Engineer class

Talk about this class seems to have died down. I am keen to keep it going, and perhaps even code whatever is necessary of it (once Druid has given his guidance).

For starters, the following seems to be accepted (by Druid) for the class:

Shield regeneration (similar to Halo shield) as suggested by Moof.

Engineer translauncher, for spawning vehicles, turrets and buildings. Similar to MonsterMaster. Loaded vehicles, loaded turrets and loaded buildings allow different items to be created. Vehicle points, Turret points, Building points give the points to build the items. Other skills to supplement - increased speed, firepower, health of spawned items. Not sure what buildings could be spawned? (shield walls and 'hospital' buildings have been suggested)

Super link gun for repairing vehicles, turrets, buildings faster. Probably infinite

Some other suggestions, yet to be agreed upon:

spawning weapon lockers and pickup lockers - suggested by Continuum

Loaded Explosives - making engineers explosives experts. Better minelayer/grenade launcher with different types of explosives. Perhaps higher limit on number of mines.

since Engineer has to keep translocator for spawning items, perhaps give teleport artifact for emergency escapes.

So, what other skills should be available to Engineers?

The standard general ones should be - Airmaster, Awareness, Cautiousness, CounterShove, Ghost, Iron Legs, Power Jump, Quickfoot, Retaliation, Shields Up!, Smart Healing, Speed Switcher, Ultima.

The other class specials should not be - Adrenal surge, Energy leech, Experienced healing, Loaded Artifacts, Loaded Medic, Loaded monsters, Loaded Weapons, monster points, Monster skill health, Monster skill intelligence, Vampirism.

Of the rest, I would suggest the following for Engineers - Advanced damage bonus, Advanced damage reduction, Resupply, and not Adrenal drip, Denial, Regeneration.

Any corrections or suggestions? Or any decisions from Druid?

Since theres been talk on combining weapons, maybe make that ability exclusive to engineers who cannot max out weapons themselves.

Also along the lines of a bomb, I think a nuke artifact would be cool. You use ammo \ adren to activate the a short timer then you have to toss the artifact before it goes off (then run!). It would pack deemer (or maybe a bit smaller) blast but youd only get 1 per life and using it would obviously take a bit of skill. (I think AngelMapper had a hand grenade mutator that could have some usefull bits in it)

Szlat wrote:

Better minelayer/grenade launcher with different types of explosives. Perhaps higher limit on number of mines

One thought that occurred to me was to give Engineers something similar to Angel Mapper's SpiderSteriods mod, which allows them to grow mines with the link alt fire.

Or could allow them to cycle through a list of secondary effects for the mines to choose which type to lay e.g. poison, null entropy, piercing, quickfoot, flight, but probably not vampire (note that things like poison, null entropy will also effect the engineer if he is in the blast radius). This effect would be in the mine projectile, rather than in the weapon, so the engineer could have different types in play at the same time.

A similar thing could be done with the grenade launcher, having different types of grenades. Could even modify the grenade launcher like the Anti Gravity Grenade Launcher.

I think talk died down because one of the key features became slightly unworkable ... something about the sentinels?

BotFodder wrote:

I think talk died down because one of the key features became slightly unworkable ... something about the sentinels?

My recollection was:

problem - sentinels not targetting monsters. I posted a rough fix for it

problem - monsters not targetting sentinels. I posted a rough fix for it

problem - didn't want to take the car launcher mod without the developer's permission. Druid decided it wasn't a problem, as he wanted to code something slightly different

(by "rough fix" I meant I posted in general terms what bit of code wanted putting where, but didn't post a code fragment. However, I had tested most of the fixes on my machine)

So, I don't think there was anything stopping it. There were several other bugs which I noted, but if they appeared in Druid's version of the code then they could be fixed.

Szlat wrote:

( . . . 'hospital' buildings have been suggested)

Now *that* sounds cool. I can imagine the Mechanic constructing an arch with a pocket to one or both sides where players can enter and be healed.

However, that does sort of sabotage the Medic. For some reason, I feel unusually sad and emotional about that... weird... Anyway,

Szlat wrote:

Engineer translauncher

Igh, no offense to anyone, but I think that the translauncher is way too cliché. SonicRPG (UnrealInsanity) has a very nice artifact system for vehicles; you may want to look into that.

Szlat wrote:

spawning vehicles, turrets and buildings

I think many crises would be avoided if this was controlled systematically by the map. For example, instead of making a vehicle any which place, you would make vehicles at workbenches where they would normally spawn (they won't spawn normally). A custom maptype could be made to support turrets and buildings in the same way. There is much in store for this method if people are willing to give it a shot, I think.

Szlat wrote:

Super link gun for repairing vehicles, turrets, buildings faster.

