I've recently come up with a new concept for the BW mod; I've been playing BW for quite a while, and the only thing I was disappointed with was that BW didn't allow using default UT04 guns as well as guns from UT2Chaos Evolution mod. Though BW guns, system and concept are simply marvellous, seems more like a game from a game developing company rather than a fan mod.

By the most part my propositions regard the LoadOut game mode, though I'd like to begin with some points a bit remote from that.

I could start with a more pleasant thing than plain telling that it would be great if UT04 and UT2C weapons were back in the game, just tuned to fit BW rules; anyway, I do say it.

I think that Unreal LoadOut can be improved in such a way that a flexible 'class' system (not actually a class system) can be implemented in the mod so BW can be enjoyable to any kind of player: regardless if they prefer classic UT04 or spent months playing BW, or UT2C.

The main principle I kept in mind while creating this concept was that in no way a player should be confined to choosing a strict-framed class kit like medic, engineer, sniper, etc. It would ruin to much of the game's identity. But one could rather build a custom class himself, so almost an infinity of classes could be available.

Every gun in UT04 and BW is unique; but the very value of this uniqueness only finds it ultimate expression when a player is limited to a selected number of weapons, forced to exploit their original features to the maximum extent and learning how to use their arsenal against the rest of weapons available in the game.

Something of the kind is available in LoadOut mode, though there's not much balance to be found in it: a player who has chosen a couple of machineguns is more likely to win against a player who has chosen a Skrith rifle and a light shotgun provided both have maximum ammo: the former would prevail in firepower and ammo capacity.

I think each player can be given a number of slots both for light and heavy weapons, let's say 2 light guns, 2 heavy guns, a sidearm weapon, a melee weapon and a bunch of grenades. So players would be balanced: you can't carry 4 light guns or 4 heavy guns. Not realistic, but UT04 has never been meant to be a realistic

But when it comes to practice, you clearly see that there's no way to define such a thing as a 'heavy gun' or a 'light gun': all weapons vary in power and almost always there's a subtle difference between two weapons and it's hard to tell which one is the best. Moreover, a player who has mastered the Link Gun can easily defeat someone who has a Flak Gun full of ammo but is not used to playing with it. So, there must be a way to balance a player's outfit.

Don't expect me to start telling you tales about buying weapons CS-style. That's not unrealish (or tournamentesque?) I think the best way to balance guns is the amount of ammo you get per ammo pack collected. A Flak Gun wielder might get 9 flak shells per pack while a guy with a Rocket Launcher would get 6 rockets. If you don't agree with the numbers, put there any other suitable numbers just to your liking. But the principle stays universal: by tweaking the pickup amount you can balance almost all guns. Though it is obvious, I thought it necessary to repeat the well-known thing one more time.

The last thing before I come down to the details: a request to get UT04 and UT2C guns back. Sorry for getting on your nerves. But lots of players still love the default guns, it's such a pity you can't play with them in BW.

What needs tweaking? Just adding recoil/reload to default weapons. Animations have to be redone, and player's hands have to be added to the model. Quite a job, but many people think default guns deserve to be put into BW.

And just check out these, I can't play without them as many other people do:

Chaos Unreal Tournament Armoury Illustrated

I don't mean plain copying them into BW, but a BW version of those guns (= Chaos Compatibility) would be great! So to say if you run both BW and CUT2, BW-compatible versions of CUT2 guns become available under BW.

Crossbow, buzzsaw and Claw2 are brilliant! You can't miss them, but playing them under BW rules would be most pleasant for BW fans.

When combined, UT04 guns, CUT2 guns and BW weapons can form a flexible and well-balanced weapon system for load-out that would suit any kind of player.



So, the basic rules are:

+ You start with a number of guns pre-selected.
+ You can change loadoud before respawning.
+ You may or may not drop your gun to replace it with another gun taken from a dead opponent of the appropriate slot type - this is optional is default is No though nobody restricts you setting this flag to Yes.

THE SLOTS:

1. [Melee Weapon] - because it's cool to have one

2. [Sidearm Weapon] - a special light weapon rather than a basic choice; each of BW's sidearm guns has its unique features and none is useless.

3. [Light Weapon A] - actually not quite a 'lite' weapon: anything from shotguns and assault rifles, as well here goes CUT2 crossbow, Link Gun, Skrith Rifle and ASMD.

4. [Light Weapon B] - something from the same list to complement Light Weapon A; must not be the same gun as Light Weapon A. Basically LW-A and LW-B are an [assault rifle + a shotgun] though there an extremely wide choice to please anybody.

