[Duke of Hazzard]

One of my pet peeves with Duke3D is that the Octabrain always dies with a single Devastator missile. However, he has more health than the Enforcer and the Pig Cop, and those take multiple missiles to kill.

Why is that? Is there something in the code that makes this happen?

[Hendricks266]

state checkoctahitstate
  ifwasweapon SHRINKSPARK
  {
    sound ACTOR_SHRINKING
    ai AIOCTASHRUNK
  }
  else
  {
    ifdead
    {
      // (...)
    }
    else
    {
      ifwasweapon RPG
      {
        sound OCTA_DYING
        addkills 1
        state standard_jibs
        killit
      }

The game will always kill an Octabrain if it is hit by an RPG, regardless of how much health it has. (Devastator missiles and RPGs are only distinguishable internally by their size and damage.)

I don't know where on the spectrum of intentional this behavior is:

• A complete typo
  
• 3DR wanted the Octabrain to die from one RPG hit instead of two, but forgot it would affect the Devastator
  
• Intentional behavior

The Octabrain is also the only other monster that will subtract one from your kills total when it respawns on Damn I'm Good.

[Lunick]

They're programmed to explode whenever a RPG or Devastator rocket hit them.

FFS HENDRICKS

[Duke of Hazzard]

Thanks for replies.

So it's in the CON code... Nice. I looked at the CON programming for monsters years ago when messing around with simple stuff but didn't remember it was there.

I think they wanted to make him die with one missile since it's a mid-tier monster and shouldn't be too strong, unlike the Protector Drones which were intentionally given a lot of health to require two rockets to kill.

Not complaining! Good for me, they die easier.

[Inspector Lagomorf]

Interesting. That makes two (non-boss) monsters with exploitable weaknesses; Commanders have the most health of the normal enemies but can be easily shrunken and killed that way, while Octabrains can simply be killed with a single devastator shot.

[Danukem]

imo Octabrain shots do way too much damage, and they have more health than you would expect from something that is essentially an exposed brain, so them having a weakness against rockets kind of balances it out.

[Jimmy]

I agree with Dan, although I really think four Devastator rockets would feel better in game. I always felt kinda cheap using one Devastator blast on Octabrains... not to say I'm not going to exploit it.