Had a chance to give this puppy a few tries over at Valarna and it seems decent, if somewhat limited in its vertical aiming capabilities (my only problem with it). Not much of a game changer - esp. on a map bustling with )o( arsenal - but at least it forces the user to take a more nuanced approach when it comes to pedestrian enemies than the traditional splash n' forget you see with the goliath.

As a more general comment, it discourages me that ONS modders still seem to create vecs or weaps based on the 2 same old behavioural/damage-dealing concepts (point damage [hitscan mechanics], radius damage [splash/shotgun mechanics]) instead of trying to experiment with more exotic ideas and game elements that already exist in UT and could challenge our thinking and fighting style (only exceptions I can think of are the fire tank, the emp grenade and that laser fence gun which isn't all that useful anyway). Six years later, have we really exhausted our collective imagination as a community? I'd hate to think so.
Btw, just to make myself clear since I'm voicing this concern here, this has nothing to do with Wormbo specifically (guy does mostly coding work after all). This creative stagnation we've hit (samey maps rehashing/porting notwithstanding) is IMO everyone's fault - ours, the Titans', the Omnis', everyone who's part of the general UT ONS community and has just kept asking for the same, only with moar powahrr!!1 Not coming up and pursuing new ideas has been all our faults and, to that end, I'd like to propose we start thinking outside the box right now. Where's the violently repelling (or attracting?) kinetic/gravity beam mechanics (a la HL2 gravity gun), where's the command center type info-gathering ideas now that we can display enemy threats on the map radar, where's the manual drone-deployed teleporter vehicles, where's the xray vec-hijacking sniper rifles, a variable pedestrian-arsenal-boosting minivec (remember the IFV from C&C Red Alert 2?) or a temp charger-based speed/firepower/invis improved flyer? You know... stuff like that. How's about it?

PS:
wormbo wrote:
[...][Though I did get inspired by Tiberian Sun's Mammoth Mk.II, which also served as one source for the firing sound.[...]Huh, I knew that sfx was familiar for some reason!

There is the Industrial Anti Gravity-Mover as example for some Gravity Gun-like thing, but it's way too powerful and allows to do all kind of weird stuff in annoying your teammates and to exploit the level limitations that the mapper consider good enough to not allow anything in UT to get up there manually.

It's only good purpose might be in the Constructor gametype, but they have severe admins there that watch that you don't annoy other players with it too much.


Wormbo wanted to create more vehicles and is gathering ideas for even more already: http://forum.omnipotents.com/showthread.php?t=13265

His next thing will be the Hail of Steel, which has at least the more or less creative approach that the passenger of this Cicada-based vehicle can create a Paladin-like shield. Looking forward for more.


In UT3 it's possible to respawn at the Leviathan (you can select it as respawn target on the Node Map), but I don't know if that's possible to code without needing to replace the ONS gametype as a whole.

Vehicle-hijacking Sniper Rifles could be a bit overpowered, but you could try to create something like the Neutron Grenade from C&C: Generals - Zero Hour. It's an alternative projectile for the long range nuclear artillery. The normal fire mode creates a small nuclear explosion with fallout that still damages things in that place a while after and the Neutron Grenade doesn't create fallout or anything but only deals damage to the driver himself, leaving the vehicle completely intact.


The Deployables from UT3 that I am currently porting might bring also some fresh wind, not only as weapon pickup but also when they are deployed by the Nightshade or Stealthbender.
How did Jeff Morris say it? "Just in general, having a stealth-based vehicle is fun."

We will have EMP-Mines, Shaped Charges (time-detonated Redeemer packs), Link Stations (heal friendly vehicles that approach the deployed thing), X-ray fields (slow you down inside of them and cause damage to players (also inside vehicles, but leaving the vehicle intact.. here we go again)), Slow Volumes (slow everything inside them down, even projectiles, though I am not sure yet if this can be 100% recreated) and deployable shields that can completely enclose a Node.


Don't worry too much about the stagnation, though you have a point there.

K.Rool wrote:
There is the Industrial Anti Gravity-Mover as example for some Gravity Gun-like thing, but it's way too powerful and allows to do all kind of weird stuff in annoying your teammates and to exploit the level limitations that the mapper consider good enough to not allow anything in UT to get up there manually.

It's only good purpose might be in the Constructor gametype, but they have severe admins there that watch that you don't annoy other players with it too much.[...]That "weapon" is a game-breaking travesty compared to HL2's gravity gun or what a sensible coder could create for ONS use; you know it and I know it. Gameplay was so annoying, I barely managed to go through that vid alone, never mind actually caring to try it in person.


Crusher wrote:
[...]Wormbo wanted to create more vehicles and is gathering ideas for even more already: http://forum.omnipotents.com/showthread.php?t=13265

His next thing will be the Hail of Steel, which has at least the more or less creative approach that the passenger of this Cicada-based vehicle can create a Paladin-like shield. Looking forward for more.[...]Such threads have been bumped around at the Omnis for months or even years. It only takes a few days to get from the prototyping to a beta testing stage with a decent coder/modder, however, and I believe they have several. Not to mention I've been aware of these talks myself and hardly any of their followed up projects can be considered paradigm shifting, which is what I'm talking about here.


G.S.P.B.-C.K.R. wrote:
[...]In UT3 it's possible to respawn at the Leviathan (you can select it as respawn target on the Node Map), but I don't know if that's possible to code without needing to replace the ONS gametype as a whole.[...]Uhh, what's that got to do with anything again :s?

