.

--WEAPON WHEEL--
///The Weapon Wheel is fully integrated into the base mod package, and is no longer a seperate addon. As stated above, this *WILL* break savegames that didn't have the Wheel added in, but might not break 8.2 saves that have the wheel. No guarantees though.
*New weapons detailed below added.
/Icon for the lever-action rifle updated.

--BOLOGNESE--
No changes.

--CLASSY BASTARDS--
*NEW CLASS: the Cryotech. Replacing the Ranger altogether, this guy specializes in subzero warfare, bringing a little bit of chill to the flames of Hell. His unique weapon is the Freezethrower; a modified form of flamethrower that, instead of toasty-warm fire, spews clouds of subzero plasma that freezes most enemies solid on a kill.
*NEW CLASS WEAPON: the Freezethrower. Based on (and HEAVILY nerfed from!) the "Cocytus" from QuakeStyle Unbound, this ammo-hungry beastie is broadly similar to the flamer, but with really friggin' cold, snow-white plasma instead of flames. It packs greater range, but lower damage vs. the flamer. Uses cores. Slot 8.
*NEW CLASS WEAPON: the Anti-Materiel Rifle. The Sniper ditches his original loadout to gain this beast. Chambering grenade rounds and firing them at hitscan velocities, the AMR is...EXTREMELY nasty, packing a 7× zoom, the greatest of any weapon in the mod. It packs every bit of the power of a launched grenade, too. However, there are downsides: it uses rare ammo (grenade rounds), the player only starts with three shots, and the rifle's RoF is HIDEOUSLY slow, second only to the Dark Matter Cannon. Slot 7.
*NEW CLASS WEAPON: the Ion Rifle. A prototype to the IonRipper, the Ion Rifle is a relatively slow-firing automatic which shoots inaccurate, ricocheting energy bolts that rip. Uses cells. Slot 4.
++The Guard's Combat Pistol has gotten a major upgrade. It gains the Sniper's machine pistol's RoF and similarly (though not quite as) poor accuracy, but retains its "flinch every shot" trademark. It also sees a rename to the Machine Pistol.
+To make it stand out against the Machine Pistol, the PDW now fires "duplex" rounds, firing two small bullets at once, doing just a little more damage overall and allowing fire to be delivered to two targets at once. Accuracy is knocked down a bit.
/The Brawler's tac shotty wasn't supposed to make a visible muzzle flare on the player sprite happen. Whoops! Fixed that.
++The Cowboy's lever-action rifle has been reworked-- it's now very similar to the now-removed Elite Rifle. Gives the lever-action its own character, and gains a lot of damage and range. It takes a hit in RoF and uses two rifle ammo now though.
+The Medic's magnum has seen a power increase, but a slight speed decrease.
+The Medic now has more starting ammo.
$The Ranger and his Elite Rifle have been given the ol' heave-ho, to make room for the new Cryotech class and his new freezethrower.
$The Sniper's silenced machine pistol has been memory-holed, replaced with a Suppressor, to make room for his new anti-materiel rifle.
$The Tech's heavy blaster is now history, replaced with a regular blaster and the new Ion Rifle.

--MISC.--
//The mod is no longer compatible with pre-4.x versions of GZDoom, but remains compatible with most releases of LZDoom (especially 3.88b) and any post-4.0 version of GZDoom. I however DO NOT recommend the 4.9 branch, as it breaks the scripting. Either stick with 4.8.x OR go for the DRDTeam 4.10.x builds.
/////++The mod's file structure has seen a complete rework, taking better advantage of the PK3 file format. In the process of optimization, 95% of the sound assets (anything over 5KB in size) have been converted to Vorbis format, saving MASSIVELY on file size, to the tune of around 30MB. Redundancies were found and eliminated, and some sound assets have been swapped out with higher-quality versions. Others have been remixed, resampled and everything's just overall sounding better.
/A few minor typo fixes in the writeups.

Enjoy, folks. 9.1 will hopefully feature a few more monsters and the final addition to the game info menu, the monster writeups.

-Xterra