ZooM Weapon Poll

As the co-project leader of ZooM I do a lot of work with various things, and one thing that is my duty is to make weapons. So far ZooM has the following:

1 - Fist, Chainsaw, Buzzsaw*
2 - Pistol
3 - Shotgun, Super Shotgun
4 - Chaingun
5 - Mosquito*, Rocket Launcher
6 - Scorcher*, Flamethrower**
7 - Untitled Laser Gun*

* = New, ** = Replacement

Now we're facing a little problem with the BFG replacement. We decided early on to make it into a mine launcher and I started to DeHacked that. The best I could do was to make it shoot something with low gravity that spawned a new object when it hit, since something with speed can't stop when it lands (it'll run around like a monster).

We've been trying to use mobj.flags3 for it, but Randy hasn't put in this support yet and I'm not entirely sure he's going to. In any case, I've been thinking of changing it to something else besides a mine launcher. I've made a poll to see what opinions some of you have on what it should be.

Oh and if you vote for number 7 feel free to make suggestions.

Railgun dammit

I should probably mention that unless mobj.flags3 are added we won't have a mine launcher even if it wins because the DeHacked it has now does a very ugly "jumping" sort of effect.

it needs a new kind of key

something in puce, or burnt sienna perhaps

Nanami said:

I should probably mention that unless mobj.flags3 are added we won't have a mine launcher even if it wins because the DeHacked it has now does a very ugly "jumping" sort of effect.

There's a way around that jumping. Just use the exploding frame for the laid mine. Just be sure to set the delay, and a sound codepointer for the 'explosion' part.


minea0 (your mine gfx) delay 100 (10 seconds)
mislb0 (explosion gfx) sound codepointer
mislc0
misld0

Easy.

I'm not quite sure what you mean. If you could make a deh example that'd be good... We've been using the BFG blast as the "tossed" mine and the arachnotron plasma as the "sitting mine" if you want to do that?

Just tack on an extra sprite in front of the explosion frames, and give it a long delay. And just make sure that the 'thing's' death refrences that extra sprite.

To fix the sound, either make a new explosion sound with at delay as long as the delay of the mine sprite.

Or you could just swipe a codepointer from the SSG and use that as an explosion sound. (You can edit one of the loading sounds for the ssg to supplement the sound you took from it.)

Hm, I'm not sure I just thought of what you were trying to explain but I got a really good idea for the mine. Still I'd rather do something else, but I believe I can make a good mine launcher now.

it seems like you're making it more complex than it has to be. you can keep it with the bfg ball that spawns arach plasma but then have the arach plasma enter it's death frames for close attack (and give it a fairly small radius, one or two) so it dies when you get close to it. for it's death frames stick the rocket explosion code pointer in there and it'll explode on the player. you'll probably need to set it to dead as well, there is a 'dead' codepointer that makes whatever die on that frame, but I forget the actual name of it, it's either 'dead' or 'die' (or possibly 'kill').

i still want the mine launcher. it's the most interesting, it fits well with zoom's style (close range weapons work better in a race), plus it's not a railgun.

My vote is for railgun or laser/energy weapon because we already have two rocket weapons and another explosive is somewhat silly. Plus with grenades it's kinda the same...

not really. the grenades are weaker and you have to actively toss them at someone. with the mine launcher you can shoot on the go and reak much more havoc. with the railgun, whoever's in first place can just turn around for a second and wipe out all the nearby competition. if you're in last place, the railgun is useless, because they'll be spawning in front of you anyway.

I suppose so. But still, only having one energy weapon is a little odd of a feeling.

how about a blaster then?

How about an Earthsiege/Starsiege ElF Whip. I have a working example for an unused Doom mod somewhere if you're unfamiliar with it.

What's it do?

An ElF Whip fires a conductive cable out to it's full length and sends an electrostatic charge through. The Starsiege manual refers to it as "lightning on a leash". It's range is limited to the length of the cable, but capable of imense damage.

http://home.midmaine.com/~lilwhitemo/DOOM0013.png

Mine just rapidly fires "charge" projectiles with a maximum range of about 128 units.

If by mine launcher you mean a weapon the lets us place a mine somewhere and it would detonate whenevere someone gets near then I definitely vote for it.

Maybe use an idea from Super Mario Kart and use a banana peel (or possibly oil slick) launcher. When someone runs over it, all friction is lost until he runs into something or slides far enough.

Ichor said:

Maybe use an idea from Super Mario Kart and use a banana peel (or possibly oil slick) launcher. When someone runs over it, all friction is lost until he runs into something or slides far enough.

heh, cool idea. i wonder if that's possible though? it would be even more fun if you could set the oil on fire too =P

Sphagne said:

If by mine launcher you mean a weapon the lets us place a mine somewhere and it would detonate whenevere someone gets near then I definitely vote for it.

Certainly.

LilWhiteMouse said:

An ElF Whip fires a conductive cable out to it's full length and sends an electrostatic charge through. The Starsiege manual refers to it as "lightning on a leash". It's range is limited to the length of the cable, but capable of imense damage.

i like that idea. close range weapons work best and that's certainly an interesting one.

Heh, I hated ELFs. I still can't get Starseige to run under XP. :(

ELFs might be kinda interesting in ZooM, though.

Single barrel automaitc shotgun that fires 3-5 shots a second would be great. New graphics would be bitching as well.

omg add a freeze ray!

Heh, that'd be great in ZooM.

Mine launcher. Dropping mines and leaving them for someone else to run over later on sounds cool. All racing games with offensive powerups should have mines.

I would, like so many here, also place my vote on mine launcher. I think it's unique enough from grenades and rockets that it would be ok.

LilWhiteMouse said:

An ElF Whip fires a conductive cable out to it's full length and sends an electrostatic charge through. The Starsiege manual refers to it as "lightning on a leash". It's range is limited to the length of the cable, but capable of imense damage.

http://home.midmaine.com/~lilwhitemo/DOOM0013.png

Mine just rapidly fires "charge" projectiles with a maximum range of about 128 units.

Of course, this option is great too, and if you were behind in the race something like this would certainly help you catch up.

Mancubus II said:

Of course, this option is great too, and if you were behind in the race something like this would certainly help you catch up.

yeah. anything close range is good. imo, anything with too much range can only be good for taking out guys behind the leader. if you're in last place you can't well catch up with everyone by sniping people ahead of you, since they'll only just spawn ahead of you anyway. close range weapons allow you to kill your nearest competitors on the run and let them spawn behind you. and another plus is that that weapon is also rather original.