5. [Heavy Weapon A] - anything from the range between a Rocket Launcher and a Sniper Rifle: Railguns, Grenade Launchers, Flak Gun, Buzzsaw, anything which is deadlier than a general energy gun or assault rifle, machineguns belong to this slot as well. The difference in weapon power is balanced by the amount of pickup, should some of you say that a Flak Gun is worse than a machine gun.

6. [Heavy Weapon B] - something from the same list; it's good a player is limited only to 2 heavy weapons because carrying a rocket launcher, a railgun, a buzzsaw and flamethrower is no good. Moreover, a good sniper is seldom a rocket launcher master and vice versa. The limit gives some reason for doing some constructive thinking and the game gets a tactics flavour: what 2 guns should I choose and how well will they do against what my opponent has chosen?

7. [Grenades] - choose what 2 types of grenades you want to carry. Each ammo pickup gives you 4 'pineapples' or 2 grenades of other types (poison, incendiary, etc). For example, I can choose Fragmentation + Incendiary and carry 15 of each type, randomly getting 4 fragmentation ones or 2 incendiary per pickup.

8. [Special] - here you choose a class specific kit, though there's no such thing as a class in my system; just choose anything to your liking. The choice is between:

[Sapper Kit] - you can carry 6 Mines and 8 Explosive devices in addition to the rest of Weapons. Can prove extremely useful. Sort of an additional weapon slot.

[Nano Kit] - you can carry a Nano-Processor which allows you to heal your teammates and vehicles by releasing a host of NanoBots. Restoration is rather slow so it takes some time to heal somebody. You can as well heal yourself. A fully charged Nano Kit restores 50 health points and is recharged by +10 points per every ammo pickup. Uses two different charge types (= ammo types) for healing and vehicle repair.

[Spec Ops Kit] - you can carry a backpack-style thingie that can do 3 things:

1. Cloaking Field: you are invisible to your enemies at long distance and transparent at close distance. While Cloaked, you can not shoot, only stab with bayonets and melee weapons. It gives you a chance to backstab your enemy, though if you come closer than ~25 feet to your opponent he begins seeing you as a transparent silhouette. Cloaking drains the device's battery very rapidly.

2. Motion Amplifier: you run faster. The battery is only used while you run; while you stand still in SpeedBoost mode, the charge does not go down. Motion Amplifier drains the battery quite a way slower than Cloaking Field does, though speed bonus is only +25%.

3. Absorption Field - absorbs 20% damage taken by the player; the battery charge is only used when the player takes damage, not all the timew while Absorption Shield is active. While player is hit, the battery degrades quickly and the percentage of damage absorbed is little.

Maximal battery charge amount is rather high, though the recharge rate is very low (battery slightly recharges when you pick up an ammo pack)

You can have only one of the three options active at a time.

[Support Kit] - your maximal ammo capacity is increased by 25% for all types of weapons. You can drop ammo packs containing an amount of ammo equal to 20% of your ammo capacity for your teammates. Ammo packs can be two types: 1. with ammo for weapons from slots 1-3 and 2. with ammo for weapons from slots 4-6. For example, you've got a rifle with an ammo maximum of 100. With Support Kit the maximum is 125, i.e. +25%. If you drop an ammo pack, you'll spent 25 bullets, i.e. -20%. If you drop 3 ammo pack you'll spend 75 bullets respectively.

Note: it doesnt' matter that your weapons aren't the same as your teammates'. You just drop a general ammo pack spending your ammo and the one who picks it up gets a certain amount of ammo for his guns based on the pickup rate for each weapons. E.g. I drop 9 flak shells in an ammo pack, and my teammate gets 6 rockets when he picks it up. Not realistic, but easy and fun.

+ Grenades might be a [Special] option instead of an independent slot, let's say [Grenadier Kit] (I doubt the word 'grenadier' is correct here but it sounds great).

+ [Light Weapon C] and [Heavy Weapon C] additional slots can be enabled via mutator options. Less balance but probably more fun.

+ Having a Slot Manager would be great! I.e. an ability to make custom slot presets where you manually define the number of slots and what can be stored in them just the same way you deal with Weapon Swap Menu in Ballistics. The system described above can be just the basic preset of Slot Manager, not a hard-coded part of the mod.

