[SUGGESTION] New ammo type: Gel Ammo

New ammo type: Gel Ammo

I've often thought it would be ideal to remove a lot of the old technology from Nexuiz (and now Xonotic). A lot of the ideas within Nexuiz stemmed from Quake, which was not a futuristic themed game.

When I woke up this morning, I thought of an idea of ammo made from a gel that can be rapidly shaped and hardened on-the-fly into what is needed (I don't know what mechanism would harden it - electricity, radiation, microwaves, doesn't really matter). It could be shaped into bullets, thus replacing bullet ammo for all bullet-based weapons (shotgun, machinegun, sniper rifle). It could be shaped into other things... darts, a net.

This type of ammo concept is flexible, similar to the energy cell ammo. so the ideas could go in different directions and open up possibilities that could result in some new weapon concepts being
created.

It could also be used to "fix" some current discrepancies in the ammo/weapon pairings, like we currently have rocket ammo used by a grenade launcher. We have machinegun bullets used by a sniper rifle. The shotgun is the only weapon with its own ammo that no other weapon uses. The electro secondary is made up of solid projectiles, while the ammo for that weapon is energy cells. Gel ammo can form projectiles, so it could be combined with energy cell ammo to make electro secondary projectiles possible. Maybe default electro secondary could be something else until you pickup gel ammo.

Maybe there could be different types of gel ammo:

Standard gel - used for bullets
Sticky gel - can stick to things
Flame gel - catches flame on impact
Combustion gel - explosive on impact
Slick gel - like a teflon coating on the ground.

The entire ammo pool could become
- Energy cells (crylink, nex, electro, some other weapon)
- Multiple forms of Gel ammo (the rest of the weapons)
- A combination of energy cell + gel ammo (enhancements to all weapons)

Ammo like this could play a role in enhancements, which was previously only done using powerups. Different types of gel ammo could be combined and cause some weapons to behave differently than normal.

If you wanted to extend the idea further, you could apply some variation of this gel concept to armor. It makes sense as a way to heal your armor on-the-fly by smearing some gel on it. Armor-gel.

I'm just scratching the surface here and perhaps not all of the above ideas are good. I just came up with those in the last 30 minutes to get the discussion going. This is the sort of idea that would help differentiate Xonotic from other FPS games (like Quake).

I imagine this would be something to consider for Xonotic 2.0.

Ok, I voted the 'Stupid idea' poll option but that has nothing to do with your idea. I only voted that because of the wording it was rather fun. It would have been funnier if it said 'It's almost as dumb as the time I tried masturbating with a wasps nest.' ^_^ Please change it to that, that would be so fun.

Anyway. As for my actual opinion I do like what you're proposing here. I have no objections to it. Sounds like fun and all kinda of cool weapons and weapon concepts can come from this.

I think this is interesting, but needs a lot of work. Strangely enough, I did find an option among the voting options that fitted exactly to my very own opinion of this idea of yours. o_O

The gel concept could, and most probably would have to, lead to a complete new arsenal of weapons and therefore a completely new weapon balance. Inflammable gel, slick gel, all this would materially change, maybe enhance, gameplay. Slick gel - do we want people to slip? Not really. What could it be for? Sticky gel vs explosive gel - do we need both for mortar? We could do a system where we enhance weapon functionalities if all ammo types are available (I think this was one of your ideas). Like having explosive gel and sticky gel for mortar would be the current mortar functionality. If one has also inflammable gel then the explosion could leave a burning area for a short while. If one doesn't have explosive gel then there would be no splash damage... That would be quite new for a FPS, if I am not mistaken, but could be very cool indeed.

The logical consequence would be a colour system identifying the gel functionalities as well as showing on the weapon's projectiles. It should also show on the weapon itself.

The drawback could be that it might be too complex for many people to evaluate what the opponent is equipped with in order to react accordingly and in time.

In any way this would move Xonotic very much away from Nexuiz. Can't tell if this would be good or bad.

I love it, of course it will need some work but the idea is fab.

I too feel the theme of xonotic requires a move away from the classic ammo types. Shotguns in a space theme seem a bit out of place.

Maybe as a fun mod? The maps where this ammo is used would need a big oven where players can queue at so that they can use the oven to turn the gel ammo into actual ammo (like bullets). A bit like a pit stop in racing =)

I love it, of course it will need some work but the idea is fab.

Yes, forgot to say that I love this idea too (got carried away by the opportunities).

I like the idea! Energy cells are simple and flexible.
Gel is new, futuristic like 5h1+, interesting, could be fun.

Maybe energy cells would be needed for any weapon to shoot (launch projectiles, form the gel, power electronics etc.)

I got ann idea that with the types of Gerl you have suggested, some weapons could eat different portions of different gels (and energy cells) to fire dirrefent projectiles.

Some examples:

Shotgun:

Standard gel - regular shotgun shots
Flame gel - tracer shots that bounce off walls like little balls and keep burning off for a while (somebody can step on them and he can catch some fire). If you hit someone they embeed in his body (ouch!) and burn him for a while. Pain like 5h1+, may require separate voice clips of pain
Combustion gel - shotgun shots that explode on contact with solid stuff. Does a lot of damage - pierce through armor etc. Blow apart people's heads 'n' stuff...

