The "Ghosts of Doom"* bible

*name subject to change

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TL;DR: Make Doom's combat slightly slower and more survival-oriented without keeping the fun we all know and love from being had.
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Table of contents:

1. General notes

2. Weapons
2.1 Starting weapons
2.2 Light
2.3 Shotguns
2.4 Rifles
2.5 Heavy
2.6 BFG-tier
2.7 Exotic
2.8 Thrown

3. Items
3.1 Recovery items
3.2 Ammo
3.3 Powerups
3.4 Keys

4. Monsters

5. Mechanics
5.1 Spawning behavior
5.2 Player mechanics
5.3 Monster behavior


6. Credits (treat as a bibliography list of sorts)

7. Staff



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1. General notes
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-Survival horror shooter of sorts. Monsters are threatening and for the most part have strong melee attacks to encourage the player to keep their distance, fewer pickup spawns with slightly increased value and limits on how many weapons you carry at a time.

-Semi-reallistic weapon behavior, such as travel time on most projectiles, recoil and limited sprinting depending on weapon.

-Glitched monster behavior (monsters using chaotic patterns such as moving/firing faster for some tics or infighting out of nowhere). (doesn't seem too easily done, but would be nice)

-Some walls seem to shift every once in a while and sectors may randomly deal a tiny amount of damage occasionally. (both are pointless but could add to the alien and wrong feel of the mod)


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2. Weapons
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2.1 Starting weapons (can't be dropped)

FlynnTec Mk. IV combat blade: When you need an immediate response to something that just appeared in front of you, reach for this.
One press to the melee button equals a deadly stab that leaves whatever it hit bleeding.
Two quick presses equal a stab and a slash. Further button mashing will result in further slashing.

UAC EMP-02 A1: Trusty sidearm that hits hard (read: useful when anything past a pinky-tier monster shows up) and doesn't run out of ammo thanks to what might as well be called space magic.
Primary fire: Fires an accurate and very fast plasma bolt.
Secondary fire: Temporarily loosens the gaussian focuser in its barrel to allow a short-ranged, shotgun-like blast. Causes the gun to overheat for a brief moment, forcing its use to be halted for a second.
Upgrades: Infinite ammo should be enough, but you can find upgrade packs for it in ammo crates. The first upgrade lets it shoot in a two round burst (both in primary and secondary fire), the second upgrade improves its cooling mechanism significantly (faster cooldown) and the third is a carbine kit, making it into a pretty good medium-range weapon (a little more damage and accuracy).


2.2 Light (chance to spawn in chainsaw spawns)

UAC A-EMP-04: Essentially a machine pistol version of the EMP-02 A1, but considerably less damaging and much faster and innacurate. Overheats quickly, and must be vented manually.
Primary fire: Fires a weak plasma bolt quite quickly.
Secondary fire: Fires stronger plasma bolts at a slower pace.
Capacity: Overheats after 28 rounds fired in quick succession.
Ammo: N/A, infinite ammo but overheats.

KC OC-74/7: The bullpup and rapid fire version of the AVK-74 assault rifle, designed specifically to ditch the need to field personnel with a weapon that uses ammunition different than their assault rifle's and to increase their survivability considerably. Somehwat accurate thanks to its bullpup layout and tuned gas piston.
Primary fire: Fires at a rather high ROF. Low-medium damage per round.
Secondary fire: Fires an extremely quick four round burst.
Capacity: 20 rounds
Ammo: Intermediary bullets

Boss Nailgun: While originally a tool to bust rocks and jammed doors open, this lightweight nailgun proved to be a great makeshift weapon as well. Fire a nail and then detonate it, preferably from a distance, to see why.
Primary fire: Launches a nail that sticks to monsters and your surroundings. Somewhat innacurate and slow.
Secondary fire: Detonate all launched nails.
Capacity: 6 rounds
Ammo: Nails