Weapon Distribution:

[Melee Weapon] - anything that is melee, including the shield gun

[Sidearm Weapon]
"M806" High Velocity Pistol
"MRT6" Shotgun Sidearm
"A42" Skrith Sidearm
"XK2" Sub-Machinegun
[CUT2] Chaos Pulse Pistol ( aka CPP )
[UT04] Assault Rifle

[Light Weapon]
"M763" High Power 12 Gauge Shotgun
"M290" Double Barrelled Shotgun
"A73" Skrith Assault Weapon
"M50" Standard Assault Rifle
[CUT2] Crossbow (yessss, our precious...) (seriosly, crossbow rocks! a must have)
[CUT2] MUG
[UT04] ASMD Shock Rifle
[UT04] Link Gun
[UT04] BioRifle - tweaked a bit, this b*tch has never been a heavy gun despite its high damage.


[Heavy Weapon]
"M353" MachineGun
"M925" .50 Calibre MachineGun
"R78A1" .50 Sniper Rifle
"M75-TIC" Railgun
"G5" Rocket Propelled Grenade Launcher
[UT04] Flak Gun
[UT04] Rocket Launcher
[UT04] Minigun
[UT04] Sniper Rifle and Lightning Gun
[CUT2] Claw2
[CUT2] Buzzsaw
[CUT2] Chaos Grenade Launcher
[CUT2] ERDW

All other BW guns not mentioned in the list go to the appropriate slots according to the common sense (including future additions)

=====================================
EXISTING BW WEAPON ENHANCEMENT
=====================================

Skrith Rifle A73 - can be improved to be a lot more fun to use.

1. Shielding. When activated with Weapon Special Button, an energy shield is spawned in front of the player. While active, it drains the weapon's charge. When it drops to 0, the shield is turned off until you get a new battery in, then it reactivates unless you turn it off manually.

+ While shielded, the player can not shoot, only stab enemies with the bayonet.

+ The shield deflects 75% of bullets, laser beams, etc, and the rest 25% that manage to get through the shield do only 20-50% of damage.

With shielding function, A73 can get a unique tactical use and give an opportunity for the player to counter-attack a heavily armed opponent and stab him to death.

A73's bayonets would look better if a stream of disruptive energy flowed through them (not an actual upgrade, just an eye candy; after all, it's a technically advanced alien gun)

+ Auto-Rechargeable Battery - any time you can stick an ARB into your A73. The effect is similar to Skrith Sidearm Battery: A73 begins regenerating charge, though rather slow, and the power of the weapon is only 60% compared to normal battery. An ARB has a larger capacity than a normal battery, though the decrease in weapon power and slow recharge rate makes it not the best choice. Use an ARB only if you've run out of ammo (standard batteries).

+ When using an ARB, A73 shielding function is disabled due to ARB's low power.

2. "M763" High Power 12 Gauge Shotgun - can be improved with a Shock Rod.

Because in the 31st century it's silly trying to hit your opponent with the barrel

A shock rod is attached to the barrel like a bayonet. The tip of the rod sparkles with disruptive energy. When you stab an enemy with your shock rod, they get stunned and suffer a heavy damage, being unable to shot for 3 seconds.

You can activate/draw back the shock rod by pressing Weapon Special button. The only reason to draw it back is that it might be annoying to see the sparkling thingie under your barrel all the time. When fighting melee with your shotgun, it is extremely advisable to keep your shock rod activated. Pressing the Alt Fire button for a time results in making a series of rapid hits. Double pressing Alt Fires makes you dash forward and make a powerful stab.

Being a short-ranged assault weapon, M763 could greatly benefit from adding a shock rod to it. Run out of ammo? No time to reload? Charge your enemy in an instant and stab him so he will get stunned for a couple seconds; while he's unable to fire, finish him off.

3. "M290" Double Barrelled Shotgun

Almost the same upgrade as M763: a Plasma Bayonet. Looks exactly like a sharp-pointed short version of laser sword from Star Wars. Makes more damage than a shock rod but does not stun enemy. Two hits are enough to kill an opponent. Can be turned on/off.

Switching between single/double fire can be done via switch firing mode button, and Alt Fire can be used for stabbing.

The reason of upgrade is the same as of M763.

4. Skrith Blades can be augmented with a force field generator.

The principle is: when blocking, a force field is generated in front of the player similar to A73's force shield. When attacking, the force field dissipates. Another way to charge an enemy in close combat with a chance not to get shot the next second. Though while attacking you'll have a good chance that your opponent will get a shotgun load right into your head so you'd better be quick.

So that's all I wanted to propose

Post Scriptum

1. Plz forgive me my bad English once again. Usually I write in it quite okay but today I'm sooo damn tired that the only thing I could squeeze from myself are short moronic phrases. Sorry.

2. Plz don't beat me to death for proposing to get UT04 weapons back in BW.

damn you put alot of thought into this. I'll comment later... pressed for time as of now, but otherwise your ideas seem okay.

