[BlueFire]

Note that this is not an official announcement that work is underway, just sharing an idea.

I've been recently thinking of an idea for a little mod that would switch the vanilla weapons to their Duke 64 counterparts. Everything else (non-weapon sprites, Duke Speech, etc.) would remain as-is. The general idea is that it would bring an alternate playstyle with new weapons without straying too far from the vanilla feel.

I would change some things about the weapons that I feel would make them more versatile than they originally were. For example, with the SMGs there would be the ability to switch between single and dual wield like with the Uzis in Shadow Warrior. For the Plasma Cannon, there would be two firing modes; one that’s basically Doom’s Plasma Gun (fires orbs that deal high damage in a rapid-fire stream), and the other being the charged shot.

For the alternate ammo types, I would have certain enemies drop them at a low chance. Troopers would drop Magnum Clips (which I would rename Dum-Dums to; the new name sounds cooler), Pigcops would drop Explosive Shells, and Fat Commanders would drop Heat-Seeking Missiles.

Of course, I would need to dive knee-deep into fully understanding CON scripting. I have a fair understanding of a few things through making small tweaks to DukePlus for my personal tastes, but need to go much deeper. I can imagine that once I understand proper CON syntax, things should go smoothly code wise.

Sprite wise I would need to get widescreen sprites drawn since only a few of them have been made by the community (Dzierzan has made widescreen Shotgun and Grenade Launcher sprites). Also, the sprites would also need drawn muzzle flashes, as Duke 64 used particle effects for those. Unfortunately, I’m not an artist by any decent means.

Again, this is not an announcement of something fully underway. Just thought that I would float the idea here to see what others think. At the moment, I’m beginning to view CON script tutorials to get an idea of what all I would need to understand for a weapons-only mod, and estimate the time frame it would likely take to finish it (at the moment When It’s Done).

[Phredreeke]

What you're talking about is EDuke32 modding, Duke 64 runs on Rednukem and doesn't have EDuke32's extended CON scripting. Not to mention actually getting to Duke 64's CONs are gonna be tricky.

[BlueFire]

Phredreeke, on 19 December 2020 - 07:06 PM, said:

What you're talking about is EDuke32 modding, Duke 64 runs on Rednukem and doesn't have EDuke32's extended CON scripting. Not to mention actually getting to Duke 64's CONs are gonna be tricky.

I had EDuke32 in mind for this mod. I would essentially recreate the weapon functions with the extended CON scripting, while taking some creative liberties here and there. For instance, I was going to tweak the grenade physics to differ from Duke 64's, since I remember a thread here where someone felt it was OP.

[Danukem]

It sounds like you could just use the existing Duke64 mod that was released on Eduke32 several years ago, and remove the features you don't want.

[BlueFire]

Danukem, on 19 December 2020 - 08:51 PM, said:

It sounds like you could just use the existing Duke64 mod that was released on Eduke32 several years ago, and remove the features you don't want.

I suppose that's a way I could go about it. Building off of what was established there. Although I feel I would need Fox's permission to publish an edit of his existing mod.

[Phredreeke]

I recall the old Duke64 mod doesn't work correctly on newer versions of EDuke32. (although given what you're after, maybe you'll just use the weapons with otherwise regular Duke3D)

[BlueFire]

Phredreeke, on 20 December 2020 - 01:17 AM, said:

I recall the old Duke64 mod doesn't work correctly on newer versions of EDuke32. (although given what you're after, maybe you'll just use the weapons with otherwise regular Duke3D)

That's the plan. Just bring the weapons over (with some tweaks to their behavior), and leave everything else as-is.