I say the GL's damage should be directly proportionate to two things- Size of the creature and distance to it

IE- a nade explodes close to a skulk and an onos- the skulk's small size does not help at close range and thus it takes a fair ammount of damage- the onos takes more damage due to more of the shrapnel hitting it

Now, a nade explodes say, 3x as far away from a skulk and onos- the skulk's small size helps it to be missed by most of the shrapnel, and thus it takes very little damage- however, the large onos still gets hit by a large ammount of shrapnel, and thus it takes a lot of damage.


Gl's should do say, 720 dmg total, but in a 360 degree radius, so that every degree around the nade takes 2 dmg (2 damage per bit of shrapnel) , so that at 200 units you may be hit by 20 peices of shrapnel, for 400 damage, but at 1000 units, you'd only be hit by 3 pieces, for 6 damage


Not a perfect setup, but I just got done shoveling snow, so I'm kind of shakey at the moment

...

they sounds hella hard to code.

it's basic distance damage similar to the siege, but in a 3 dimensional plane... can't be too hard for the coding gods of NS

You realize how screwy siege damage is right? Stand on a chamber while it's being sieged, and you'll take no damage. But stand on the ceiling above a hive that's being sieged and you'll die.

The explosion damage from nades and other area of effect weapons is pretty much using standard HL code as I understand it. That's why it can exhibit flaky behavior sometimes. I don't see a reason to recode a new system at the current state of the game.

TS did the same thing by adding "shrapnel" to their M67 frag grenades. Basically, instead of doing splash damage the grenade sends a bunch of projectiles out in all directions. There are a lot of neat tricks in TS...

Right you are. But grenades are thrown one at a time and can only be found, not selected. It is rare to see more than one going off on any one server at a time.

Sounds like a good idea, but Bob has a good point about the lag if its for the GL in NS. Tommy brings up a good point, maybe the Hand Grenades should be Frags while the Grenades from the GL should be HE, High Explosive for dealing mainly with alien buildings......maybe, just my idea on this.

Then make the standard hand nades like this, and save the GL's for NS:S or NS2?

I always felt that those with low-end PC's should stay away from high end games, and thus HL2 made different setups for high, medium, and low end PC's


ANyway... yeah, the projectile thing sounds like a plan Can you give it a try?

in a perfect world this would be a good idea, but if the coding was off and the process was really laggy then it wouldn't be worth it. but if it was done effectivly and correctly then I think it would be be a good thing

so... has anyone been able to come up with an appreciable solution to this CPU usage dilema?

while were on the topic, can we also include a shotgun style reload for the GL?
It has a cyclindirc loading chamber which allows for the "load-shoot" ability (meaning you can shoot directly after you load each round).
It is incredibly unrealistic and frustrating to sit there and have to wait half a minute to reload the GL, and if you switch weapons while doing so, you have to start all over again.

no, the current system is a bug. IT's supposed ot be shotgun-style, but a bug int he code prevents that from happening. It used to be clip style on purpose back in 1.03, but then, it also held 6 shots in a clip back then, and could reload in about 2-3 seconds.

GLs in combat is retarded and is easily the most annoying thing in NS.

This would help nade spamming in Co mode but would lag. I think a better solution is that an alien respawns as the lifeform he or she was and, at anytime during its life can devolve to skulk and get its levels back (to evolve higher or even switch to gorge during an emergency.

Nade spamming in decent sized co games is rediculous. Someone is going to say "well your fade should take out the GLer" but when its 10v10 that is easier said than done with six marines outside your base and five have HMGs.

Revisiting this topic... I still think it's a valid point *shrug*