Thing (DED)

Thing
{
  ID = ""
  Doomed Number = 0
  Name = ""
  
  Spawn State = ""
  See State = ""
  Pain State = ""
  Melee State = ""
  Missile State = ""
  Crash State = ""
  Death State = ""
  Xdeath State = ""
  Raise State = ""
  
  See Sound = ""
  Attack Sound = ""
  Pain Sound = ""
  Death Sound = ""
  Active Sound = ""
  
  Reaction Time = 0
  Pain Chance = 0
  Spawn Health = 0
  Speed = 0.0
  Radius = 0.0
  Height = 0.0
  Mass = 0
  Damage = 0
  Flags = ""
  Flags2 = ""
  Flags3 = ""
  
  On touch = ""
  On death = ""
}

A state defines what a thing will be doing and looks like at any given time in game.

The things “spawn” state(s) defines a things default function, as it what it does simply by itself. Scenery and pickup things will usually only have spawn states. A thing must have at least one spawn state or it will be removed imediately from the gameworld at map start up.

The other states series are called by various actions attached to other state series. Said actions will make the thing immediately enter one of these state series. Bad guys and such will usually use all of these other state series.

Various sounds that will be played at different times by the thing. These are all tied to either entering various state series or states with certain actions attached.

The See Sound will be played when the thing is forced to enter it's “see” state from its spawn state, while the Attack Sound will be played every time the thing tries to attack the player in melee.

A forced delay that determines how long a bad guy will take to first attack the player after being alerted. Note that this is canceled out if the thing enters its pain or melee state series' for whatever reason.

Whenever a bad guy is hit, it has a certain chance to enter its “pain” state series. This field can be any value from 0-255. 255 means 100%, while 0 obviously means 0. Note that if a thing has a pain chance higher than 0, it must have a “pain” state series must be defined.

How much damage the thing can take. When a things health is reduced to 0 it will automatically enter its “death” state series or simply vanish if it doesn't have any death states.

How far a thing moves in the game world during every state it enters that has the A_Chase action attached. Note that how long the thing takes to move this distance is controlled by the state itself.

Radius of the thing.

Height of the thing.

How much the thing will be pushed when it is hit. Higher numbers mean it won't be pushed as far.

The amount of damage the thing will do if it collides with something. This field is reserved for things with the “mf_missile” flag and a couple of very specific actions. It will have no affect otherwise.

Any number of flags can be attached to a thing, but not all flags will work in all games. To use more than one flag, use the following syntax:

  Flags = solid | shootable

(As of 2.2: only supported in Heretic.)

Script that gets run when the thing is touched. If set, this replaces any hardcoded logic that would have affected the thing. Example:

On touch = "
  import Game;
  print 'Toucher:', toucher.id(), 'is touching:', self.id();
  self.startSound('impsit');
  Game.setMessage('Got it, yes');
  return 'dormant';
  ";    

The return value of the script determines what happens to the special thing afterwards. It must be None or one of these strings:

“keep”

Do nothing — the script will likely run again on the next game tick.

“dormant”

Put the thing in dormant state after an artifact pickup animation (DORMANTARTI1). The thing becomes invisible and may be respawned if game rules allow respawning items.

“hide”

Hide the thing, but keep it around. The thing is put in the HIDESPECIAL1 state.

“destroy”

Destroy the thing (note that sounds emitted by the thing require that it remains in existence).

Please note:

• All features of Doomsday Script are available during this callback.
• The special mobj being touched is referenced by self.
• The toucher mobj (e.g., the player) is referenced by toucher.
• Semicolons must be used like this at the end of each line because the DED parser replaces whitespace around newlines with a single space.
• The entire script is inside a DED string token, which means double quotes need to escaped. Single quotes can be used normally.

(Since 2.3)

Script that gets run when the thing is killed. The key difference to a script action in the Death/Xdeath state is that the On death script is also provided a reference to the killer. All the normal processing of a thing's death occurs even if an On death script has been specified.

Variables available in the script:

• self is the thing that has been killed.
• killer refers to the killer. This may also be None.

See the notes of the On touch script regarding the syntax requirements.