[Weapon] Battery Launcher

[Wormbo]

I hardly expect anyone here to have played Operation Inner Space, as it was a 16 bit Windows (3.x) game (it might still be playable on 32 bit versions of recent Windows incarnations), but I'd like to present you a remake of one of its weapons: The Battery Launcher.
Long story short, Inner Space is a 2D space shooter game that takes place within your computer. You can collect the icons of your very own installed program files as a kind of currency to purchase ship upgrades such as weapons, armor, etc. Particularly many of the weapons are quite unique for a game of this type. Of course you get the standard range of rockets (dumb, radar-guided, heat-seeking, etc.), but there are also quite special weapons, such as potatoes and beer bottles. In the levels there may be weapon platforms, such as flamethrowers, doughnut launchers ("Enforcer: Getting Doughnut, leave it to me!"), or, in particularly uncomfortable levels, battery launchers. You can also purchase batteries as a weapon system for your ship. Inner Space batteries are essentially heat-seeking rockets that emit electric discharges at anything in their way.

Back to UT2004, I present the Battery Launcher. This is basically an upgraded AVRiL that launches battery rockets. These batteries also only target vehicles, but may be a bit more efficient against players on foot. They have a slightly larger explosion radius, but deliver slightly less explosion damage against vehicles. This is more than made up by their lightning damage that can damage anything in front of the battery even before it actually impacts. Batteries are not just gimmicky AVRiL rockets, though. An impact on a Paladin-style shield will drain 2000 hitpoints from it.

The following download includes a mutator that replaces the AVRiL's weapon and ammo pickups with the Battery Launcher's. The mutator really only exists so you can test the weapon, but I really expect it to be placed in maps directly (potentially myLevel'd - I included a description in the readme), where it can actually be used together with the standard AVRiL. (I could imagine general AVRiL availability and separately available Battery Launchers, for example.)

Download

[Miauz55555]

Uhh it's pink ..ähm.. nice!
Just had a short look on it. I like the lightnings that swirl over the vehicles.

How mutch damage caused it on the power-core in comparison to the AVRIL?

[Wormbo]

That seems to depend on how far away from the core or node you are.
An AVRiL rocket does 125*1.6=200 damage on impact, a Battery Rocket just does 120*1.4=168 damage on impact, but does quite some zapping before the impact. I suppose you will get the most out of it if you launch the battery just out of zapping range of 1500 UU, so the target is in zapping range longer because the rocket still moves slower.
I tried on Island Hop and from just behind the larger rock next to the SPMA (should be about 3000UU away) I managed to reduce code health from initial 4500 to 4241 with a single shot. Firing from the small ledge right next to the explosive barrels (which is about 1600UU away) reduced the initial core health to 4161 instead. In that regard, trying to run from a battery rocket might be just as bad an idea as letting it hit you.

[Miauz55555]

[...] In that regard, trying to run from a battery rocket might be just as bad an idea as letting it hit you.

I make another test with bots on Torlan the battery destroys a Manta and a Raptor with the first launch in short distance. And frags a Bot before it hits it, when it don't dodge. It looks really funny with the lightnings.

Another question:
How can I see the health of the core in numbers? In game it's just %. You have code something cool, or is there an option which I just overlooked.

[Wormbo]

Cores are called ONSPowerCodeRed and ONSPoerCoreBlue internally regardless of their current color, i.e. in case of swapped sides ONSPowerCoreBlue is actually defended by the red team. Just use those names to query their Health property:

Code: Select all

getall ONSPowerCoreRed Health
getall ONSPowerCoreBlue Health

(commands are case insensitive)
You can also enter "getall ONSPowerCore Health" at the console to get the health of all nodes and cores at the same time.
In any case, ignore the lines starting with "Class", those show the class default values (0). Numbers in power node names are not related to node numbers on the map.

[Miauz55555]

Thank you.

[Pegasus]

Got a chance to experiment with this in an online setting yesterday, and I gotta confess, being able to point it in the direction/vicinity of enemy pedestrians and having it take care of (most of) the fight for me didn't exactly leave me with the best of impressions in terms of design and balancing. OTOH, damage and effectiveness against raptor[-derivative] enemies did seem sensible enough, judging by the few attempts I made. Anywho, just a quick few thoughts as feedback on this, based on a single play session, for what that's worth.

Last project for the year, or is there something else still in the works you aim to tinker with before the month ends, W?

[Wormbo]

Last project for the year, or is there something else still in the works you aim to tinker with before the month ends, W?

Not really.

[Pegasus]

Then could I perhaps interest you in a minor, aesthetic adjustment to one (although probably applicable to one more) other project of yours from a few years ago?

[Wormbo]

I'm always open to suggestions to any of my creations (except maybe Anti TCC, for reasons) or suggestions to new creations.