Some ideas that latched onto my head.

[M123]

Hre they come:

1. When a soldier gets tired from running around with all that armor and fireworks, he starts panting(right word?) and his hart starts beating harder and faster. Other humans than himself don't hear this, but droids are more sensitive to the sound of a beating human hart and can hear this in a 3m radius. Thus making running around to long a serious droid atractor.

2. Give a defensive droid the ability to dig. But he could only do it on certain textures(that start with grnd_ or something). His body would start diggin it's way into the ground and only a little eye on a vine would remain on the outside or he'd move completely underground and get a black screen while showing vibrations of moving things in the neighbourhood like cirkels emenating from a point. Then he'd lash out when he thought a human is passing him and draw the human underground or just kill him.
Kinda like a 3m crokodilero hiding under water only two little eyes visible ready to strike.

3. A droid capable of producing and releasing 5 tiny droids that swarm independently at the nearest human.

4. The abilty to release a dense fog of necrotoxin behind it to cover it's retreat to the nearest place to get healed and damage anyone running after it.

[Carcinogen]

We have already implemented stamina, and the heavy breathing effects- so no worry about that. The heartbeat, would work great for some added atmosphere and will most likely be implemented- kickass idea.

The digging thing? Can't we just have a droid go semi-invisible or something? It's not like I'm not considering the idea, but it does sound far fetched. I'll write this idea down for when tremulous is released, extra abilities we can have for another class branch (besides offensive, defensive, and builder). Of course, no promises... but the idea is surely interesting and would effect the overall gameplay slightly.

The independent swarm deal- curious as to what you had in mind to this. Small droids would be hard to hit, and the damage they make would most likely be miniscule. Do these run or fly? Are they fast or slow? Are they lethal or just a mere annoyance? Anyone's welcome to fill the gaps.

The "necrotoxin" idea you mentioned would work with a type of "grenade" that created a dense cloud of toxic gas in it's wake. This ability would have a more beneficial effect offensively, and would also cover their tracks when the need to escape quickly occurs. We have tinkered with the option of "manipulating" the type of gas released, whether it affects stamina, vision, speed, health- the options are limitless.

On a small note, Necrotoxin doesn't do any damage to the individual affected. The Necrotoxin (*mental note: name is too sinister) simply lays inert in the human body, until another chemical administered during infestation creates a chemical reaction, causing the human's flesh to melt into a malleable form and be added to the droid's own body. Huyah.

All in all, good suggestions. Thanks for the input.

[M123]

2. I see the digging effect for some smal burrowing droid, when it digs it models slowly clips out of the map, and it could only do so on certain ground textures. I think this could be possible because i know of a mod with somethin similar( where bullets can penetrate every texture except ones startin with ps_or somethin). It would be harder than just invisibility. But alot of fps today have some invisibility thingie( cs). What would be more scarier some droid decloaking or some droid lashing out from the ground.

3. I thought of these as some large killer bees which have a nasty sting but are not too powerfull. they coulkd come out of some grenade or just from holes on the makerdroid. Mainly as distraction from the motherdroid.

4. I saw this as kind of a "fart". In gloom when my gaurdian suddenly got a little bit too resistance. I alway wished i could just run away and leave some dense poisonous fog behind so enemies couldn't get a good target and would be reluctant to follow me through while i ran to the nearest healer.

Hope to be of service with this.

[ This Message was edited by: m123 on 2001-08-02 16:14 ]

[Psylo]

The digging effect would be very map dependant then..I can't imagine a droid digging in a spaceship or station
but it would be a nice feature for the mappers to manipulate the gameplay on their maps when it comes to outdoor mapping if we had that ability for the "camo" droid.

I think almost everything that gives mappers more possibilities is an improvement to the mod.

Maybe it's possible to allow the droid to dig in creep areas.

[Psylo]

And I like the droidshearingheartbeat idea.

[Stannum]

1) Kick ass idea

2) Map dependant.  Or texture dependant, maybe a shader file for digable textures??

3) Defense for a droid, when launched small bots (flying, walking?) could attack the marine and hamper his movement or block his vision so i lets the droid escape safely??

4) Something like the shock troopers gas grens. If it did any harm, the droid would be ver hard to beat. It would just fart away and block the path, jump around a corner.... No more marines behind him!

[ComeToFragy]

You could just have the actual droid model animate as if it was digging through the floor, and move into a crouched position, or something.  Add a nice little splash effect for digging debris, et voila, no more mapper worries.

[Psylo]

But the mapper would have to decide where and if  he wants to put those textures in his map.

[Carcinogen]

You know, I just thought of this...

If you know me already, you should probably know that I focus on little details after I think I figured out the big picture (or, trying to figure out the big picture). And if you hung around in #tremulous, you would know that Timbo hates it when I start focusing on the little things...

But! In reference to screamers (the movie, yes) in which this thread spawned (droids underground, sneak attacks...) why the hell dont we have droids "scream" or "screetch" or something, for as long as the key for t he bind is hell (a limit though would be nice). Imagine 6 crazy droids rushing at you, screaming...

Might get old fast, but it might not :wink: We could have the equivalent to a human screaming as he rushes into the droid base, as he makes a suicide run (think of the kamikazi soldiers in serious sam)... (but as long as his breath holds!)

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh*splat"

[M123]

Yeah a cry for the droids some mix between cheyenne attack cry, metal beeing ripped apart, someone moving his fingers over a chalk board and sawing in that white foam rubber with a blunt knive . Mix it all together and increase the volume. Nice way to startle a human(the guy behind the monitor) or just a way to politly inform he's going to die.

A batlle cry for the human soldiers would be nice. Might give them some courage.

[M123]

B.T.W. some new ideas latched onto my head.

1. A teleporter for the humans. You lay a entry teleporter down somewhere and an exit teleporter somewhere else and humans just spawning can take the entry teleporter to teleport to the exit teleporter ofcourse if there were no exit teleporter they'd just die and and both part of the telepotation system needed to be in range of a power relier. This would encourage some teamwork as the builder would have to signal to his comrades that the exit teleporter was finished and the exit would need some gaurding. And it would allow for faster action as less walking towards the enemie is required.

2. All the droids with weapons, reminded me of robotwars. I always watched the english version on BBC, not the lame US of A version.
They'd have robots attacking another with chainsaws, sawblades, flametrowers, thrusting spikes, scythes, etc. Mostly just dented another a little bit. But the most devestating robot i ever saw on that show was named hypnodisk. It's weapon was a solid disk around 10 cm in diameter an 5 cm high with short litlle blades portruding from the sides. They just start spinning that disk faster and faster,creating a nice high pitched noise of the air moving past the blades pumping kinetic energy in it and then drove against an opponent who would get the full stored kinetic energy delivered through those little blades. It sliced through 3cm aluminium armor of one robot like it was butter and the robots who weren't build so good got ripped apart.
The point of all this if such a weapon powered by a 24 volt battery can slice through 3 cm alumium armor, it would be a good weapon for a droid to have. Just put it on a droids tail start spinning it around storing kinetic energy in it. Although the high pitched sound might make you wanna wait until you're closer to the humans not alerting them and all. the release the button and let it thrust forward slicing and dicing.

[DarkStorm]

I believe that would make a better weapon for projectile saw blades.  Probably for a medium-evolution defensive droid.  The longer you charge the sawblade the faster it spins, and the higher the pitch of the sound.  Also, the longer you hold it the more harm it will do and the further it will go (although the further it goes the less harm it should do...  ie a sawblade launched at maximum power should do less damage at 1024 units then it does at 512 units.)