More Sci-Fi-esque, nanite-y guns
CaCa
Join Date: 2003-06-12 Member: 17319Members
Join Date: 2003-06-12 Member: 17319Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Minor cosmetic and gameplay tweaks for immersion's sake.</div>(I must mention: This is my 1st post since them heady NS1 days of old.)
I loooove NS2, even just in it's current state, and am mostly content to take things as they come, impressed as I am by what UWE has already achieved, what with makin' they're own "thang": the NS world, the Spark engine, and just they're overall stylish game implementations.
That said, I've one minor gripe with the "bullet based" guns (pistol, rifle, shotgun): They're too "powder-tech-y", if that makes any sense, and not "futuristic" or "nanite based" enough.
I know the general NS vibe is one of grittyness-ness, and that's all good, so I wouldn't think any kind of lasers, phasers or plasma weapon type guns would fit in at all. However, as I've always understood it, the TSA have nanites. Making nanites "canon" is great as a McGuffin-y way to explain how things work in ways they probably shouldn't. Like "magic", right? But as things are now, the pistol, rifle and shottie are just devoid of any sort of nanite intervention at all, which I feel is a wasted opportunity in more ways than one. So here I throw out some ideas of how to make nanites actually come into play, albeit in a very minor, mostly cosmetic way:
<ol type='1'><li><b>Blue muzzle flash</b> - How about giving all muzzle flashes a very slight blueish tint? I remember a couple of muzzle flash replacements in NS1 did that, and I definately used those ever since I found 'em. In the case of the pistol and rifle, both of which have those "exhaust" holes near the muzzle, maybe have some of the flash actually slightly come out from there too, or at least only light up slightly when firing.</li><li><b>Caseless nanite bullets</b> - I find the whole ejection port in a "futuristic" weapon pretty ridiculous, and really, is it that <i>cool</i> to <i>barely</i> see the shells fly out? Caseless ammo exists and so there you have an excuse not to have shells ejecting <i>at all</i>. Also, in 3rd person you don't see shells flying everywhere, so there is that too...</li><li><b>Nano-mags that don't need cocking</b> - I find the "cocking" part of the rifle's reload animation unnecessary. It's the future... Do we really need to kok this friggin' huge rifle? Wouldn't someone have come up with a way to overcome that need?
Maybe the magazines are actually "nanite-cartridges" filled with nanites, and as soon as you press the trigger the nanites instantly construct bullets right in the firing chamber just before being fired, so there'd be no need to "kok" to move the 1st bullet into the chamber.</li><li><b>More nanite-ish shotgun</b> - I'm not much sold on the shotgun reload animation. I love the slapping the loader back in part, but the individual shell feeding just feels awkward. Now you see those 6 round blueish lights on the side of they shottie? What if they were 8 instead of 6? What if those were the actual "shells", only think of them as "nanite-capsules"? And how about each time you fire, one of the lights goes out, dissintegrating, so you can tell how many shots you have left just by seeing how many lights remain? Reloading would then be placing new "nano-capsules" in those now empty slots where the small blue lights go. And when you fire your last shell the top-loader thing snaps out, acting as a sort of "exhaust" with a bit of blue mist spewing forth as if sending out expended nanos. Of course, once finished reloading the nano-capsules, the awesome slapping top loader back down animation'd still be there, accompanied with the "winding up" sound that already exists.
Alternatively maybe those lights on the side of the shotgun could be used as the ammo counter for whatever upcoming alt-fire.
Also, how about no cocking between each blast? By all means keep the firing rate delay by giving a longer recoil, but remove the primitive cocking... Hell, we have auto-shotguns nowadays that don't need cocking. Again, to me that feels kinda unnecessary.</li><li><b>Welder as alt-fire for pistol</b> - I'm not sure if welders are to be implemented in NS2, but if they were, I think it'd be awesome if the pistol could double-up as the welder, maybe as an add on module, similar to the rifle's grenade launcher. Or maybe it could be in as default, so you have the welder as pistol's alt-fire already when you spawn, and when you help build a structure, you'd do it with the pistol selected and using it's alt-fire. But when using the welder for repairs or anything other than structure-building, it'd actually use up a small amount of individual resources.