Okay, I'll take a stab at this.

First, thanks for going to all the effort of writing up this impressive post. I'll try and ackle this issue-by-issue.

UT04 and CHAOS weapons:
I'll agree that SOME of the UT04 weapons would be cool weapons for BW, assuming that they had the whole inaccuraccy/chaos ssytem applied to them, and were essentially rebuilt from the ground up. Adding reloading, remodeling, and possibly added features would be a good thing. But some of the UT weapons should definetly never find themselves in BW. Weapons that should be rebuilt for BW:

Sheildgun: Human weapon with same or similar sheilding features to what you suggested for the Skrith Rifle. Possibly make it more useful than the original sheildgun for jump-boosts, or whatever. But a Human-built powered melee weapon would be good.

Shock Rifle: The UTC's energy rifle, a concept that's been fairly popular with the BW community, but hasn't been done yet, could end up as something similar to the shock-rifle. With or without the shock-combo feature, I don't really care. But it's an idea, anyhow.

Flak Cannon: It's the most popular weapon in UT, and I think RS could do a good job of making it into a workable, and awesome weapon. Don't know about features, don't really care.

Link Gun: Also a possible UTC energy rifle.

As for Chaos. . .Yes, their weapons are awesome. Very well-done, nowhere near as dumb as most of the UT weapons. I feel the same about adding these that I do about adding the old UT weapons, aka only some of them would be good to transfer over. Also, aking Chaos's permission to use their weapon concepts is a defininite necessity. Weapons from Chaos that should be modified and brought over:

Chaos Pulse Pistol: Pretty much a UTC energy pistol. Could easily be made inot a cooler weapon than what Chaos made.

Cossbow: There's been a lot of talk about making a skrith bow, and a lot of features (like the blades on the front) are present in both concepts. I don't really support the crossbow, but I support Chaos-Crossbow-like features for the skrith bow.

Chaos Grenade Launcher: Plans for a canister gun or grenade launcher like this have been around for a while, And I'd like to see it happen sometime.

C.U.T.T.E.R.: Something nearly identical to this was on RS's first weapon poll, but didn't make the cut. I think it should make it back in at some point.

Also, taking ideas from Chaos would DEFINETLY be something RS should only do with their approval.

Loadout :
I agree that constricting people to specific classes can be annoying, but BW isn't doing that right now, so it's not an issue. Second, your suggestion that people should spawn with two "light" primary weapons and two "heavy" primary weapons does in no way attempt to fix the supposed imbalance in the current loadout system. Giving people the ability to essentially have four weapons that currently fall under "primary weapon" would NOT prevent people from having two or more machineguns/assault rifles. And if you think that the assault rifles are more effective weapons than the shotguns, then choose the assault rifles instead of shotguns. No one's stopping you. I've got no objections to two kinds of grenades being allowed, other than I like the mild frustration at having to choose just one. That kind of thing s actually kinda enjoyable.

Class Kits:
This is NOT battlefield. Class kits would seriously annoy me. However, RuneStorm DOES want at some point to make a system for spawining with/picking up pieces of equipment and attachments for weapons which have different functions and uses.

Current Weapon Enhancement:
A73: Energy shields don't seem like skrith style. Skrith are all about agressive attacks. Defense isn't their thing. And the auto-recharge battery seems like more trouble than it's worth. If I can't use the skrith rifle at full power, I'm probably gonna pull something else out. And energy running through the blades? I don't think so. I'm REALLY fond of how the blades look now. Plus, if they were energy blades, it wouldn't make sense for them to work when you're out of ammo. And I'd like my bayonets to work without having to reload first.

M763 Shotgun: An electrical lance thingy? Heck no! It's be ugly as sin on that gun. And who wouldn't it make sense to bludgeon people with a weapon? Beating people with things made sense a millenia ago, and it makes sense now. Why shouldn't it make sense a millenia from now. (And I don't think BW is set 1000 years in the future. That seems way too far off) Plus, replacing a lethal melee attack with a stuning melee attack that uses high tech nonsense makes no sense. Why would we want to make the gun look ugly so it can be less useful?

M290 Shotgun: Laser/plasma swords, eh? That's a bit cliche, don't you think? Anyhow, it would take away one of the very few advantages that the M763 has over the M290. Also, it would look dumb.

Skrith Blades: Why give the skrith blades a forcefield when you want to put the sheildgun in anyways? And again, shields don't seem very skrith-y. Besides, there are already shields ingame. Haven't you noticed the awesome hit effects that BW adds when you shoot people with "armor"? Actually, I agree that the skrith blades need another feature to make them more useful. At one point, I had proposed being able to launch the blades off of the sides of the gauntlets at your target, though the concept didn't get discussed much.

