I just noticed...

[Xfing]

That in D1, the final boss actually has 5 gunpoints rather than the obvious 4... he can shoot Megas outta his eye too! Freaky...

[LightWolf]

I looked. He only has 4. That might just be D2, though...

[typematrix]

.

[Marvin]

There is one more weapon not used by any enemy - level 2 laser. On the other hand, there are 2 weapons you can't have and enemy has it (class 1 drone and spider).

[TRUEpiiiicness]

Same with the level 5 laser in D2

[typematrix]

....

[Marvin]

Actually, spider's shot makes nearly 2x more damage (18 shields per blob) than heavy driller's plasma (10 per blob). C1D's shot makes 8 shields damage.
No idea why there is no spreadfire bot.

[Alter-Fox]

Theory: in a game like Doom pretty much each enemy has a unique silhouette that can be recognized at a distance.
In Descent 1 the idea of using 3D polygons for enemies was so new and rudimentary Parallax might not have been sure that the silhouettes of the enemies would be unique enough to perform that function, so they tried to give every robot a different combination of colours to make that threat recognition easier on the player.
What is for sure is that most of the robot weapons in D1 and D2 fire projectiles that are the same, or at least a similar, colour to the robot shooting them so that you can easily tell what's attacking you if it hits from behind (with some exceptions where the projectile is unique enough to do that job on its own). So the reason they added another yellowish red projectile instead of robots shooting spreadfire and level 2 lasers is that there was already a fairly common blue robot and a heavy-hitting violet one.

So basically, the reason no robot has spreadfire or laser level 2 is so that Class 2 Drones and Fusion Hulks are easier to see from a distance.

[Hunter]

Can you imagine an ITSC variant with *proper* Spreadfire or.. Helix?

Also no D2 bot had the player Omega cannon. Only those Omega blobs, which were also pretty effective. I think they homed in a little like the EMD in D3?

[Marvin]

Interesting idea Alter-Fox, but it has some problems. For example laser platform robot isn't related to blue and still, it has L3. It could have L2. Also they could use different colour for L2 to distinct with fusion. There isn't for example any yellow weapon. PTMC Defense Prototyp is also not green.. But here I really like the decision to give him L4 and also like that he drops quad lasers. Btw there is many red coloured mechs, so why not two blue mechs? There should be different reason they decided to not give spreadfire blobs to any robot. Anyway I believe they added new weapon to class 1 drone to bring more diversity. Because otherwise first levels would be full of just some kind of laser guys

[Alter-Fox]

Could be. It's true that they didn't use all the colours they could have for weapons and enemies, but also that they only had so many colours available in Descent.pig so they would still have to rely on silhouettes for identification somewhat -- all the red robots in particular have very different shapes from each other, and some of them also have different secondary colours.

Of the three laser levels robots use they also each go to two robots; one with a low rate of fire and one with a high rate. That's probably not an accident and could have played into the decision not to give anything level 2s. There is almost certainly more than one factor that would have gone into a decision like that.

As for class 1 platforms I don't really see the distinction though, there is no off-white primary weapon and the light blue of laser 3s are the closest you get to it. Spreadfire's even a bit darker 'cause it doesn't have the glowy bit in the middle of the projectile.
And PTMC defense prototype does have some green on his body (even if it's just the eye). Small hulk was already a green-coloured bot with a similar outline that shoots green lasers so they couldn't really go with that -- likely the same reason Heavy Driller is brown. If you saw one of those and thought it was a green hulk your day would go sour pretty fast. XD
Heavy Drillers also shoot their plasma pretty fast and its speed means it's hard to dodge at close and mid-range. The lower damage is meant to balance that out and one-on-one they're still much more dangerous than a spider.


This is also probably why a lot of the Descent 2 bots are less "humanoid". Having so many more of them and such a small number of colours in each PIG meant they couldn't rely on colour so much for identification so they came up with some more abstract and unique shapes.
Also interesting that D2 cut out the level 3 laser as a robot weapon (at least IIRC) and only gave robots 1s or 4s. And only one robot each -- otherwise D2 robots replaced lasers with completely different projectiles that were easier to distinguish. And it did a similar thing to each of those replacement projectiles by giving each of them to two robots, the second of which uses it in a more dangerous way (and then also giving each of them to a Vertigo Series bot later on). The other interesting thing D2 did with those replacements was introduce the more dangerous version (TRN and BPER) on the map immediately after the original bot (non-bombing PESTs and Sidearm) disappear completely from the game instead of having them appear alongside each other like D1 did with the laser bots.
Then D3 changes it up again and actually gives level 2s to at least one robot (plus 1s, 4s and 6s). All that implies that whatever the decision was to leave level 2s and spreadfire off the robot weapon list in D1, it wasn't a particularly vital one.

