[SUGGESTION] New weapon idea: Turret builder

Been thinking this idea over for a week. I've been inspired after playing Team Fortress 2, but seen similar functionality in other games like Global Agenda. What do you think about having a weapon capable of building automated turrets?

Here is how it would work: While the weapon is being held, a hologram of the turret would appear where the player is looking (on the nearest surface). It would be green if a turret can be placed there, and red if not (there's not enough room or resources). The primary fire button would spawn the turret, while secondary would cycle between turret types. Each turret would cost an amount of its ammo category to spawn. For instance, building a machinegun would cost 150 bullets, a plasma turret 75 cells, and a rocket turret 50 rockets. Obviously, such turrets would not respawn once destroyed.

No... it would not be overpowered or too easy to abuse, as some people might think. Built turrets (unlike mapper-placed turrets) would deal a lot less damage and be easier to destroy. I believe they should be different from fixed turrets entirely, using separate models and firing types. To prevent excessive usage, the weapon could either be removed from inventory once used (you would have to pick it up again to make another turret), or have a cooldown period of about 30 seconds before it can be used again. There could also be a distance constraint, so the same player or team can't place turrets too close to one another, spamming them in the same spot (eg: around the flag). Turrets should also be built slowly, the player losing their progress if switching to another weapon before they're done (making them unable to defend themselves in the meantime).

The feature itself would certainly be awesome, especially in Onslaught and Assault. Games that have this are very fun, and much more interesting when playing in teams and conquering locations. There are also medical turrets, which heal the owner or his team when they stand close. Such would also rock, and could give Xonotic an interesting depth in strategy.

I made a pool to see how many players want this, and I'd like to hear what you think. This isn't as easy to implement as the Mine Layer, so I would surely need some help in order to do such a thing (especially someone making compact turrets for this purpose).

Those turrets in Portal 1 were really great, especially when you throw something at them and they would fall over and go crazy. I don't like the idea of letting them carry different weapons, two heavy machine guns would be perfect, it's too complicated otherwise. These would make a lot of noise, too. You could make the deployable turrets beep as long as they're reloading. Just imagine: You run through a door, suffer heavy damage from turret fire, get behind the door you just came from, the turret keeps firing until the drum's empty, it beeps for two seconds and points a laser wedge at the direction you just went scanning for targets, then starts firing again. You could also make them lock on the orientation they first started firing at (+/-30 degrees), this would make it a somewhat tactical challenge to deploy them at the right point in the map. I'm thinking of something related right now: In AvP 1 (PC) there was a coop-multiplayer mode called "skirmish". The idea was to fight off infinite waves of bot controlled aliens. You might call it "Siege" or something. I miss those coop-modes, this was really fun at LAN parties back then. It somewhat lived from the idea of aliens walking on the ceiling the walls and everywhere. Combining that with deployable turrets could be really great.

Assuming you use the existing turrets code for it, it should be fairly easy - they already do support scaling of health, damage and so on. and can also have a flag set to not re-spawn. What needs coding would be the placement system and the "weapon system" for it. If in a non team mode (tough not sure this makes since for such, but anyway..) a code path to make turrets ignore their creator (instead of team as they use now) wound be needed.

I could help code some of it, specifically anything to do with adapting the turrets code would naturally be fairly easy for me to do.

I would rather like 'stationary vehicles'.
Turrets where players can get inside and shoot but not move.

Something like 'stationary vehicles vs normal vehicles' would be really good.

CTF and Assault maps need them!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBqArD9l3c4

Im generally aganist. Thats why:

Im agreed with forseti. Personally I dislike idea of turrets at all however I can accept them as 'stationary vehicles' which have to be controlled by player inside them.

In case of weapon idea:
It's very important to have in control the number of existing turrets. If it had been a weapon it would have been an insane number of turrets all over the map which seems a bit pointless.