Anyhow, what's about everything that I've got to say on this. Sorry if I sounded too critical. Bad habit. But I think you've got a few good ideas in there, and I really apreciate the time you must have put into typing all that up. Thanks!

-Carsomyr

Thank you for your time, Carsomyr. I don't think you've been too critical to my post

I'll try and make some comments now.

First, I agree there's no need in dumb copying EVERYTHING from UT04 and Chaos into BW. I didn't make a dogma of that


Don't you think that the default Shieldgun looks too a bit dumb? Probably something more sense-making should be done in BW, just roughly following the concept of a shieldgun. You were right when you stated that transferring concepts is better than transferring things. I'll try to imagine something of the kind to fit the human technology style in BW.


Default UT04 Shock Rifle is an ambiguous thing - you can't aim with it, it hasn't got a sniper scope though it's damn accurate. It bugs me that there are no guns in BW that could have aiming mode and weren't sniper rifles at the same time. Moreover, Shock Rifle has got sort of a LCD scope on it though never used.

My suggestions:

+ Reloading for ASMD, following good old BW tradition.
+ Gun type: a substitute for an assault rifle. Very accurate, relatively slow fire rate (as compared to traditional non-energy assault rifles).
+ I said very accurate, not absolutely accurate. Player's hands shake, so accuracy is good but yet not 100%
+ The gun has an LCD scope similar to UT04's Lightning Gun. Min zoom 2X, max zoom 6X.
+ While zooming, player's speed drops dramatically. The more you zoom, the slower you move. I think it's quite natural and will prevent people from running around shooting other people sniper-style with the shock rifle. I.e. possible balance fix.
+ Change the gun model slightly, add a good-looking LCD screen. Add the same effect to zooming screen as UT04 Lightning Gun has (i.e. noise and artifacts on the screen, useless but looks cool).
+ Add player's hands
+ By the most part default model looks cool; I feel nostalgia
+ I forget. Tweak the gun to be balanced... and fit BW.


It's too overpowered in UT04. Simple solution: force the player to load each shot manually. And probably make the projectiles go faster. Deadlier, slower, a heavy gun in fact. But should it be manually reloadable, there will be a chance for the opponent to dodge. After all, it looks like if it was supposed to be reloaded after every shot.


Agreed. We've got too few energy guns in BW and Link Gun is the only beam gun around with cool effects.

All other guns could also make a use in BW: some of the models are nice, especially the minigun.

.
It goes without question.



Agreed.


Just make a Skrith-style texture, tweak the model a bit and add an auto reloader similar to cogs in UT04 Minigun. Cogs would be cool! Of course, energy arrows should be added. Those with plasma or EMP charged arrowtips. And the model already looks Skrith-style: blades and all.

Arrow types should stay what Chaos made.


Needs only graphical tweaking (reloading, player's hands, etc.)


Just the same as CGL. The concept is fine, the looks even more brilliant.

Chaotic Dreams FC12 Multi-Item Launcher (aka: The Claw2) :
You forgot that. It's a marvellous piece of weaponry.

Chaos Multi Utility Gun (aka MUG):
Just replace the fire with poison gas. Freezing gas is fine just at the point that we have it for now.

Enhanced Rail Delivery Weapon (aka ERDW):
An excellent model for a Plasma gun. We haven't got plasma guns in BW, have we? It doesn't look like a Railgun, anyway.


You didn't quite catch the sense. In loadout, a guy with 2 machineguns would beat a guy with a Skrith Rifle and M50, provided both have maximum ammo and the same skill level.

In my system, each player has 2 light and 2 heavy guns. And still NO ONE limits the player to choosing two different shotguns or two assault rifles for light weapons, and heavy slots can be filled with almost anything you could imagine.

In other words: the gist is that you can't have 4 light guns and your opponent - 4 heavy guns. The latter fact is most important.


In my system class kits are not kits in traditional abstract sense (i.e. classes themselves) but just kits, boxes, packs or call it anything you want, with special equipment, just special items. Don't want a Spec Ops Kit? Take a grenadier kit, BW grenades rock.


I do totally disagree with these words. Being a race with a century-long tradion of bold assaults and fierce close combat, Skrith should have made something to prevent their warriors being shot before getting close to the enemy. Humans relying on long-range weaponry are more likely not to have invented an energy shield than Skrith do.

In general, any assault-type warrior should have some something to shield him... how to put this, ehm...

