Right then. What's this thread about? Weapons and vehicles, and certainly not maps. Why? Because, I browse around the mod forums here quite a bit, and I see a horribly overwhelming imbalance between the amount of map mods and the number of other mods.
And it's annoying. Don't get me wrong, I can see why it would be so: making and original map without it getting gimmicky is a lot easier than make an original weapon. There's just more that you can do to add a twist to the map, weapons are only capale of so much. Same with vehicles, although it's to a much smaller degree on that front.
As such, I've decided to make a little suggestions thread of my own, in the hopes that modders browsing here will get some ideas for a nifty new weapon/vehicle, as opposed to a map. Come on, weapons and vehicles are so much more adaptable and versatile than maps. Sure, you could set up one map for all gametypes, but it's still not as great as being able to use modded weapons/vehicles anywhere ((Well, exluding servers and such that don't have the needed files. But I'm single player obssesive anyway, so I can't find much interest in that fact))
Abbreviations and acronyms that might show up:
W.D.I.D: What Does It Do?
Desc. and/or Descap: Description
T.I.F.L.A: Things I Felt Like Adding
Weapons:
Name: Skyfall
Appearance: I don't have any particular design in mind, just a few generalized guidelines: it shouldn't be anything particularly streamlined. Big and bulky. In addition, it should have a high-tech appearance, something glowy and sci-fi.
W.D.I.D: Primary fire is a practically harmless laser beam (think Ion/Target Painter) with extremely long range. More than the lightning gun, by a touch. Secondary fire is a zoom/scope. It's pretty much harmless to ground vehicles and infantry, but when fired at flying vehicles, it becomes very effective. Flying vehicles hit by the primary fire will have their gravity/weight/whatev alterred in such a manner as to cause them to fall with extreme velocity. (I don't know what this would look like in code, but basically making the cursed thing plummet. With enough velocity and force, I'm reasonably sure it'll damage the vehicle. I'm not sure, but I think I acheived a similar effect by landing a Raptor at full force from the max height of Torlan)
Desc.: Annoyed with the plague of "campers" introduced with the appearan of increasingly useful flying vehicles, Liandri Corporation has put research into the creation of a weapon designed to deal with said vehicles. Now, in addition to blowing them up with AVRiLs, you can turn gravity against them!
Additional Notes/T.I.F.L.A: This is pretty much the manifestation of my hate for the fact that even simple BOTS will occasionally camp the raptor spawns in maps, in addition to the big tower o' Torlan.
Name: Defiled Crucifix (Pardon if this offends anyone)
Appearance: A crucfix, the cross part pointed forward. Dirty, rotting wood and a few bands of cloth holding it together, mixed with some sci-fi "neo-punk" parts, like some technological panels and glowy bits replacing areas where the wood has rotted away completely.
W.D.I.D: Primary fire is a shield, forming an orb all around the player. Stops projectile weapons, Redeemer type stuff still damages, but explodes against the shield as opposed to against the player. The shield should have a charge bar like the Shield Gun primary fire, going to full in about 5-6 seconds. When the charge is full, the shield turns of and (if possible) cannot be reactivated for 30 seconds. Secondary fire is more offensive, but it's secondary because spamming it is suicide. Secondary fire is a continuous lightning ball type effect (y'know what'd be cool? If Xyx himself were to code that bit). The price for being able to run around with lightning striking everyone within a certain range of you? Health drain. For every second you keep the thing going, it eats away at ten health. So, nine and some random fraction seconds is th longest you can sustain, and if you haven't some very hefty shielding, it's unwise to drain yourself that much.
Desc.: Once a reverred relic of a race long gone, this artifact has been defiled by the curiousity of human science: by alterring it's structure and adding their own technology, human scientists have turned this blessed thing cursed. It works, but only at the cost of the weilder's blood...
Additional Notes/T.I.F.L.A: If anyone religious finds the idea of weilding a defiled crucifix as a weapon offensive, I beg your pardon. It's just a game, and this isn't meant to carry a religious message at all. It's just something that looked cool in my mind's eye.