Ah, yes, that would definitely be a staple. Thumbs up.

Szlat wrote:

spawning weapon lockers and pickup lockers

Ehm, I do really think it is a good work of imagination with a lot of flexibility, but I think it would severely disrupt the flow of the map (as the vehicle/turret/building thing would) .

Szlat wrote:

making engineers explosives experts

Yes! Right on! Make the rocket launcher a *real* rocket launcher, yeah? the kind that owns a tank in one hit (Ballistic Weapons rocks).

~~~~~~~~

I still think the mechanic is a great idea that would add *so* much more depth to gameplay, making the RPG an even better modification to Unreal Tournament 2004.

Speaking of 2004, perhaps the Mechanic could be totally formulated and worked out on paper, and ready to shoot off in UT2007RPG.

Good stuff, guys, keep it up.

Szlat wrote:

( . . . 'hospital' buildings have been suggested)

I've got to vote no one that one, and also no on a similar idea for adrenaline. I really want those abilities to stay with their associated classes.

As for other buildings, what I had in mind was spawning a dummy pawn with the block combo activated, and lots of health. That way monsters target it, but for the most part it just sits there taking damage.

Szlat wrote:

Engineer translauncher

KohanX wrote:

Igh, no offense to anyone, but I think that the translauncher is way too cliché. SonicRPG (UnrealInsanity) has a very nice artifact system for vehicles; you may want to look into that.

I'll end the discussion on this. Unless it turns out technically impossible with the translauncher, it's going to be done with the translauncher.

This decision has been made. If you'd like to continue discussing it, I encourage you to forward your discussion to /dev/null

Szlat wrote:

spawning vehicles, turrets and buildings

I'm a fan of Building Points similar to MonsterPoints

Szlat wrote:

Super link gun for repairing vehicles, turrets, buildings faster.

Sounds good, however, I'd like to lessen the damage on it instead of increasing it. bigger, better, faster for building/repair, less for damage.

Also you might want to glance at the mutator that lets you make spider mines bigger by growing them with the link gun. Could be fun for an engineer

Szlat wrote:

spawning weapon lockers and pickup lockers

I'm a bit concerned about the power of this diminishing the weapons masters.

I'm not entirely opposed, and would encourage more disucssion. Right at the moment though, I'd say probably not.

Szlat wrote:

making engineers explosives experts

What more did you have in mind? I like the growing mines, but is something more on the menu?

KohanX wrote:

Yes! Right on! Make the rocket launcher a *real* rocket launcher, yeah? the kind that owns a tank in one hit (Ballistic Weapons rocks).

Ok, but only if you immediately take 10k damage every time you shoot it, and the death caused by this cannot be prevented with ghost, and no ultima is triggered. In fact, I think it would be best if you can do this much damage, if the server immediately kicked you.

Szlat wrote:

My recollection was:

problem - sentinels not targetting monsters. I posted a rough fix for it

problem - monsters not targetting sentinels. I posted a rough fix for it

Yeah! We dont necessarily need sentinels, link turrets, and other automatic turrets to start with, but I think they'll be the power behind the engineer throne. If you can make them work, I'm all for them. You'll probably have to assign the player's RPGPlayerDataObject to them similar to the way Monsters have them assigned, so the player owning the sentinel/turret will get the xp.

I am a bit concerned about how much cpu this will eat up, although I suspect we wont know until we actually test it. Any way to minimize the cpu when tweaking the ai on these classes would be good sauce.

Szlat wrote:

problem - didn't want to take the car launcher mod without the developer's permission. Druid decided it wasn't a problem, as he wanted to code something slightly different

The CarLauncher mod author never got back to me. Bummer. If you want to go hogwild making something similar, that sounds fantastirific. I believe I said in a PM that you can see in the modified UT2003Translauncher some code I put in to make it behave more like UT2003 by detonating things in a certain radius.

What I was thinking of was similar to the monster master "artifacts" except that they dont actually have any activate abilities. When the engineer translauncer is activated, it checks the active artifact, and makes a thing of the current selection, if it's an object artifact.

It's quick, it's dirty, it's been done before, and it's fairly generic. We just need a base class like Engineerifact with some methods to get cost and probably a spawnIt(Vector location)

I think you can lift most of the code to do that from the MonsterPoints stuff.

By the way, I don't think we want the engineer to immediately enter the vehicle they create. We might want to "lock" it so that the only first person to enter is the engineer.

Also, if the vehicle is destroyed by the engineer, we'll need to eject anyone actively driving it.

(Similarly, I'd like a generic skill for ejecting from a vehicle that's about to explode, although with our current problems around ghost, denial, and ultima, I'm not sure we can easily do that now)

I don't know if these are plausible or anything, but just some ideas to throw out.

If Engineer's can't have adren abilities, vampirism or ability to heal themselves perhaps some of the follwoing could be implemented.

