Coding of the Flamethrower and secondary mode

Quovatis

I see that trailing flamethrower effects is in the tracker. But it just seems the whole coding is wrong. Why not just change it to a gun that "fires" very slow velocity projectiles at a fairly high rate of fire? This is how most other games handle flamethrowers. This would not only solve the trailing effect (in third person at least), but also solve the issue of the flamethrower going through walls. When one of the "projectiles" hits a wall, it would stop. Just make the "projectiles" have some flaming effect while in the air and give it short maximum flight distance. Each individual "projectile" would have its own little light source. Give it a little bit of drop off like the lerk spikes, and I think it would look awesome.

And for the secondary fire mode, how about having it use an entire fuel clip, but it puts out a big blob of fire, that upon hitting the ground, coats everything in flame in a short radius around it and does damage. It would stay on fire for a few seconds, and any alien running through the blob on the wall/ground would be set on fire and take damage for a brief time. This would be a nice tool to deny alien access to a vent for a short while. The downside is that it uses a ton of fuel.

Harimau

Agreed. The current implementation is quite bizarre.

kingmob

I like the secondary that's a cool idea.
especially taking out infestation.

Dude sign up.
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McGlaspie

While I like the sound of this, especially the secondary fire (Nanotech Napalm explosions, yum), I suspect doing the slow projectiles may add yet another thing that adds to the already overloaded server. Doing it as numerous projectiles would at the very least increase the issue with the Lua GC. Don't get me wrong, I agree with the intent of the OP, the FT needs to be reviewed and reworked.

I do recall there being talk of Volumetric Effects being added in not too long ago. Maybe they're planning on replacing the existing implementation with this.

twiliteblue

I like both of Quovatis's ideas. I wonder how Volumetric flame is coming down the pipeline. Fingers crossed that it won't bog the server down when it does get implemented.

Papayas

It seems that they nerfed the flamerthrower. What the hell?

Firstly, things don't burst into flames any more as soon as they are hit. I am not against this, actually I like this but that is not what I mean, what i mean is that there has been a nerf.

Secondly, I can't kill a skulk in about 2 seconds any more... eh?



So they nerf the flamethrower but they don't nerf the shotgun?

Thaldarin

<!--quoteo(post=1838734:date=Mar 25 2011, 03:26 AM:name=kingmob)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (kingmob @ Mar 25 2011, 03:26 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1838734"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Dude sign up.
<a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/jobs" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/jobs</a><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

I see they're looking for programmers not "ideas boy".

Quovatis

The projectiles wouldn't have to be that slow. Just maybe 25% of the speed of the lerk spikes. Slow enough where you can tell it's not a traditional bullet. True, I don't know what the server load would be for this, but I bet you could get by with only 7-10 projectiles in the air at the same time. I bet you could get by with lighting on every other projectile as well to save server resources. The speed and fall off of these projectiles would produce a more liquid-type effect as it would act more like a real FT. As it, it's like a glorified light sabre that goes through walls. Having a little fall-off on the end would really look cool IMHO. But perhaps UWE have better plans for it, but it's just irked me how it works so far.

And yeah, while I have some programming experience, I'm no where near the calibre that UWE is looking for with the job. It's more of a question for the devs about what their plans are for the FT.