Name: Sytke Orbital Support Beacon Deployer (that's "Sit-kay")
Appearance: Sleek. Really curvy. Some kind of chromeish texture. Tiny blinking red LED type light at the front. The beacons should be of the same color scheme, with a big glowing target looking circle on top. The beam should either be a HUGE link gun alt-fire beam, or a green recolored version of the Orbital Ion Cannon in Severance.
W.D.I.D: Primary fire plants a beacon. Secondary triggers an Orbital Support Beam on any beacons already planted. Think multipurpose Ion/Target Painter. For damage/area of effect purposes, this is like the Orbital Ion Cannon Beam from Severance, only it acts like a pumped up Link Gun alt-fire. It's the link gun secondary, only the enemy damaging and friend healing is massively upped. The ammo on this should be very minimal, as it'd destroy all balance if spammable.
Desc.: Amazing, isn't it, how anyone carrying one of these also happens to have a Sytke Orbital Support Station on hand?
Additional Notes/T.I.F.L.A: ^.^ This needs to have some strict form of ammo limitation that canot be bypassed with "loaded". I mean, if tweak mods allow the changing of the ammo limit, that's fine. But there shouldn't be anything standard game that makes this think the evil spam doom of untouchably healed nodes.
Name: Hard Arm Connect: Killer (H.A.C:K)
Appearance: No actual weapon appearance, but the pickup should be a big metal fist. With spike and such on. When carried, it should be visible only as an aura: a black whirlwind of flames around the player.
W.D.I.D: At a range slightly shorter than that of the Shield Gun, the H.A.C:K deals a hit of 150ish damage, with apause of five seconds between uber uber close range shots. Primary and secondary are the same.
Desc.: A massive damage melee weapon designed by Serius Limit Co., the H.A.C:K is designed for extreme power at nose to nose ranges. Excellent for users of grappling hooks - hang around and hit people in the back of the head with this, it'll pack quite an effect.
Additional Notes/T.I.F.L.A: Hey, who doesn't like the idea of a weapon designed to encourage very personal and bloody combat? Except for snipeing fans.
Vehicles
Name: Mangler
Appearance: A large, bulky vehicle. Reminiscent of the Goliath in form of chassis, but closer to the Levi in size. The front has two "arms" on it, each made of two pistons and two joints, with a huge wrecking ball like arangement on the end, with spikes. The mines should be small and flat, very close to the ground.
W.D.I.D: This is a two seat vehicle. The driver, obviously, drives, but also controls the "arms" of the Mangler, causing them to fold in towards the vehicle, balls spinning, whenever primary fire is held down. The point? Anyone caught close enough to the vehicle, between the "arms", will be "hugged" with crushing force, the spikes on the balls tearing them up nastily as the "arms" drag them in to be roadkilled. Secondary fire simply spins the wrecking balls, adding some extra kick to any ramming the Mangler does. The passenger has identical primary and secondary fire, dropping proximity mines behind the vehicle as it moves along, giving it some small protection to it's extremely vulnerable an unprotected backside.
Statistical Data:
Speed: Slightly faster than a Goliath at full tilt.
Range of Fire: However long the sweeping range of the "arms" is, that's the range.
Health: 1000
Armor: 500
Damage Reduction: Extremely well protected from projectiles, like the minigun. No protection from lasers/hitscan.
Damage: The spikes on the wrecking balls, when spinning, deal about 20 damage on contact (aprox. every half second). The crushing effect of the "hug" deals about 30 damage per second. Running things over with the Mangler deals about 100 damage, and the mines deal 30 damage per mine.
Additional Notes/T.I.F.L.A: None.
Name: T.O.P (Transport Oriented Pivot)
Appearance: Well, it helps if you've seen the movie "Totorro". This basically takes the appearance of the flying top like objects in that anime. For those who haven't seen it: take a Channukah(sp?) Dreidl. Now remove the edges, making it into a cylinder with a cone on top. Increase the radius/diameter a bunch, and you shuld get the right image. The textures for it should be pretty plain, and need to include some kind of green glowy slot along the side of the T.O.P. The energy blade is green, semi-transparent if possible. The beams should have the same appearance.