From the other hand: We want to avoid the situation when everybody stays in 'stationary vehicles' and waits until the opponents will come. But suppose the opponents also were in their vehicles on the opposite side of the map then: who would attack first? Too much camping IMO.

Turrets would have had an aim-bot or sth? and What does precisely means: Beeing easier to destroy them? We want to focus on the opponent, not beeing distracted with destroying turrets.

In ctf map with good players (at least 2) on defense its already hard to get the flag. What it would be like if we put also the turrets with them? Unbelivible.

These flaws harldy can be avoided.

Agree with SOME assault maps - turrets could be a added benefit, but not on every map that's just dumb obviously.

For CTF, agree with Justin, sometimes it can already be hard enough, I think it'd be best suited to assault mode.

Could be a neat feature, however my only worry is we try and add too much stuff into Xonotic which was a problem with nexuiz.

The turrets in Portal and HL2 (the way I know them) are a good reference. It would be even nicer if the ones in Xonotic were physical and could fall over when shot, though IIRC Xonotic doesn't properly support physical objects yet. So for my idea, spawned turrets would likely be fixed.

And stationary turrets that the player can operate are great idea, though IMO separate from this. I support them too however, and posted about them before (I like one in UT2004, which is like a chair that shoots plasma). Since the player gets into them, I think these would use the vehicle code, but a vehicle that doesn't move.

As a normal weapon, I am against this... as a super weapon, it sounds great. (On par with minstanex and fireball and seeker) -- Although, maybe it's not really a good idea to make it a "weapon" -- but some other type of off-hand type thing... not sure.

On a sorta related subject, I actually agree too that turrets should be man-able, and a map option....

Like I said, I had this idea keeping the Team Fortress 2 engineer in mind. It would be a slightly rarer weapon, but like I said such turrets would not be overpowered and would be easy to destroy. So the overall damage one would usually do would not be greater than what you cause with a normal weapon in a moment of combat.

Like I said, I had this idea keeping the Team Fortress 2 engineer in mind. It would be a slightly rarer weapon, but like I said such turrets would not be overpowered and would be easy to destroy. So the overall damage one would usually do would not be greater than what you cause with a normal weapon in a moment of combat.

It's not that it's impossible to balance, it's that it TOTALLY does not fit our game....

I reject it as a normal weapon, as that seriously just won't work right in normal gameplay for Xonotic... It's too weird of a concept for that.

It's not that it's impossible to balance, it's that it TOTALLY does not fit our game....

I reject it as a normal weapon, as that seriously just won't work right in normal gameplay for Xonotic... It's too weird of a concept for that.

Oh. That might be true, given Xonotic is rather fast-paced and relies mostly on direct combat. The idea can be expanded upon I guess, and maybe a compact functionality that matches Xonotic can be found. But I guess it could work as a super weapon too, if it doesn't feel right (or just get placed rarely on maps).

I do not see how it could be made to be fast enough to match the gameplay without making it overpowered or spamable. Even the mapper-placed turrets we have now can be slipped past if you're fast enough with the laser... yet they kill you really quick otherwise... this can make lasering and speed the most important elements in some of our assault maps.

Anyhow, even if we could come up with a way to balance them, the situations for them would be extremely limited, and I personally don't think it's worth the effort to develop them. In fact, I believe this idea has been brought up before and died.

Stretching this idea however, I would like to see a fire and forget weapon of some sorts... like maybe a tag seeker that actually worked

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So the overall damage one would usually do would not be greater than what you cause with a normal weapon in a moment of combat.

They already output less DPS then most weapons (or did in nexuiz anyway, haven't checked recently). The reason they get you is good aim and high hp.

This might of already been said. But if turrents are going to be added, they should be map added like the current turrets, the mapper decides if it works. It should have a spawn point at the base, you should be able to pick it up and place it. It should be manned (a person fires it like a vehicle) and when it's destroyed it should respawn at the original point. Also it might pay to have an area that you can't stick it within a distance of another one on your team, maybe should I read circle around your teams turrents when you go to place it.