You expected that whining about imbalance would not cause some heat?

I have no opinion to voice, but have a suggestion on a different way to modify the lightning gun, since that is what this thread is kinda turning into. The heat generated by an electric circuit is proportional to the power, which is a function of voltage and current, not just voltage alone. The current draw on a circuit is a function on the load applied to the circuit. Keeping this in mind, I think we might be able to satasfy both crowds with the lightning gun. here's how:

After reading all 5 pages of this thread, it seems that the main complaint, as of late, against the LG is that it is too powerful against groups. It can be kinda deadly to those who happen to get ensnared, and makes an awsome rocket launcher replacement. So, here's what I think might work: the rate at which it overheats is directly related to the rate at which the ammo is depleated, which is a function of the number of players being targeted. This way, the primary attack can kill a person, but won't do too much against 2 or 3 peoeple before overheating. After all, if you have multiple targets, you must have a larger load on the "circuit", resulting in a larger current draw and heat generation, even if the voltage level is constant.

I had the idea that the LG does lets say 20 damage per second.
If one person is caught s/he receives 20, if 4 people are caught, each person will receive 5 damage per second.

You see where I'm going with this?

I Play nothing But Online Play (i Run 3 Servers).

JailBreak, CTF, CTF4, VCTF, ONS, TDM, DM, Assassin, TDM4....

O, didn't see that post, sorry to reiterate, Bjossi. That's a good idea in my opinion IF we're going to modify it in the 1st place. Another tangent to that thought would be to have it deal the same damage to 1 person or 4 people, but overheat faster. That is, if it overheats in X seconds while attacking 1 person, it overheats in X/4 seconds while attacking 4 people. Hey, while we're at it, why not say that when you target too many people, there is a fuse inside the gun that pops and you have to replace it (play an animation that takes a few seconds), just like the circuit breaker in a home when you put too much on one circuit. That could help prevent spam, too.

I wouldn't like that at all, it already overheats quickly enough.
Plus my idea is more logical, you can't magically multiply the energy, it needs to be splitted into 2+ parts to each person caught in the fire.

Another possibility would be increasing ammo usage based on amount of victims at the same time. Energy goes away 3 times faster if 3 people are caught.

I'm not gonna say any more about the LG until I look at Captain X's new thing.

I will say, however, that the auto-tracking feature when dual-wielding, though extremely awesome, is not a good idea.

Stop this BS already. It is an excellent idea because it makes the mod more fun, if you would rather fight in a fair mod without any fun elements in it, be my guest.

But make the changes in your own BW menu, don't try to force it on the other players that actually enjoy what RS put into their mod. God forbid a player can have an advantage other than skill-based.

What is auto tracking? Never heard of it while dual wielding.

Anyway tentions on this thread may not be as high as we are led to beleive. What has people undies in a bunch? Its being told there is a problem with a factor they had no problem with. And yes this does come down to gaming style.

Just a few examples of how different gaming styles affect our perception on balance:

Online Deathmatch players will find any weapon that hits things by itself to have a serious advantage. They complain about the mine layer too. Its all about aim and skill for them, if it takes no aim then it must be cheap as far as they are concerned

Onslaught players with their wide open spaces can avoid a lightning gun easily, its hardly "overpowered" for them. But they might suggest the railgun is ovepowered instead as vehicles have a hard time not getting shot by it.

Invasion players probably wouldnt care about either as the lightning gun isnt as effective towards monsters. You want a shotgun instead. And the railgun doesnt help when 3 skaarj get in your face.

And yes if the lightning guns damage was divided between targets that is logical. Might also make good teamwork the most powerful weapon against the lightning gun. hehe

Dont mean to double post but this one is not related to my previous post.

The HVC seems to be the center of this controversy with some claiming it is overpowered, underpowered or neither. All based on opinion. But what is the truth? I thought I would make a quick investigation scenario

The lightning gun is a close range weapon and is to be tested in a small close range arena, versus the M740 Shotgun. Another weapon thats also very dangerous in close range but in my opinion is very balanced

GAME: Classic CTF, no trans, no weapon throwing, 3 captures, 20 minutes

MUTATORS: WORM2K4 Amoury = used to convert the shock rifle into the HVC, and the flak cannon into the shotgun

TEAMS: 6 godlike bots with all statistics set to 80% Except jumpiness is 0% All bots have the same ATTACK pre-game command. All bots are equal

Red team prefures the lightning gun over the shotgun, they are:
Kragoth
Karag
Thannis

Blue team prefures the shotgun over the lightning gun, they are:
Malcom
Brock
Lauren

The map is custom built for this scenario. Image is provided. It is a small but open spaced cube. Spawn points are behind walls and out of the way. The flags are exposed and close to eachother

A HVC is at the red team spawn, a shotgun is at the blue team spawn.

