Engineer architecture.

So... I've been thinking about the engineer stuff, and I've got some ideas that I'd like to share...

My vision of the engineer is a player that can build defensive fortifications that the players can hide in to defend against monsters.

To me, that means buildings, whether a single structure, or a set of blocks the engineer can create are key, and something we obviously didn't have to play with in the last preview.

That also means that sentinels and turrets the players can occupy are key... so to that note, I'd like to throw out some ideas...

1) Occupy-able turrets, are changed to use vehicle points.
2) Link turrets get tweaked to be physically a smaller, and only do 2x regular link gun damage, since multiple players can link to them. Also, I dont think the player's attack speed applied to these.
3) Link turrets have to share xp
4) I don't remember seeing the regular ons turret anywhere... I'd like to see it.
5) In any event, I think that the engineer shouldn't be able to actually spin much in terms of real vehicles. Maybe only the scorpion & hellbender. Maybe... maybe a tank..
6) I'd like to see the round ball turret work here as well as an occupy-able turret, maybe with less damage than the current turret though.
7) I dont think other than sentinels, that they engineer should be able to spawn any more automatic turrets. It's just more of the same thing to worry about.
8 ) The minigun turret needs to be evaluated for damage as well... maybe only 2.5x the minigun.

In terms of the sentinels, here's what I'm thinking:
1) I'd like the player to be able to spawn up to 3 of these
2) They should cause about the same damage link gun damage when they hit, but perhaps have their damage marked as super weapon damage, so that it goes though damage reduction. (although at the same time, doesn't take the engineers damage bonus into account)
3) They may need their fire rate slowed down...
4) I do want the monsters to be able to target them, although the current mechanic may work just fine if they do less damage. In that case I'd probably rather they target the players.

In terms of buildings, here's what I was thinking... which may be way off base.
1) I figured we could spawn a block using the block combo from the game, and set it to the right team, such that the monsters will target them just like they're a player. It might be possible to even use the satore Nali (not NaliFigheter) class and simply apply a permanent block combo to them, and give them a lot of health and some damage reduction... Probably make them take damage, but not death from a titan rock.
2) Let the engineers spawn a *lot* of these blocks to block in a protective area.

If there's more complicated building ideas though, I'm all ears.

In terms of some of the other skills...
1)I don't think armor vampire is all that good of an idea. I sorta think the "vehicles" should die more easily.
2) Construction health bonus... I'd like to have lots for buildings, but only a little for vehicles or sentinels. I want those to go down more easily.

Well, there's my ramblings for the day. Whatcha think?

Basically, I think those suggestions make sense. Let's try to get the Engineer to be a support player, rather than a front line fighter.

TheDruidXpawX wrote:

My vision of the engineer is a player that can build defensive fortifications that the players can hide in to defend against monsters.

Agreed. But since other players will be in there as well, we also need a way for Engineers to get xp in a way no one else can - I would suggest sentinels provide that route.

TheDruidXpawX wrote:

2) Link turrets get tweaked to be physically a smaller, and only do 2x regular link gun damage, since multiple players can link to them. Also, I dont think the player's attack speed applied to these.

Yes, too big. I will reduce in size and adjust damage.

TheDruidXpawX wrote:

3) Link turrets have to share xp

How much xp goes to the turret operator, and how much to the people linked in. What about Engineers links healing the turret and Medic Links healing the player, at the same time as getting xp? Could be quite difficult to get everything sorted and balanced?

TheDruidXpawX wrote:

4) I don't remember seeing the regular ons turret anywhere... I'd like to see it.

What class is it?

TheDruidXpawX wrote:

5) In any event, I think that the engineer shouldn't be able to actually spin much in terms of real vehicles. Maybe only the scorpion & hellbender. Maybe... maybe a tank..

I thought the manta was everyone's favorite?

TheDruidXpawX wrote:

6) I'd like to see the round ball turret work here as well as an occupy-able turret, maybe with less damage than the current turret though.

Ok. I do like the look of it.

TheDruidXpawX wrote:

7) I dont think other than sentinels, that they engineer should be able to spawn any more automatic turrets. It's just more of the same thing to worry about.

