Movable buildings + welding them to the floor (source)
X_Stickman
Not good enough for a custom title. Join Date: 2003-04-15 Member: 15533Members, Constellation
Not good enough for a custom title. Join Date: 2003-04-15 Member: 15533Members, Constellation
Suggested it in that NS:S wishlist but Marik locked it and said post stuff here so what the hey, I once spammed this forum with many useless suggestions many years ago, I may as well make it relive some dark memories.
Knocking buildings about has been suggested for source for ages. What hasn't been suggested (I don't think, the search function still seems to be kaput), is the ability for the marines to weld them to the floor to prevent this from happening.
Say the marines build a turret in location A. A fade blinks in (using the current blink model), hits the turret, and the turret is now located in point X, on it's back, wondering what the hell just happened.
Now say the marines build a turret in location A, and weld it to the floor (by say, having a "repair" function at the base of the building that does the same as the Weld in GMod). A fade blinks in, hits the turret, the turret laughs and starts gunning the fade down, and the fade just generally gets upset and sulks in a corner.
It would need to be modified quite heavily though. Obviously a puny turret isn't going to stand up to an onos charge, no matter how welded it is to the floor (with it's current legs anyway; the base simply isn't big enough to stand up to that stress) so it'd be sent flying. And with enough pummelling from a fade, it'd also be sent flying.
I don't know if it's possible at all, but I guess there could be a "damage" counter for the welded section, which is only dealt damage by the force applied to it (not the damage from the attacks of the aliens like bite and swipe, although I guess they could also have a "force" counter on them added to the damage they dish out). So an onos running into it would do 50 damage, an onos charging into it would do 100, an onos attacking it with it's head would do 150, and a skulk walking into it would do 1. Please note that I have no idea how complicated that'd be to implement, and there's probably a far easier way to do it, but my coding experience is limited to lookup tables in Excel, and it's 3:30am, so I can barely remember how to do that.
Anyway, I think this is a nice way to balance out the cons of having movable buildings (i.e. an onos running through your base completely dismantling it. Obviously the TSA would've thought of this and come up with counters), while not actually removing the fun of seeing turrets being knocked flying accross rooms. Note that this would not just apply to turrets, but the heavier buildings would have a larger amount of "health" for the welded part.
Knocking buildings about has been suggested for source for ages. What hasn't been suggested (I don't think, the search function still seems to be kaput), is the ability for the marines to weld them to the floor to prevent this from happening.
Say the marines build a turret in location A. A fade blinks in (using the current blink model), hits the turret, and the turret is now located in point X, on it's back, wondering what the hell just happened.
Now say the marines build a turret in location A, and weld it to the floor (by say, having a "repair" function at the base of the building that does the same as the Weld in GMod). A fade blinks in, hits the turret, the turret laughs and starts gunning the fade down, and the fade just generally gets upset and sulks in a corner.
It would need to be modified quite heavily though. Obviously a puny turret isn't going to stand up to an onos charge, no matter how welded it is to the floor (with it's current legs anyway; the base simply isn't big enough to stand up to that stress) so it'd be sent flying. And with enough pummelling from a fade, it'd also be sent flying.
I don't know if it's possible at all, but I guess there could be a "damage" counter for the welded section, which is only dealt damage by the force applied to it (not the damage from the attacks of the aliens like bite and swipe, although I guess they could also have a "force" counter on them added to the damage they dish out). So an onos running into it would do 50 damage, an onos charging into it would do 100, an onos attacking it with it's head would do 150, and a skulk walking into it would do 1. Please note that I have no idea how complicated that'd be to implement, and there's probably a far easier way to do it, but my coding experience is limited to lookup tables in Excel, and it's 3:30am, so I can barely remember how to do that.
Anyway, I think this is a nice way to balance out the cons of having movable buildings (i.e. an onos running through your base completely dismantling it. Obviously the TSA would've thought of this and come up with counters), while not actually removing the fun of seeing turrets being knocked flying accross rooms. Note that this would not just apply to turrets, but the heavier buildings would have a larger amount of "health" for the welded part.