W.D.I.D: Well, it definetly doesn't fit more than one, at least not this version. A one person hovering "vehicle", it allows you to float around, more like a Raptor than a Manta in the fact that going of edges causes no falling. Basically, you can fly all over the place. While piloted, the T.O.P spins around high speed without turning the pilot. Primary fire turns the an energy blade on/off (deploys?). When on, the energy blade should spin around at the same rate as the vehicle, and should extrude from the same space as the green glowy slot on the texture is ment to be. Secondary fire depends on the status of the energy blade. If it's on, secondary fires ten lasers off in all directions, and if the blade is off, it simply fires one laser in a random direction.
Statistical Data:
Speed: Raptor++
Range of Fire: The blade extends to a length equal to five times the diameter of the vehicle. The laser/s have the same range as a link gun.
Health: 120
Armor: 100
Damage Reduction: None
Damage: The blade deals 50 danage per hit. The laser/s each deal 20 damage. Running things over damage is minimal, up to you.
Additional Notes/T.I.F.L.A: This was inspired by the "Locust" hoverboard. Unsure of author, but it's a great vehicle. What brought this to mind was the board's spin kickflip thingy attack, especially the appearance it has when spammed over and over.
Name: Merus Clan Mobile Turret: Crescendo (Crescendo for short)
Appearance: This is another one that's easier to visualize with some grounding in anime: if you've seen Appleseed, you can probably guess what it looks very much like. Yeah, the big ultra crazy turret-spider-mecha-deathbots that need deactivation. Only, you know, much smaller. Basically, this should be a six legged platform (hey look, it's already the second time I'm hoping Xyx sees this thread!) like thing, with a large dome made out of several "slices" on it. The dome shouldn't fill the entire platform, there should be room around the edge for other stuff. The central "slice" of this many seated vehicle's main dome should have a huge muzzle coming out of it, a huge Ion Turret style one. The turning of the turret should turn the whole platform, but leave the legs immobile. On either side of the Ion "slice", there should be an empty "slice", and then one with a turret. The Ion "slice" should not rotate as the cannon is aimed up/down, instead, the skin/texture should give the appearance of a large slot from which the Cannon protrudes, and should fit along the up/down range of the canon's rotation. The two smaller turrets also have immobile "slices", and should look somewhat like an Assault (I think that's where they're from...) Energy Turret imbedded in the dome. As for the space around the edge of the platform, it should have four evenly spaced turrets, their "casing" fittign nice and snug agaisnt the dome, one structure. These four turrets should be ligned in a square, two to a side, in relation to the starting position of the main dome turrets. The turrets themselves also look like Assault (again, I think) Energy Turrets imbedded in the vehicle. At the very end of the great big main "slice" muzzle, there should be a blocky protrusion on top, with it's own muzzle. The whole thing should have a very dark, gothic paintjob, and generally look like it means business. Despite that, it should have a few slogans and such on it, prefferably in a playful red font: "Ebil Inc. - We Do Ebil (tm)" "My children ate your honor student" "Reading this qualifies you as an idiot"(On the bottom of a leg) "OWN3D!" "Great big stompy thing of His Grace, Lord Ebline de Merus." And anything else you can think of. Random graffiti along the lines of those slogans is a must.
W.D.I.D: Welll...in the most basic terms: it blows stuff up. That's a pretty apt description. The main turret fires like an Ion Turret, only with a larger splash area and slightly higher charge time. The two smaller dome turrets fire like ONS energy turrets do, zoom replaced with rapidfire, which cuts damage per hit almost in half, increases the speed to about 1.30 times normal, and adds some splash area/damage. The four platform turrets are pretty much minigun turrets with a secondar fire: A flak cannon style wide area shot, about half the speed and damage of primary fire. The driver drives, and can launch canisters out the dome's top. The canisters explode after about .6 seconds, flinging Cicada style flares around to distract AVRiL fire. The blocky addition atop the Ion turret muzzle is the vehicles "secret weapon." It takes some teamwork to opperate at full effect, as the vehicle must be in a position where the target can be seen from the Ion sights, and the Ion has to be aimed a little lower than the target, bringing it square into the sites of the Paradox, which is the blocky addition. Once everything is aligned, the Paradox has a 10 second chargeup time before it fires a Redeemer like canister, surrounded by a green link glow. The closer a player is to this projectile, the faster their health starts regenerating. However, when the missile collides with something, is detonated or gets shot out of the air, it explodes ina huge purple blast, about twice as big as the 'Deemer blast radius. Anything caught in the blast is thrown about violently and hit with 140 damage. The secondary fire on the Paradox doesnt' zoom, as the Paradox is already zoomed to start with. The secondary can detonate the Paradox projectile in mid-flight. This thing seats a whole crapload of people (NINE!), and can be as much a disadvantage in terms of team dispersion as it is an advantage in terms of massive firepower.