Of course, we'd lose the current pistol alt-fire but I think it's really unnecessary anyway.</li><li><b>Grenade launcher under instead of side</b> - This one's pretty obvious, and I'm sure many have thought the same. S'not really important, but hey, it'd be cool, as I personally don't dig the grenade module that much. And the rifle <i>does</i> already have an unused, unexplained 2nd under-barrel after all, and the grenade ammo counter could just as easily be on the side of the rifle.</li></ol>
Well, that's all I can think of. I'm pretty sure I had a few other stupid ideas so if I remember them I'll add them.
I realize most of these things would involve remodelling, retexturing, reanimating, and stuff like that so I doubt any of this'll ever be implemented, but hey! T'would be cool if they did...
I loooove NS2, even just in it's current state, and am mostly content to take things as they come, impressed as I am by what UWE has already achieved, what with makin' they're own "thang": the NS world, the Spark engine, and just they're overall stylish game implementations.
That said, I've one minor gripe with the "bullet based" guns (pistol, rifle, shotgun): They're too "powder-tech-y", if that makes any sense, and not "futuristic" or "nanite based" enough.
I know the general NS vibe is one of grittyness-ness, and that's all good, so I wouldn't think any kind of lasers, phasers or plasma weapon type guns would fit in at all. However, as I've always understood it, the TSA have nanites. Making nanites "canon" is great as a McGuffin-y way to explain how things work in ways they probably shouldn't. Like "magic", right? But as things are now, the pistol, rifle and shottie are just devoid of any sort of nanite intervention at all, which I feel is a wasted opportunity in more ways than one. So here I throw out some ideas of how to make nanites actually come into play, albeit in a very minor, mostly cosmetic way:
<ol type='1'><li><b>Blue muzzle flash</b> - How about giving all muzzle flashes a very slight blueish tint? I remember a couple of muzzle flash replacements in NS1 did that, and I definately used those ever since I found 'em. In the case of the pistol and rifle, both of which have those "exhaust" holes near the muzzle, maybe have some of the flash actually slightly come out from there too, or at least only light up slightly when firing.</li><li><b>Caseless nanite bullets</b> - I find the whole ejection port in a "futuristic" weapon pretty ridiculous, and really, is it that <i>cool</i> to <i>barely</i> see the shells fly out? Caseless ammo exists and so there you have an excuse not to have shells ejecting <i>at all</i>. Also, in 3rd person you don't see shells flying everywhere, so there is that too...</li><li><b>Nano-mags that don't need cocking</b> - I find the "cocking" part of the rifle's reload animation unnecessary. It's the future... Do we really need to kok this friggin' huge rifle? Wouldn't someone have come up with a way to overcome that need?
Maybe the magazines are actually "nanite-cartridges" filled with nanites, and as soon as you press the trigger the nanites instantly construct bullets right in the firing chamber just before being fired, so there'd be no need to "kok" to move the 1st bullet into the chamber.</li><li><b>More nanite-ish shotgun</b> - I'm not much sold on the shotgun reload animation. I love the slapping the loader back in part, but the individual shell feeding just feels awkward. Now you see those 6 round blueish lights on the side of they shottie? What if they were 8 instead of 6? What if those were the actual "shells", only think of them as "nanite-capsules"? And how about each time you fire, one of the lights goes out, dissintegrating, so you can tell how many shots you have left just by seeing how many lights remain? Reloading would then be placing new "nano-capsules" in those now empty slots where the small blue lights go. And when you fire your last shell the top-loader thing snaps out, acting as a sort of "exhaust" with a bit of blue mist spewing forth as if sending out expended nanos. Of course, once finished reloading the nano-capsules, the awesome slapping top loader back down animation'd still be there, accompanied with the "winding up" sound that already exists.
Alternatively maybe those lights on the side of the shotgun could be used as the ammo counter for whatever upcoming alt-fire.
