[Submission] Domination Sphere

Info
Name: Domination Sphere
Type: Temporarily charms monsters
Palette: Custom
Summon: DominationSphere
Use Type: Inventory
Duration: 3 to 30 seconds, based on monster health
Brightmaps: No
Actor modification: No
ACS: No

Description:
The Domination Sphere is a powerful artifact that allows the player to dominate monsters.
On activation it spawns a spirit that seeks out hostile monsters and turns them into allies.
The spirit lives for 30 seconds and can hit multiple monsters, but loses power each time.
Monsters with a lot of health cost more power and can only be dominated for a short duration.
The weaker the monster, the longer it is dominated and the less power is needed for domination.

Credits
Submitted: DeVloek
Code: DeVloek
GLDefs: DeVloek
Sounds: Monolith
Sprites: id Software, Raven Software
Sprite Edit: DeVloek
Idea Base: Possession Sphere

Sprite preview


Download
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1N9A3aHaJed_rgvfElGSaVgMi2WUuwbbn/view?usp=sharing


Since the original author of the Possession Sphere doesn't allow updates to their old submissions, I decided to create a new item from the work that I already put time and effort into. The Zscript code was written from scratch anyway, so I only had to replace all the assets. I also fixed some bugs that I missed before, and while I was at it I redesigned and rebalanced some of the powerup's behavior.

Changes from the previous Possession Sphere Update submission:

• Created new assets and GLDEFS
• Increased spirit lifetime to 30 seconds
• Increased maximum amount of dominations to 30
• Increased the spirit's homing turn angle
• Boss monsters can now be dominated by default, because why not (can be turned off)
• The spirit now has a "power" value, which is set to 1000 by default. The power decreases each time the spirit hits a target. Once it reaches 0, the spirit disappears. The power loss is based on the target's current health value. For example, a Lost Soul has 100 hp, so you can dominate 10 of them before the power runs out. A Baron has 1000 hp, dominating him depletes all the power at once so choose wisely when you're gonna activate the powerup. This is dynamic, for example when directly hitting a Baron, the domination lasts for 10 seconds, but if you're already dominating 5 Lost Souls, half the power is gone already so the Baron is only dominated for 5 seconds.
• Domination duration is now capped between 3 and 30 seconds. This is based on the target's current health value as well, so if you're trying to dominate a Cyberdemon, make sure to wear him down first or he'll turn back hostile almost immediately.

Let me know if you think the powerup is too weak or too strong, I feel it's in the right place but I only tested it on vanilla monsters.

That is sick! Great job.
I'll just point out 2 things:
1- I'm not a fan of the look of the sphere, just because it feels too "static" imo, since the spirit inside just fade in-out and flashes instead of any moving (probably biased due to the fact that I'm too used to the standard doom sphere).
2- When 1 of the possessed monsters turns back as an enemy, all the other still possessed demons around him won't target him if they already have another target that's, for example, far away. This happened to me while I was testing this in "The Crusher", with a possessed HK just wandering under the crusher while an "un-possessed HK just next to him who was trying to rip me apart. Although, in my scenario I used 2 spheres, this can be annoying if you're sorrounded by "friends" that do nothing even with a foe next to them.

A part from that, I love it
This 2nd point can be

Thanks for the feedback!

1. tbh I'm not a fan of the sphere's look and animation either (I like the colors though), but I'm not a good artist so that's the best I was able to do. If you have any ideas how it could be improved or any examples how it should look like, I might give it another try.


2. Good point! I was able to fix this behavior by evaluating the targets of all remaining dominated monsters whenever a monster loses the domination power. If the no longer dominated monster is closer than the current target of the still dominated monster, it will become the new target.
So in your Hellknight scenario, this should happen:

• Hellknight A and Hellknight B are affected by the domination power and attacking a far way monster with projectiles.
• Hellknight A loses the domination power and starts attacking the player instead, while Hellknight B is still being dominated.
• In this moment, Hellknight B (and all other monsters that are still being dominated) evaluates his target.
• The distance from Hellknight B to Hellknight A is closer than to the far away monster, so Hellknight B starts attacking Hellknight A instead.

Updated the download file in the OP.

I'd opt for something similar


colors are cr*p as well as the sprite work, but just to who what I had in mind (I'm definitely no good at this either, so I feel your struggle T_T), and also, this is just personal taste of course

EDIT: the gif works in the preview but not in the actual message (?) so here are the sprites directly