The three virtues of a programmer: Laziness, Impatience, and Hubris. – Larry Wall
Legacy:Mod Ideas/Mini Bulldogs
Inspiration
I thought of this after seeing Bulldog Player and Mod Ideas/RunningOfTheBulldogs.
Description
Rather than make a new game type, I thought it would be amusing to integrate this with other gametypes on standard maps.
When a player first spawns, he chooses whether to spawn as a human, or a Bulldog. (They can change their spawning preference later in the game.)
Player Bulldogs are scaled to be not much larger than humans are, so that they can fit through standard doorways and otherwise go most places humans can go. Whether they get the usual weapons or not (mounted as a turret that follows mouse view?) is a game balance choice, but Bulldogs can deal damage by ramming and running over opponents.
Bulldogs can also self-destruct. If the original Bulldog control code isn't changed much, they can roll and get stuck pretty easily (and the roll command doesn't seem to be reliable), so you need a way to start fresh; and if you don't allow the standard weapons, this provides another way to kill opponents. Of course, it counts against your kills, as suicide always does – but you've got a better chance of taking someone else out with you. If you kill two or more opponents, you're in front. ;)
Bulldogs wouldn't be able to go everywhere humans can; they might not fit some lifts, or be able to negotiate some stairs; and ladders are out of the question. But they are faster than humans, a bit tougher, and fun to drive aggressively. It would be a matter of teamwork to balance Bulldogs with humans on your team.
In single player deathmatch, you'll just have to learn when to play Bulldog or human – and if you choose poorly, you can always change your preference and self-destruct...
Eye Candy
For self-destruct, a decent sized explosion leaving behind a couple of bouncing tyres would go down well.
Decals on the Bulldogs for bullet holes, smoke, and other damage indicators would be nice too.
Related Topics
Discussion
GRAF1K: Sounds interesting. And may be as simple as "Other.default.Drawscale = 0.5".
MythOpus: Nopers. If you simply change the DrawScale, the tires and body will be misaligned. You'll have to make a new BullDog Class :)
Foxpaw: To fix the tires being separate you would have to also change the following variables:
WheelFrontAlong WheelFrontAcross WheelRearAlong WheelRearAcross WheelVert DustDrop HeadlightCoronaOffset DrivingTriggerOffset ExitPositions RocketFireOffset
As well it probrably wouldn't hurt to scale the bulldog's mass, center of mass, and wheel torque appropriately. Not sure why DE didn't have those things all scaled by drawscale to begin with, but since they didn't, you'll have to do so manually.
And, for the record, the bulldog starts at drawscale 0.4, so making it 0.5 would actually make it larger - but I think we all knew what you meant anyway. :D
MythOpus: Making a new Bulldog class will be a lot more fun guys. I suggest you do it that way ;)
