We all know that we can puncture the fuel tank to the flamethrower but should the other 2 mentioned weapons have some similar effect? I can imagine the HVC getting all sparky and dealing periodic damage to the player until it explodes, but don't know about the raily reactor.

There was a huge discussion on this a while back. I'm all for sparks or leaks or even massive explosions coming from damaged backpacks.

http://runestorm.com/pl/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?34243

It's like nobody remembers me anymore...

The Rail gun's nuke reactor should go Chernobyl. Total reactor meltdown.

Or maybe a mini-Redeemer-style explosion or something.

You've also forgotten that the Minigun also has a backpack.

Whats in the Minigun's backpack....Ammo?

I'm guessing bullets, And Dk i never forgot about you and look at My New weapon ideas thread

Yes, they should be vulnerable. Each with a fancy explosion or something.

Railgun - explosion or something
Lightning Gun - Explosion mixed with discharge of electicity (depends how much ammo you have in the Lightning gun, more ammo, bigger discharge).
Minigun - Haven't a clue... bu it should just explode.

Railgun: Silent break until try to shot the railgun, then smoke and cracking sound, later catches fire toasting slowly the wielder (nothing serious yet, just heats up), and finally explodes (this one is the serious one)

Lightning Gun: Sparks zapping walls, other players, and the owner at random (may be the later one the least common), for short burst and switches to next target, slowly depletting the available "ammo" (charge?), once depleted gets inoffensive. The more holes in the insulator that covers the pack, the more electricity arcs (which means more damage to surrounds and faster ammo depletion).

Minigun: Bullet pack dont sound like probable to do something bad when shot at, most probably jam which wouldnt be something fun to add to a game, but if hit by flamethrower enough time could ignite and become a randomly shooting fireball.

Edit: Don't have UT2k4 installed atm, if i'm missing some pack that forgot to mention, tell me which and will think something for it

Edit2: Almost forgot to comment something I would like to see:
Packs and gas ammo pickup being shootable when not on a player too. Would even be better if it where possible to place them, like hiding one can behind a corner, to shot it (if player/bot doesnt pick it first), or near a mine to add some extra fire to the mine explosion.

Railgun pack would be the one that wouldnt make it shootable with the effect above mentioned, or make it go directly to smoke without needing to pick it up to see that it is broken.
Broken lightning gun once discharged would disappear/explode and not stay there in broken state.

In any case, you wouldnt be able to pick a broken pack just to find later it can't be shot.

If you know a person that can remember forty thousand posts and who posted what on which day, then by all means tell us.

And yes, I think they should be vulnerable to damage. It hardly makes sense if the fuel tank makes one go flying when the others are simply indestructible.

if the minigun is hit only the round or rounds struck by the projectile will go off, they wont cause a chain reaction.

The railgun pack should be like sudden electrocuting death that jolts out and kills otheres next to your smoldering corpse.

How would that work? After the backpack is decharged it will be harmless.

My idea about that is:

Minigun, when backpack is hit, leaks ammo. If its a fire weapon, change of a bullet going random.

Railgun, when backpack is hit, should leak radioactive waste just like unignited oil of the flamethrower and then if you come too close to it it hurts. Weapon carrier is gonna die soon.

HVC, when backpack is hit, electric shocks coming out of it for 2 secs, then KA-ZAP!!! Many, many sparks and electric arcs coming out launching the weapon carrier's dead body to a random location.

If the minigun pack is shot, then it should just jam at a random bullet in your beltpack. If it catches fire however..... the entire pack will shoot off in a forwards direction randomly, doing whatever damage to you the user. That plus the bullets might fly through you and kill another person. Make the pack (not the gun) just start shooting at 3600RPM to simulate a chain reaction.

how is that chain reaction possible? If one bullet fires in your gun the others in your ammo pack aren't going off there, so why should they in your backpack?

I guess it would depend on how the bullets are stored in the backpack. If they're layered front to back, hitting one might set off the one in front of it.

It probably wouldn't cause a huge amount of ammo to go off, but one bullet might hit shatter and hit multiple rounds there, causing more than one to go off.

they would only go of if the primers got struck by something. kinda like how kaboodles says. This actualy reminds me of the reason why you cant use pointed rounds in tube fed lever action rifles becasue the rounds are in the tube bullet poin to primer and when the gun recoils it would cause an explosion and set of all the rounds killing or horrible injuring the user.

He was referring to a fire burning in your backpack I thought.

Realistically speaking, of course:

Minigun: Lose a random amount of ammunition between 2 and 12 rounds per puncture.

Railgun: The capacitors take twice as long to recharge.

SREG (what I call the electrical device): The more you use it, the more you smoke. Eventually you catch on fire and burn to death.

It's a chain reaction for a reason: to keep framerates from just dying when the fire would (in real life) make about 170 bullets go off at the same time. The chain reaction allows the same effect without killing framerates.

in rallity, shooting the RG backpack, wouldn't cause a meltdown.. just disable the power source.. perhaps that could work?

MiniGun backpack, maybe could take your ammo down with each hit?

Oh, that makes sense for the Minigun backpack.

I would love some meltdown effect from the reactor. :}