A mod for GZDoom 3.0.0+

User Manual (Beta)

Introduction

Thanks for downloading Babel. This mod affects both enemies and weapons so it’s best not to try to run it with any other gameplay mods. Anything which adds new monsters or weapons will probably conflict with something in the mod. It should work fully with any map set that doesn’t contain custom monsters. Maps with custom monsters will still work, but the monsters will not have the extended effects that the mod implements into the base monsters. Due to the changes it is best to play maps that you would otherwise find challenging without being overly hard. The rest of this guide will explain the changes to the game in more depth, and give you a guide to the new weapons and enemies.

Contents

I. Concept

II. Sync-Fire and Chain-Fire

III. Fear

IV. Weapons

V. Enemy Changes

VI. Mod Options

I. Concept

Babel’s core gameplay was originally based on one very specific concept: Make Doom play more like it was intended for modern source ports, rather than the vanilla exe. The first changes made were to make the monsters more aggressive and give them new attack options. The weapons that the player uses were also enhanced to make them more effective in a multitude of ways. During development I had the idea to allow the monsters to communicate. The communication as it exists now can send one of two messages with varying effects: “I am attacking” and “I am dying”. The implementation of this gave monsters a crude situational awareness. They will now attempt to synchronize or chain attacks together, and can also be frightened by combat which causes them to attempt to flee for their lives. All monsters still fill their old roles, but they are now more intelligent and their behavior is more complex.

Tl;dr

An imp is still an imp, but he knows he can fire continuously, knows what his friends are doing, and is easily scared by the deaths of his friends and superiors.

II. Sync-Fire and Chain-Fire

The first system that enhances monster aggression is sync fire and chain fire. Monsters now send out signals to other monsters when they begin or end an attack (depending on species). This causes the signaled monsters to roll against a preset value (and their own vision of the player) to begin their own attack. That might sound a bit complex, so here’s an example:

Three zombiemen are looking at the player from a ledge. One of the zombiemen decides to shoot at the player. It sends out a signal to all zombiemen within visual range (max distance 1024u). The other two zombiemen receive the signal, and roll for a 62.5% chance to synchronize their firing with the first. One of the other zombiemen succeeds in this roll, and synchronizes his fire with the sender. Both zombiemen fire at the player (with a maximum time difference of 4/35 seconds between their attacks starting).

While this may seem pretty mundane it has a great effect on aggression. Attacks come in unpredictable waves and groups of monsters are more aggressive. There is also a second type of signal firing called chain firing. Enemies that use chain firing signal others to continue their own attack when they end it, leading to a constant stream of attacks. In addition, the hell nobles can signal lower demons to synchronize fire with them, so their attacks are far more deadly when surrounded by groups.

III. Fear

The other major addition to monster behavior is fear. Most monsters have an internal fear counter that builds as the player kills monsters near them, fires certain weapons, or hurts them. Fear falls over time when the monster is walking around. When the fear counter hits a certain level the monster will enter a frightened state and attempt to move away from the player. Frightened monsters will also lose the ability to fire projectiles. This fear state continues until the fear has been dissipated. Most monsters also have a chance to ignore fear which will allow them to quickly lost half of their accumulated fear and continue fighting as though nothing has happened.

Ex: The player is faced with 6 imps and has fired a rocket. The rocket impacts, gibbing 2 of the imps and killing 2 more. The remaining imps may also have been hurt. Because of the firing of the rocket, the explosion, and the 4 deaths (2 death, 2 xdeath), the last 2 imps have been thoroughly scared and failed their rolls to ignore fear, so they are now attempting to flee from the player. In addition, while fleeing the imps will recover from their fear faster because they are in a group. This is only one possible situation where fear can come into effect, and imps scare far more easily than other demons.

Below is a graph of the relative levels of fear required to effect an enemy.

Imp	Minor
Demon	Minor
Cacodemon	Moderate
Revenant	Moderate
Pain Elemental	Moderate
Arachnotron	Major
Mancubus	Major
Hell Knight	Major
Baron of Hell	Extreme
Former Humans, Lost Soul, Spectre, Archvile, Cyberdemon, Spider Mastermind	Immune to fear

Killing any boss-level monster will max the fear counter in all surrounding enemies that feel fear and are within range of the fear effect. This doesn't mean that all enemies will become frightened, since some may win their ignore fear rolls, but it should disrupt the flow of combat a bit.

IV. Weapons

All weapons in Babel have only one firing mode and require no reloading. All weapons switch 300% faster than their vanilla counterparts. Firing any weapon except the fists will generate some degree of fear in nearby enemies.

Fist

The basic fist is pretty much the same as it was in vanilla, but the range of damage when a berserk pack is used has been tightened up for more consistent results. The player also leeches small amounts of life (up to a max of 80% health) when landing blows with the berserk pack.

Chainsaw

The chainsaw is also mostly the same as it used to be but now when held or used it can generate fear in lower-class monsters. It’s not usually enough to scare a monster on its own, but it can offset the loss of fear they normally experience when moving around. What's new is that the chainsaw now benefits from the berserk pack as well, turning into a weapon that can quickly chew through all but the toughest enemies.

SMG

The pistol has been replaced with the SMG. You begin with this weapon and 75 rounds of ammunition. The SMG fires in 3-round bursts with extremely high accuracy. It is effective up close and at range, but consumes ammo very quickly so it must be controlled properly unless you want to find yourself with no bullets.