2.3 Shotguns (chance to spawn in shotgun spanws)

UAC TBS-12A3: Your best buddy when it comes to CQB. Reliable and maneuverable thanks to its bullpup layout, but slightly difficult to control thanks to it - that aside, it's just your usual pump-action shotgun.
Primary fire: It goes boom, but is rather innacurate.
Secondary fire: Switches the smart choke on or off. While active, your shots becomes far more accurate at the cost of heavier recoil.
Capacity: 8 rounds
Ammo: 10 gauge shotshells

Chapper Arms Triple Crown: No one is too sure why you'd ever try using a hunting shotgun in actual combat, but this 12 gauge triple barreled monster is about as strong as a rocket exploding in your face if all of its barrels are fired at once, both for your foe and for your shoulder.
Primary fire: Fires one barrel, high recoil.
Secondary fire: Fires all barrels at once, extreme recoil.
Capacity: 3 rounds
Ammo: 12 gauge shotshells

FlynnTec M-ASG12B: Sometimes you just need a little more gun, so a magazine-fed auto shotgun certainly was bound to make an appearance...even if it's quite rare to come across.
Primary fire: Dumps a shitload of shells down range quickly, as expected.
Secondary fire: N/A for the time.
Capacity: 16 rounds
Ammo: 12 gauge shotshells


2.4 Rifles (chance to spawn in super shotgun/chaingun spawns)

KC AVK-74: Proper neo-Russian steel. No frills but so strong you can leave it sitting around a toxic waste vat for decades without losing any reliability at all, even if that means holding it will give you space AIDS.
Primary fire: Overall strong damage at a slightly slow ROF.
Secondary fire: N/A for the time.
Capacity: 30 rounds
Ammo: Intermediary bullets

UAC HBR-65A2: Rumor has it this was designed as a designated marksman rifle, though it's quite obvious this was developed to just be a rather compact and powerful battle rifle. Will drop things quick and efficiently, but its ammo is rather rare.
Primary fire: Fires one round per trigger pull.
Secondary fire: Switches fire mode from semi-auto to 2 round burst.
Capacity: 24 rounds
Ammo: Heavy bullets

Charter Arms Drill-1NG: Another hunting weapon with three barrels, but with a different take on it: its upper two barrels hold two intermediate bullets, while the one on the bottom holds a 10 gauge shotshell. Perfect for that one FUCKING occasion where you need two bullets and one shell.
Primary fire: Fires each rifle barrel.
Secondary fire: Fires the shotgun barrel.
Capacity: 2 intermediate bullets, 1 10ga shotshell
Ammo: Intermediary bullets/10ga shotshell

Charter Arms BA-RL31: A less sophisticated weapon from a much less advanced age. Great damage per shot, but has a very slow rate of fire thanks to being bolt action. Must be fed round by round.
Primary fire: Fires a very strong shot.
Secondary fire: N/A for the time.
Capacity: 5 rounds
Ammo: Heavy bullets


2.5 Heavy (chance to spawn in rocket launcher spawns)

UAC HMG-09 A6: For those times where you just need a LOT of gun. Low rate of fire with strong damage.
Primary fire: Fires slowly with heavy recoil and damage.
Secondary fire: Deploys bipod, rooting you to the ground and making you lay prone. Less recoil and faster rate of fire.
Capacity: 60
Ammo: Heavy bullets

UAC AMR-01S: And for those times where you need to reach out and touch someone with 250 grams of HE.
Primary fire: Fires a single, EXTREMELY damaging shot and if fired standing up deals some damage to the player (5-10 HP?).
Secondary fire: Toggles zoom on/off.
Capacity: 1
Ammo: Super-heavy rounds

FlynnTec MGR-6/40: Six-shot revolving grenade launcher. Good for saturating areas with ordnance.
Primary fire: Fires an arcing projectile that bounces off walls up to four times before exploding strongly.
Secondary: Toggle different grenade types (HE, incendiary, cryo, flechette)
Capacity: 6 rounds
Ammo: Grenades


