Grappling...TENTACLE!

[Mangler]

:eek:  The fear of all Jet-Packers and Troopers.


It reaches out and grabs you, pulls you in and then the mandables do their work...


The Tentacle works like this:

When fired a single sticky 'tounge' flies out in a near straight trajectory.
(a little arc to it, but FAR less than any other 'thrown' weapon)

It will stick to ANYTHING it hits. People, Aliens, Walls, even buildings.

Here's what makes it interesting.

1. If YOU are clinging to a wall at the time, and whatever you hit 'weighs' LESS than yourself, you will pull that object towards yourself...
(By keeping the fire button depressed, it keeps 'slurping' up the 'tounge')

2. BUT if you are NOT clinging to a wall YOU get pulled towards the object, assuming it is heavier than yourself.

3. BUT if that object is (basically NOT a building/battlesuit/tyrant) the same weight BOTH you and the other object are moved closer to each other. (Unless you move, then you can sorta drag people places... :wink:)

4. If you try and Grapple something bigger than yourself AND you are holding onto a wall...your tentacle is sticky -- but not a magnet. It gets pulled loose, but does move the heavy object JUST a little (except buildings)

It gets interesting when multiple Tentacle'd creatures GRAB the same target, then they CAN pull MUCH more weight working together.
Unfortunately this also pulls the target all over the place as the Tentacle'd beasties will each pull from different locations, and probably loose their Grapple when the Target gets close.

Tentacles will come loose if the target gets out of sight, and moves too much.
Thoughts?

[Demonic Spoon]

...Wow. Awesome. Here's a cookie for that idea.

[icono[celt]]

Wow too.  Sounds like quite the physics simulation.  Here's a Foucault pendulum for you.

[werepants]

this would be really cool for the advanced basilisk.  It would have a very unique and useful purpose then.  Pull campers into the arms of waiting goons, pull down jetpackers, bring a human towards you before holding him and biting him.  This would make up for low maneuverability, low health, and low damage of basi.  I would personally much rather have this with the advanced basilisk than the gas, and maybe gas could be moved to an advanced dretch or something.

Instead of being ineffective on large targets, maybe make it like the hookshot in zelda, so it would pull you to the target instead.  this could be useful as a different form of maneuvering, and also when you want to get close to that BS to hold him for your marauder friend.

Maybe humans could even have an equivalent grappling/harpoon turret or gun to compensate.  

good idea!

[Stakhanov]

This would rule if it could work out. Tremulous lacks an alien support class at the moment , giving such a dangerous ability to the lowly adv. Basilisk would fix it. It might even fix the human camping issue by itself !

[Paradox]

Possibly a tool for the adv granger?

[Quaoar]

This would rule if it could work out. Tremulous lacks an alien support class at the moment , giving such a dangerous ability to the lowly adv. Basilisk would fix it. It might even fix the human camping issue by itself !

A good adv. basilisk player is OVERPOWERED. The hold ability just by itself is really awesome in the right hands, and gassing isn't half bad either (just general pandemonium).

In fact, I sort of see the Basilisk as the alien's support class. In a group with others they can hold enemies to death, and gas a well-organized group of humans into disarray for the others to pick off.

And I'd rather face a good dragoon one on one than a good adv. bas. Because all it takes is one good hold from the back, and I'm done. With a bsuit this isn't as bad, but still.

[Chaom]

Wait, why give it to the advanced basilisk... how bout a new class?

[Stof]

This would rule if it could work out. Tremulous lacks an alien support class at the moment , giving such a dangerous ability to the lowly adv. Basilisk would fix it. It might even fix the human camping issue by itself !

A good adv. basilisk player is OVERPOWERED. The hold ability just by itself is really awesome in the right hands, and gassing isn't half bad either (just general pandemonium).

In fact, I sort of see the Basilisk as the alien's support class. In a group with others they can hold enemies to death, and gas a well-organized group of humans into disarray for the others to pick off.

And I'd rather face a good dragoon one on one than a good adv. bas. Because all it takes is one good hold from the back, and I'm done. With a bsuit this isn't as bad, but still.

Do you know that a 90cr item makes humans immune to the gas attack ? That's right, helmet makes you immune to the adv basilisk special attack ! And considering how weak humans without helmets are, I'm sure you won't see many of them without an helmet as soon as they reach stage 2.

[Quaoar]

Do you know that a 90cr item makes humans immune to the gas attack ? That's right, helmet makes you immune to the adv basilisk special attack ! And considering how weak humans without helmets are, I'm sure you won't see many of them without an helmet as soon as they reach stage 2.

