Creating new projectiles

Warning: Information on this page is outdated. It relies on DECORATE functionality (which is currently deprecated in GZDoom), and may also contain mistakes, bad practices or missing details. See here for an up-to-date ZScript version of this page.

Projectiles are rather simple items. There's only a few things to observe:

• Use the Projectile property to set all the necessary flags.
• Set a proper height and radius.
• Define a looping Spawn state sequence and a terminating Death sequence. The Spawn sequence is shown while the projectile is moving and the Death sequence is the explosion animation.

Projectiles can also use different death states depending on what they hit:

• If the projectile hits an actor that has both the SHOOTABLE and NOBLOOD flags set, it will use its Crash state, if present. If there is no Crash state, the XDeath state will be tried next, and finally if that doesn't exist the normal Death state will be used.
• If the projectile hits an actor without the NOBLOOD flag (but with the SHOOTABLE flag), it will use the XDeath state. If there is no XDeath state, the normal Death state will be used.
• If the projectile hits a wall, floor, or a non-SHOOTABLE actor, the Death state will be used as normal.

This shows a simple projectile:

actor BlueShot02
{
  height 8
  radius 6
  damage 5
  speed 10 
  renderstyle Add
  alpha 1
  seesound "misc/shot"
  deathsound "misc/shotx"
  PROJECTILE
  +RANDOMIZE
  states
  {
  Spawn:
    WS16 AB 4 bright
    loop
  Death:
    WS16 CDE 6 bright
    stop
  }
}

To create a homing missile you have to add the SEEKERMISSILE flag and call one of the seeking code pointers in the Spawn sequence:

actor BlueShotSeeking
{
  height 8
  radius 6
  damage 5
  speed 10 
  renderstyle Add
  alpha 1
  seesound "misc/shot"
  deathsound "misc/shotx"
  PROJECTILE
  +SEEKERMISSILE
  states
  {
  Spawn:
    WS16 A 4 bright A_Tracer2
    loop
  Death:
    WS16 CDE 6 bright
    stop
  }
}

You can also do more complex things with Action functions, for example spawning a trail behind the projectile or doing some special effect while exploding. This is a projectile that is doing some BFG-like effect with a different sprite. This projectile also has a limited life span. It automatically explodes after a few seconds because the Spawn state is not looped:

actor DevastatorBall
{
  radius 13
  height 8
  speed 25
  damage 200
  renderstyle Add
  alpha 0.9
  deathsound "weapons/bfgx"
  PROJECTILE
  states
  {
  Spawn:
    DVS1 A 100 bright
  Death:
    DVE1 AB 8 bright
    DVE1 C 8 bright A_BFGSpray ("DevastatorExtra")
    DVE1 DEF 8 bright
    stop
  }
}