Let's say so, no-one wants to get shot while performing a task which involves a possibility almost close to a certainty of being ripped up and out with a machinegun burst.

I wrote that the player can't shoot while having the force shield on and only melee attacks are allowed. This belongs to assault-style as well and one can't use the force shield while fighting long-range.

Didn't I convince you? Then ask youreslf a question: would you be happy to charge a machinegun armed opponent with the default Skrith Rifle we have now in BW? If you wouldn't, why should Skrith be happy to?

A rechargeable battery is a doubtful thing though I just wanted to share some of my fancies.

As for the energy blades, you are unable to kill a robot, a cyborg or a human wearing an exoskeleton hi-tech armour with a simple blade. The blades could use an independent mini-cell for producing plasma, let it have an unlimited charge not to bug the player too much. Or the charged blade mode would start simultaneously with activating the force shield.


First, when I said 31st century I didn't mean it literally. I just meant 'far-away future' from 100 to any number if years from 2000.

Then the shock lances and plasma bayonets. That was just the first thing that came to my mind. I don't think it could look lame, but rather annoying (sparkling energy thingies just under the barrel are no good).


1. this type of melee attack is not lethal at all, if your opponent is heavily armored; you have to strike at least three or four times to kill or maim a person just wearing a protective helmet; in this way you can't damage a decently built robot at all

2. did i say shock rod was made especially for stunning? I meant that the stun is the ultimate outcome of the miraculous acquaitance between the victim and six thousand electric Volts at the tip of the shock rod, resulting in heavy health loss, unconsciousness, convulsions and all.

I believe there must be some more difference between the two shotguns than just the number of barrels and melee ability. Variety - it's just BW style

The two-barreled one could be less accurate, slightly slower to reload, have shorter distance, etc., etc.

So... I'll try to put it in accurate details rather than in conceited words.

"M763" aka Ms. High Power 12 Gauge Shotgun & "M290" aka Mrs. Double Barrelled Shotgun

(though 'shotgun' is of masculine gender in my native language, it sounds both brutal and extremely feminine in English; I like the word just as much as the weapon itself)

+ Choice between single and double shot is made via Fire Mode button.

+ Weapon Special button toggles between melee and ranged modes.

+ No matter what kind of device is used for melee, - plasma bayonets, poisoned carrots, skrith candlesticks - it should be drawn back, hidden or something - while the player is in ranged mode. First because it would be annoying to have something under the barrel while shooting, second - the pellets would be sure do damage it 'cause it's shotgun and they don't go all the way straight after leaving the barrel (which is perfectly obvious and I shouldn't really have wasted my words and your time on it)

+ While in ranged mode, Fire button is fire and Alt-Fire is aiming Far Cry style. It gives more accuracy but makes the player move slower. Zoom is 2x, slowdown is -25%. NOTE! 'accuracy' doesn't mean 'pellet spread', it's just plain accuracy: when aiming, your hands shake less and the load is more likely to go straight in front of you, but the spread of pellets is just the same

+ While in Melee Mode, Fire button is thrust and Alt-Fire is slash.

+ Some more possible melee devices:

M763 - a drill, damn you! A six-inch drill hidden in the pump or how-it-is-called-in-English. I perfectly realize it sounds stupid but just imagine what a sound will make a titanium drill against flesh and armor and what fine bloody effects could be made for it.

M290 - an exquisite chainsaw bayonet; it's not supposed to be quite W40k style, I think it could look elegant and yet be suitable for penetrating most kinds of armour. After all we'll be free of Darth Wader stuff...

I'd like to say one more time - when you go into ranged mode, drills, bayonets etc. are automatically hidden.

P.S.
I think plain transferring of Chaos stuff into BW even with the permission of the Chaos team wouldn't be nice. Better do it this way: when you run BW under chaos, you get all the modified chaos weapons instead of default ones. So Chaos fans will be able to play BW under Chaos and BW fans will be able to play Chaos under BW.

Downloading both Chaos and BW isn't much of a pain in the ass, moreover Chaos is very compatible with other mods.

P.P.S. Shotguns are assault weapons so they're supposed to have something to support melee in a world so brutal and harsh that we find in BW.

I don't like the idea of multi-functional weapons, shotguns are supposed to be shotguns and so are all other guns.

Would you put razor blades on the front of a remote control? I didn't think so.

It wasn't me who brought up the idea of using shotguns as clubs

Though in a cyberpunk world like that of UT and BW this looks okay (IMHO).

After all, if one doesn't want to fight melee with shotguns, they are not forced to toggle melee mode and the bayonet won't come up.