I am currently working on a low powered one, based on the lightning rod principle. Main objective is to irritate monsters and get them to target the sentinel, rather than outright kill them. Might be a useful addition to the standard sentinel? Perhaps just those 2?

TheDruidXpawX wrote:

8 ) The minigun turret needs to be evaluated for damage as well... maybe only 2.5x the minigun.

To change the damage on the link, mini and ball turrets means we need to subclass them to change the damage done by the ammo. I will do, and try to make damage and fire rate configurable.

TheDruidXpawX wrote:

1) I'd like the player to be able to spawn up to 3 of these

at the moment sentinels are too powerful. Even when they are nerfed, 3 per Engineer may be too much.

TheDruidXpawX wrote:

2) They should cause about the same damage link gun damage when they hit, but perhaps have their damage marked as super weapon damage, so that it goes though damage reduction. (although at the same time, doesn't take the engineers damage bonus into account)

I'll have a look.

TheDruidXpawX wrote:

3) They may need their fire rate slowed down...

Again I will need to subclass the sentinel, but that's no bad thing. I will try to make configurable.

TheDruidXpawX wrote:

4) I do want the monsters to be able to target them, although the current mechanic may work just fine if they do less damage. In that case I'd probably rather they target the players.

Perhaps it should be made that the monsters target the sentinel if it is the nearest enemy to the monster?

TheDruidXpawX wrote:

1) I figured we could spawn a block using the block combo from the game, and set it to the right team, such that the monsters will target them just like they're a player. It might be possible to even use the satore Nali (not NaliFigheter) class and simply apply a permanent block combo to them, and give them a lot of health and some damage reduction... Probably make them take damage, but not death from a titan rock.
2) Let the engineers spawn a *lot* of these blocks to block in a protective area.

How do we stop someone blocking themselves completely in, and just hiding through the waves?

TheDruidXpawX wrote:

In terms of some of the other skills...
1)I don't think armor vampire is all that good of an idea. I sorta think the "vehicles" should die more easily.

I have already nerfed from 5% per level to 3% per level. We could go lower. We can also configure in less starting health for the vehicles.

TheDruidXpawX wrote:

2) Construction health bonus... I'd like to have lots for buildings, but only a little for vehicles or sentinels. I want those to go down more easily.

I think the best idea would be to have building blocks spawning with lots of health - not relying on ConstructionHealthBonus for it. I have already nerfed this one, as it was way too strong.

Also, ShieldRegen I think is too weak. I suggest we decrease the 'no hit' time from 5 to 4 seconds, and increase the rate at which it grants shield back?

How do we stop someone blocking themselves completely in, and just hiding through the waves?

Because the titans and such will work their way though the blocks eventually... Plus if you're hiding, and not supporting others, you're going to be earning not so much xp...

TheDruidXpawX wrote:

In terms of buildings, here's what I was thinking... which may be way off base.
1) I figured we could spawn a block using the block combo from the game, and set it to the right team, such that the monsters will target them just like they're a player. It might be possible to even use the satore Nali (not NaliFigheter) class and simply apply a permanent block combo to them, and give them a lot of health and some damage reduction... Probably make them take damage, but not death from a titan rock.
2) Let the engineers spawn a *lot* of these blocks to block in a protective area.

I'm a bit lost here. What is the 'block combo'? Is it just one of the static meshes that looks like a block, or is it something a bit more specialised?

It would be easy enough to create a pawn with this static mesh, although making it a sub-class of vehicle would fit in easiest, from the Engineering spawning point of view. However, I think Monsters will only target players. So, even setting the block to be on the right team will not cause monsters to target. We would need a timer in the block class that checks if a monster is close, with no enemy set, and set the monster's enemy to be the block.

At the moment, spawning things costs points.
Assuming I set a small block to 1 point, and a large block to 2, it is going to need quite a few points to build anything.
I suggest we make building points cost alot less?

TheDruidXpawX wrote:

1) Occupy-able turrets, are changed to use vehicle points.

I think there could be some confusion generated here. We have sentinels, turrets, vehicles and buildings. What points should each use?
(The simplest would be a separate category for each, or one for the whole lot, but if we are having 3......)