When an engineer makes a vehicle and or sentinel or whatever perhaps when in it the engineer gains vamp 10 or something along those lines. That way a building is most effective when an engineer is in it. Don't know if that is possible to code, but it is an idea.

Perhaps engineer's could make an infinite link that way they can form link chains with other engineers or medics. Don't know how plausible the following is, but could the primary fire on the link act as a "shield giver?" If they can't give health to people, perhaps shields is the alternative. Maybe that could also act as the hospital as well, it gives temporary protection as well as shields.

One of the vehicles alternate fire puts up a huge energy shield that I believe blocks all energy attacks that comes it's way, perhaps that could be modded for the engineer's shield gun. It wouldn't be as big as he vehicles version of it, but perhaps with every level of a skill it gets bigger and/or is able to withstand more punishment. It could be infinite I suppose as you can still be hit by physical attacks.

I like that growing mine idea. Perhaps instead of Loaded weapons, the engineers could work up to loaded engineer I suppose. They get perhaps that infinite link, a modded mine layer, grenade launcher and perhaps avril.

These are all just ideas that I thought would be cool. I am not proficient at coding and really have no idea what is truly possible or what would be practical.

Mach wrote:

One of the vehicles alternate fire puts up a huge energy shield that I believe blocks all energy attacks that comes it's way, perhaps that could be modded for the engineer's shield gun. It wouldn't be as big as he vehicles version of it, but perhaps with every level of a skill it gets bigger and/or is able to withstand more punishment. It could be infinite I suppose as you can still be hit by physical attacks..

Dats the Paladin tank. btw, the paladin secondary shield itself is not infinite but it can actually block the damage completely......dunno bout deemers since i've never shot a paladin with a deemer b4 in ons (shooting a deemer at anything other than a levi, a powernode and powercore is not rly practical) Anyways, the paladin's shield can block physical damage like flak grenades, tank primary fire, rockets, avril as long as it hits the shield part of course......it just has a counter that shows how much more damage it can take b4 the shield collapses.......in ons matches it's usually used as a stalling vehicle especially when its defending key nodes....

Anyhoo, I like the idea of a vehicle-spawner class......i just drool at the idea of being able to make a more powerful version of my manta and being able to use it in regular inv :drools:........having a better health/ resistance + firepower on vehicles would rly make me happy....hehehehe....can't wait :giggles:

TheDruidXpawX wrote:

What I was thinking of was similar to the monster master "artifacts" except that they dont actually have any activate abilities. When the engineer translauncer is activated, it checks the active artifact, and makes a thing of the current selection, if it's an object artifact.

So here is my Engineer. Activates the translauncher, checks to see if the artifact selected is a summoning one. Unfortunately, my engineer only has summoning artifacts, so the normal teleport function wont work!

So, I think I might need to use the other translocator function - the one used for viewing from the translocator camera, instead of the normal translocator activate.

Unless I bind another key in....?

Szlat wrote:

So here is my Engineer. Activates the translauncher, checks to see if the artifact selected is a summoning one. Unfortunately, my engineer only has summoning artifacts, so the normal teleport function wont work!

Well as I see it, here are a couple of good options:

1) We don't allow the engineer to perform normal translocation functions.

2) We have one of their "artifacts" be a regular translocator artifact, where it moves them and doesn't spawn anything.

3) The simultaneous left and right click is coded into the translocator to select the previous best weapon. We could make that the spawning mechanism instead.

4) We could have the activate artifact command be the actual command for this, and it checks if the beacon is out, and if so, spawns a vehicle at the beacon location.

Szlat wrote:

Unless I bind another key in....?

I dont know, I think I'd rather tie into the existing functionality if at all possible. More keybinds mean more things the interface has to handle...

TIMMY wrote:

Anyhoo, I like the idea of a vehicle-spawner class......i just drool at the idea of being able to make a more powerful version of my manta and being able to use it in regular inv :drools:

Holy CRAP! Ideazorz! Vehicle Spawning + Sentinel-Style Upgrading = omgploxxorz uberness! Imagine being able to increase the structural capacity of a Manta, or upgrade the web launcher of the Scorpion to a Rocket Launcher or some such! Ahh! Ideas flow!

Saw this thread over on BU. Not sure if you guys have seen this sort of thing or not but it looks rather cool... Someone built a catwalk between the towers on ctf-face

I know I'd have never thought of doing something like that

http://forums.beyondunreal.com/showthread.php?t=178961

How 'bout a shield generating weapon? You know, similar to the medic weapon where they can heal life but a weapon that can heal shields.