I've made a start on a new model for the railgun (which was ridiculously long now that the weapons are used one-handed). I'm pretty pleased with it so far, but plan to do some more work on it anyway.
Also, perhaps more noticeably I've made some pretty significant changes to the weapon set this week, having consulted with players about the default weapon. The charge laser is now gone (at least temporarily), having been replaced by the SMG as the default weapon. The charge laser wasn't really competitive with the other weapons, so there was no point having it a pickup in the maps. Something I may do in future is repurpose parts of it's assets as a laser weapon in a different role though. Anyway, as well as now being the default weapon, I've changed the SMG to use projectiles instead of hitscan as before. This is just an experiment, so you're welcome to let me know what you think of this and I can easily change it back, but I personally find it more satisfying to use like this. Possibly performance will be an issue, so let me know if you get framerate drops while the SMG is being used. I imagine it will be fine though.
COMMUNITY MADE MAPS:
- New map "Cave" from Ex3mx (Max Graw). I think most will agree with me that this is a particularly remarkable map. Not only is it a kind of open map that we haven't really seen like this in ZGA before, but it's also incredibly stylish. I strongly suggest everyone takes a look at it.
ADDITIONS:
- New railgun model. It's styled more as a pistol now (I wanted to give it a similar outline to a revolver, although it's still supposed to be a railgun), and I think is looking better overall. I'll probably be doing some more work on, but I think it looks alright currently, for the kind of distances you'd typically see it from.
CHANGES:
- Railgun now has increased knockback force. This is now enough to knock the target of their feet. This level of knock-back has been quite a big deal in the past (particularly for the weaponized grapple beam), so this may make the Railgun OP. Do let me know your observations on this. I think the railgun possibly could have stood to be a bit more competitive anyway though.
- SMG now default weapon.
- SMG now uses projectiles instead of hitscan. The projectiles currently move much faster than any other projectile weapon in the game, but still slow enough that there's significant travel time at longer ranges.
- The charge laser is at least temporarily removed, having been replaced by the SMG as the default weapon.
- I've updated the manual. It listed the number keys as corresponding to out of date weapons. It now just says the number keys correspond to weapon slots without mentioning specific weapons.
- Minor changes to shotgun appearance. Still planning to go back and do more work on this.