Mod Ideas/Playthings

The concept here is to come up with some creative non-lethal weapon ideas. The basic idea in most team-based games is just to achieve a goal – like bringing an object to a particular place – while preventing the opposing team from doing the same. Some of us aren't all that much into violence, so what if we got creative with the weapons? They're really just tools to help you achieve the goals of the game.

The ideas so far are based on the UT weapons, largely because I don't want to tackle the task of making new models. If anyone else wants to be more ambitious, then so much the better.

Weapon Ideas

Bubble gun: Hitting enemies with this gun creates a bubble around them. The bubble is highly visible, and shooting the bubble has the same effect as shooting the enemy inside; this makes the enemy much easier to see and hit from a distance, even with non-zooming weapons. Primarily useful as a sniping weapon.
Drop rifle: Shoot it at the flag/ball carrier, and they drop the object. This could server as a replacement for the lightning gun, probably because it should have a significant firing delay.
Portal launcher: Fires a projectile which, on impact, creates a portal that teleports an enemy back to their base (without any flag or ball they might be carrying). The portals last for a few seconds before disappearing. This would be mainly a defensive weapon, where you create walls of portals to prevent your enemies from getting to your flag. A direct hit on an enemy might not be effective, since it would take a moment for the portal to appear. This would replace the rocket launcher.
Gravity gun: A variation on the link gun, which causes enemies to float into the air for a time, probably in preparation for a combination attack. Shooting the altfire at a portal from the portal launcher would cause nearby enemies to get pulled into it, and make the portal last longer.
Speed stasis gun: Causes the target to continue moving at its current speed and direction for a few seconds. A variation of the gravity gun, and could be its alt fire.
Impulse rifle: A shock rifle that does nothing but knockback, but lots of it. The altfire would be a beam that pulls the enemy towards you, potentially into a portal.
Glue gun: A fairly obvious variation on the bio rifle: enemies get stuck or slowed down.
Swap gun: Fires a homing projectile that causes you and your target to swap places. Slow rate of fire, possibly one-shot. Maybe a slow-moving projectile, but faster when fired at flag carriers. Maybe flags should get dropped, or given to the other player.

Other possibilies include weapons that affect visibility. That of course is vulnerable to cheating, but what cheater is going to want to play this? You can also do growth (too big to fit through the door) and shrinking, affecting speed (make them move unmanageably fast), hallucinations, and so on.

Comments

Tarquin: Sounds fun!

Foxpaw: I think that the "impulse rifle" may defeat the purpose of making it non-violent, since you could easily use it to knock people off ledges to their doom, and all.

Uncommon: Yes, falling damage is an issue to be resolved. Of course it depends on what map you're playing. Anyway, "falling to your doom" could be replaced with "falling until you get teleported back to your base". Being returned to your base is basically what replaces dying in this mod. The "suicide" key would become more of a "retreat" key, and it may become more useful since many of the weapons will be designed to incapacitate. You either wait for the effect to wear off, or give up and go home to try again.

Uncommon: Another idea I've had is that any time your falling speed is such that hitting the groud would cause you damage (perhaps above a certain threshold), you automatically get returned to base. It also occurred to me that games like StarCraft could be a good source of non-lethal weapon ideas. Imagine being able to use stuff like Hallucinations

Foogod: I like it! Here's another idea: Woozy Gun – Hitting an opponent with this gun makes their view onscreen waver back and forth for a little while.. makes it really hard to run/shoot in a straight line. (for bots, just mess with their navigation/targetting AI)

Bullet: Just made the Impulse Rifle: If you hit ground you get knocked back, if you hit an enemy he gets knocked back even harder. The thing with pulling towards you could be easily implemented. But for now the weapon is build for learnings sake and I don't know wether the code is clean enough to publish it here...

T-1: Huh, wierd coincidence, I made the exact same weapon for my mod Slaughter, and I haven't even read this before. The pulling can be done with negative momentum transfer. My version doesn't knock the firer back though. It's perfect for killing stuff by pulling vehicles toward you and you jump out of the way but the person you're trying to hit with it probably won't even see the vehicle coming.

Bullet: Sounds great Need to try that!

Zxanphorian: I like this idea, but i think they should be kinda like relics or inventory, that you rotate through/use with different keys. The mesh would be on the opposite hand the weapon is in. I think this would get rid of being defenseless when you are attacked, until you switch to a normal weapon.

Bullet: To be honest I think CTF for example wouldn't be playable with this mod. Think of FaceClassic and the Impulse Gun which lets you travel from base to base in no time. Or the Drop Gun would make the game like Instagib! What do you think of what to do to balance it a bit better?

Uncommon: How would the impulse gun help you travel? Also, there's a big difference between the Drop Gun and Instagib: you can pick the flag up again. It just slows down your getaway, and gives your pursuers a chance to get the flag before you can retrieve it.

Bullet: Oops I just noticed that your definition of a Impulse Gun does NOT include pushing yourself forward if hitting ground instead of a player pawn

RabidZombie: What if you had a swap gun as a one shot superweapon. You fire and it will home on to the person within a distance of the crossair and when it arrives you swap possition with the other person. Lots of things could be achived and you wont be able to use it well at all times, it would add a real tactical (some reason I can't spell the word all of a sudden) edge, as you could jump off the edge then use it, swapping your seemingly doomful situation with your opp's peaceful walk. Using it to get further means the enimy might be nearer to your base, so you got to use it at the righ time!

Uncommon: I like it

SoH_Ghost3021: Can i help? this looks like fun...

Uncommon: I don't know, can you? I think the basic steps to getting this made are:

Brainstorm some weapons
Pick a well-rounded, well-balanced set from the brainstorming
If talent is available, make custom models, skins, and sounds
Make suitable HUD modifications, like hiding heath & shields (or come up with a substitute)
Lots of playtesting!

RabidZombie: Although i don't know how old this is, I HAVE thought of a new gun! It could be called the 'Nuts Gun'(altogth a name change is more than likely ) Basicly it randomly swaps round the primary and secondary movement controls(seperatly to avoid having 2 downs on the arrow buttons... maybie) and it will also swap the fires, jump and crouch buttons and also maybie give a nutty hud like the llama on JailBreak! Maybie another super weapon, Slow charge time, or a gun which could be toned down a touch... Wow, when I think about it, I can think of loads of unharmful guns...

Also another gun could be the double vision gun... The person affected sees double (or more) of people (and maybie items) around him, so he can't tell the real from the fake...

Also the substitute for the Hud, maybie you could rearange it so you have a Charge area (maybie giving you ammo for the less power ful of the guns) a score indicator and maybie and friend radar (turn off-able by an option of course )

Uncommon: One complication with changing controls, vision, and stuff like that is it affects the player more than the game play, so bot support would be tricky. I think those debilitating-type weapons also need to be balanced with ones that are actually offensive or have other useful functions.