Satistical Data:
Speed: Slow....really slow. Barely Levi speed, at full speed.
Range of Fire: The Ion has identical range to an Ion Turret. The two small dome turrets have the same range as ONS node defending turrets. The four platform based turrets have the same range as a standard minigun turret, both prime and second fire. The Paradox projectile can go on forever if it doesn't hit something, collide with the map bounds, get detonated or get shot down. The canisters move at translocater projectile speed, straight up from the vehicle until the time on them runs out.
Health: 40000
Armor: 1100
Damage Reduction: None
Damage: The turrets all deal the same as their range of fire counterparts, not counting any of the secondary specialness, the damage for which is noted in the above section. The Paradox damage is also noted in the above section. Crushing damage from getting stuck under one of the feet should be twice the Levi rundown damage, and it'd be awesome if it could be coded with custom death messages/announcements.
Additional Notes/T.I.F.L.A: Yes, this thing is huge, and uber powered. But, it relies on teamwork to use it's most mass effect weapon, and to defend it from infantry/AVRiLs. The platform turrets are there mainly for the purpose of keeping infantry at a distance, since anyone under this thing can easily stay away from the legs while pounding it's belly. While it can be driven solo, you're pretty much a huge AVRiL target, unable to fire the flares if you're in a gunner position.
Name: Sentipede
Appearance: An ultra light weight crossbreed between a dune buggy and a pickup truck, this thing should have the appearance of a halfway point between the Scorpion and the Hellbender. Instead of a measly four wheels, however, it should sport ten, five to a side. It should have a flatbed large enough o fit four Sentinals in it. They Sents themselves should have a pretty much normal appearance, minus the yellow sheild casing they usually sport. They should be recolored to a sharper, red/black color scheme. The vehicle itself should be very dark camo, any headlights need to be tinted red.
W.D.I.D: The driver shouldn't have any weapon whasoever. Just control of the vehicle, which should have an extremely tight turning radius and great control, but still be lightweight enough to be pushed some when hit with minigun fire. The idea is that the driver's goal is to move the buggy into a position where the sent's have a good clean shot at viable targets, and to move around enough to keep from being blown up. The sents, by default, fire as standard sents do. If anyone fels up to it, a mutator to alter the firing mode would be awesome. It should include rapid fire energy beams (like node turrets), minigun fire, somethign along the lines of ultra slow railguns with the turrets enabled to see through walls and obstacles and a huge chargetime beam, trigerring an EMP shockwave of Deemer size when it hits.
Statistical Data:
Speed: Manta
Range of Fire: As you see fit. The fire modes that correspond to actual ingame weapons/turrets should have equivalent range.
Health: 600
Armor: 200
Damage Reduction: None
Damage: The sents deal damage equivalent to counterparts of their firing mode. The huge charge beam does 50 on contact, and the shockwave hits for 60 against everything in range, "stunning" vehicles.
Additional Notes/T.I.F.L.A: This needs to have a warning sign somewhere on the texture, in an easily visible place. The sign needs to read something like: "WARNING: The presence of [GU] Punisher within three hundred feet of this vehicle may result in turret jams, bumpy handling, a tainted vehicle, severe psychological trauma to the driver and widespread terror among your own troops." Also, it'd be nice if someone could change the sounds FX for the sents, replace them with something more clicky, maybe a little more organic sounding.
Hybrid Thoughts
Minor Car Launcher Alteration
I got this idea after looking at the Mass Driver thread. It's quite simple: a modification of the Car Launcher mod. What would be changed? Well, vehicles launched by the launcher would retain the direction, momentum and speed of the car launcher projectiles, even after deploying from them. It'd be especially nifty if this were built into the mod in the future, something that could be turned on/off in the mutator menu. Come on, it'd be awesome to throw random vehicles at people.
