Now to be fair, the blaster isn’t actually useless. Other than it’s role to be used as a placebo weapon if you lack any, it can be used to bleed OM, wittle down structures, taunt aliens in hallways and can even be used aggressively to score kills. I’ve seen this happen by incredibly skilled players. However beyond such uses, I feel like its a wasted opportunity not to try to make It more interesting, so I say lets try to think about it.
Here is an example I’ve been thinking of: blaster hits slows aliens by 1% of their current momentum. This effect stacks. Lasts 4 seconds and resets everytime another blaster shot is taken. The slow firing rate of the blaster would make it so that this isn’t a ridiculous change, as a few ckits can probably slow a Tyrant or Dragoon down for actual backup to arrive. This would make it harder for the larger evolutions to escape. A small support buff that can be situationally useful. It might actually encourage groups of humans to work together by initiating fights with blaster shots (Ex. 15 blaster hits to a tyrant = 15% moveslow) then pick it off.
TL;DR Do you have an idea to improve/change the blaster? Lets see it.
Maybe have the blaster change properties based on the weapon you have equipped? Ckit lowers build timer, Shotgun lets you charge the blaster for a power shot, Pulse Gun lets the blaster do more damage with a slower projectile, Psaw makes blaster shots “stun” enemies, etc.
I like your idea @Hendrich but if this were to be enacted I would like to see the blaster restricted to only construction kits or alternatively the buff will only apply to blasters used by ckits. A group of ten humans in hall each getting two blaster shots on a rant would be OP imo. Especially if those blasters were also bsuits.
@bird isn’t 10 bsuits vs 1 rant a bit OP anyway (as described in your hypothetical scenario)??
10 humans * 2 shots each = 20 shots (assuming they all hit) would slow it down only 20% (according to hendrich’s idea), but rant trample is still fast AF so I don’t think this is a major problem.
I propose that a booster would remove the blaster’s slowing effect.
Considering aliens have attacks/thingies that slow down already slow humans, this idea seems like an okay asymmetrical counterpart: aliens need certain class(es) that have ability to slow humans, all humans carry a blaster that can slow).
On the F server, the blaster had a secondary fire that gave the firing player a slight boost in the direction they were facing. This was good to get to some hard to reach places, even for the bsuit.
I think the build timer concept needs to change completely so that it doesn’t prevent buying another weapon while a buildable you placed hasn’t finished constructing.
romdos’ point is that with large numbers of humans vs one rant in direct combat, the rant would not stand much of a chance without blaster improvements, actually if every human in that scenario had a rifle, they would kill the rant faster than if everyone used a modified blaster.
Punishing an expanding team in scrims is an important part of winning.
I actually had this EXACT idea prior to my post, you could even make it look slightly different.
At the same time though, I kinda like the universal limitations of the blaster.
Should it be considered a secondary weapon (part of your assault kit) Or as it is currently (a backup weapon)
What if secondary blaster gave you a one time use “energy grappling hook”, where the greater you charged up, the further it would launch for a grappling point, and then given you a greater force in that direction? If you were to hit a player with this “energy grappler” it would apply a force to that player in the opposite direction.
Um, thats why I directly quoted you in my post. That idea was directly based on your idea, which is the basis of collaboration. If it wasn’t clear then, hopefully it make sense now.
i would not change it. as you said, it’s not useless. if you make it more powerful, ppl will think less about wasting all ammo. ckits won’t need that much support. it will make game less tactical and more quake-like where you can carry 9 different weapons with full ammo.
Personally, I’d like to see blaster damage increased to 13 or higher so it two-shots dretches. This will give some incentive to use it vs dretches. In CSGO, if you run out of ammo in your clip in a fight, you don’t reload; you switch to your pistol because that takes less time than reloading. In Tremulous, the pistol is so bad that this isn’t even a good option. Buffing pistol damage or repeat rate would help provide more tactical decisions, and firing in advance of the aliens due to the slow blaster shot speed actually makes it one of the more skillful guns in the game. It would be wonderful if using a blaster instead of reloading was a good option. I’ve seen numerous high level players (Mars comes to mind) use blaster as a real secondary weapon after hurting a goon with luci, since blaster travels faster than luci, and with it you can actually catch running aliens.
With that said, gimmicky bullshit like a grappling hook or explosive bullets on a gun that only does 9 damage for a direct hit is stupid and pointless. Any changes should strive to make the game deeper. Lowering the skill ceiling (still doing damage when you miss, for example) goes against the goal of any game which has a focus on competition.
@Menace13 I guess i was right in assuming this thread would be csgo’d after a short while, never fails to amaze me.
OT though: @dGr8LookinSparky The build timer being abusable by the other team is a core aspect of gameplay, you want to rush bases when the other team is a man down, mainly useful in scrims though but you really shouldn’t remove this feature;
Blaster is fine imo, 2 shotting dretches might be strong-ish. I’d like to see something like a revolver implemented though, with testing on the test server first ofc. It’s often annoying that you can luci a goon down to 20-50 hp (hurr durr shuldve sharged all da wayz dumfuk gpp) and then being unable to chase with anything at all. Revolver might be like a:
50c buy (shouldn’t have competitive pricing with primary weapons because it wouldnt get used)
replace blaster slot
hitscan weapon
15 dmg a shot with no dropoff over range
2x speed of RoF of shotgun with 6 rounds
shotgun speed reload
Infinite spare ammo or something like 48 (testing req.)
Pocket md basically, useful to buy when you use luci or situationally with weapons like pulse, maybe cgun in long hallways etc.
The real question is: was this a csgo troll or a actual suggestion?
