Weapon Knockback

[xyblor]

Most human weapons exert a physical force, pushing what they hit in the same direction as the projectile. I haven't yet seen any discussion on how this affects gameplay.
 
First of all, which weapons have this knockback force? My guess would be all weapons exept painsaw and maybe flamer.

How much force does each weapon exert? I suspect the lucifer cannon has the most, but the effect seems to be most significant with rapidfire weapons (i.e. rifle, lasgun, chaingun, and pulse rifle). Or is knockback proportional to damage?

What effect does knockback have on dragoon pounces? Curiously, it seems that a dragoon pounce inflicts a flat 100 damage regardless of the speed of the pounce or the amount of "charging up"*. Maybe someone can clarify this because in my experience, you can't do damage by tapping the right mouse button, even if you're touching a human. Maybe there is a certain velocity threshold required for a pounce to be damage-inflicting?

This is relevant to the knockback question because it seems very difficult to pounce a human straight on if it's firing at you. There have been many times when I want to finish off a nearly-dead human, so I just chase it down a hallway, even though it's leading me and opening fire. I charge up my pounce, let go and swipe, expecting to finish him off, but instead the shooting pushes back enough that the pounce does no damage, and I suffer a humiliating death. It's just another reason why surprise and flanking maneuvres are the dragoon's best tactics.

The other heartache is that when you're a goon running for your life, it's critical to pounce down hallways as fast as possible and with great precision, so you don't get stopped by those annoying little ledges and doorframes. Weapon knockback makes this more difficult because that goddamn lasgun-wielding goon-chaser pushes your pounce a little too far so you get snagged on something, can't get away in time, and end up hearing that pathetic dragoon death-whine.

* There is a very informative topic that lists the amount of damage done for each alien attack:
http://tremulous.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=509

[DieFamilyGuy]

The other heartache is that when you're a goon running for your life, it's critical to pounce down hallways as fast as possible and with great precision, so you don't get stopped by those annoying little ledges and doorframes. Weapon knockback makes this more difficult because that goddamn lasgun-wielding goon-chaser pushes your pounce a little too far so you get snagged on something, can't get away in time, and end up hearing that pathetic dragoon death-whine.

HEY, are u referring to me, lol

[Outcast]

^ I believe he's reffering to me.

[phaedrus]

First of all, which weapons have this knockback force? My guess would be all weapons exept painsaw and maybe flamer.

How much force does each weapon exert? I suspect the lucifer cannon has the most, but the effect seems to be most significant with rapidfire weapons (i.e. rifle, lasgun, chaingun, and pulse rifle). Or is knockback proportional to damage?

Trem uses the Q3 engine.  A staple of Quake physics is that knockback is always proportional to damage.  This is true of all Quake engines (1 through 4).  

Keeping a human in zap range of an Adv. Marauder can be tricky, since the zap pushes the human away.

(This also means that if you make a splash damage weapon with enough power, some one is going to use it to rocket jump.)

Jeff

[DarkRogue]

Zap does not push a human anywhere. If the human is moving due to your zap that's called trying to escape, not knockback.

And yes I've tested this on a stationary human. Zap does NOT have knockback.

[Quaoar]

I'm almost certain that the knockback is off on certain weapons, because you can stand there and immolate yourself with a flamer forever and you won't move an inch.

Not to mention alien attacks don't knock you back, except for spores.

[Norfenstein]

it seems that a dragoon pounce inflicts a flat 100 damage regardless of the speed of the pounce or the amount of "charging up"

This is wrong: the pounce damage is proportional to its charge, up to a maximum of 100 (and it doesn't have locational damage).

If I'm reading the code correctly ALL projectile weapons (including the flamer) have knockback. If you want to see which weapons do not have knockback, search g_weapon.c for "DAMAGE_NO_KNOCKBACK".

And knockback is indeed proportional to damage, except that teslas do 4x normal knockback and pounce does 3x normal knockback (up to the maximum of 200).

[xyblor]

Thanks for the info everyone.

If I understand correctly then, all *projectile* weapons have knockback proportional to the damage inflicted. Apparently the flamer and advanced marauder zap are not projectiles for these purposes.

Norfenstein says that dragoon pounce damage is proportional to the amount the pounce was charged up, but I'm still wondering whether it could actually be proportional to velocity instead. The only reason there's a difference is weapon knockback: if the victim of a goon pounce fires back, this will reduce the goon's speed - will it also reduce the amount of pounce damage? This could explain why it's hard to pounce a human who's pulse rifling you (the p. rifle does huge damage/second, and therefore has a big knockback) . I'm not sure, though; it could just be that knockback prevents you from connecting the pounce, rather than reduces its damage*.

Either way, I think knockback is a big reason why goons perform worse than expected in prolonged one on one duels.

*(On the other hand, would being luci'd from behind (sounds rude) actually increase a goon's pounce damage?)

