Dog Catcher Monster

[Vaporlynx]

Been a whyle since I released anything. Figured I'm about happy with where this monster is at.

I present, the Dog Catcher!
[shot]http://i159.photobucket.com/albums/t136/Vaporlinx/Shot00000-1.jpg[/shot]
And his colalred and soon to be disarmed prey.
[shot]http://i159.photobucket.com/albums/t136/Vaporlinx/Shot00001-1.jpg[/shot]

This is one mean guy, armed with a collargun capable of attaching a collar to his prey at range, and staking them to the ground. Once collared he moves in and disarms his prey.
Once disarmed, he gives his now harmless prey a doghouse to cower in, and sets up camp, waiting for another target to happen by.

He can be downloaded here.
It seems to play well with most everything else, it will occasionally throw accessed nones when he collars a player with a weapon zoomed in, and will cause bots to throw accessed nones if they try to shoot a weapon whyle he is disarming them.

Feel free to leave any comments, or bug reports, or perhaps even lies and slander!

[Baryonyx]

Sounds like a lot of fun, I'll test him this weekend and tell you what I think, I've just been very busy with studying geological sciences...

[Baryonyx]

Okay, did some testing.
First off, the satore line you provided, isn't it supposed to start with "MonsterTable" and not "AddonMonsters"? Just wondering.

Also, if you want to play with the dogcatcher in InvasionEverywhere, the lines you need will be these:

MonsterConfigs=(MonsterClass="vpl_dcatcher.dogcatcher",MonsterName="DogCatcher",SizeScale=1.000000,HealthScale=1.000000,SpeedScale=1.000000,AccelScale=1.000000,SkillModifier=1.000000,ScoreValue=1,bEnabled=True)

KnownMonsters=vpl_dcatcher.dogcatcher

For U4E Gateways gametype, the line would be:

monsterTable=(allowSmall=False,allowMed=True,allowBig=False,allowHuge=False,allowBoss=False,MonsterClass=Class'vpl_dcatcher.dogcatcher',monstername="DogCatcher",monstergroup="Vaporlynx")

I have to say, the DogCatcher does his job very well. He is a serious threat if you underestimate him. Also, the taunting he uses is very funny and fitting, such as "Tag 'em and bag 'em".
[SHOT]http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/8624/shot00824.jpg[/SHOT] [SHOT]http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/7749/shot00812s.jpg[/SHOT]
(Ignore the code-spam, that is generated by the weapon I used)

Although you are mostly safe when you obey him and go into the house, it does not protect you from everything...
[SHOT]http://img833.imageshack.us/img833/6188/shot00822.jpg[/SHOT]

Still, I got some remarks to make:

[SHOT]http://img577.imageshack.us/img577/46/shot00817.jpg[/SHOT]
This happens some time with multiple dogcatchers. Also, the houses are clipping with environment sometimes.

[SHOT]http://img851.imageshack.us/img851/8789/shot00810.jpg[/SHOT] [SHOT]http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/272/shot00809.jpg[/SHOT]
While the chain works well in third person, it does not in first person. There, it just stays at a single point. This might be induced through mods I use though.
Also, when a chained player is killed, they sometimes spin around the post in circles wildly, ignoring the ground.

In my opinion, you should either make the chain vanish some time after the Catcher who installed it died, or make it possible to shoot with hitscan weaponry too, as the players sometimes have no explosive weapons with some mutators such as Ballistic weapons and would therefore be tied until death.

Otherwise, this is great monster. Very fun to play with and should definitely tried out by every fan of invasion.

[Vaporlynx]

Important parts for adding it as a monster are the class and package names. I do all my testing with a server copy running and a client copy running, I get better performance this way, but I don't catch all the bugs. I think this is why the chain is acting a little funny at times, such as when a player dies and their corpse starts orbiting the stake. Ill take a gander at how it works differently in offline play.

Ideally I would have the chain be a mesh, but it looks odd stretching and compressing the chain links, currently it is just a beam emitter set to run between the stake and the player's collar, as such I dont know of a way to make the chain itself interact with weapons fire. If I can come up with a different (and hopefully better looking) way for a chain to run between the collar and the stake then I will certainly make the chain susceptible to weapons fire.

Current the chain can be broken by destroying the stake, by activating a new adrenaline combo, and by overstretching the chain. (ie telephoning, or getting knocked clear the hell on the other side of the map, I don't think the player can break the chain this way on their own, hopefully it stays that way)

The chain is working improperly in first person because the collar is inheriting its 'hidden' state from the player it is attached to. Ill see if I can force it to be unhidden, or have the chain fallback to running between the stake, and a foot or so below the players eye height.

Hopefully I can get the remainder of the bugs hammered out so I can put this guy to bed and work on one of the other three monster projects I have going. Perhaps the mimic or freezing monster next...