And it's annoying. Don't get me wrong, I can see why it would be so: making and original map without it getting gimmicky is a lot easier than make an original weapon. There's just more that you can do to add a twist to the map, weapons are only capale of so much. Same with vehicles, although it's to a much smaller degree on that front.
As such, I've decided to make a little suggestions thread of my own, in the hopes that modders browsing here will get some ideas for a nifty new weapon/vehicle, as opposed to a map. Come on, weapons and vehicles are so much more adaptable and versatile than maps. Sure, you could set up one map for all gametypes, but it's still not as great as being able to use modded weapons/vehicles anywhere ((Well, exluding servers and such that don't have the needed files. But I'm single player obssesive anyway, so I can't find much interest in that fact))
Abbreviations and acronyms that might show up:
W.D.I.D: What Does It Do?
Desc. and/or Descap: Description
T.I.F.L.A: Things I Felt Like Adding
Weapons:
Name: Skyfall
Appearance: I don't have any particular design in mind, just a few generalized guidelines: it shouldn't be anything particularly streamlined. Big and bulky. In addition, it should have a high-tech appearance, something glowy and sci-fi.
W.D.I.D: Primary fire is a practically harmless laser beam (think Ion/Target Painter) with extremely long range. More than the lightning gun, by a touch. Secondary fire is a zoom/scope. It's pretty much harmless to ground vehicles and infantry, but when fired at flying vehicles, it becomes very effective. Flying vehicles hit by the primary fire will have their gravity/weight/whatev alterred in such a manner as to cause them to fall with extreme velocity. (I don't know what this would look like in code, but basically making the cursed thing plummet. With enough velocity and force, I'm reasonably sure it'll damage the vehicle. I'm not sure, but I think I acheived a similar effect by landing a Raptor at full force from the max height of Torlan)
Desc.: Annoyed with the plague of "campers" introduced with the appearan of increasingly useful flying vehicles, Liandri Corporation has put research into the creation of a weapon designed to deal with said vehicles. Now, in addition to blowing them up with AVRiLs, you can turn gravity against them!
Additional Notes/T.I.F.L.A: This is pretty much the manifestation of my hate for the fact that even simple BOTS will occasionally camp the raptor spawns in maps, in addition to the big tower o' Torlan.
Name: Defiled Crucifix (Pardon if this offends anyone)
Appearance: A crucfix, the cross part pointed forward. Dirty, rotting wood and a few bands of cloth holding it together, mixed with some sci-fi "neo-punk" parts, like some technological panels and glowy bits replacing areas where the wood has rotted away completely.
W.D.I.D: Primary fire is a shield, forming an orb all around the player. Stops projectile weapons, Redeemer type stuff still damages, but explodes against the shield as opposed to against the player. The shield should have a charge bar like the Shield Gun primary fire, going to full in about 5-6 seconds. When the charge is full, the shield turns of and (if possible) cannot be reactivated for 30 seconds. Secondary fire is more offensive, but it's secondary because spamming it is suicide. Secondary fire is a continuous lightning ball type effect (y'know what'd be cool? If Xyx himself were to code that bit). The price for being able to run around with lightning striking everyone within a certain range of you? Health drain. For every second you keep the thing going, it eats away at ten health. So, nine and some random fraction seconds is th longest you can sustain, and if you haven't some very hefty shielding, it's unwise to drain yourself that much.
Desc.: Once a reverred relic of a race long gone, this artifact has been defiled by the curiousity of human science: by alterring it's structure and adding their own technology, human scientists have turned this blessed thing cursed. It works, but only at the cost of the weilder's blood...
Additional Notes/T.I.F.L.A: If anyone religious finds the idea of weilding a defiled crucifix as a weapon offensive, I beg your pardon. It's just a game, and this isn't meant to carry a religious message at all. It's just something that looked cool in my mind's eye.
Name: Sytke Orbital Support Beacon Deployer (that's "Sit-kay")
Appearance: Sleek. Really curvy. Some kind of chromeish texture. Tiny blinking red LED type light at the front. The beacons should be of the same color scheme, with a big glowing target looking circle on top. The beam should either be a HUGE link gun alt-fire beam, or a green recolored version of the Orbital Ion Cannon in Severance.
