Demo recording improvements

[Kara Kurt]

First of all, sorry if I've posted this in the wrong place and if I become persistent about demo-related questions/issues. Zan 2.0 was a nice release so far, sadly nothing has been done in this regard.

Anyway, I do not know what the developers have planned to improve (demo-wise) in the future and what importance it has, but since my arrival on Zandro I have trouble distinguishing the slightest improvement / fix regarding demos. Thus, boomstick in hand, I'm going to go ahead and make a todo list and pin a list of already suggested requests. Up to the devs to say yes or no.

Splitting demos

Aka. demos getting cut out in the end of each intermission, this feature would be interesting because when someone spent 3 hours playing CTF and that the demo he is recording is gaining weight, he will no longer need to reconnect[1] (and by that I mean close the game) just to have separate demos files, nor will he need to enter demo_skiptonextmap 50 times until finding the part that interests him. Besides I found out that after a long session of CTF and in which the demo begins to gain some weight, says 30 mb, I get some freeze/lag when fragging someone.

Demo converter/backport

Another annoying thing. Unable to read a demo recorded in an old Zan version unless I download the specific client. Yesterday some people were talking about it being possible on #zatesting. Devs, if it's the case, please feel free to help us understand how to read an old demo without downloading the said client.

If it's not, the best would be to make a simple tool that would be able to convert an old demo by entering the list of wads required in the demo.

Pausing, playback, etc

Another subject that's been "treated" in #zatesting, and according to some devs, pausing demos could be considered in future and that being able to playback would not be possible.
I'm a person that frequently observes demos and I've always been bothered by the fact that I can not pause them.
Although one can record a demo with a software like Fraps and pause it or use the playback as much as they please, this function would actually allow us to analyze an action more easily, like a shot that did not register.

Desynced weapons and other bugs

This isn't about demos only but also spectator mode. Anyone would have easily noticed once in their life about the proper weapon not showing aka. the Bfg9000 firing pellets/Chaingun firing rockets bug.
Would it be possible to fix this bug or make it minimum visible?

The other bug I wanted to talk about is that after a player has discharged his BFG by spamming like a fat pig, and then switched back to Supershotgun, 21 pellets will automatically appear on the wall he's aiming at.

And because of that, if he switches back to his Supershotgun before the BFG tracer kill its target, guess what the obituary will say? It will tell you "X was splattered by Y's Supershotgun". This happens when you're spectating, at least.

That is all I have to say I think.

PS: Forgot a detail actually D:

[1]: Not sure if that's been reported already but if you type reconnect without closing the game the demo will stop recording. This means that if you type reconnect, anywhere, anytime, the demo will stop here.

[Arctangent]

And because of that, if he switches back to his Supershotgun before the BFG tracer kill its target, guess what the obituary will say? It will tell you "X was splattered by Y's Supershotgun". This happens when you're spectating, at least.

I'm pretty sure this is completely unrelated to spectating and happens in ZDoom, too, although only in mods now. Iirc, weapon-based obituaries are not based around the weapon that fired the projectile, but the current weapon the player is used, because projectiles don't track that information. They just know who fired them, and therefore when they kill someone, they use whatever obituary is most relevant to their firer unless they have a obituary defined for their own use. This is how ZDoom gets around it, last I checked: obituaries for projectile weapons aren't defined on the weapons, but on the projectiles themselves.

Mind, if Zandronum does define obituaries on the projectiles instead of the weapons, then this very well might be a bug.