P.S.
Just thought of an idea: make an option to score 2 frags per opponent killed in melee... (though counted as one death as for the opponent's battle stats).

This could result in crazy melee assaults and probably some more fun.

Do not like it? Turn the option off Like it? Enjoy.

Can you think of a good logical reason why you should get 2 frags for killing with melee weapons? Because you only kill one at a time...

2 frags for a meele kill? that sounds really stupid.

The bad: First off...Whats with the big ad for Chaos UT? Plus the existing BW weapons are just fine the way they are, loadout is fine the way it is, because no matter what the guy with 2 machine guns can always only use one at a time, they take a fair time to reload, and the guy with the assault rifle...ie me can usually pick him off before he even knows im there, either that or blast him in the face with a grenade from the gl...hence there is balance in loadout.

The neutral: Other mod weapons and standard weapons can be used with BW...just not with loadout, all it takes is using swapping tools properly

The good: the basic idea of different class/class kits or w/e is interesting:
namely the support kit and spec ops kit, though i think the spec ops kit should be broken down into just the cloaking and sound surpression gear with the other suggested spec ops abilities put into other kits
cloaking would be a nice ability but should be tweaked so you can shoot...but if you do it cancels the cloak and you will have to recloak again after

This is all in response to the first post of this thread

CUT rocks, like it or not. But I can't run BW with CUT or play CUT BW-style with recoil, etc...


That's why I made 'the big ad for Chaos'
You can't use other weapon mods with BW 'cause any traditional weapon needs rebalancing before being put in BW.


And some other poster (Carsomyr I believe) found class kits annoying and my Chaos-related ideas - good.
So probably you should have been a little less subjective? What one doesn't like is to the liking of another.

Still I'd be delighted to see some comments by the devs themselves. What I propose isn't an impossible mission.

my god!! i'll read this fully tomorrow, when i'm at the ISP..

The problem is that your ideas are the total opposite of being original, and very few people like that.

cehcked it out and i agree with what Cas said, energy shields and energy lances and stuff, doesn't make sense, would just make the guns seem really stupid cause like HOW did the Terran create plasma/energy swords and stuff.

Though i wouldn't mind a bit of a class, which would be cool, like some support class that can has surpressive weapons and stuff, and each class can in some menu like the loadout in game one, choose from a few different prim weapons and sidearms (while some weapons won't be allowed for some classes). It could work with DM or TDM 'and all that good stuff' (oh no red vs blue quoting). And you'd only be able to change classes after you have died.

Thats way to many slots for Loadout! 8 is too much mister, though i think their should be a light and heavy slots but thats it. And no, Loadout shouldn't be able to be played with UT2k4 or other weapons from other mods, should only be BW (or maybe JW at some point, option anybody?).

Thats my take on it, leave the BW weapons like they are but give sepearte the Main weapons in Loadout with Light and Heavy weapons, and add some cool mut that makes any match in UT2k4 a class based fight (would work with any gametype).

Carsomyr was 110% right; remember that we are talking about the Skrith, what you are describing there is what humans' strategy is. The developers intented the Skrith to be more offensive that defensive, if you want to argue with that, do so to the devs, not to Carsomyr.

2 Everybody Who Says That Energy Shields Are Not Skrith Style:[/b]



P.S.
No offence was meant.

What does that mean in English?

You want grounds to my opinion? Multi-functional things kill diversity, look at cellphones and PCs, the only difference between their functionality is the weight. The same goes for weapons in the mod, if they were multi-functional, you just pick the one with the most features and use it all the time and never touch the others.

man.. again the Skrith appear

lemme clear up some stuff:

Skrith would not be found waddling around with energy shields! they stay hidden, striking only when they KNOW they can get a kill.. they are stealthy, and remain unseen.. they dont rush head-on in a maniac frenzy!

BTW, how the hell am i gonna read all that

i'll try

And I forgot to mention, you can use WoRM or other weapon swapper mutator to use weapons with BW ones.

But giving the default ones BW features doesn't sound that good to me. But I have to admit that it could be interesting to see the default ones have the Ballistic hand holding them and adding reloading and other things.

read some more about BW guns being improved:

i think that they will stay pretty much ahow they are for now, with reanimations, and retexturing only changing.. if we decide to add features to any, they wouldnt make all guns seem like they are all the same

I wouldn't be against it if you could perform a melee attack with all the guns, like a Melee Attack key, but stuff like flashlights or other features in the same area, just would degrade each weapon's uniqueness.