I spectated the whole match, the end game results are as follows:

Red team wins 3 - 0 in approximately 8 minutes

Karag..........HVC kills: 18.........SG kills: 5..........HVC killed by: 0.........SG killed by: 25
Kragoth.......HVC kills: 19.........SG kills: 2..........HVC killed by: 0.........SG killed by: 21
Thannis ......HVC kills: 23.........SG kills: 4..........HVC killed by: 0.........SG killed by: 21

Brock..........HVC kills: 0..........SG kills: 24.........HVC killed by: 22.........SG killed by: 2
Lauren........HVC kills: 0..........SG kills: 23.........HVC killed by: 21.........SG killed by: 3
Malcom.......HVC kills: 0..........SG kills: 20.........HVC killed by: 17.........SG killed by: 6

Blue team total ownage with shotgun: 67
Red team total ownage with HVC: 60

Red team won as their lightning guns kept pushing back blue team. But the overheating worked well in blue teams favor, as you can see blue team got more kills with their shotgun power! It seems the lightning gun doesnt quite hold all the cards as some lead us to believe.

The conclusion? I think I will leave that until I can test the lightning gun in other scenarios. But please give your comments.

Tommorow: HVC VS THE MINIGUN!

[br][img width=619 height=616]../../files/public/1177127261_331_FT34024_testmap.jpg[/img]

Thanks for the test, it was a good idea by the way.
Though these aren't accurate results, they do give us a good picture of how the guns are performing in-game. Try the same test with Xav's version later and see what changes, I'd be interested.

Man, good test. Yeah, the HVC vs. Minigun should be interesting. One thing I want to see though is the AM67 vs the RS8, or AM67 vs M806. Just to see how the AM67 can do against other pistols. I'll just do this test myself though.... if I find a good map...

Just remember that the bots suck at using the minigun.

I beg to differ, Bjossi. Certain Bots actually know better than to pointlessly spray bullets wide of its target.

I haven't encountered those bots before.
The ones I've met just fire towards me and the bullets just starting hitting the ceiling.

Try Brock and Lauren, they seem to be actually way too competent at using the guns even on Novice levels! ShinRyuu on Godlike vs Brock and Lauren was overkill (B&L won at Novicve level)

I can own ShinRyuu, but that's on Adept...

I'm gonn ask... you try to fight him with Species Stats on yet? That's how he becomes a true God Dragon.

lol shotguns are meant to be good in small corridors. The lightinggun doesnt work there so good.
Try a test in a larger room, you will see different results.

And bots are really stupid... they walk right up to me with a shotgun, but too close! so both our guns shift away. So I grap my katana and hack his head off...

I hate this, this way I cant use my shotgun to blow their face off.

Thank you for your comments

We do not have enough evidence to say just how balanced it is yet. I must take the investigation further.
But we have enough evidence already to say it doesnt make you an unstoppable at the least in a team game scenario.

I understand the bots are stupid but when set to Godlike they know how to shoot. That is all thats required for this test. And bots can handle other bots in a fair manner.

The reason they are awful is because they have trouble with recoil and chaos. In this test chaos was disabled but recoil remained at default setting. It's not a test of aim anyway.

What we saw here is just how much the HVC can dominate an arena and compared to a well balanced weapon in its same field.

Im not in agreement that it is anything but a close range weapon. Its not a long range weapon thats for sure. Its role in the game is the same as the flamethrower: a close range/medium range device intended to control enemy movement.

If we agree that the HVC is the ultimate close range weapon and nothing you have can stop it, that should have been revealed here. It was not.

Wow... thank you Yokelassence very much for actually getting some actual data to help dispute this debate.

If the HVC is already getting less kills, my version is going to be doing very poorly.

I think it's pretty clear that the weapon itself does not actually mean that its an almighty weapon. The lightning gunners won the match because as you said, the weapon was capable of keeping them at bay. It's a great defensive weapon, but as for offense, its not too powerful, but its not really too far behind compared to the M740 (What is that? Do you mean mayhaps the M763 or is it the M290? There is no M740...)

@Bulska
If the long gun feature (guns pitching up at close ranges) bugs you, just disable it...

If you guys want a good close range DM level, I recommend my Pit level.

Already made and designed for close up, brutal fighting. Might prove interesting to see the results.

A weapon with short range doesn't work well in cramped corridors?
What the hell have you been smoking?

If I may draw attention away from the (no so fun) lightning gun for a moment:

I am not that sure that every weapon needs as much tweaking as CX's original post suggests. I find that after a while, the weak, crap guns stop getting used, in favor of the more powerful, fun guns. That is not to say that some of the more powerful guns don't need to be toned down somewhat.

The other day, I was playing a loadout TDM match to 500 frags, and I found that I was constantly using my weapons in a certain order, in an effort to avoid their bad sides. I had:

X something Combat Knife
Dual Revolvers
Pineapples
G5 RPG

At the start of each new spawn, I'd start with the RPG until its clip ran out. Then switch to the Dual Revolvers and get 2 or 3 frags until their chambers ran out. And then finally to the pineapples, my favorite weapon. In those 500 frags, I scored 200 of them and about 100 (-suicides) were with the pineapple.

What does this say about the weapons I used?