Machinegun:

Standard gel - normal stuff
Flame gel - burning pain
Combustion gel - boomy headshots

Mortar:

Combustion gel - explodes on impact
Combustion gel + sticky gel - sticks to stuff. Explodes when shot by a bullet or by a nearby explosion - could be possible to make chains of mines launched by a single shotgun shot
Flame gel - flaminng ball
Flame gel + sticky gel - flaming sticky pile of... fire. Catches fire on impact. Useles underwater (like all flaming stuff without own oxygen source)

Electro:

Standard gel - a bit like nailgun from F.E.A.R with slow re-fire (NIN)
Standard gel + slick gel - if hits walls'n'floors under specifiic angle - it bounces (slips) and continues it's flight. Useful in long corridors.
Combustion gel - you know you like it
Flame gel - fast moving deadly piece of burning 5h1+

Rocket Launcher:

Combustion gel - standard thing
Combustion gel + flame gel - on hit it spreads some (5~15) flaming pieces that move on high speed (works a little bit like Flak cannon from UT) embeed in people, burn and watch p0rn
Combustion gel + standard gel - just like above but without flames and p0rn

Just some ideas

A bit like a pit stop in racing =)

Heh, this what you proposed here and the possibilities this kind of ammo can do, honestly, it would be a completely new game. But also honestly, it sounds like it would be hella fun and kinda unique which I think would get lots of publicity.
That's always good... almost... but in this case it would be. :p

Also, if something like this would have been done it most likely has to be a mod/game mode, it would change the game way too much otherwise.

No shotguns in space? one word: Aliens :p

I do agree with your ammo/weapon discrepancy point, but I don't think gel ammo is the solution.

this is a very interesting concept, and a unique idea that i think has serious potential if it is flushed out enough.

Prey's Leech Gun is similar to this. It starts as a plasma rife, and by refueling at different charging stations, mutated the gun's function.

The different modes were plasma rifle, freezing gun, rail gun and lightning gun. (With cooler names than those)

A freezing gun would be a good futuristic slowdown weapon for Xonotic.

I gotta make sure I understood this right.

The way I read this, it seemed like the idea was to shift away from having a traditional pool of certain weapons, toward having a smaller group of more general weapons for use with the different ammo types. So instead of having a Laser Rifle and a Sniper Rifle and a Shotgun and a Laser Machine Gun or whatever, there would just be a rifle-type weapon and a scattershot-weapon and a rapidfire-weapon, and each of those would be used with different ammo types to achieve different results. So a player might pick up the shotgun weapon and then go grab a flame ammo pickup, switch over to that ammo (ammo-switch key?), then they'd be firing a scatter shot of fiery stuff all over, setting people (and the environment?) on fire. Or they'd get the sniper-type weapon and grab some, say, flash ammo and some explosive ammo, and go about blinding groups of people then switching and exploding them all to nice little bits.

Right?

(If so, awesome. I love it.)

Adding different weapon ammo for one or mayve two of the weapons to use is fine as it will add new ammo and so the same weapons aren't used all the time by picking up cell ammo for example which is what happened in nexuiz, but changing for every single weapon is a big no no in my book.

The first thing that came to mind was: Doku has been playing World of Goo lately.

Well, i see two things here: the first thing is a concept with various types of goo for the same weapon, opposed to the second concept of the same type of goo, i mean gel for different weapons. The first concept looks to me like just an insignificant detail about the ammo, whereas the second concept would explain why there have to be different types of weapons.

I think this is interesting, but needs a lot of work. Strangely enough, I did find an option among the voting options that fitted exactly to my very own opinion of this idea of yours. o_O

The gel concept could, and most probably would have to, lead to a complete new arsenal of weapons and therefore a completely new weapon balance. Inflammable gel, slick gel, all this would materially change, maybe enhance, gameplay. Slick gel - do we want people to slip? Not really. What could it be for? Sticky gel vs explosive gel - do we need both for mortar? We could do a system where we enhance weapon functionalities if all ammo types are available (I think this was one of your ideas). Like having explosive gel and sticky gel for mortar would be the current mortar functionality. If one has also inflammable gel then the explosion could leave a burning area for a short while. If one doesn't have explosive gel then there would be no splash damage... That would be quite new for a FPS, if I am not mistaken, but could be very cool indeed.

The logical consequence would be a colour system identifying the gel functionalities as well as showing on the weapon's projectiles. It should also show on the weapon itself.

The drawback could be that it might be too complex for many people to evaluate what the opponent is equipped with in order to react accordingly and in time.

In any way this would move Xonotic very much away from Nexuiz. Can't tell if this would be good or bad.

That. i see red, green, blue and yellow cans of compound gel. Red would be incinerating, but lacking splash damage, which would be added by blue gel. For example. Red and green could also be used for health and armor, respectively - damn, that would definetely make for some confusion!

I don't know if this has been suggested (did not read all posts completely) but gel ammo could be used as a modifier for regular ammo (for instance, pick up incendiary gell ammo and there will be [more] splash damage where the projectile lands, etc).

A good idea, I think.

If we're going this far, we might try scrapping all the weapons and making one the shoots differently depending on what kind of ammo you get.

...this will need another balance -.-