W.D.I.D: Primary fire plants a beacon. Secondary triggers an Orbital Support Beam on any beacons already planted. Think multipurpose Ion/Target Painter. For damage/area of effect purposes, this is like the Orbital Ion Cannon Beam from Severance, only it acts like a pumped up Link Gun alt-fire. It's the link gun secondary, only the enemy damaging and friend healing is massively upped. The ammo on this should be very minimal, as it'd destroy all balance if spammable.
Desc.: Amazing, isn't it, how anyone carrying one of these also happens to have a Sytke Orbital Support Station on hand?
Additional Notes/T.I.F.L.A: ^.^ This needs to have some strict form of ammo limitation that canot be bypassed with "loaded". I mean, if tweak mods allow the changing of the ammo limit, that's fine. But there shouldn't be anything standard game that makes this think the evil spam doom of untouchably healed nodes.
Name: Hard Arm Connect: Killer (H.A.C:K)
Appearance: No actual weapon appearance, but the pickup should be a big metal fist. With spike and such on. When carried, it should be visible only as an aura: a black whirlwind of flames around the player.
W.D.I.D: At a range slightly shorter than that of the Shield Gun, the H.A.C:K deals a hit of 150ish damage, with apause of five seconds between uber uber close range shots. Primary and secondary are the same.
Desc.: A massive damage melee weapon designed by Serius Limit Co., the H.A.C:K is designed for extreme power at nose to nose ranges. Excellent for users of grappling hooks - hang around and hit people in the back of the head with this, it'll pack quite an effect.
Additional Notes/T.I.F.L.A: Hey, who doesn't like the idea of a weapon designed to encourage very personal and bloody combat? Except for snipeing fans.
Vehicles
Name: Mangler
Appearance: A large, bulky vehicle. Reminiscent of the Goliath in form of chassis, but closer to the Levi in size. The front has two "arms" on it, each made of two pistons and two joints, with a huge wrecking ball like arangement on the end, with spikes. The mines should be small and flat, very close to the ground.
W.D.I.D: This is a two seat vehicle. The driver, obviously, drives, but also controls the "arms" of the Mangler, causing them to fold in towards the vehicle, balls spinning, whenever primary fire is held down. The point? Anyone caught close enough to the vehicle, between the "arms", will be "hugged" with crushing force, the spikes on the balls tearing them up nastily as the "arms" drag them in to be roadkilled. Secondary fire simply spins the wrecking balls, adding some extra kick to any ramming the Mangler does. The passenger has identical primary and secondary fire, dropping proximity mines behind the vehicle as it moves along, giving it some small protection to it's extremely vulnerable an unprotected backside.
Statistical Data:
Speed: Slightly faster than a Goliath at full tilt.
Range of Fire: However long the sweeping range of the "arms" is, that's the range.
Health: 1000
Armor: 500
Damage Reduction: Extremely well protected from projectiles, like the minigun. No protection from lasers/hitscan.
Damage: The spikes on the wrecking balls, when spinning, deal about 20 damage on contact (aprox. every half second). The crushing effect of the "hug" deals about 30 damage per second. Running things over with the Mangler deals about 100 damage, and the mines deal 30 damage per mine.
Additional Notes/T.I.F.L.A: None.
Name: T.O.P (Transport Oriented Pivot)
Appearance: Well, it helps if you've seen the movie "Totorro". This basically takes the appearance of the flying top like objects in that anime. For those who haven't seen it: take a Channukah(sp?) Dreidl. Now remove the edges, making it into a cylinder with a cone on top. Increase the radius/diameter a bunch, and you shuld get the right image. The textures for it should be pretty plain, and need to include some kind of green glowy slot along the side of the T.O.P. The energy blade is green, semi-transparent if possible. The beams should have the same appearance.