Also, how about no cocking between each blast? By all means keep the firing rate delay by giving a longer recoil, but remove the primitive cocking... Hell, we have auto-shotguns nowadays that don't need cocking. Again, to me that feels kinda unnecessary.</li><li><b>Welder as alt-fire for pistol</b> - I'm not sure if welders are to be implemented in NS2, but if they were, I think it'd be awesome if the pistol could double-up as the welder, maybe as an add on module, similar to the rifle's grenade launcher. Or maybe it could be in as default, so you have the welder as pistol's alt-fire already when you spawn, and when you help build a structure, you'd do it with the pistol selected and using it's alt-fire. But when using the welder for repairs or anything other than structure-building, it'd actually use up a small amount of individual resources.
Of course, we'd lose the current pistol alt-fire but I think it's really unnecessary anyway.</li><li><b>Grenade launcher under instead of side</b> - This one's pretty obvious, and I'm sure many have thought the same. S'not really important, but hey, it'd be cool, as I personally don't dig the grenade module that much. And the rifle <i>does</i> already have an unused, unexplained 2nd under-barrel after all, and the grenade ammo counter could just as easily be on the side of the rifle.</li></ol>
Well, that's all I can think of. I'm pretty sure I had a few other stupid ideas so if I remember them I'll add them.
I realize most of these things would involve remodelling, retexturing, reanimating, and stuff like that so I doubt any of this'll ever be implemented, but hey! T'would be cool if they did...
Comments
Also, these TSA incursions seem more like very specific pinpointed operations, not outright wars, so if I'd have to guess I'd say they use this "expensive" technology in these cases because the cost vs reward is favorable.
But that's all beside the point, which was to give the weapons a more "distinct" look and feel, for an already mostly "distinctive" game.
<!--quoteo(post=1841630:date=Apr 19 2011, 06:54 PM:name=CaCa)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (CaCa @ Apr 19 2011, 06:54 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1841630"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Also, how about no cocking between each blast? By all means keep the firing rate delay by giving a longer recoil, but remove the primitive cocking... Hell, we have auto-shotguns nowadays that don't need cocking. Again, to me that feels kinda unnecessary.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
UW explained that the pump action just has an "aura" to it. I know it's a bit off, since the whole "aura" of the pump action is rugged and reliably simple- putting flashy ammo counters on it and "nanites that move the shells from the barrel to the magazine tube" really contradicts this image.
I do think a pump is a better choice for gameplay reasons though.
they also have so many cells (really small cells with high regen rate) that its not importend if ~10000 die
they are also coated or something so if a few cells heat up they wont give thermal energy to the others
around 'em !
so the marines couldnt use the newest weapons..
a few years before phasers/lasers and stuff were invented really futuristic and reliable bullet based weapons
were build. they never reached "perfectition" because laser/phasers came in
and now marines use these bulky, industrial (maybe even prototype) outdated bullet weapons because
ripping apart cells from each other always works ! (thats also the reason the 2sec is so effective)
sounds good, non ?
could you give me the link to that post please?
But ok, yes, I admit that pumping shotguns between each blast, while unnecessary, feels pretty badass. I can live with the pumping.
But reloading by placing shell after shell in that loader thing... It's fine, but just feels awkward.
That said, it'd be cool if what you're loading in the current animation are these "nano-capsules" I mentioned. And as you load each one, those lights on the side of the shotgun light up one by one. And as you shoot, the lights go out one by one. And when you fire your last shot, the top loader springs up and let's out a small blue mist.
Aesthetics, dammit!
It would have infinite, but slowly recharging ammo. Primary fire would be a single, chargeable shot. Charged shots load more nanites into the gun and it does more damage, also charged shots do damage over time, but you wouldn't get many of them and they'd be hard to aim.
Secondary fire would be an injector of sorts, uses more nanites but does a lot of damage, with DOT, especially against structures. The downside is that it's only melee range.
I wouldn't replace the existing guns though, regular gun mechanisms are pretty cool, they explode when you shoot them, make a loud noise, move around a lot, shoot bits of stuff out the side, all of which are cool things.
Caseless ammo and no cocking though I don't like. That's part of the coolness, have stuff fly out in third person, make it more obvious in first, and have as much button pressing and lever pulling and action cycling as possible on guns, that's cool, hell I'd have all the guns be clockwork if I could.
