Name: Shadow Trooper
Difficulty: Easy
Connections: Zombieman (sounds)
Summon: ShadowTrooper, ShadowTrooperCorpse
Melee: No
Distance: Hitscan
Type: Human, Undead
Added States: No
ACS: No

Submitted: MagicWazard
Decorate: MagicWazard
GLDefs: MagicWazard
Sounds: Midway Software
Sprites: id Software
Sprite Edit: MagicWazard
Idea Base: Wanted a shadowy-type of zombie for low-light conditions

Description: A semi-transparent zombie trooper suited for low-light conditions. Fires 3 bullets in rapid sequence with each attack.

Preview:

Download:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/13bfmjepqzfdt ... rooper.zip

I originally wanted a zombieman that used the Spectre's partial invisilibity effect, but when I put it into action, I didn't really like it. I decided instead to make a trooper with semi-transparency; this was the end result. He's displayed at 40% opacity, and has the +SHADOW flag to boot (though this doesn't have much effect in stock Doom). He fires 3 bullets per attack, and has 40 points of health; he's not a particularly powerful monster, but he's sneaky. He also has a chance to drop a Light Amplification Visor upon death; I made a custom version that's scaled down by 50%, since it looked kinda dumb having him drop a full-sized one.

Speaking of which, I'm sorta partial to the night-vision goggles worn by the sprite; I'll probably have to re-use them on a monster which isn't mostly invisible, so they can be seen more properly. Try gibbing this guy to see the results...

I'm fairly happy with this guy as-is, though I'm definitely open for suggestions on how to improve his behavior and/or appearance. I originally wanted to have him fade in to full opacity when attacking/in pain/dying, but I wasn't sure of a good way to do this. I didn't want to use +STEALTH, as this made him fully invisible--not what I intended. I'm also curious if it would be worth giving him sniping/camping tendencies when he's at a distance; this would play well into his "sneaky" role, but might wind up making his behavior more complex than I really intended.

EDIT: Updated with suggestions. Fades in when attacking, in pain, or dying; fades out when moving, or when resurrected. Also randomly fades in and out for short periods during normal movement.

EDIT 2: Updated with +SEEINVISIBLE. Also lowered accuracy of attack pattern slightly.

EDIT 3: Added brightmaps. The lenses of his goggles glow, even when not attacking.

EDIT 4: Converted gunfire sound to OGG. Added a corpse object actor.

Not so sure about the "partial invisiblity" effect. Also, when it's gibbed, it still remains semi-invisible, which looks kinda weird, IMO.

However, I really like the googles.

When it dies or when it gibbs, it should definitely be at normal visibility.

I have an idea though, what about increasing the standard invisibility amound a bit and then add some random "blinks" to the actor, where it gets more visible for a short moment, just as his suite is wearing off?

Nice monster.

Yeah, only thing I can say is to repeat what Tormentor said, make it flicker into full visibilty upon death, and occasionaly in its see state. Otherwise it's fine, and nice goggles btw.

Yeah, that all sounds kind of reasonable, and congruent with some of my original ideas for its behavior. I'll take a stab at it. I think I can have it FadeIn/FadeOut during attack/pain/death frames with the available number of tics, and have it look OK. Having it occasionally jump to full opacity during its see state seems like it might be kind of odd in practice, but it wouldn't hurt to try!

Any opinions on the tumbling goggles when it's gibbed, or the custom item drop?

BTW, CaptainToenail, your avatar is EPIC.

You know... those goggles remind me of heat-vision or night-vision and stuff like that. It would be cool if it could also see the player if they have the invisibility power-up on also.

Is that possible to do? That would be a nice touch. The night-vision goggles were just for style, but I would not mind at all making them provide some sort of function.

You can use the SEEINVISIBLE flag to achieve that.

Rad. Well, then that's certainly going on, regardless of any other changes. Thanks for the tip!

I went ahead and added as many suggestions as I could. The trooper now becomes fully visible when firing, in pain, or dying; he fades back to default translucency at the end of his attack sequence, when walking around, or getting resurrected. Basically, it's about as close to +STEALTH as I could humanly get without turning him fully invisible as a consequence. (Thank goodness for A_FadeTo!)

I tried adding SEEINVISIBLE, but that's apparently only used in certain development versions of the engine, and it's one that I don't have. I added it in anyways, but commented it out, with the comment that it should be re-enabled when used with a compatible revision of the engine.

Please take it for a test drive and tell me what you think!