This suggestion seems to be:
Sentinels - turret points
Turrets - vehicle points
Vehicles - vehicle points
Buildings - building points.

And we have a
Kill all turrets - which will take out sentinels
Kill all vehicles - which will take out turrets and vehicles
kill all buildings - which will take out buildings.

and in the ini file:
Seninel as a TurretConfig
Link Turret and Scorpion as VehicleConfigs
Block as a BuildingConfig.

If this is the way you want to go, can we rename 'turret points', 'kill all turrets' and 'TurretConfig' to 'sentinel points', 'kill all sentinels' and 'SentinelConfig'?

TheDruidXpawX wrote:

How do we stop someone blocking themselves completely in, and just hiding through the waves?

Because the titans and such will work their way though the blocks eventually... Plus if you're hiding, and not supporting others, you're going to be earning not so much xp...

True.
But I have tried it. You can sit inside some blocks with a couple of sentinels outside, which you permanently charge with the link. Lots of xp.

I suppose queens will always teleport there, if the space is big enough. And the high powered monsters will destroy the blocks, if they target them.

Szlat wrote:

You can sit inside some blocks with a couple of sentinels outside, which you permanently charge with the link. Lots of xp.

Your link (or other Friendly Fire) should not penetrate the blocks - charging your Sentinel from the other side of a block wall should not be possible.

BotFodder wrote:

Szlat wrote:

You can sit inside some blocks with a couple of sentinels outside, which you permanently charge with the link. Lots of xp.

Your link (or other Friendly Fire) should not penetrate the blocks - charging your Sentinel from the other side of a block wall should not be possible.

Agreed. I left a small gap the link would go through.

Turret Damage Rates. (Approximate - I don't want to argue about +/- a few percent)

TheDruidXpawX wrote:

Sentinel...same damage link gun damage...but marked as super weapon damage

Currently the Sentinel does about 80 damage/sec. Link gun primary does about 150 damage/sec on primary (approx). This would make them a lot more powerful than they already are. Do we want to change?

TheDruidXpawX wrote:

Link Turrets...2x regular link damage

Currently the Link Turret does 214 damage/sec for primary, 125 damage/sec for secondary. Link gun does 150/sec primary, 75 damage/sec secondary. So currently its about 1.5 times rather than 2x. Again, I am not sure we really want to up?

TheDruidXpawX wrote:

Ball turret...maybe less damage than the current turret

Currently, the Ball turret does 180 damage/sec. Not that much more than the link gun considering that it is a sitting target.

TheDruidXpawX wrote:

Minigun Turret....maybe only 2.5x the minigun

Currently the Minigun Turret does 145 damage/sec. The accuracy and range are slightly better than the minigun alt-fire. The mingun does 112/sec primary, and 75/sec secondary. Shall I up slightly?

Szlat wrote:

True.
But I have tried it. You can sit inside some blocks with a couple of sentinels outside, which you permanently charge with the link. Lots of xp.

Ok, I've got an idea. What if once you leave visual range of your sentinels, they die in 15 seconds or something...

Szlat wrote:

Turret Damage Rates. (Approximate - I don't want to argue about +/- a few percent)

Currently the Sentinel does about 80 damage/sec. Link gun primary does about 150 damage/sec on primary (approx). This would make them a lot more powerful than they already are. Do we want to change?

damage/sec for secondary. Link gun does 150/sec primary, 75 damage/sec secondary. So currently its about 1.5 times rather than 2x. Again, I am not sure we really want to up?

No.... I had the impression these did more damage... Same with the minigun turret. If they already dont do a lot more than I thoguht they did, we hought to leave them where they are

Could we give "vehicle" with the block mesh some sort of controller that both does nothing, but makes the monsters target them?

The block combo is activated along with pint-sized using a mutator built into the game... I'll go look it up.

The combo that does it is Bonuspack.ComboCrate. (there's also Bonuspack.ComboMiniMe)

This is the simple stuff:

CrateActor Effect;

f (P.Role == ROLE_Authority)
Effect = Spawn(class'CrateActor', P,, P.Location + P.CollisionHeight * vect(0,0,0.55), P.Rotation);
Also, I believe that the CrateActor actually customizes itself based on the map.