2.6 BFG-tier (chance to spawn in BFG spawns, duh)

THI Graviton Beam Emitter: Don't let its tiny size fool you - this compact-sized handgun manipulates barely understood particles using even less understood technology to create a beam capable of splitting kilometers worth of concrete in its fully powered state. Too bad you lack the appropriate firmware to run it. Still, nothing will stand in your way with this.
Primary fire: BZZZZZZZZZZT-BLAAAAAAAAAM!
Secondary fire: Throws the antimatter canister in a manner that creates a literal blackhole upon impact that sucks anything into it - this means monsters, decorations, items, dropped weapons and you. For best results, pop out of cover to fire it and run away.
Capacity: 1
Ammo: Antimatter canister

UAC MNG-300E1: Bring it out and let its four barrels sing the anthem of death. Requires some plasma cells to power its electric engine as well (drains directly from cell ammo pool).
Primary fire: Hold down to spin the barrels and fire them. Deals heavy damage really quickly and eats through your heavy bullets like popcorn.
Secondary fire: N/A at the moment.
Capacity: 125 rounds
Ammo: Heavy bullets + 3 plasma cells drained every 5 shots

FlynnTec Mk.6 Chaingun: Might as well be called a full-auto AMR, but this is THE BFG of the arsenal - chainsaw gripped death coming through!
Primary fire: Fires explosive rounds that deal massive direct and splash damage at a dependable rate of fire.
Secondary fire: Deploys tripod for more controlled shooting.
Capacity: 80 rounds
Ammo: Super heavy rounds + 1 plasma cell drained every shot


2.7 Exotic (chance to spawn in plasma rifle spawns)

Boss Plasma Welding Tool: Originally made to weld walls, doors and other things made of metal though it was found to also be phenomenal in welding organic matter in a needlessly brutal and deadly way. Great if you want to get up close and personal...not that you should want to.
Primary fire: Very fast melee-range attack that painlocks anything short of an exo trooper and deals good damage per hit.
Secondary fire: Remove the focusing nozzle to create a short-ranged plasma thrower. Deals damage over time.
Capacity: 50
Ammo: Plasma cells

FlynnTec EM4 Plasma railbow: The big militarized brother of the nailgun that was designed as an effective way of blowing living beings and lightly armored vehicles that are in your way apart.
Primary fire: Fires a four round burst of plasma-coated nails that explode either on impact. Strong damage.
Secondary fire: Toggles zoom on/off. When zoomed, fires semi-automatically.
Capacity: 12
Ammo: Nails + 5 plasma cells per shot

DXH Forcegun: Essentially, it shoots a wide incapacitating shockwave that stuns most living things...but if you overclock it, you can make them implode as well. Good for making meatshields or getting out of sticky situations.
Primary fire: Shoots a shockwave that stunlocks most monsters.
Secondary fire: Overclock the shockwave emitter to make it implode monsters. Gibs ahoy! (consumes all of the battery)
Capacity: 40 (each shot consumes 20 units)
Ammo: Ion battery

Boss Laser Cutter Tool: It's a laser. It cuts things. It cuts them dead. Need I say more?
Primary fire: Projects a laser that deals high damage and eats through cells like crazy.
Secondary fire: Projects laser pulses that deal less damage but eats through ammo slower.
Capacity: 100
Ammo: Ion battery


2.8 Thrown weapons (runs on charge meter like Doom 4, rare chance to spawn in place of an armor bonus, sits in slot no. 5)

UAC HEX/F-G: Combination high explosive/flechette grenade - aside of the large and strong explosion, send out many flechettes that overpenetrate and rip through enemies. Great for room clearing.
Charge time: Medium (20 seconds)
Note: Player starts with one by default.

FlynnTec TRAG-4: Tactical rocket-assisted grenade. Upon being thrown, behaves like a rocket and travels in a straight line until it hits a target. Shaped charges grant it excellent damage against a single target but reduce overall splash damage. Good for when you need a sudden spike in damage dealt against a strong foe, but have no weapons to deal with it.
Charge time: Short (10 seconds)
Note: Punches through low-level monsters.