But still, the rifle's reload animation already has a lot of those things: pulling down the mag while opening that handle-whatevermathing-trapdoor, slapping mag back in, pulling handle-trapdoor-thing back in place... Do you really need to kok it as well?
And in the case of ejecting shells I find it unnecessary, as in, does anyone reeeeaaallly notice it? I mean, really? I mean, c'mon, really? And if you do notice it, isn't it slightly distracting, even if it were going out the<i> right</i> way? Not <i>too</i> distracting, but slightly, and unnecessarily...
I repeat: I like NS2 and everything about it, yes, the guns as well, just as they are now... But, I'd prefer it if these things we're just not there. Streamlining!
This is kind of related, but how about when the assault rifle is fired, instead of casings flying everywhere, it has heatsinks(like computer heatsinks, only designed for a weapon) around it that glow red as it's being fired... because these bullets are so awesome. What would be awesome though would be if the heatsink was on the underside of the gun, so if the marine fires, then melees an alien, oh wait aliens are resisitant to hea,,, no theyre not, flamethrowers... so as I said, he melees the alien, and it does extra damage.
Really? What about them would you say is futuristic? The fact that they're "different" in shape from anything that exists? That isn't futuristic, that's just <i>fiction</i>.
I'm not a big fan of the current weapon designs either. I'd have liked a more... bullpup design - since that would better suit the close quarters, and firing-from-the-hip that NS has.
+1 on blue tinted muzzle flash and chamber mist
The syringe could be really bulky, more like an ammo pack than a medical syringe and release a blue mist when injecting and maybe have some kind of lcd screen on it to show how full it is.
What do you think?
This is kind of related, but how about when the assault rifle is fired, instead of casings flying everywhere, it has heatsinks(like computer heatsinks, only designed for a weapon) around it that glow red as it's being fired... because these bullets are so awesome. What would be awesome though would be if the heatsink was on the underside of the gun, so if the marine fires, then melees an alien, oh wait aliens are resisitant to hea,,, no theyre not, flamethrowers... so as I said, he melees the alien, and it does extra damage.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You're really going to rip off Mass effect 2 like that? Cause you just came up with this idea yourself right?
On topic.
I also agree that the guns just arn't as cool as they could be, they need to be more sci fi.
so yea... nanites.... no.
The obvious flaws:
Nanites cannot be used as 'magic' ammo makers. every shot you fire shoots a mass of lead or whatever out of the gun. this means that eventually you will run out of available mass. if the nanites just keep making ammo, you will very quickly violate the conservation of mass.
furthermore, why would someone every develop a gun that requires such complexity? nanites? microscopic machines inside my gun? they fabricate new ammo every time i shoot? wheres the battery that powers them? when i think of a gun, i need to count on it to work right every time, otherwise im dead. the pump shotgun is a great example. not only is it "bad ass" but also a very reliable gun. traditional ammo makes great sense, its simple, cheap, and REALLY good at killing fleshy things.
In regards to how the commander apparently uses nanites for structures and medpacks ect. he/she is using the facilities nannite system. it is much more likely that a large facility may have a nanite system. its pretty simple to see. it s got to cost a lot of money, say a few million, to develop a nanite system for a specific application (gun, facility, ect.)
so is it worth installing in your multi million/billion dollar facilities out in space/other planets? Yes.
is it worth developing for you $200 guns, when a bunch will be lost/broken/captured by enemies(not kharaa of course). No.
If you want to see a more futuristic approach to weapon design consider a rail or coil gun.
The technology for these weapons is already proven. the major drawback today is the power source. you need a lot of voltage and current to power one.
consider the current LMG
we could easily think of it as a rail gun. each magazine contain many small pelets (the ammo) and a battery with enough charge to fire the full magazine.
as for the cool blue muzzle flash, now you can get cool blue crackling electricity down the barrel with each shot.
nuff said (aka tldr)
but all this railgun talk gives me an idea for how people complain that the lmg doesnt scale well into the late game. post it later.
I've been saying this for a while, what uw did to shotgun kinda flies in the face of what one expects from a reliable design
Blue flash is cool, but removing spent casings and racking the gun seems to take away from the aesthetics more than help. (unless you did the whole "5th Element" style button loading, lol)