W.D.I.D: Well, it definetly doesn't fit more than one, at least not this version. A one person hovering "vehicle", it allows you to float around, more like a Raptor than a Manta in the fact that going of edges causes no falling. Basically, you can fly all over the place. While piloted, the T.O.P spins around high speed without turning the pilot. Primary fire turns the an energy blade on/off (deploys?). When on, the energy blade should spin around at the same rate as the vehicle, and should extrude from the same space as the green glowy slot on the texture is ment to be. Secondary fire depends on the status of the energy blade. If it's on, secondary fires ten lasers off in all directions, and if the blade is off, it simply fires one laser in a random direction.
Statistical Data:
Speed: Raptor++
Range of Fire: The blade extends to a length equal to five times the diameter of the vehicle. The laser/s have the same range as a link gun.
Health: 120
Armor: 100
Damage Reduction: None
Damage: The blade deals 50 danage per hit. The laser/s each deal 20 damage. Running things over damage is minimal, up to you.
Additional Notes/T.I.F.L.A: This was inspired by the "Locust" hoverboard. Unsure of author, but it's a great vehicle. What brought this to mind was the board's spin kickflip thingy attack, especially the appearance it has when spammed over and over.
Name: Merus Clan Mobile Turret: Crescendo (Crescendo for short)
Appearance: This is another one that's easier to visualize with some grounding in anime: if you've seen Appleseed, you can probably guess what it looks very much like. Yeah, the big ultra crazy turret-spider-mecha-deathbots that need deactivation. Only, you know, much smaller. Basically, this should be a six legged platform (hey look, it's already the second time I'm hoping Xyx sees this thread!) like thing, with a large dome made out of several "slices" on it. The dome shouldn't fill the entire platform, there should be room around the edge for other stuff. The central "slice" of this many seated vehicle's main dome should have a huge muzzle coming out of it, a huge Ion Turret style one. The turning of the turret should turn the whole platform, but leave the legs immobile. On either side of the Ion "slice", there should be an empty "slice", and then one with a turret. The Ion "slice" should not rotate as the cannon is aimed up/down, instead, the skin/texture should give the appearance of a large slot from which the Cannon protrudes, and should fit along the up/down range of the canon's rotation. The two smaller turrets also have immobile "slices", and should look somewhat like an Assault (I think that's where they're from...) Energy Turret imbedded in the dome. As for the space around the edge of the platform, it should have four evenly spaced turrets, their "casing" fittign nice and snug agaisnt the dome, one structure. These four turrets should be ligned in a square, two to a side, in relation to the starting position of the main dome turrets. The turrets themselves also look like Assault (again, I think) Energy Turrets imbedded in the vehicle. At the very end of the great big main "slice" muzzle, there should be a blocky protrusion on top, with it's own muzzle. The whole thing should have a very dark, gothic paintjob, and generally look like it means business. Despite that, it should have a few slogans and such on it, prefferably in a playful red font: "Ebil Inc. - We Do Ebil (tm)" "My children ate your honor student" "Reading this qualifies you as an idiot"(On the bottom of a leg) "OWN3D!" "Great big stompy thing of His Grace, Lord Ebline de Merus." And anything else you can think of. Random graffiti along the lines of those slogans is a must.
W.D.I.D: Welll...in the most basic terms: it blows stuff up. That's a pretty apt description. The main turret fires like an Ion Turret, only with a larger splash area and slightly higher charge time. The two smaller dome turrets fire like ONS energy turrets do, zoom replaced with rapidfire, which cuts damage per hit almost in half, increases the speed to about 1.30 times normal, and adds some splash area/damage. The four platform turrets are pretty much minigun turrets with a secondar fire: A flak cannon style wide area shot, about half the speed and damage of primary fire. The driver drives, and can launch canisters out the dome's top. The canisters explode after about .6 seconds, flinging Cicada style flares around to distract AVRiL fire. The blocky addition atop the Ion turret muzzle is the vehicles "secret weapon." It takes some teamwork to opperate at full effect, as the vehicle must be in a position where the target can be seen from the Ion sights, and the Ion has to be aimed a little lower than the target, bringing it square into the sites of the Paradox, which is the blocky addition. Once everything is aligned, the Paradox has a 10 second chargeup time before it fires a Redeemer like canister, surrounded by a green link glow. The closer a player is to this projectile, the faster their health starts regenerating. However, when the missile collides with something, is detonated or gets shot out of the air, it explodes ina huge purple blast, about twice as big as the 'Deemer blast radius. Anything caught in the blast is thrown about violently and hit with 140 damage. The secondary fire on the Paradox doesnt' zoom, as the Paradox is already zoomed to start with. The secondary can detonate the Paradox projectile in mid-flight. This thing seats a whole crapload of people (NINE!), and can be as much a disadvantage in terms of team dispersion as it is an advantage in terms of massive firepower.