UAC HEX-S: High explosive satchel. Incredible damage but must be detonated manually with its remote. Only good for setting up traps.
Charge time: Long (40 seconds)
Note: Use secondary fire to detonate.


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3. Items
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3.1 Recovery items/armor

-Soul tonic : Little vials full of what can be described as tonic water from beyond. + two health when collected.

-Armor scrap: Strange pieces of shredded and corroded bronze armor that glue to your body or patch up any worn damaged armor. + 5 armor when collected.

-Medigel can (replaces stimpack and occasionally medikit): UAC-made concoction full of morphine, anti-coagulants and healing nanobots that you carry on yourself and use as needed. You start the game with one and can carry 5. + 20 health when used, if you get under 25 health one will be automatically administered.

-Blood sac (rarely replaces medikit): A sessile animal from beyond that explodes into a floating healing orb if damaged. Innofensive in every sense of the word.+ 50 health if the healing orb is picked up.

-Greater soul tonic (replaces berserk): Just a bigger, better version of the soul tonic that instantly brings your health up to 100 when touched.

-UAC security armor (replaces green armor): Comfy and cozy inside to keep you warm in Mars, tough enough outside to shrug off a beating and with some pouches that might contain goodies for you to find. + 100 armor that absorbs 2/4 of all damage, chance to come with 2 medigel cans, 30 intermediary rounds and some 10ga shotshells.

-Black iron cuirass (replaces blue armor): Wearing this feels wrong. + 200 armor that absorbs 3/4 of all damage.

-Ammo crate (replaces backpack, guaranteed to always spawn): Full of goodies to the brim.

3.2 Ammo

Small ammo crate (medium chance to spawn instead of clips, shells, small plasma cells and rockets): Holds a fair bit of ammo of all types (33% of their total).

Intermediary bullet box (replaces clips): Holds a good 60 rounds.

Heavy bullet box (replaces bullet box/shell box occasionally): Holds 40 rounds.

Loose 12ga shotshells (chance to replace shotgun shells): 8 individual shells.

Loose 10ga shotshells (rarer chance of replacing shotgun shells): Four individual shells.

Loose grenade (chance of replacing shotgun shells): A single loose grenade.

Shell kit (chance to replace shell box): Holds 20 12ga shells and 10 10ga shells.

Super-heavy bullet box (rare chance to replace bullet box): Holds 15 rounds.

Nail box (chance to replace rocket): Holds 24 rounds.

Large nail box (chance to replace rocket box): Holds 48 rounds.

Super-heavy bullet create (chance to replace rocket box): Holds 45 rounds.

Grenade box (chance to replace rocket box): Holds 12 rounds.

Ion battery (chance to replace small cell): Holds 100 charges.

Plasma cell canister (chance to replace small cell): Holds 50 charges.

Plasma cell crate (chance to replace large cell): Holds 150 charges.

Antimatter canister (rare chance to replace large cell): Holds 1 charge.


3.3 Powerups (always spawns):

-Rune of protection (replaces radsuit): You feel warded by a greater force. All incoming damage is reduced to only 1/4 of its actual damage. Negates floor damage for the rest of the level.

-Still-beating heart (replaces soulsphere): Touching it feels like a sin. Instantly maxes your health out to 200 when collected.

-Guardian's heart (replaces megasphere): Forgotten chants fill your mind and you feel stronger. Maxes out both health and armor to 200.

-Phase amulet (replaces blursphere): You feel exeunted from this dimension. Renders you invisible and immune to kinetic attacks (read: bullets) for thirty three seconds.

-Lichtghast (replaces infrared): A floating ethereal creature that boosts your sight for a long time. You see better in the dark and your weapons (aside of shotguns) become more accurate.

-Ancient tome (replaces computer map): Its sallow pages speak of secrets about the area they are found in, and offer comforting reassurance that you are not alone. Gives you full map and a will-o'-wisp companion that shoots damaging fire at monsters.

