Here are a few ideas to improve this process manager:
N == not planned
? == possible, but not planned and/or is it necessary?
- == not started, but planned
O == in progress
X == done AFAIK
X-display last 7 characters of process name rather than first 7
ie: '/sbin/mingetty' would appear as 'ingetty' rather than '/sbin/m'
X-make text disappear when entire pid monster sprite is obstructed
X-make text 'float' with the monster (adjust y-value of print)
X-pid monsters don't count towards end-level 'kills' percent
X-pid monsters don't spawn in/on other things
N-toggle monster inter-fighting (ie. CacoDemon vs Imp on(default)/off )
N-toggle monster intra-fighting (ie. Human vs Human on(default)/off
Demon vs Demon on/off(default) )
X-OR as an alternative to the above 2, have pid monsters only take damage
from a player
O-command line flag to allow pid monsters to be damaged normally
(-nopssafety)
X-better process management:
N-non-blocking process manager so pauses aren't as noticable
NOTE: pauses would still be there with the non-blocking
process manager - tested by disabling pr_poll() call
and running a sh script on a seperate terminal that
called 'ps' every 5 seconds: pauses were still noticable
X-if a process is killed/removed outside xdoom, remove it from xdoom
X-update process names (ie. mingetty --> -bash after login )
?-compare pid monster name to incoming name and copy the name
as a result of that comparison
NOTE: right now, the name update happens to every pid monster
every time the ps list is updated. would adding a check
to see if the name needs to change speed things up? in other
words, how much faster is strncmp() than memcpy()?
X-if a process monster is killed in doom, but the actual process doesn't
die on the machine, resurrect the monster's body like the archvile
does; if we can't raise the monster, remove the body and respawn the
monster
X-gracefully handle save and restore
X-only re-nice a monster the first time it is damaged
?-OR with successive damages, get the process' priority, and re-nice
to 2(?) more than the current level until it reaches 20 (the maximum)
NOTE: must be careful about shotgun and other rapid-file or
multiple damage weapons because one could re-nice monsters
to +20 really fast
X-customized level map for managing processes
NOTE: *any* level that has 3 1024x1024 areas for monster spawning such
that the bottom left coordinates of the squares are at (0,0);
(2048,0); and (4096,0), respectively, will work
NOTE: current custom level details and decorations may need tweaking
X-if the custom level isn't (or can't) be loaded, use stock E1M1 in
doom 1 (or MAP01 in doom 2) for process management
X-custom level loads automatically, like xdoom.wad. the custom doom 1
map must be named psdoom1.wad and the custom doom 2 map named
psdoom2.wad for the automatic loading to happen
X-command line flag to disable automatic loading of custom level; manage
processes on stock E1M1 or MAP01
(-nopslev)
?-custom level for shareware doom (psdooms.wad); must get permission
from id software before doing this
X-game acts like normal xdoom if not playing on E1M1/MAP01 or if playing
any 'Plutonia Experiment' or 'TNT - Evilution' level
X-command line flag to entirely disable 'ps' portion of the program
(-nopsmon)
X-command line flag to disable actual re-nice and kill of processes
(-nopsact)
X-command line flag to make 'no monsters' persistant across new
games and warping
(-nomonsters.) == no monsters, period :-)
X-pid monster spawning not affected by '-nomonsters' or '-nomonsters.'
command line flags
X-command line flag to respawn items like in -altdeath games
(-respawnitems)
X-this flag should have no effect in demo recording or playback; it
would mess up the demo timing
X-command line flags for determining which user processes to spawn
X-command line flag to cause every username to be added to the list of
users whose processes to display
(-psallusers)
X-command line flag to cause specified usernames to be added to the
list of users whose processes to display -- without any supplied
username(s), assume current user
(-psuser [username1[ username2...]])
X-command line flag to cause specified usernames to be added to the
list of users whose processes not to display -- without any
supplied username(s), assume current user
(-psnotuser [username1[ username2...]])
X-if none of the userlist-related command line flags are given, the
program defaults to showing only the current user's processes if
not running the program as root -- root sees all processes by
default -- current username is determined by looking at the
environment variables PSDOOMUSER, LOGNAME, USER, and USERNAME in
that order
X-ensure that demo playing and recording do not use the 'ps' portion of
the program
X-the demo that plays immediately after ending a game (options->end game)
on a level with pid monsters is messed up; fix it
?-use c functions like setpriority() and kill() rather than the
system() call (would this speed things up significantly?)
--put command line options into an in-game menu
--ability to have multi-admin netgames
--ability to administer processes on a machine other than the one running
psdoom
--more general format for custom level areas for pid monster spawning
--'PSINFO' lump in wads tells engine where to spawn pid monsters and on
what level(s)
--current behavior is used if no PSINFO lumps are given
NOTE: format of this textual lump is sorta in my head: one lump
specifies all maps and coordinates -- ExMy or MAPxx lines
seperate coordinate grouping lines within the lump
{ExMy or MAPxx}, {R, A, or U} (one of these lines per level)
* to denote which map the info is for and the method by which
processes are placed in the spawnboxes of that level
* 'R' tells psdoom to spawn pid monsters in a
round-robin-esque manner among the given spawnboxes:
pid #'s are mod'ed by the total number of spawnboxes on
that level and the pid monster is spawned in the resulting
numbered box
ie. pid# 1432 is being spawned on a level with 5 boxes:
1432%5 = 2; pid monster will be spawned in the third
(0, 1, 2) box listed in the lump
* 'A' tells psdoom to use the relative area of the spawnboxes
to determine the chances of spawning a pid monster in each
* 'U' tells psdoom that there are user-specified percentages
for determining chances of pid monster spawning for the
spawnboxes
{x, y, dx, dy, nn} (one or more of these lines per level)
* a point of origin and the length of the sides for a box (in
doom map units) on that level for processes to spawn in
* the final argument is a field that is only used if the 'U'
flag is given above: it gives the percent chance of a pid
monster spawning in this spawnbox
* if the running total of user-specified percentages becomes
greater than 100%, the remaining spawnboxes will not have
monsters spawn in them
* if the nn is not there for a given area, the remaining
part up to 100% is assigned to that spawnbox
--make pid monsters less aggressive towards (afraid of?) player
--pid text is not placed well when screen is not at largest or second
largest size; fix it
--more info about processes
--monster type reflects cpu/mem usage
--more text information (space limited)
NOTE: perhaps could print more info as the monster gets closer
and takes up more of the view
--shutdown/reboot machine with psdoom*.wad level exit switch(s)
NOTE: need to make a custom texture to notify user of this interface
--type of weapon determines what signal to send with the kill command
on monster death (eg. pistol=kill -1, shotgun=kill -2, ...
plasma & BFG=kill -9 ???)
NOTE: rocket launcher probably not a good choice because of collateral
damage (maybe protect pid monsters?)
O-modify xdlaunch (ps-xdlaunch) to run ps-xdoom
O-add psdoom-specific command line flags to ps-xdlaunch
--incorporate the Back Orifice port of psdoom
--command line flag to use Back Orifice rather than local admining
(-psbo)
O-support multiple operating systems (the ones xdoom supports)
--freebsd
X-linux
--openserver 5
--unixware 2
--unixware 7
O-solaris
--aix
O-use ~/.psdoom rather than ~/.xdoom for savegames, config files, etc
O-add references to psdoom in startup header text, X resources, and window
title bar