[Kattana]

If humans are running backwards spaming as they often do the knockback will slow you enough that you can not catch up. Its sad, I could name countless small real life critters that move faster than any of the aliens, they really need a speed boost, or better yet slow humans down.

[PHREAK]

I agree with kattana, especially when it comes to the goon.
I'm getting into using the goon but it's really hard anytime after hummie S1.
I'm my opinion, the smaller the alien, the more agile it should be. While this is true for the dretch and the mara, basi and the goon are too slow compared to a tyrant, that weights 5 tons.
If the goon had the health-movement balance of the mara, it'd be a lot more playeable without shifting the balance too far towards aliens. It simply needs to run faster. If not that, then increase the HP by 50 points for goon and adv goon respectively.
I know that when I play as a hummie, I goon kill a lot more then chasing any other class. It's not because I'm good, but cuz it's so easy.

One advice to new goon players, if you're fighting with a hummie, and u start taking decent damage, dont run. If you do he will finish you off a lot easier. Staying in the fight, your chances are bigger of getting out of there alive.
I can't tell you how many times i've finished a hummie or a bsuit in the last second, leaving me with less the 10 HP. Had I ran, I would have been dead.

[xyblor]

I disagree. I think the running speed of the dragoon should be left alone- it is more than compensated for by the fact that the speed of a fully charged pounce is the fastest of any creature in the game. AND pounces can be charged mid-flight, so you couldn't really ask for more mobility. The only limiting factors are the large size of dragoons, the narrowness of doorways, and the overall jaggedness of surfaces which hinder pouncing. And inexperienced dragoon operators.

If you watch fantastic alien players, you'll see that as soon as they evolve to dragoon (usually in the first minute of play), they are unstoppable killing machines, using hit and run tactics to slaughter the humans, even quasi-camping ones. In fact, many players (humans mostly) consider dragoons overpowered.

[Norfenstein]

Apparently the flamer and advanced marauder zap are not projectiles for these purposes.

The zap is not a projectile weapon and does not have knockback. The flamethrower is a projectile weapon and does have knockback.

[Kattana]

The speeds really need to be tweaked, and humans just need to be slowed down, especialy the battle suits.
Humans are carrying tons of heavy gear and humans are really slow animals to begin with. I did a little searching and average walking speed is 1-1.5m/s, world record 100m sprinting speeds are 10+m/s. A fast cockroach can run at .8m/s, now estimating that dretches are only 10 times larger than a cockroach they should move at 8m/s or easily fast enough to outrun nearly everyone, especialy anyone carrying anything.
The other aliens are even larger, and faster, and the big target they make I think would make up for some increased speed, the way they crawl around now at barely a walking pace is rediculous, they have all sorts of legs on the models, how about they use them.

Edit: can they even sprint like humans?

[Stof]

The speeds really need to be tweaked, and humans just need to be slowed down, especialy the battle suits.
Humans are carrying tons of heavy gear and humans are really slow animals to begin with. I did a little searching and average walking speed is 1-1.5m/s, world record 100m sprinting speeds are 10+m/s. A fast cockroach can run at .8m/s, now estimating that dretches are only 10 times larger than a cockroach they should move at 8m/s or easily fast enough to outrun nearly everyone, especialy anyone carrying anything.
The other aliens are even larger, and faster, and the big target they make I think would make up for some increased speed, the way they crawl around now at barely a walking pace is rediculous, they have all sorts of legs on the models, how about they use them.

Edit: can they even sprint like humans?

The bigger the faster he ? Then since an human is much bigger than a dretch, he should be much faster too !

A dretch beeing 10x the size of a cockroach doesn't make it 10x faster ! With that kind of thinking, you get absurd things. For example, if you take a kind of small insect ( can't remember the name ) that can jump very high, enlarge it to human size and then it could jump above the biggest skyscrapers in the world !

[Kattana]

Humans are not bugs or aliens, they are not made to be fast like cockroaches and aliens. Insects/arachnids/ ect.. do get faster as they get larger, their, and aliens legs get longer and so their stride increases so they move faster.
After a certain point of course the additional weight makes it impossible to move faster, that happens alot sooner with jumping but I am not talking unrealistic speeds, plenty of small common animals can outrun humans easily, dogs for example, even the small ones.

As the side that supposedly uses speed and mobility instead of range and firepower aliens are incredibly disapointing.

[Quaoar]

An insect's speed and dexterity is directly related to his size. Weight increases in a cubic fashion, but a skeleton's ability to carry that weight increases only as a square. Ants can jump much higher than their height, but if you scale it up it probably couldn't get off the ground, if it is even able to survive without breaking its legs and perhaps oozing on the floor.


That's being technical. You can do whatever you want in a game, of course, but since we're talking about what larger aliens ought to be able to do, you can't just scale up the dretches.

[Stasis]

Learn how to jump to gain speed.

That is all I have to say.