Satistical Data:
Speed: Slow....really slow. Barely Levi speed, at full speed.
Range of Fire: The Ion has identical range to an Ion Turret. The two small dome turrets have the same range as ONS node defending turrets. The four platform based turrets have the same range as a standard minigun turret, both prime and second fire. The Paradox projectile can go on forever if it doesn't hit something, collide with the map bounds, get detonated or get shot down. The canisters move at translocater projectile speed, straight up from the vehicle until the time on them runs out.
Health: 40000
Armor: 1100
Damage Reduction: None
Damage: The turrets all deal the same as their range of fire counterparts, not counting any of the secondary specialness, the damage for which is noted in the above section. The Paradox damage is also noted in the above section. Crushing damage from getting stuck under one of the feet should be twice the Levi rundown damage, and it'd be awesome if it could be coded with custom death messages/announcements.
Additional Notes/T.I.F.L.A: Yes, this thing is huge, and uber powered. But, it relies on teamwork to use it's most mass effect weapon, and to defend it from infantry/AVRiLs. The platform turrets are there mainly for the purpose of keeping infantry at a distance, since anyone under this thing can easily stay away from the legs while pounding it's belly. While it can be driven solo, you're pretty much a huge AVRiL target, unable to fire the flares if you're in a gunner position.
Name: Sentipede
Appearance: An ultra light weight crossbreed between a dune buggy and a pickup truck, this thing should have the appearance of a halfway point between the Scorpion and the Hellbender. Instead of a measly four wheels, however, it should sport ten, five to a side. It should have a flatbed large enough o fit four Sentinals in it. They Sents themselves should have a pretty much normal appearance, minus the yellow sheild casing they usually sport. They should be recolored to a sharper, red/black color scheme. The vehicle itself should be very dark camo, any headlights need to be tinted red.
W.D.I.D: The driver shouldn't have any weapon whasoever. Just control of the vehicle, which should have an extremely tight turning radius and great control, but still be lightweight enough to be pushed some when hit with minigun fire. The idea is that the driver's goal is to move the buggy into a position where the sent's have a good clean shot at viable targets, and to move around enough to keep from being blown up. The sents, by default, fire as standard sents do. If anyone fels up to it, a mutator to alter the firing mode would be awesome. It should include rapid fire energy beams (like node turrets), minigun fire, somethign along the lines of ultra slow railguns with the turrets enabled to see through walls and obstacles and a huge chargetime beam, trigerring an EMP shockwave of Deemer size when it hits.
Statistical Data:
Speed: Manta
Range of Fire: As you see fit. The fire modes that correspond to actual ingame weapons/turrets should have equivalent range.
Health: 600
Armor: 200
Damage Reduction: None
Damage: The sents deal damage equivalent to counterparts of their firing mode. The huge charge beam does 50 on contact, and the shockwave hits for 60 against everything in range, "stunning" vehicles.
Additional Notes/T.I.F.L.A: This needs to have a warning sign somewhere on the texture, in an easily visible place. The sign needs to read something like: "WARNING: The presence of [GU] Punisher within three hundred feet of this vehicle may result in turret jams, bumpy handling, a tainted vehicle, severe psychological trauma to the driver and widespread terror among your own troops." Also, it'd be nice if someone could change the sounds FX for the sents, replace them with something more clicky, maybe a little more organic sounding.
Hybrid Thoughts
Minor Car Launcher Alteration
I got this idea after looking at the Mass Driver thread. It's quite simple: a modification of the Car Launcher mod. What would be changed? Well, vehicles launched by the launcher would retain the direction, momentum and speed of the car launcher projectiles, even after deploying from them. It'd be especially nifty if this were built into the mod in the future, something that could be turned on/off in the mutator menu. Come on, it'd be awesome to throw random vehicles at people.
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