Comments
That raises all kinds of lamer problems though, I guess. I'm sure other people can think of things to help prevent that, though (maybe even a message to the commander saying <x> player wishes to move <x> building, only this would only be displayed if they try to move something, not simply upright it).
i like the idea of knocking buildings over, but i cant think of a good way to right them back up without causing problems. if people could carry turrents then what is to stop a rush of people carrying prebuilt turrets into a hive or something.
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hmmm Buildings? Maybe certain buildings have a certain wight. That would be stupid if every building could get knocked over.
Also keep in mind that anything heavier than a turret won't be carriable. If anything, it'll only be able to be pushed slowly, although even that's annoying.
I'll clarify my reasons for wanting to be able to move them in the first place, to show why I'm not just saying "well let's make them unmovable":
If an onos charges into a base, smacking stuff everywhere, the turrets will go *flying*. I don't mean they'll be knocked back a few feet, or just knocked over where they are, I mean flying through the air and bouncing off walls kind of flying. Heavier buildings, however, will just be knocked over and skid a little bit.
Now, if you can't re-move the buildings after placing them, then you'd get all sorts of problems. Assuming that there's a turret-per-area limit in NS:S (which I imagine there probably will be, given the trouble the game already has on the HL engine, with source graphics it'll be hell to have 50 turrets in one place for example) then you could potentially be stuck with 5 turrets knocked over and useless, and since FF is usually off, be unable to do anything about it.
It's also important in my mind to be able to actually move them, rather than simply upright them. If a turret gets knocked into some useless corner, turning it back on it's feet again is going to be useless, and it could potentially be out of the TF range anyway. So you'd need to be able to move it back.
This goes for the heavier buildings too. A TF itself could be knocked over and skidded accross a doorway, for example, which would make travel annoying. So you'd need to be able to move it after it's been built. However, to discourage the "pre-built rushing" you described (which sounds pretty awesome actually, I hadn't even thought of it <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" /> ), they would have to be *very* slow moving when pushed, and probably have some re-activation limit (such as turrets in it's range don't work until 15 seconds after the TF has stopped moving).
But again obviously, all this has laming potential. There's little to stop someone joining the marine team and just shoving stuff about everywhere. So maybe a commander-controlled thing to stop this, either giving the comm a prompt whenever someone tries to move something (and they can allow/disallow it) or even being able to designate a "mover", "fixer" or whatever, who is the only marine who can actually move stuff about.
But again obviously, all this has laming potential. There's little to stop someone joining the marine team and just shoving stuff about everywhere. So maybe a commander-controlled thing to stop this, either giving the comm a prompt whenever someone tries to move something (and they can allow/disallow it) or even being able to designate a "mover", "fixer" or whatever, who is the only marine who can actually move stuff about.
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Or for example they can Click on the TF for instance and press a Button to lock or unlock movement for that structure
My main arguement with having all the buildings movable and able to be knocked down is if there's too many buildings in a game and they all get moved at once, it'll either crash the server or cause massive lag. Think of some CS:S maps that have too many movable entities that fly in many directions if someone tosses a nade in the middle of them and the whole server ends up lagging, sometimes booting people. This has happened on maps like office or train when there's too many loose objects flying around and these are only small non-animated objects too.
So maybe the buildings could sort of "latch-on" with either claws or a special vacuum system that attaches them securely onto any surface. As for aliens they're all gooey creatures so they can just use their loogeys to attach their buildings anywhere and probably tell their buildings to move themselves since everything seems to be a living organism for them.
EDIT: hey tigersmith weren't you on the TP server earlier today?
Seems like a lot of work for a gimmick.
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Well it's not really a simple gimmick. It already looks very, very strange to see an onos stopped in it's tracks by a tiny turret with three tiny feet. I think in the source engine, with what can be expected to be a serious graphics upgrade, it'll look even weirder.
Well it's not really a simple gimmick. It already looks very, very strange to see an onos stopped in it's tracks by a tiny turret with three tiny feet. I think in the source engine, with what can be expected to be a serious graphics upgrade, it'll look even weirder.
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Well, thats not quite true. In the current version, Onos are tall enough and turrets are short enough that Onos can simply walk overtop of the turrets. You don't even have to jump or anything, you just hold forward and you glide overtop of them, which can be annoying for trying to actually hit them.