The RPG is pretty powerful, and most of the time it is unavoidable. But without standing still, you'll have a harder time directing your rocket. The clip size of 2 makes it so you plan your shots much more carefully, as reloading takes ages. If I were to change one thing about this weapon, it would be its ability to turn on a dime. When I lead targets with it and they step into my laser, the rocket makes a 180 and hits them right in the face. How about making the rockets turn slower and fly slower with the laser, but then speed up if the laser is turned off. So you fire and direct it, and then turn the laser off for speed, but then turn it back on at the last second for course adjustments.

For the revolver, I was surprised at what CX said for toning it up. My first thought when using it was that it was a bit too powerful, in the right hands. It can make easy headshots by just aiming at the chest and using alt fire. And with dual-wield, it is an unstoppable death machine. If you spend some time with them, you can figure out the firing pattern that gives you the maximum number of dual shots with no empty clips (besides alt,alt,alt). I've run into a room with two of these blazing and been able to waste 3 enemies in 2 seconds, with little or no warning. But the reloading makes the revolver a one -time weapon for fast deathmatches. You are asking to be killed if you disable yourself for 4 seconds reloading one of these, let alone two.

How to change the revolver? Make the dot in the alt fire mode point to the upper shot, and not the lower one, so chest-head shots are harder. Make the shots throw your aim MUCH more, even when crouching. Crouching should help with bigger weapons that can distribute their recoil through your body more evenly when crouching. But handguns shouldn't act the same way. Make the bullets ricochet, so you'd put some more thought into firing blinding in a small room. And reduce the reload time to two seconds with a cuff-mounted reloader like the one Christian Bale had in Equilibrium.

Pineapples are, as I've said, my absolute favorite weapon in this mod. Mostly because they are so much more versatile than other incarnations in other games that i've seen. If I had these grenades in other games, I'd ace all the silly grenade throwing trials. When using these in a tense DM situation, I usually pull the pin about every 10 seconds, whether I see an enemy or not. If it gets too close, I just toss it down an empty corridor. I don't think anything should be done to these, because as it is they border on spam. If you are faced with someone who knows their 'nades, there is little you can do to defend yourself. When thrown by someone with expert timing (and fast as lighting), there is no way you can dodge a grenade that is set to blow up half a meter from your face. And its got the added hilarity of pulling the pin and then standing next to an enemy who is reloading, who only figures out your sinister plan at the last second.

One thing to change in Pineapples? Selectable yields. Or, instead of that, selectable ordinances. Just make them all one grenade, with Special 2 selecting toxic, frag, or flame.

Ah, the lightning gun. I do agree that it is a horrible noobish-spamlike weapon, but don't most good games have a weapon like that? Something for the noobs to get even with, and then when they feel ready, move on? If I see a noob using it, good for him, he's having a good time. But when I see someone that I know has more skills than that using it, well... he's just going to be hunted for a while.

One final note on a fun way to combat the lightning gun, when you get caught in its grasp and there seems to be nothing you can do, just pull the pin on a pineapple and laugh as your corpse takes sweet, sweet revenge.

That is common sense, not a problem with the mod.

I disagree about using the "more powerful" weapons. I often find myself taking out bots with any weapon. For experimentation purposes, I ran around some cDom levels focusing on using just one weapons, then fousing on another, etc. My frag:death ratio was about the same for all of them because I used them in an effective manner. I get the impression that all 5 pages of suggestions/bickering/idea-spilling/discussion simply comes down to personal taste, as has been stated before. Some people want only rambo-style gameplay, so some guns are way overpowered, like the lightning gun. Other people like counter-strike style gaming, so lighting gun is underpowered and railgun is overpowered. i'm not saying that any point made in this thread is invalid or not worth consideration by somone, but I just mean to encourage you to keep in mind that much of what you see is simply personal preference. A quick solution to satasfying your preferences is to download some of the dozens of weapon mods, Work2k4, and mix/match the weapon to your liking. After all, there's no rule saying you can't use BW along with, say, WoE or U4E. After scaling the overall BW damage, you can mix 'em with some other weapons to achieve almost any gaming style you fancy.

Who is CX, the3stars...?

If by CX you mean me, then that doesn't make much sense, I said none of what you say CX said...


I can see you are another grenadier.

I love those things, seems almost too powerful of weapons in the right hands, but keep in mind, when a grenade is sailing right at someone, all hope isn't lost for them. They can shoot it to deflect it away.

But what's with those 100 grenade suicides? Seems like someone might be a little careless...

I think you are right, Tyster. It really is all about personal taste. It's not really a balance issue that people think it is.

Take the lightning gun for example. I don't use it because the kills with it just aren't satisfying for me. Yet I have no problems taking Lightning Gunners out. It's just a matter of preference. Not balance.

Doh. For some reason I thought you were the author of this thread. I meant Kaboodles every time I said CX.

I didn't mean 100 grenade suicides, but (100 frags with granades) - (5 or 10 suicides).

Oh, I see. All is clear now.

Xav is against what this thread is about, why would he start it?