Overload actually does a similar thing with its weapons (including robot-only ones) by giving each one to two different enemies and having the second one use it in a more dangerous way. Sometimes by having an upgraded version other times just by using the same weapon with better aim, more rapid fire rate or both. 'Cause of the shorter length of the campaign though the two bots can sometimes still appear very close together and cheapen the effect a bit. And sometimes the same robot overlaps on two weapons. I might see if I can make a chart.

[typematrix]

....

[Alter-Fox]

Certainly possible, Fox's spreadfire projectile (it is spreadfire) travels almost as fast as heavy driller plasma.
May also be that the player version of spreadfire is more about the spread patterns than the projectiles themselves and just giving the projectile to a bot wouldn't be the same as giving it "spreadfire". Giving a bot the three shots at once and the right spread would not only be likely very difficult to do, but almost certainly too hard. FOX and ice spindle can already be hard enough on high difficulties.

[TRUEpiiiicness]

FOX and ice spindle can already be hard enough on high difficulties.

I don't know how fast the FOX goes in snipe mode but the ice spindle moves insanely fast on higher difficulties.

[Alter-Fox]

I meant the speed of the projectile, not the robot, but D2 does have that factor as well.

[TRUEpiiiicness]

I meant the speed of the projectile, not the robot, but D2 does have that factor as well.

I meant both lol.

I also noticed that the boarshead is the only robot that fires plasma

[Alter-Fox]

You mean the boar shed. I refuse to acknowledge its sillyname. You should too.
But yah it does, though it doesn't seem as damaging as the heavy driller's version. Maybe that's just cause the smart missiles are moreso, or it doesn't shoot as much. Vertigo had the better plasma bot anyway.

If the game had been a bit longer it would have been cool to see an alternate version of Boar Shed (along the lines of hornet clone, smelter clone, bper clone) that just had the plasma without the missiles.

[typematrix]

...

[TRUEpiiiicness]

The blue door on level 9 of first strike is not square. It is thinner than the rest.

[TRUEpiiiicness]

The secondary lifter's gun can spin a small amount.

[Alter-Fox]

If there were ever a remake of D1 in the vein of what Sol Contingency wanted to be, it would be cool if Secondary Lifter's gun actually spun like a chaingun.
Would look cool on Boarshed too if the three fire points spun around each other and gave the plasma a spiral pattern. Or anything else with a single center mount because since the center of the bot is generally what you're trying to aim for, it's gonna be extra noticeable for the player.

In D1 it's more of a contortion than a spin. I think it's just the bot's pain animation.

[LightWolf]

Is the Driller's gun spinning too obvious?

[TRUEpiiiicness]

It would be cool if Secondary Lifter's gun actually spun like a chain gun.

Maybe D2X-XL can do that because it has the spinning vulcan and guass cannons.

[Alter-Fox]

You'd have to get somebody to redo all the robot models in a format D2X-XL can read and animate from, and probably convince Karx to resume active development.
Good luck!

[TRUEpiiiicness]

The DMDB currently has 1337 missions on it.

[vision]

The DMDB currently has 1337 missions on it.

NIce.

[TRUEpiiiicness]

Every single level of D1: First strike has at least one instance of the lave texture except levels 17,19,20,24,25 and 27

[Alter-Fox]

That's still a fair number of exceptions.

[TRUEpiiiicness]

The lava behind a grate or fan was common.

[TRUEpiiiicness]

Ultimate necro but...
Levels, both official and user made, use two 20x20x10 cubes for doors quite often. ( And it annoys me every time I see it because it looks untidy and forces surrounding textures to be aligned a certain way. Unless you want an ugly seam between textures.)

[TRUEpiiiicness]

Rock260 has a single transparent pixel in alien1.pig near the top left corner

[Alter-Fox]

Not the game itself, but...
Ratzez = "Rat Says"?