Napalm/Poison Grenades

Post by **R.Flagg** » Thu Aug 21, 2003 3:51 am

Same reason your own rockets will kill you if you shoot somebody standing right in your face. To keep it fun and fair. If you are to be able to blind me, you must have some risk involved, or limitation, or something. Otherwise folks could just spam away w/o worry, or in extreme cases, folks could just come on a server and try and do nothing but ruin the fun for others.

I've seen folks on Q2Chaos servers just come on and run around and throw poison and flash grenades all night and nothing else. Of course in Q2 there was the unfortunate fact that folks could go into their ini settings for the game and turn off these effects. So they could spam flash nades and poison and never have the effect on themselves. Sad.

This is also related to why you only get six of them at a time max. To prevent spammage. And why they have some colored trails, to keep it fair, offer a chance to react.

Wish the shooter were immune to the effect as he knows he's shooting a flash-bang, the target does not.

Anyway, you sorta answered your own situation. You do know it's a flash grenade, so you can turn your back, or you can toss it thru a door and step away until it's done, or toss it thru the window right before your teammate goes in for the enemy flag, stand on top of your base and lob them down in front of attackers, or whatever.

But as far as close quarters DM fighting goes, no, it is not perhaps as useful there. But I'll still do it sometimes just to break up the pace on somebody who is on a roll, or even just for fun once in awhile.

jeditobe1 · Post by **jeditobe1** » Thu Aug 21, 2003 4:08 am

i find it most useful in CTF matches where i am just entering/exiting a base and the enemy has found me. If im entering ill lob a few and make a beeline for the next door, if im leaving ill lob a timed one out in front of me and run over it (makes it harder for the enemy to see). He will get flashed and my back will be to it.

Post by **Shadowstar** » Thu Aug 21, 2003 8:34 am

The best way to use flash grenades is to fire them in clusters with alt-fire, preferably into a room or around a corner, or if you're running with the flag, shoot them at a wall in front of you and, if your timing was right, you'll have long passed the grenades when they go off, but pursuers will be caught near point-blank by them and may lose your trail. Flash grenades are very useful if you use them with alt-fire. Multiple flashes will severely blind enemies and with the alt-fire, you'll be able to have grenades going off at nearly regular intervals, keeping enemies blind, preferably while you're somewhere else, or safely around the corner, etc. Very useful in CTF games. Great for midfielding. Patrol midfield and shoot alt-fire flashes into the enemy base to cause chaos and disorientation. They're great for covering flag carriers. There are a few CTF maps that are perfect for them.

Death_Lord · Post by **Death_Lord** » Mon Sep 08, 2003 4:53 pm

Could it be possible to add damage and burning for those who just walk aside/past the main place where the naplam grenade exploded. like if someone is camping behind a rock you could shoot at the rock and the burning mass will drop down on him unlike now.. perhaps add for the smaller flames less damage and less time that the player is on fire...

neolith · Post by **neolith** » Mon Sep 08, 2003 5:58 pm

I'm not sure if it's possible to bind damage to single particles...

jb · Post by jb » Mon Sep 08, 2003 9:18 pm

Neo is right as good as epic's particle system it does not allow for that type of damage. We would like to find a better way just ATM not sure how to handle it with out killing the frame rates...

FurrySound · Post by **FurrySound** » Tue Sep 09, 2003 1:55 am

Kill the frame rates!! Kill the frame rates!! no.. wait.. that doesn't sound right..

jb · Post by jb » Tue Sep 09, 2003 2:27 am

FurrySound wrote:Kill the frame rates!! Kill the frame rates!! no.. wait.. that doesn't sound right..

no your thinking of kill the wabbit; kill the wabbit; kill the wabbit...ahheehhhaaaaa (sorry too much Elmer Fudd back in my childhood days)

DJPaul2 · Post by **DJPaul2** » Tue Sep 09, 2003 8:00 am

FurrySound wrote:Kill the frame rates!! Kill the frame rates!! no.. wait.. that doesn't sound right..

Just do a trace for each individual particle.. ho ho ho

Zachariah · Post by **Zachariah** » Tue Sep 09, 2003 10:37 pm

Or rig the particles in a similar manner as the C.u.t.t.e.r alt-fire shards...just with fire instead of shards...

Post by **Shadowstar** » Wed Sep 10, 2003 1:01 am

Would it be possible to have the grenade damage actor deal damage through static meshes?

If possible, an extra effect could be to allow small static meshes to become engulfed in flames if hit by a napalm grenade -- that is, they gain a bright yellowish/orange ambient light, and extra napalm fires are generated on, say, 5 to 7 of the meshes' bones or surfaces at random.

So if the rock was small, shooting a napalm grenade at it would engulf the entire rock in fire, and anyone hiding behind it would take damage through the rock, and catch fire. This is assuming the rock is made with static meshes (most are).

Larger static meshes (like those used to build entire levels or just large objects) would not change.

Also, I don't think napalm produces a dynamic lightsource. IMO, it should.

Give it a subtlepulse property so it looks cool, and it will rock. So many people underestimate the value of lighting. Done well, it can improve an effect in ways that particles just can't. The flash grenades need to produce dynamic light sources too -- big, quick ones. A tenth of a second should be adequate for a flash.

Zachariah · Post by **Zachariah** » Wed Sep 17, 2003 5:41 pm

Just a thought , but can you kick grenades(timed grenades that is)? I'm too chicken to try it myself , but Imagine lobbing a napalm into the enemy base , running in expecting an easy score , then finding out that some a-hole had kicked it right back into the corridor your team was using to make their assault.

jb · Post by jb » Wed Sep 17, 2003 10:00 pm

yes and no. Problem is replication. In on-line games the server sends to each client the rotation, velocity of the grenade and thats it. Since physic tells use once we know that and some other things (mass for example) we know were the greade will land. So clients never receive any more info about the nade. The issue comes in when the nade bouces since its bouncing a random direction. So what you have is a case when it bouces where the server thinks its at postion x, y, z... but your PC may draw it at x1, y1, z1 and the two are not the same. So even though you think its there...its not. We can solve this with forcing postion updates...but that adds more network overhead...

Zachariah · Post by **Zachariah** » Wed Sep 17, 2003 11:00 pm

ahh replication , my old nemesis , that little bugger shoots down about half of the non proxy Ideas I submit here , heh. I shoulda known...

Post by **Shadowstar** » Thu Sep 18, 2003 2:19 am

Really makes one dream of the day we all have subspace internet connections.