DKs_Menace wrote:
[...]Vehicle-hijacking Sniper Rifles could be a bit overpowered, but you could try to create something like the Neutron Grenade from C&C: Generals - Zero Hour. It's an alternative projectile for the long range nuclear artillery. The normal fire mode creates a small nuclear explosion with fallout that still damages things in that place a while after and the Neutron Grenade doesn't create fallout or anything but only deals damage to the driver himself, leaving the vehicle completely intact.[...]I was thinking more along the lines of a superweapon, so the user would only have 1 shot that they'd have to make count. Fire anywhere at an enemy vehicle and it stops cold on its tracks with the driver getting ragdoll tossed dead by the side, perhaps shocked n' sizzling as if shot by an LG. If there'd be 2 or more players riding that vec, I dunno how that would be handled, but there are a few options. Anyway, I think you got the idea right the first time already, so yeah. All I'm looking for with this is a game changing twist whereby a lone player can turn the tables on a seemingly hopeless scenario in maps like MinusTMU (assuming you provide pedestrians with the means to get atop roofs to better ambush passing-by enemies) where one team's players with overpowered tanks tend to group together and pound the enemy primaries endlessly with no way for that to change.


croc_man wrote:
[...]The Deployables from UT3 that I am currently porting might bring also some fresh wind, not only as weapon pickup but also when they are deployed by the Nightshade or Stealthbender.
How did Jeff Morris say it? "Just in general, having a stealth-based vehicle is fun."

We will have EMP-Mines, Shaped Charges (time-detonated Redeemer packs), Link Stations (heal friendly vehicles that approach the deployed thing), X-ray fields (slow you down inside of them and cause damage to players (also inside vehicles, but leaving the vehicle intact.. here we go again)), Slow Volumes (slow everything inside them down, even projectiles, though I am not sure yet if this can be 100% recreated) and deployable shields that can completely enclose a Node.[...]Sure. Okay. Perhaps. We'll see. Just one quick comment on a mentality that apparently you and a few others have adopted lately: just because it's from UT3, doesn't mean it's a good idea to port it to UT2004 - remember which the more successful game was.


Pirate_croc wrote:
[...]Don't worry too much about the stagnation, though you have a point there.
Thing is, when I return from an 8 month hiatus to find everyone playing practically the same game with the same guns and vecs, I think that's reasonable grounds to be concerned about stagnation.

White_Horse wrote:
Uhh, what's that got to do with anything again :s?

Well, maybe I got this one from you wrong then:

Flying_Mare wrote:
where's the manual drone-deployed teleporter vehicles


And UT3 is not bad as a whole, many of the new features are really nice, there are just other elementary things in gameplay mechanics fucked up and that broke it's neck. And because it's bad, less people cared about mapping and modding for it (and because of the higher file size that you need to download, that's why the official servers are usual the only ones in Warfare that are regularly full), breaking it's neck even more.

Nice quote names =P

I guess the "manual drone-deployed teleporter vehicle" did warrant further elaboration; I just didn't want to clog up the post even more by fully outlining yet another concept.
To explain further, I was talking about a vec that would itself act as a teleporter for others to go through and quickly move across terrain controlled by superior enemy forces. Using a chassis like the Hurricane/Armadillo (both have a big ass), you could attach something like the Bombing Run's goal/portal mesh to their back end and once the driver sets up the portal, that thing lights up and other peds/vecs can go through it to reappear at the target location, perhaps even make the portal surface work like those realtime cameras and let ppl see what's on the other side instead of simply using that vortex texture/effect. Portal itself would be set up pretty much the same way any guided projectile works (redeemers, nexus missiles), i.e., you fire it, you fly it where you want it to go, you either let it impact or click once, then momentarily shift control to the portal entity to orient its facing with the mouse, click again, and it's done, control returns to the vec. Extra things like how many ppl/vecs it would be able to move before collapsing or how much health the destination portal would have should an enemy fire at it could be tweaked through testing (say, for example it works based on a depleting charger model where each pedestrian consumes 1 bar and vehicles require more depending on their mass/passengers; if the portal's been taken out and the driver doesn't realize to destroy it, anyone trying to go through gets insta-killed with the frag going to the one who wrecked the portal). 2nd seat could take on some healing or info gathering role, kinda like I suggested with the flying probe that puts enemy vecs of importance on everyone's radar or something.

Anyway, sorry for the long-winded breakdown there, hope this conveys the idea more thoroughly and enough of you find this useful/interesting to support. Moving on...


About UT3, it doesn't matter if the game managed to throw in a couple of interesting features along with everything else. If what you've end up with is a less than average mix, in the end I don't think anybody's gonna bother playing just for those few elements and ignore all else. On the other hand, porting the better bits over to a more successful game also risks bring along with 'em the stink of a bad experience, so that's not a surefire practice either.

Btw, "mare"? Don't make me come over there n' show you who's the mare and who's the stallion, you overgrown leather handbag :p.

Yesterday I had the chance to play with the Railgun Tank and it's a good thing.

Back on topic:

One (small) issue: the Railgun only reloads itself when there is someone in the first passenger seat.

In other words, if you fire the railgun then switch to the passenger seat (or exit the vehicle), when you switch back to the first passenger seat (or enter the vehicle again) the reload process will only resume at the point you had left it.

Lila, I just did a quick test offline with the Firetank at MagicIsle and it works the exact same way (i.e., deplete the gauge completely, then switch to seat #3 and spam the lasers for 10secs or so... switch back to seat #1 and you'll find it hasn't charged up at all), so this behaviour should probably be considered by design. Personally, I don't find anything wrong with it since it provides a pause to a constant barrage of otherwise high damage firepower.

After all you have to push the energy into the turret with a crank. :p