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Creating a super imp without loosing any other enemies or things
Tested with Boom,   and Zdoom.  This patch did not work with PRBoom.

This procedure uses the pain elemental respawn frames to create an extra attack sequence and then allocates it to a previously unused thing, in this case the dead lost soul. For full effect, you also need to include a new set of graphics for the imp using shades of green instead of their usual brown colour.

Just before the full release of Doom, the lost souls had quite a different appearance. Part of this difference was the fact that they left a pile of broken bones as a body instead of disappearing. Id software had obviously planned to have a dead lost soul placeable thing at that stage. The lost soul changed, but the dead lost soul thing remained coded into the doom engine. It was never used on any level in the game, but it can be used as an extra thing in dehacked.

Step 1. Set the pain elemental respawn frames to 0.

Step 2. Copy all the details from the imp to the clipboard. Do this by hitting c (copy) and entering 12 (the imp thing number) as the thing to copy from. Next enter 138 (the clipboard) as the thing to copy to.

Step 3. Go to the clipboard and edit the details there to rename the thing (suggest Super imp), increase its hit point value, its speed and any other value you wish to make it a bit tougher. Also change its two attack frames to be 720, the pain elemental respawn frames again. If you are using new green imp graphics, set bit 26. This will colour shift the green colours on the imp to be grey. You should also change the thing ID number to 23. This is the number of the dead lost soul that you will use to place your new super imp into a map.

If you are using green imp graphics, you should also set bit 27 for the normal imp to make it brown again, otherwise it will look green.

Step 4. Now copy everything from the clipboard to thing 116, the dead lost soul. This will make sure that all the correct properties, bits, frames, whatever are copied to the thing you want.

Step 5. Edit the new attack frames. You will only want to use 3 of the frames from the pain elemental respawn. Set frame 720 to have sprite number 0 (the imp sprite sequence) and sprite sub number 4 (the start of the attack animation), 721 to have sprite 0 and sub 5, 722 sprite 0 and sub 6. Also set the duration of frame 722 a little shorter (6) and make the next frame 444, so it goes back to its correct walking sequence after attacking.

Step 6. Save your dehacked file and open it in a text editor. Add the following:

#BEX

[CODEPTR]

FRAME 720 = FaceTarget

FRAME 721 = FaceTarget

FRAME 722 = BruisAttack

This simple sequence defines what will happen when the new imp attacks. It turns to face its target and then uses the baron of hell attack.

You can now place thing 23 in your maps and they will appear as your new super imp.

Additional considerations:

I have noticed a "glitch" in the way the newest beta versions of Zdoom treat the dead lost soul. If you kill one and it falls off a ledge, the body does not fall, but remains at the height of the ledge, suspended in mid air. Earlier versions of zdoom did not do this. A way round it is to use something known as ID# swapping.

Carry out the above procedure to make your new imp, but instead of using the dead lost soul, use the dead trooper instead. Still give the dead trooper a thing ID# of 23, but then go to the dead lost soul in the thing editor. This time, change its frames to be the same one as the dead trooper normally has, and change the dead lost soul’s ID# to 18. This is the ID of the dead trooper. Because of this, when you play doom, any of the dead troopers you see are actually hacked dead lost souls, and your new imps will actually be dead troopers but because of ID swapping, you will be entirely unaware of this either when playing or editing levels.

When tested with PRBoom, this procedure simply created an unshootable, invulnerable green imp!

Download the example file. 

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