[WIP] No name yet

Now that my other 2 submissions are done (hopefully), heres a start on my next project.. I dont know what this will be yet, I think id like it to fire bullets this time, like a kind of "doom style" sniper rifle thing... the broken scope means I dont have to implement zooming

Let me know what you think. I welcome any suggestions on what this could turn into.



Edit: And the spawn sprite



UPDATE:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/y29da0re5vogwhj/RIFLESHEET.png?dl=0

Ive started on the reload frames... Im thinking duke style reload.

EDIT2: And heres something I whipped up with the latest reload frames.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ebipucrjoh4hgth/RIFLE.ZIP?dl=0

Just because it has a scope doesn't mean you need a fictional reason not to implement it. You can have a totally unbroken scope and just say "f**k it" and not implement it.

I know it's still rough, but I wanted to point out that in its current state, the pickup sprite doesn't work, and it feeds off of shotgun shells. (The summon name is still "AutoShot".) The reload frames are, admittedly, pretty rough, but the rest of the art is good.

Anyways, as for what it could turn into, you could make it into a weak railgun attack with the trails customized to look like a trail of smoke. That's what I did for the "Rifle" currently on the repo; I didn't like it shooting 10 bullets at once to try to simulate over-penetration (especially since it's really poorly-balanced and super-overpowered on top of that), so I gave it a rail attack for over-penetration instead, with a Hold state to introduce recoil so you can't hold down the trigger and snipe something to death from afar with no penalty (unlike the "Rifle" currently on the repo, which can kill a Cyberdemon with ease from across the map). I kept its custom ammo type, though, since it's pretty good; you may want to use it too.

Here's the attack script I'm using for the "Rifle". I'm not saying you need to copy this exactly, but it's here as an example:
As for a name? Maybe "Tactical Rifle" or "DMR" (Designated Marksman Rifle).

Thanks for the feedback.

Id just like to say firstly ignore the "example zip", its definately not going to be part of the final product, I just used it to test the frames and see how smoothly they work before touching up on the graphics themselves... and considering it was already in my dropbox folder, I thought I might as well just copy the link and paste it here as a "taster" to show off the animations in action.

I can defiantely see the problems with the reload frames, but at least they work well together in my opinion, and yes they will be worked on frame by frame as now I have the angles right, its just a matter of clearing up that distortion amongst other things... but you know me, it looks crap to start with, but I some how pull a magic paintbrush out of my a** and make everything look 100 times better

I like your idea of a railgun, I didn't think of that, and so far I've not played with the railgun attack function, so it will be good learning experience. And I may consider using a custom ammo type for this, maybe not something that someone else has done, I like to try and keep things original/unique.

As for the scope....

... ^^ But all that being said, I can implement 2 versions of the weapon, one with the broken scope sprite, and the other with the good one, I do believe I've seen some weapons in the repo that do that.. But if im gonna fix it, ill implement the zoom feature as I personally hate it when I play a game where the weapon clearly has a scope but it doesnt do anything.... Or rather than zoom, the other option is to do a future shock/skynet laser rifle style scope, but Im not sure if its even possible to do a "picture within a picture" thing (if you have played the game that would make sense)... but if your ok with 2 versions, my question to that would be:

1. Have them in the same package (there will be 2 txt files with the code for each weapon, and a decorate.txt file to read both of those files as to be able to implement either/or in a map)
OR
2. separate packages.... same thread or sepearate?

And ill work on the spawn sprite once Ive gotten the rest of the weapon right, to try and keep the end result consistent with the final animations

Edit: Oh yea and as for the name, Ill work on the suggestions you have provided, may even end up being one of those if I cant think of anything better by the time this is ready for a submission.

I'd say, if you have a version with a working scope and a version without, bundle 'em together. You can even put them in separate (but compatible) WADs if you want.

BadMojo wrote: And ill work on the spawn sprite once Ive gotten the rest of the weapon right, to try and keep the end result consistent with the final animations

Oh, when I said the pickup sprite "didn't work", I meant it was literally invisible during gameplay. Not that it was bad.

Oh yea... I didnt put the pickup sprite in the example wad... Like I said, just ignore that, the purpose was purely for the animation testing but I still have a few nit picky things I'd like to modify either way.

I have a question.. In your A_RailAttack parameters, your have "random(1,4) * 20"... I have used something like that before in one of my other weapons as it was suggested for damage amount per hit.... As you know, Im no expert in maths, so I just wanted to confirm if Im right in thinking that it means (in blatant english): random number(between 1 and 4 ) times 20... so if that random number turned out to be 4, it would do 80 damage... if that random number was 2 it would do 40 damage, and it can go as low as 20 and so on.

BadMojo wrote: I have a question.. In your A_RailAttack parameters, your have "random(1,4) * 20"... I have used something like that before in one of my other weapons as it was suggested for damage amount per hit.... As you know, Im no expert in maths, so I just wanted to confirm if Im right in thinking that it means (in blatant english): random number(between 1 and 4 ) times 20... so if that random number turned out to be 4, it would do 80 damage... if that random number was 2 it would do 40 damage, and it can go as low as 20 and so on.

Correct! Obviously, tweak the values as you see fit if you decide to use such a formula. And of course, you can always add additional damage on top of that; for example, "(random (1, 4) * 10) + 40" would result in a spread of 10 - 40 points of "random" damage, plus an additonal 40 points of "guaranteed" damage.

At least I know my brain works ok now

I've actually been playing around with that A_RailAttack function, I have another question actually.. Its not going to be implemented in this submission, but I was playing with having the function in the ready state so that it acts like a laser beam, disabling the damage and all of that... if I added my own sprites instead of the standard particle, with half transparent colours, or perhaps a dummy sprite with nothing and added gldefs to it... or something.. I think it could look good for my megawad... but the problem is when the "beam" hits an enemy, the enemy still acts as if its being shot, is there a way to disable that?

Or is there a better way to achieve a laser beam (NOT dot, thats easy) but an actual beam that doesn't disturb enemies?

Probably you'd give the rail attack a custom pufftype which uses PUFFONACTORS and has the PAINLESS flag. (The puff could be either visible or invisible.)

I've split the rail discussion that I'd started here .