Do SOMETHING about the raptor

[lord_kungai]

Could somebody Puh-leez do SOMETHING about the $%#*%$* %*%^ing raptor. It is uselessness personified. I already suggested a variation f the raptor, but nobody so far has said anything about better flying vehicles!!! Chaos needs some type of flying vehicle that does not act like a friggin floating helicopter!!! Imagine a flying vehicle that could not stop (redeemer style), had the same weapons as an Eagle or a Black Scorpion (AS-Mothership), and could explode like a redeemer when destroyed. It could go into an uncontrollabe spin if it hits something. This is just one idea. UT2004 Onslaught is almost completely spoilt by the lack of a proper flying vehicle.

[DemonHunter]

Funny, I LOVE the raptor.
Best flying vehicle ever in skilled hands

But I do believe LoQ has some concepts in the works...rough draft, very rough draft

(uh oh, Flagg's gonna put me in "the Hole" for saying too much. noooooo )

[-Penfold-]

nobody so far has said anything about better flying vehicles!!!

Oh, I have, I have...

Just came up with another suggestion: (assuming the Space fighters strafe sideways) An aircraft that flies like a redeemer, where you aim is the direction you fly. Make it maybe 1.2x faster than the raptor and but less manueverable than the redeemer. It cannot brake, cannot strafe, travels faster the more it's pointing downward, and slower when it climbs. Maybe make it look like an X-15 on crack. As it can't brake, it can't land, (not too many runways in unreal maps) Weapon selection would probably have to be decided from playtesting, though the weapon should likely be faster and more damaging than the raptors, as it can only fire at a particular target while traveling toward it. Probably be best to have a rocket like shape, small profile from the weapon end, larger profile from the side.

Or, perhaps make the crouch feature deploy a parachute, which will slow the craft down to land, and does not disconnect until touchdown. Takeoff would require a nice blast of fire and plume of smoke, which should do some damage to those nearby. Parachute would have to stay on until touchdown to avoid Maverick like "we'll hit the airbrakes and he'll fly right by" actions over and over. (Source)

The thing I hate most about the raptor is the homing missiles they fire make dogfighting increadibly LAME. It ends up being endless circles flown around each other, as the missiles can only be dodged by flying nearly at top speed in a direction nearly perpendicular to the rockets path. Anyone with the balls to close in to try to make it a plasma fight will likely get hit by the rockets before getting close enough to have any chance at leading the target. What it needs are rockets that either 1) travel faster, but are less maneuverable, or 2) rockets that don't home in on other raptors. Either would result in dogfights of some SKILL and FUN instead of long-range square dancing.

Thanks for voicing your opinion. Hopefully, if enough people complain about the raptors shortcomings, someone will fix them or create another airborne vehicle. And it might as well be the Chaos team, if it's going to be done right. (nice mix of hint and compliment, eh, Chaos Team )

[neolith]

But I do believe LoQ has some concepts in the works...rough draft, very rough draft

(uh oh, Flagg's gonna put me in "the Hole" for saying too much. noooooo )

I don't know about LoQ, but I made up my mind about new shapes for vehicles some months ago. I doubt that my efforts got posted for the public though. But I can dig out my idea for a raptor replacement this evening. However, that model is not connected to CUT (yet).

The important thing is:
We have not yet made any decisions about vehicles at all! We haven't even started to properly collect ideas. It is something we will do that later on once the things we're currently working on are implemented.

[TKATK]

what about the hoverboard,havent decided yet?

[jb]

Again we love ideas. Just that the team has grown and its very hard now days to keep on track if we dont "Put blinders" on. We would love to sit here and talk about some new weapons, changes to current weapons, features and vehicles we would like to add. But if we did, we run the risk of delaying the work we have done now. And thats not a good idea.

[R.Flagg]

But I do believe LoQ has some concepts in the works...rough draft, very rough draft

(uh oh, Flagg's gonna put me in "the Hole" for saying too much. noooooo )

Hehe. Hardly. I mean, can you think of a time that Loq did <i>not</i> have "concepts in the works"?

*Looks out window....., yup, Sun came up today. Loq must have more concepts in the works.

[Kaboodles]

Replace the Raptor's missiles with the Chaos Laser-Guided Rockets and maybe put an indicator on where you have to shoot in order to hit the target when using plasma.

[Kaboodles]

Or you could make the Eagle and Black Scorpion fighters available for Onslaught somehow.

[neolith]

Or you could make the Eagle and Black Scorpion fighters available for Onslaught somehow.

I remember a thread at the Atari forums about this topic where Epic said it would require massive scripting to do that...

[lord_kungai]

nobody so far has said anything about better flying vehicles!!!

Oh, I have, I have...

Sorry, I just said that to get somebody on my side

Funny, I LOVE the raptor. Best flying vehicle ever in skilled hands

The raptor is more of a mag-lev helicopter. It is good but it would be better if:

1)It was faster
2)It looked better and sleeker, more like a plane and
3)It acted like a redeemer that could shoot (and explode on collision. That is just a cool idea I got from somewhere)

I don't know very much about UT2k4 mod making, but i do know that when the chaotic dreams team wants something more in UT, they make it. (how's that for a hint and a comlpliment, -Penfold-?)

[-Penfold-]

...maybe put an indicator on where you have to shoot in order to hit the target when using plasma.

In my experience, I don't personally like the leading aim-point crosshair. I have played games that feature this and it really becomes more of a "slave to the dot", or basically a simple game of "keep the crosshairs on the crosshairs".

Leading an object should be a skill learned from trial and error and estimation. The only thing I've seen that resembles this, but still requires and rewards skill (though helping develop skill at the same time) is the system used in the X-wing vs. TIE fighter and X-Wing Alliance games where there is no leading crosshair, but instead your aiming crosshairs will light up to indicate that firing now will likely cause a hit. I found this much more rewarding than the aimpoint crosshair used in some craft of WC2.

[Shadowstar]

Aim-point crosshairs are more realistic as, I believe, that is the system used by the military.

BUT, Unreal Tournament is all about the game. It is even realistic to consider such a system as what you describe as more realistic because it encourages skill, and that would make sense in a competitive "sports" environment. I think people tend to forget that Unreal Tournament is set up as a competition sport, not a realistic military simulation. So we can get away with favoring gameplay and skill-encouragement over realism or military accuracy.

[lord_kungai]

The weapons on the raptor are fine. However, as i said earlier, it is a freakin' mag-lev helicopter! Can't you make an aircraft that resembles a plane more than a helicopter, whatever the weapons are? I am sure yu could make a reeealy fast plane that could do a barrel roll maybe?

[DemonHunter]

Real planes suck in tournament type games.
They are too fast and rather useless in the heat of the battle, cuz all they can do is zip in and out, then go around for another pass.

Raptor>Plane