Seriously? I most definitely didn't notice. Thanks. I think I've only been gassed a few times, but when I was I thought "wow, they ought to use this more often."

Even so, holding is still a great ability. I can't imagine who would want to play basilisk before they implemented that, though.

[werepants]

the problem with holding is this:
1. Humans with high sensitivity settings on the mouse can still turn and kill you.
2. You have to find a totally alone human, otherwise his buddies just kill you while you try to hold him.

If you had a pull ability, you could pull a human out from his group of friends before anybody noticed.  You could move more quickly to get behind a human.  You could pop out to a group of turret campers and pull a human away before you died, and then hold him while dretches headshot him or goons pounce him.

As others have noticed, there is little use for the basilisk, and especially late game.  I know borsuk had an ongoing request for good basilisk vids, and AFAIK nobody has supplied any.

In theory the basilisk is effective, and there is 1 basilisk player in my experience who did a good job with it.  He killed me easily in s1 if I was going rambo.  However, if I had one other person with me or if I just backed up so he couldn't reach me, he died.

A support class should be effective in many situations, not just against stupid and/or solitary enemies.  I think the basilisk has needed improvement for a while, and this idea would stay in line with its role as a "movement impairing" class or whatever, while making it a lot more versatile, and I would venture to say a lot more fun.

[Megagun]

(Okay, a bit late, but...)

Actually, this would really be an awesome addition to Tremulous! No more jetcampers and evildoers like that!

However, here are a few ways to make it better and fairer:

-A human shooting a tentacle will decrease the tentacle's hitpoints. Once the tentacle is "dead" it will detach itself and go back into the Basilisk. Once back in, it needs to recharge health (tentacle health being displayed as a horizontal statusbar in the place where the Dragoon has it's snipeshots displayed), and when the health is back up it can reshoot it's tentacle out. This also makes tentaclespam a bit less likely, since humans can hit a tentacle, try to free themselves (shakin' all about) and then kill off the basilisk afterwards. Maybe a tentacle should be damaged a few points when it hits something, therefore making tentaclespam really not able (after all, after each tentacle shot it HAS to recharge a bit!)..

-The ability of a Basilisk to latch itself onto slime, therefore improving its grip. Slime is either the slime made by buildings, or that launched by an advanced granger. This would give the advanced granger just a bit more stuff to do, as it would be vital to give the Basilisk just a little more grip, which could just be useful for bringing in that damned Bsuit.


If this is all too much stuff to add to the Basilisk, say if it makes it too powerful, make it into a new class, the Lurker. A dark creature with two bright eyes, which have night-visionish things, basic zoom utilities in it's eyes, and a tentacle, and a VERY basic swipe (does like half the damage of a Dretch hit). Would be a great support unit, since it'd be able to see things easilly, and move in the dark, although the bright red eyes give it away a bit.

Anyways, Tentacles should be VERY fun to have in Tremulous..

[rasz_pl]

half of dretch bite? basilisk swipe is a JOKE as it is, basilisk is ok if you attack lame s1 human from the back, he gives up or you dont give up and are LUCKY. all it takes is to stick back to the wall when seing basilisk and just shoot, 75hp is really really low.
I died about 3 times from basilisk, both times s1 running rambo alone naked with a rifle.
And as someone mentioned earlier you can turn a good 90-120' with a mouse and shoot basilisks legs, most basilisks give up if shot.

[Vector_Matt]

(Okay, a bit late, but...)-A human shooting a tentacle will decrease the tentacle's hitpoints. ...

Ugh, sound complex, how about the adv basi can shoot web instead (web with some gravitational falling but not much)?

[Survivor]

half of dretch bite? basilisk swipe is a JOKE as it is, basilisk is ok if you attack lame s1 human from the back, he gives up or you dont give up and are LUCKY. all it takes is to stick back to the wall when seing basilisk and just shoot, 75hp is really really low.
I died about 3 times from basilisk, both times s1 running rambo alone naked with a rifle.
And as someone mentioned earlier you can turn a good 90-120' with a mouse and shoot basilisks legs, most basilisks give up if shot.

Eh? Never played against a somewhat better basi then. They're not the killing machines the marauders, goons or tyrants are but at times they sure as hell can be more usefull. And a bit of advice, if you grab don't hit at the legs of the human but at least at the torso. No wonder you people don't damage much with one.

[Demonic Spoon]

One torso hit + one headshot kills any human I've ever seen, unless they have a bsuit (I think).