Legacy:Mod Ideas/Descent Mod (Quick Concept)

Remember Descent? If not it was a ground breaking game in which you zoomed around a 3D map in a small spacecraft capable of movement along all 3 axis. Indeed the concept of up and down was purely relative to your current orientation. This mod idea is loosely based on this model. The game is losely based on the descent game model only team game focused.

Players are split into different teams. The standard team-game variants are up for grabs here (although whether DD would work or not I don't know). In addition to the standard DD/CTF/BR modes of UT2K3 there are a couple of other game types (discussed later).

Players zoom around the map in a customised craft. They can strafe in all three dimensions as well as roll and mouse-look type movement.

Customising the Craft

Before the player enters the game he must first crate his own unique craft. There are two types of "hull" available. A small light hull, ideal for "flag run" type work and a heavier hull whos purpose is to fight. Each hull has a set number of "spaces" (to be decided) that can be assigned to the following components:

• Shield generator (comes in 4 variations capable of storing 50, 100, 150, and 200 shield units and taking 1, 2, 3, and 4 spaces respectively).
• Power generator (Variations taking 1-4 spaces are available. Powers to be decided)
• Engine (comes in 4 variations taking 1-4 spaces. Respective powers to be determined)
• Weapons

Each filled space takes up a set amount of weight - this is used to determine how fast the craft can accelerate.

Wormbo: I'd probably suggest three types of hulls, think Phoenix (less armor, more speed), Pyro (medium/allround), Magnum (heavily armored, sloooow ;)) like in Descent 3.

Power

All components of the craft require a base amount of power to function - so having a power generator that will support the components you've added to the craft is important. Most components take time to recharge. If there is spare power left over once all of the "base power" needs of the components have been satisfied the components within craft can recharge over time. Players can set the order in which devices are recharged. Spare power may also be used to repair any damage on the craft. This will happen automatically if all components of the craft are at full charge. Players can elect to turn weapon components (and the engine) off in order to make more power available.

Engines can store a limited amount of charge for a quick "boost". This boost simply doubles the acceleration the engine can provide for a short while and increases the maximum speed of the craft by 10%.

Weapons store power to enable them to fire. Each shot uses up a set amount of energy. Once the energy for a weapon has run out the weapon will not function until it has had a chance to recharge.

Running Low on Power

Stuff doesn't work as well - things don't recharge. Specifics still to be worked out.

UArchitect: mabey have a kind of percentage thing, to determine whether a shot is fired succesfully or does a blank, and makes some leet fizzy electric "failed" noise, so as the energy runs lower, the weapon tends to skip a bit, would make it seem like the weapon is really starting to fail on you from lack of power, and when all power is down you have to wait for recharging...

(not sure if i explained very well) :P just an idea

The Weapons

The number of weapons has been kept fairly low deliberately. Each weapon type comes in a few flavours that take up more space/power. The laser weapons have variations that take up more power but use less space.

• Pulse Laser - A medium fire weapon that fires a single bolt of energy in a straight line. These weapons are unique in that the base power requirement of the laser can be increased to boost the power without any additional increase in space usage. Alternatively, the power of the laser can be increased by using more space without any additional cost in base energy use. There are four levels of laser. The level 4 laser does 4 times as much damage as the level 1 laser.
• Flash Laser - A rapid fire laser weapon that fires twice as fast as the Pulse laser. All the same rules apply to the Flash laser as the Pulse laser. The Flash laser has a base power rating twice that of the Pulse laser.
• Cannon - A rapid fire hit-scan weapon (the only one in the game). There are four variations of this weapon (taking 2-5 spaces). Version 1 does moderate damage and has a low energy store. Version 2 has a small increase in damage but a larger (2x?) energy store. Version 3 does twice as much damage as version 1 but has the same sized energy store. Version 4 does slightly more damage than version 3 but has a larger (2x?) engery store.

Ideally it should be possible to tell from the look of the craft the sort of weaponry that has been attached (and maybe the type of power plant as well).

• Mines - These standard defensive weapons come in a few flavours, with each flavour requiring more base power, more space, or both. The types of mine available are:
  • Dumb mine - These mines float where they are put and explode on contact with any craft. These mines will explode if they bump into walls.
  • Rubber mine - These mines bounce off walls and only explode if they hit an enemy craft. If the team mine variant of these mines is used.then "friendly" players can bump the mines to give them a bit of speed and send them off down a corridor.
  • Proximity mine - These mines explode if any craft comes within a certain range

Team aware mines (they don't explode when collided with by friendly players) can be produced by doubling the base power requirement. Mines take a lot of energy to produce and last for up to a minute before self-destructing.

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Mychaeel: There's no such thing as a sub-subpage.  :-) I've renamed this page.

EntropicLqd: Thanks - I forgot and then my Internet connection went down (just got it back) so I popped on here to ask someone to rename it and you'd already done it. The efficiency of this place is scary.

Mychaeel: It's massive multitasking.  ;-)

UArchitect: about the mines, mabey increase the mine lifespan, for defensive purposes but add a limit to how many mines max a team/player can have?

mabey have another kind of proximity mine which is magnetic/seeking with a small "seek" radius, when something comes near it slowly trundles towards the target...( homeworld2 style? they were fun...:P )