Probably make the following difference between the two shotguns:

1. Double-barreled shotgun. Heavy. Hard to aim, i.e. has no aiming ability. Uses special high-power ammo (increased number of pellets, special powder, overall damage ~25% higher than standard shotgun ammo). Reinforced barrels prevent the gun from exploding/getting out of order while using that type of ammo. The gun is too heavy and has an unsuitable shape to be held and used as an effective melee weapon. Primary fire - double shot, high recoil, crosshair jumps up and swerves aside after every double shot (so a series of double shots without proper aiming after each shot will be no good). Secondary fire - single shot, with much less recoil and crosshair jumping. M290's pump is much harder to draw than M763's so it takes more time to cock it.

Power of shot degrades depending on range, but slightly.

2. Single-barreled shotgun.
Light, easier and takes less time to cock, special aiming mode (2X Zoom, 20% Player Speed Penalty, acts as Weapon Special).

Power of shot degrades notably depending on range.

Unlike M290, M763 is suitable for close combat as well. Has a melee figting device. Possible variants:

1. A short, wide sword-bayonet attached to the pump in such a way and shape so it doesn't get damaged while firing. Very casual but seems to be less annoying to those who don't like weird sci-fi stuff.

2. A drill. Extremely weird, extremely fun, makes the gun look a bit bizarre.

3. A plasma bayonet. Seems not to fit the concept.

Here's a good picture of a shotgun with bayonet supported: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:M1897shotgun.jpg

P.S.
Probably make slug ammunition for the shotguns? Big anti-armour slugs, inaccurate but effective against armour at short range. Maybe only suitable for the double-barreled thingy only.

Here's a fine reference on shotguns, and especially on ammo. I'm almost sure you've already read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shotgun

Plasma bayonet just doesn't make sense, do you even know what plasma is?

But number 1 could be good if RS create a Melee Attack key, but the single shotty already has a swing attack...

As I see it, plasma is almost any kind of gas so hot that it emits light and has certain electromagnetic properties so the atoms stick together that's why plasma balls do not dissipate. Tell me if I'm wrong then I'll go consult Wikipedia or some book on physics.

A plasma bayonet is, therefore, sort of plasma burner emitting a dagger-shaped 'beam' of low-energy plasma at a high speed. I believe it could melt armour/turn flesh into ashes.

There's no need in Melee Attack key 'cause melee fighting is only effective when you can do melee attack just the very moment you want without finding the proper key with your left hand on ASWD. Right mouse button, or alt-fire, is just fine. It lets you stab your enemy in their face just any moment between shots. Weapon Special would be perfect for aiming mode far cry style for some guns. Many games use the 'E' key for it, I use it for Weapon Special in BW and basically it could be as well the aiming button.

...Never knew that rifled shotguns could fire standard pellet load without spoiling the rifling:

I really don't like to counterdict people, but I think the shotguns are perfect how they are. I rarely use the melee for the single barrel, and it is just as powerful as the double barrel if used properly. The double barrel is great for groups of targets at a medium range or heavily armored targets up close. It does a great job at that how it is.

The single barrel on the other hand (which is the one like best ), is good for medium distances, with a good fire rate and tight spread. There is also the melee, but I don't need it to rack up the kills. The only practical use for melee (at least for me) is if you see someone oblivious to you and you don't want to waste ammo to kill them, but even then I'll usually just use one shell to kill them.

I think the shotguns are perfect how they are, although i would love to see slugs for them sometime.

You were correct about the plasma, but how are you going to keep millions of degrees hot object on a weapon without the weapon itself starting to go liquid?

Melee Attack key would be pretty good if you can perform it as soon as you need to, so you could use Mouse 3 if it is available.

Well, an EMP emitter could just form a special sort of EM field before the shotgun so the air inside this EMP trap would turn into plasma. It wouldn't get in direct contact with the weapon. Low-energy plasma sword wouldn't be more dangerous than a casual flamethrower.

Melee attack with M763 is great while playing Invasion - you won't ever get enough ammo to do away with all those bugs and fireflies.



I believe having a bayonet is more a matter of style than functionality, though it can be really effective in some cases.

M290 and M763, in my opinion, should be a bit more different both in manner of operation and style. M290 should be a brutal slugga not easy to operate, while M763 looks like more a versatile light assault weapon. I just keep shouting about the bayonet because 1. it looks silly that you can bludgeon people with M763 and can not with M290 'cause it doesn't require any special skill to do so 2. it's dumb to hit armoured guys with bare barrel 3. some skillful bayonet swing techniques could make M290 look more unique and stylish

Jesus, i leave for a day and theirs like a ton of new stuff to read, gahg!

This has to be the longest thread page in the history of these forums.

I think your right Bjossi.