-The crucible (replaces invulnerability): The silent and unrelenting fury of the Doomslayer courses through your veins, transforming you into His avatar. Monsters attempt to retreat from you while attacking less often, you are invulnerable to all damage, run faster and have the fully powered crucible in your hands. Rip and tear, until it is done.

Primary fire delivers a devastating blow, while secondary fire sends out three fast travelling waves of unrefined hellish energy . Your quick melee button will glory kill monsters, causing them to drop health, armor and ammo tokens for later use.

Lasts for 20 seconds but each killed monster may add three seconds to the counter.


3.4 Keys

-UAC standard credentials: Color coded for your convenience, and in the shape of keycards for ease of carry. You know what these do, don't you? Comes in blue, yellow and red flavors.

-Ancient keys: Strange, rune-like keys that don't even need to be put in locks to be used. Stranger however is the fact UAC doors occasionally must be unlocked with these. Comes in crystal (blue), spinel (yellow) and ruby (red) flavors. Plays Quake's rune key sound upon being picked up because those are great.


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4. Monsters
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-The braindead (replaces zombieman): Shambles about, makes a lot of noise and will eat your brain if given the chance. Has a civilian and guard variant, the latter carrying a weak version of your sidearm that it can barely shoot in your direction.

-Corrupted UAC marines (replaces sergeant): A soldier like you that snapped and happens to still know how to aim and shoot for the most part. Beware of their tendency to string a seemingly endless number of spiked punches if you get up close and personal. Comes in machine pistol, shotgun and battle rifle variants. Drops small ammo pickups for heavy bullets and plasma cells respectively.

-Flesh horror (replaces imp): Its figure is vaguely human but its ability to spit globs of acid that eat through your armor in no time and almost tumorous appearance make it clear it is anything but. Occasionally explodes into acid upon being gibbed, and vomits in your face if you get too close.

-Corrupted UAC commando (replaces chaingun guy): He's the boy and he's packin' eighty pounds of heavenly joy in the form of a minigun loaded with HE rounds. He'll literally kick your ass into oblivion if you get too close. Always drops two small heavy bullet pickups and has a chance to drop a small ammo crate.

-Flesh charger (replaces demon): A malformed fleshy creature with a septic tank for a mouth and razor sharp spikes for teeth, quite eager to sink them into your tender human flesh. Good thing it's mostly confined to a sluggish movement speed until you get too close to each other.

-Wraith (replaces specter): A malevolent soul who likes to dish it out but can't take it. Lacks a melee attack but moves away from you only to throw small energy spheres at your face until you get out of its sight or send it back to limbo. With bullets.

-Corrupted UAC exo trooper (replaces hell knight): Extremely agile and cocky dudes who are clearly compensating for something with their reinforced exoskeletons. Comes in plasma and chainfist flavors, both always dropping one plasma cell canister or ion battery pickups and five armor shards, respectively.

-Malfunctioning drone (replaces lost soul): Tiny little robots with tiny little guns that annoy the shit out of you, but don't much else aside of charging head first into you and exploding. They still don't do much damage then, but considering how they usually aren't alone...

-Flesh guardian (replaces baron of hell): A seemingly slow and lumbering creature covered by robes made of its own excess skin that runs quite quickly with its goat legs and has a large shield growing out of its left forearm. Its right hand has what might as well be called an organic grenade launcher that shoots explosive globs of red fluid. Getting to close will result in a shield bash that knocks you back QUITE A BIT and makes you drop whatever equipped weapon you have selected at the moment, with a chance of actually destroying it.

-Ceptilonoid (replaces cacodemon): It's best to just compare this thing to a flying squid, if squids had barbed tentacles and flinged about ten spikes in your general direction. Getting close to it is ill-advisable unless you like the sweet embrace of an iron maiden.

-Blot (replaces pain elemental): If you ever thought a shadow was harmless, the blot will prove you wrong. Nothing more than a ball of darkness with many red eyes that stare everywhere and nowhere, it will relentlessly chase you down and attempt to deal contact damage. Drops a random ammo or health pickup upon death.

