I wrote a review for GameSpot

I wrote a glowing review on GameSpot of Xonotic. It seems to be the only review, though. I want more people to play this wonderful game.
lonk

Nicely written review, I read it all. I'm glad you like the game and thanks for spreading the word.

Thank you for that nice review! Appreciated!

Awesome, nice review!

Nice review! Thank you so much for writing it!

"Some are more mundane -- the blaster's alt-fire is just to switch to the last used weapon, and the shotgun's alt is a good thwack -- but they are undeniably useful, and add a great deal of depth to the weapons. "[url=https://www.gamespot.com/xonotic/user-reviews/2200-12727491/][/url]

There's been a lot of talk about this and I agree. I've been trying to propose moving the thwack feature to blaster secondary. Proposing is not enough though, because somebody who can and who is interested enough needs to put some of their time into it

There's also apparently some server side issue with how shotgun works (a spike on netgraph every time someone fires the shotgun). So there's been some experiments with a shockwave type of weapon that works differently, but could possibly replace shotgun's role.

Basically, weapon balance is not all quite complete yet and I hope we will eventually see a more compact weapon arsenal in Xonotic.

"Some are more mundane -- the blaster's alt-fire is just to switch to the last used weapon, and the shotgun's alt is a good thwack -- but they are undeniably useful, and add a great deal of depth to the weapons. "[url=https://www.gamespot.com/xonotic/user-reviews/2200-12727491/][/url]

There's been a lot of talk about this and I agree. I've been trying to propose moving the thwack feature to blaster secondary. Proposing is not enough though, because somebody who can and who is interested enough needs to put some of their time into it

There's also apparently some server side issue with how shotgun works (a spike on netgraph every time someone fires the shotgun). So there's been some experiments with a shockwave type of weapon that works differently, but could possibly replace shotgun's role.

Basically, weapon balance is not all quite complete yet and I hope we will eventually see a more compact weapon arsenal in Xonotic.

I've actually made a branch where blaster secondary can be a slap depending on a server cvar. However the problem then is shotgun secondary. I thought about a charging feature like hagar secondary, but that might be quite hard to balance out.
The reason for the spike on the netgraph is that the shotgun pattern is random. Every bullet that is fired has to be networked by itself, so there is quite a bit of traffic with every shotgun shot. That also affects the charging feature making it a real "network killer".
A solution to this problem would be to use a fixed pattern (also in that branch) where the networking could be optimized (I've not done this as I first wanted to know if the fixed pattern is actually preferred). However, in my opinion, the shockwave is the better concept.

I love that lonk.

I've been trying to propose moving the thwack feature to blaster secondary.

There's also apparently some server side issue with how shotgun works (a spike on netgraph every time someone fires the shotgun). So there's been some experiments with a shockwave type of weapon that works differently, but could possibly replace shotgun's role.

I've actually made a branch where blaster secondary can be a slap depending on a server cvar. However the problem then is shotgun secondary.
The reason for the spike on the netgraph is that the shotgun pattern is random. Every bullet that is fired has to be networked by itself, so there is quite a bit of traffic with every shotgun shot.

Moving thwack to blaster secondary is a really good idea and I would see myself using the blaster a lot more.
I'm very eh on the shockwave suggestion. What I don't get is: why hasn't RNG been removed from the shotgun completely. It's not needed.

Re: Blaster secondary.
I think that there's other possibly more useful options that suit the blaster more, such as an alternate blaster fire mode. If you really want something more suited to the blaster, maybe an energy knife that you can stab the opponent with?

Regarding the RNG issue with shotgun:
If we want random spreads on a shotgun, might be better to have a set pattern of spreads (say ~60 patterns deep), and when you join a game, there's one RNG call to choose which sequence you get through the spreads. Rather than communicate the pattern, you just communicate which spread and sequence you're in the spread. This would cut down any RNG calls during gameplay, and give a pseudo-sense of spread. Sure it repeats after a while but seriously, no one is going to use the exact spread pattern every 60+ shots to get specific damage inflicted in-game.

FWIW: This sort of idea is much the same sort of process of channel hopping selection that the old 802.11 Frequency Hopping protocol (and also Bluetooth) tend to use to avoid transmitting on the same channel as someone else, by doing pseudo-random jumps. Given how often they do this (many times a second) you can bet they don't want to rely on an RNG at all.

One issue i can see is that shotgun shares the bullet code with uzi/MG and rifle which can penetrate walls and players. That means that the server has to calculate how far the bullet penetrates (each obstacle reduces a counter depending on thickness) and tell clients to show the apropriate effect at entry and exit holes. The thing is that clients can't do this themselves even if they know the patters since they might not have the information about player locations. I guess the solution would be to separate shotgun into it's own function since it's solidpenetration value is very low and can barely penetrate even the thinnest walls.

Not sure if there are other things the server needs to send which can't be determined on the client.

However the problem then is shotgun secondary.

How about shotgun primary similar to Quake 1: fast fire rate, more accurate, but very low 25:ish damage each?
Then secondary: Charge couple shells ala Hagar and then shoot it in a more spread out, double barrel style shotgun?

However the problem then is shotgun secondary.

How about shotgun primary similar to Quake 1: fast fire rate, more accurate, but very low 25:ish damage each?
Then secondary: Charge couple shells ala Hagar and then shoot it in a more spread out, double barrel style shotgun?

i like this a lot.