AvRAIL

[pooty]

wail-opentournament wrote: ↑Sun Jun 22, 2025 10:53 am
Spitballing some other ideas that don't really exist:

1. An actual Flak-type Anti-Air weapon that you can't really aim precisely but can be used to inflict consistent chip damage on fliers. Could be hitscan (shotgun) or projectiles but the latter might have netcode issues.
2. An anti-air AOE denial weapon. Deploy floating air-mines that project a large damaging AOE (electricity/energy) around themselves. Fliers in the region take damage over time which means you might take some modest damage passing through the AOE but hovering there is deadly.
3. Avril-like tracking missle. When it hits, it bores into the target, inflicting DOT rather than burst damage.

I like these ideas.

For 1. could a flak centaur be added? It does wide hitscan damage in a cone, maybe around 20 dps. It could also be used as an anti-infantry vehicle too. This would give the stains a vehicle to pull that they would actually provide use in besides just being fodder. I prefer anti air weaponry to be damage over time or chip damage vs oneshots, since all the oneshot mechanics are only reliably used by the top 10% of players and mostly worthless for the vast majority. Its annoying when an enemy flier flies in and wipes half the team all because none of them have the aim required to land a shot. If at least one of them had access to aoe chip damage, then they'd have a chance and it would help balance out the good pilots running entire games.

For 2. what if the battery launcher is changed to do this? Normal fire shoots the lockon rocket that it currently does, but alt fire turns all batteries currently in flight into stationary floating mines that deal some amount of damage to all enemies in their radius. They'd last for ~30s or something or until another battery (friend or foe) gets within its radius, destroying both batteries. This gives some counter play to avoid areas and nodes just being spammed by them without rendering them worthless. If the mines could be destroyed by just shooting them, then they'd be worthless against most fliers, especially pheonix and starbolts.

For 3. if there is a way to code a status effect, then maybe there could be a missile that applies a debuff that makes the target more vulnerable to damage for a set duration. Hitting the target with more of these missiles would refresh the duration and amplify the debuff, allowing for repeated hits to inflict increasing damage. This way a flier can decide whether it is possible to kill the target before too many of these missiles hit.

1. Sounds very much like the FlakRat, which is basically scorpion with Dual Flak Cannons similar to the Wasp. Also the third seat on the Heavy Goliath Tank has a flak Drone. It shoots a homing drone that flies and shoots flak before homing in and exploding.

2. Sort of like a mini stormcaster but able to be destroyed.

3. Interesting. Kind of like Double Damage but only for a single target

[captainsnarf]

Ooh, I like #3. In SC2 the Raven has a anti-armor bomb. Does no damage but wipes the armor stat. I think this could be implemented as a powerup which gets activated for the victim, like a 'nerf' relic. It also kind of reminds me of the 'cx' weapon from WoE mod. You shoot these little darts for 1 dmg, but can detonate for more.

I think it would be a different weapon/vehicle though than this battery/avrail thing.

If a Raptor comes at me close, I can kind of defend myself with shock beam/core. It's not a free kill. They need to work at it. This is not true of every other OP flyer. For them it's basically a free kill. This is the situation I want something for, and avril/battery are not it.

[wail-opentournament]

Status effects are interesting but it's important to have good messaging (which generally UT2004 doesn't do, since almost everything offensive in the core game mechanically is either +/- health directly, related to mechanics of hitscan/projectile, or knockback).

Personally don't care for the idea of damage multipliers since you end up in the design space where your damage muliplier has to compete with the far more immediate & readable element of just directly shooting and damaging a thing with a weapon. This likely just means you're turning someone else's shots into instakills (or nearly so), and Omni already has a proliferation of overpowered vehicles that deal too much damage. Not saying it can't work, but a DOT or (if possible) a slow-effect would be more obvious and less likely to create uninteractive gameplay.

[pooty]

Omni already has a proliferation of overpowered vehicles that deal too much damage. Not saying it can't work, but a DOT or (if possible) a slow-effect would be more obvious and less likely to create uninteractive gameplay.

Say it isn't so! And to think we've reduced the damage on nearly everything from Omni 1.0!
I do agree a bit more would be helpful. That being said I think we are much closer to balance when you consider those that have good aim can kill nearly every raptor type with a few shots of a SR. Many tanks get wiped by fast movers and flak.

To Snarf's point, I think something that can help go after the flyers (vs. nerfing the flyers themselves). What about some sort of projectile like the WebCaster/Tick Scorpion -- the Web wraps visibly the vehicile and disrupts the movement -- now its different because on the ground vehicles those are Karama vehicles and the flyers might react differently -- but we could code that... it could cause random movement... its not an insta kill but it would disrupt flyer aim temporarily that would allow chance to kill it. We already have Concussion Rifle that does way more knockback...

Or even if its just the "Structural Integrity Disruptor" could just use a shading color like the SR hit to show that vehicle is highly vulnerable.

[Enyo]

To Snarf's point, I think something that can help go after the flyers (vs. nerfing the flyers themselves). What about some sort of projectile like the WebCaster/Tick Scorpion -- the Web wraps visibly the vehicile and disrupts the movement --

That’s a pretty good idea! Some sort of rocket propelled, fast moving web glob that when it hits a flyer covers it in a green webcaster and disrupts it’s movement, like making it rock around all weird and maybe slows it’s speed by half for a couple secs. Would give a foot soldier enough time to pop off an Avril and actually hit it, or just pepper it with SR/LG.

Such a weapon should require good aim and ability to lead the shot. But if it moves fast enough, maybe about like a Goliath 2 shell, should be easy enough to hit a moving target.