-Flesh tank (replaces mancubus): Starfish can be scary too. This four-armed construct can barely walk but why would it need to, when it has a powerful organic cannon glued to its back?

-Silent Shell shock troopers (replaces revenant): Their white and black armored suits should be a dead give away that they don't belong even in this dimension. They come in close quarters (shield and mace) and riot control (automatic spike shotgun) variants. They don't drop anything of use to you thanks to their alien nature.

-Shalravo (replaces arachnotron): These spideresque hybrid horrors have a knack for modifying themselves with whatever they can find - the latest fad being grafting magic weapons to their bodies. Beware of the spiked explosive pods they hurl at you.

- Silent Shell soulweaver (replaces archvile): It seems to be a leader to the shock troopers, a lost soul lured into an artificial body and contractually bound to destroy anyone who tries accessing this dimension without authorization. They deal damage by generating spiritual bolts that home in on you or by creating a rather powerful shockwave when you get close enough in order to make space. Drops nothing like the shock troopers.

-Flesh prince (replaces cyberdemon): The most powerful son of a bitch you'll ever get to find - be thankful they don't like showing their eyeless visages all the time or otherwise you'd be breaking your gear in frustration. It looks like a heap of towering flesh with skin robes concealing its body, and attacks with a variety of organic weaponry. It will either shoot an explosive bone projectile at you, summon homing blood orbs that leech your health or fire a huge barrage of spikes and gore at you. Protip: save the graviton beam emitter for this bastard if you do have it.

-Flesh queen (replaces spider mastermind): And this is the bitch who spawned the flesh creatures. She's fond of birthing her minions into battle and is best fought with fire or anything that just deals a shitload of damage in a short amount of time. She's also so bloated she can only crawl at a slow pace which makes things a little easier or harder for you, depending on how you view it.

-(placeholder for wolf ss)

-(placeholder for commander Keen)

-(potential placeholder for IoS?)

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5. Mechanics
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5.1 Spawning behavior

All item and weapon spawns have a chance of containing their replacement (stimpack/medikit -> medigel can/blood sac), decoration (stimpack/medikit -> empty medigel can/dead, empty blood sac) or nothing at all. Power ups and ammo crates aren't subject to this since most of the time they're going to be needed and relying on chances to spawn could make the game needlessly scarce of resources and much-needed assistance to the player.

A full list of random decorations might be good but I think it would make this already extensive document too much to read through.


5.2 Player mechanics

-Limit on how many weapons can be carried: 3 weapons of any kind, + 1 thrown weapon.

-Lowered walking/running speed to emphasize the player is NOT Doomguy. Sprinting is present to give the player extra mobility for a few seconds.

-Medigel cans can slowly regenerate 25 HP, or do so instantly - player decides what he wants through the options menu.

-The HUD is similar to the ones in the alphas and betas of Doom, reflecting the view from inside a helmet. This limits the player's FOV slightly and could get fogged up, bloodstained or cracked upon sprinting, killing something at close range or upon taking heavy damage respectively, but a more traditional HUD is available in the options menu. It shows which weapons are being held, their ammo reserves and the number of medigel cans being held.

-Not sure if the player should collect all the ammo they find or not however. Doing the former could make it really easy, while the former could buttfuck them as well. Will think about it more.


5.3 Monster behavior

-UAC goons may enter in combat with flesh monsters occasionally, while the other ones are like wildlife and will attack both if present - could make things a little too easy however, but out of the blue, when the player sees all of them? Could be a good choice.

-Monsters may randomly move and attack faster for a few tics but they may also not register your presence, shoot away from you or fight anyone close by. Higher chance to occur on low-ranking monsters.

-Variants may keep them fresh and fun to fight, but aesthetic-only variants could be great as well - extra work that might not be that noticeable, but would still keep the mod from getting stale.


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6. Credits
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Check back later when things are more fleshed out.

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7. Staff
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Deii: Concept and direction. Compiled everything here.
Badger: Assistance with general ideas, came up with concepts for most of the weapons.