Back on topic, I do think it would be awesome to watch a charging Onos send a turret farm flying, but not really crucial to the gameplay. I think that would probably come down to server load. If buildings could be made movable without adding substantial lag and without too much impact on FPS, then by all means try it. But if its going to really impact the server load, then the game can live without it, and the people with low-end systems will all thank you for leaving it out.
I didn't read the thread, but just the first post, and I think that this plug-in made by a french team is what you need, or something like.
Enjoy :
<a href="http://ns-fc.fr/nsfc/mgs3/screen/ns_siege007_v210006.PNG" target="_blank">http://ns-fc.fr/nsfc/mgs3/screen/ns_siege007_v210006.PNG</a>
<a href="http://ns-fc.fr/nsfc/mgs3/screen/ns_siege007_v210003.PNG" target="_blank">http://ns-fc.fr/nsfc/mgs3/screen/ns_siege007_v210003.PNG</a>
<a href="http://ns-fc.fr/nsfc/mgs3/screen/ns_siege007_v210021.PNG" target="_blank">http://ns-fc.fr/nsfc/mgs3/screen/ns_siege007_v210021.PNG</a>
<a href="http://ns-fc.fr/nsfc/mgs3/screen/ns_siege007_v210022.PNG" target="_blank">http://ns-fc.fr/nsfc/mgs3/screen/ns_siege007_v210022.PNG</a>
I don't like this team, they're playgin " fake fun maps " and having 150000 plug-ins like Xmenu and others, but I must say that plug-in should be good for a new gameplay, and attaching alien structures to all surfaces isn't " unbelieavable " in the atmosphere of an alien gaming <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />
I didn't read the thread, but just the first post, and I think that this plug-in made by a french team is what you need, or something like.
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Clearly you are correct, you didn't read the thread. =/
We're not talking about attaching buildings to walls or ceilings. We're just talking about the idea that in the Source Engine, the buildings don't have to be immobile...they can be moved around during the game. To counter that, Stickman was suggesting attaching buildings <i>to the floor</i> to limit how much they could be moved around.
What if only very small buildings (turrets, ips, maybe armouries) could be carried only by heavies. Anyone can turn any building upright, but only heavies can actually carry some of them, and their uprighting speed is faster than a light's.
And maybe have a default weak weld 'health' as you say to start with, so that your base doesn't get blown up like a bunch of bowling pins when some JPer screams in headed for the armoury. Then welding the base of the building would just increase this. And damage to it would not be cumulative, as with normal health. If the blow is insufficient to uproot it on it's own, have say 10% of it's strength subtracted from the weld health. This would simulate stressing welds and bending metal, without having everything fall over on the second hit.
Judging from the current buildings we have:
Res Nodes- cannot be moved no matter what (exploitable)
Hives cannot be knocked around
IP's are welded to the ground as they are built
So, building weights, on a scale of 1-20
Turret- 2
Siege Turret- 8
T-fac- 12
Adv T-fac- 14
CC- 20
Armory- 8
Adv Armory- 10
Obs- 6
Arms Lab- 16
Proto Lab- 18
Phase Gate- 8
To "secure" the building, add in a new button- secure. This causes the building's base to "dig in" and secure itself. It would take, say, 60 seconds per building, and would double it's effective "weight". If the overally weight goes above say, 30, the building CANNOT be moved by anything. So securing the CC, Arms Lab, Proto Lab results in them being imobile to everything.
Skulks- 5
Lerk- 8
Gorge- 20 (explained later)
Fade- 14
Onos- 20
Now, Celerity adds +5 to the overall "weight" value (inertia). Carapace add's 3, focus add's 2. So an onos can max out at 30.
ONOS gets a special ability- using Charge, it's weight becomes 30 untill the charge runs out.
Obviously the speed of the impact would be taken into account.
Now, for the gorge.
Being the builder of the bunch, the gorge can move things just as heavy as a standard onos. Why? It is able to "lift' the buildings with it's front pinchers. This results in the gorge moving at 3/4 speed. This also takes energy to do dependent on the weight of the building.
Comments?
There are many possibities to avoid exploit-chances:
- Give commanders the power to allow/forbid single marines to carry buildings (Explanation: an ID is required to cause the structure release its bracing.)
- Only HA should be able to carry heavy structures.
- Carrying a structure should slow you down a lot, and not let you shoot.
The weight idea will prevent that too many buildings are beeing knocked over at the sametime.