Shotgun

The shotgun is now exactly equal to one half of a super shotgun. The spread is slightly more than it would be in vanilla, but the power of the shot has been increased as well. In addition, it is possible to swap off of the shotgun to another weapon before or during the pump animation. If swapped before the shell is ejected the gun will need to be pumped when re-selected, but if the shell has been ejected then when re-selected the gun will be ready to fire.

Super Shotgun

The SSG can now gib enemies when used up close. This attribute makes it ideal for disrupting groups of Imps and other minor demons, since gibbing generates extra fear. It also shares the Shotgun’s ability to be swapped before reload, though it has several stages of reload and needs to be resumed from the last completed stage.

Chaingun

The Chaingun now requires some warm up before beginning to fire, but fires extremely fast and always hits for the maximum possible bullet damage. It also has a vastly increased spread, so it should not be used over long ranges.

Rocket Launcher

The rocket launcher now does 50% more impact damage, making it the highest single-shot damage in the game short of a close-range BFG blast.

Pulse Rifle

The plasma rifle is now the Pulse rifle, and with it come 2 major changes. Firstly, the firing rate is slower, but the DPS is the same, meaning the weapon is both more ammo efficient and easier to control. Secondly, firing the weapon has a small chance to cause minor fear buildup in enemies, so it’s easier to scare groups of enemies with it than other weapons.

BFG 9000

The BFG9000's shot now fires tracers from itself, instead of the player. It also always hits with the maximum possible amount of BFG tracers that it can, meaning that it will either kill all enemies in range or shoot 40 tracers at them. This in particular enhances its effectiveness against both groups and single targets, as the rays can both focus on a single tough target or spread damage evenly among a number of smaller targets. Any unused damage is lost.

V. Enemies

Most enemies in Babel have had at least one extra ability added to them in addition to their fear and sync/chain fire reactions. Nearby enemies dying will anger the enemies that are still alive in many cases. All HP values are the same, and most damage values are the same as well. Below is a summary of the changes that have been made to the enemies.

Former Human

Regular former humans can now select to fire up to three shots based on their distance from their target. Lower bursts of shots will be more accurate.

Former Sergeant

Former Sergeants can now move around while pumping their shotgun after firing, and will attempt to fire as a melee attack if they are able to fire when bumped into.

Former Commando

Former Commandos now fire faster, but do slightly less damage per shot. They are deadlier up close, but are much less of a threat from far away.

Imp

Imps now have left, right, and 2-handed firing attacks, and can choose to fire faster fireballs if their target is further away. They can also enter a repeated firing sequence which makes them far more dangerous than their vanilla counterparts.

Demon

Demons now have a rage mode that they enter when hurt which allows them to ignore pain and move twice as fast. They can also pass this on to other demons when it activates. Their bite has also been sped up considerably.

Spectre

Spectres can now spawn ghosts of themselves and teleport a short distance when hurt. Like demons, their bite has been sped up.

Lost Soul

Lost Souls now sometimes leave behind a burning remnant of themselves when killed, which acts as a slow moving AoE damage object.

Cacodemon

Cacodemons can now fire one fast shot or a wide shot burst. They also have the ability to dodge side to side when hurt, and boost forward quickly to close distance at short range.

Revenant

Revenants now always fire 2 tracers, and have 3 modes of fire. The first mode is 2 fast tracers, which is typically used when close to the target but can sometimes be selected from range. The other 2 modes fire one fast tracer and one slower homing tracer, but alternate which sides each tracer comes from. The homing tracers are also now harder to avoid, and can steer up and down. Revenants typically follow up attacks made by their brethren.

Hell Knight

Hell knights now have a left-handed attack and can enter an attack chain much like Imps. They are immune to pain while attacking, so they must be dodged. Hell knight attacks trigger other nearby enemies to attack.

Mancubus

Mancubi now have the ability to choose a more straight firing mode when close to their target, and no longer have to fire in only 3-round bursts. They’re less predictable and signal their friends to start firing once they’re done with their sequence.

Pain Elemental

Pain Elementals now have a melee attack, and their attacks cause nearby lost souls to attack the player as well.

Arachnotron

Arachnotrons now fire 3-round bursts. From afar they group them together into a line, but up close they spread them out to catch players who circle-strafe. Their attacks also trigger nearby former humans/sergeants/commandos to fire.

Baron of Hell

Barons of Hell have right, left, and 2-handed attacks. Right and left fire 2 projectiles in a spread reverse to the direction of the hand movement (right fires one shot slightly left and one down the center, for example) and the 2-handed attack fires 3 shots in a spread. Like Imps, they can loop their attacks together. Unlike imps they can attack in response to pain. They also cause nearby enemies to attack.

Archvile

Archviles now have the ability to summon humans and imps to help them in addition to their resurrection abilities. They cannot revive their summons, however, and both they and their summons fade out and disappear when dead.

Cyberdemon

The Cyberdemon now shoots slightly faster, and shoots until the player leaves his vision or he chooses to fire a homing rocket. He can also shoot a 3-round spread of rockets quickly to cover an area. Killing him will instantly max any enemy’s fear counter.

Spider Mastermind

The spider mastermind now shoots exploding rounds instead of bullets. Like the Cyberdemon, Killing her will instantly max any enemy’s fear counter.