Flamethrowers

[Febnon]

okay i dont play ps anymore but heres some ideas. i know these were brought up before and put down for too graphic exstensive, they can just have the fire effect from plasma grenades

Flamethrowers would be attached to HA weapons for 1 extra cert points,these weapons take into account there empires traits.

VS flamthhrower: medium range, plasma effect, moderate damage, attached to lasher, medium fire rate*


NC flamethrower: short range, maximum damage, plasma effect, attached to JH, Short fire rate*

TR flamethrower: Long range, Lowest damage, plasma effect, attached to MCG , Highest fire rate*

*this is how long it can fire contiounously

[Rayder]

Eh? A bunch of plasma explosions coming out of a gun? A flamethrower would be cool, but it'd have to have really really really really really good animations, else it'd be really stupid. And the kind of animation Im talking about, everyone would need the best gaming computers available to date.

If indeed they DO put one in sometime, its gotta be a common pool under special assault.

[Febnon]

NO, there attached to the HA guns as alt fire

[Hexen]

Maybe in PlanetSide 2. :D

Though it'd always be nice to have more weapons, do you really see the devs adding them anytime soon?

(Btw, no offense but learn to type please)

Edit: About the animations, I don't see whats wrong with using the same flamethrower animation from Wolfenstein, i mean that worked pretty good and it didn't jolt up ppls comps either.

[Rarzo]

I hate flamethrowers in any game. Plus, What good would it do against any gun from far away?I guess the beamer would actually look good compared to something.

[Rayder]

.... attaching a flamethrower to one of the heavy weapons? how big is this thing? a foot? seriously, a flamethrower is quite a large weapon, and im not talking about a welding torch. The flamethower would melt the victims armor and kill them quite fast, it couldnt be a backup weapon, so itd be special assault or something, and be the size of the AV weapons.

I don't know what engine wolfenstein uses, and I don't know what engine PS uses. If they're the same one, yes, you could, but I doubt that they are.

[Jagd]

Ahh, to open the doors of an enemy spawn room and fill the place with napalm. I'm guessing the flamethrowers would have to be nerfed back to the stone age if they were going to be "balanced" vs. the other weapons, and that would take all the fun out of it.

[Rayder]

Mm, give it a few drawabacks? You get a lovely backpack of napalm on your back like they have nowadays, if it gets hit like, 4 times, BOOM! Your up in flames and you lose the ability to use it and get damaged at the same time. Make it overheat when used for too long, and the cooling time rather long, 10 or 15 seconds, would make for short controlled bursts.

[SkunkPunk]

gaaah i hate to ruin the party but... flame throwers were in early early ass beta and got scrapped becuase well imagine a zerg with all the JH noobs surging around spraying fire everywhere, imagine teh lag... it will eat your babies in your sleep!

[Exano]

They wouldent need good computors, make the Maelstrom's lightning fire.

Tada.

[Spee]

They wouldent need good computors, make the Maelstrom's lightning fire.

Tada.


*Slaps*

[Flammey]

DUDE, there already IS a Flamethrower type weapon in the game. MAELSTROM
The reason the Maelstrom fires lightning is because it is easier to map than fire. It causes a significantly less FPS loss than clouds of fire, and is easier to code. But it is essentially a flamethrower. In essence

[Rayder]

... No. Maelstrom deals damage shot for shot. A flamethrower would deal aggravated damage, and have a spread, the maelstrom may only target one guy at a time, unless your using the lasher ball. The Maelstrom is not a flamethrower, nor will it ever be.

[VashTheStamped]

cool flamethrower = lag/low FPS
junky flamethrower = low particle ratio/quality

i dont think flamethrowers would be good for PS...but good ideas

[Rayder]

maybe in the future when peoples machines get upgraded, along with better ideas to reduce fps problems. Maybe put a timer on it?

If we could implement the flamethrower from Wolfenstein (i really want to know what engines PS and Wolf use), I've seen like 30 guys using it at once, I got like, 4 fps drop, and this is when the rest of the game was blasting away with venoms

[Flammey]

... No. Maelstrom deals damage shot for shot. A flamethrower would deal aggravated damage, and have a spread, the maelstrom may only target one guy at a time, unless your using the lasher ball. The Maelstrom is not a flamethrower, nor will it ever be.

No, I never said Maelstrom was a flamethrower. I said it was a flamethrower-type weapon. Constant steady stream that attacks your opponent for as long as your weapon's stream is in contact. One thing about a normal Flamethrower is that it wouldn't exactly do aggravated damage. Our armor would muffle the flame, meaning regular fire wouldn't catch on the armor. The heat is what would do the damage, and the flame on contact with flesh would do damage. But Reinforced armor and MAX armor wouldn't be harmed to greatly by a normal flamethrower. Now PLASMA is a different story. You people want a Plasmathrower, not a Flamethrower. That IS essentially what your ideas make up. I'm thinking in terms of a normal every day Flamethrower versus technologically advanced armor. Flamethrowers were used to flush out bunkers and machine gun emplacements. And they were fairly effective at doing so. HOWEVER, if you tried using a Flamethrower on a modern day tank, the tank operators would just laugh at you, and turn their cannon on your ass and blow you to shit. A Flamethrower in this game would only be effective against Standard armor, Agile, to some degree in as it can burn your face off, and it can be used against open cockpit vehicles, and it could torch Air pretty effective, as Air vehicles need an Air intake to operate, and when if the air, you pour flame in those intakes, you effective stop the flow of oxygen needed to operate the engine. Engine stalls, and likely explodes, as you probably burn open the fuel cells, though maybe not, if the cells are shielded. Still, the engine would probably stall, and the vehicle will plumit. That saying that these Advance Air vehicles NEED oxygen to operate.
As I said, Plasma is a different story. Plasma tends to ignite and continue to burn until all of it's fuel is expended. And it burns super hot. It can melt steel. So, you have to stop thinking in terms of what would be cool, or look neat. Think in terms of physics, and what would actually work. Yes, this is just a game. But even games are bound by the rules of chemistry and physics. otherwise things would get out of hand, and it would just end up being stupid.

Don't agree with me? Okay, remove the physics of Gravity, then try again. Think about it. And this all is not even taking into account weither or not the engine, and hardware can handle it. You must remember, when SOE does something, they have to code it as if EVERYONE had the basic requirements to run PS. They can't just simply say, hey, let's code this weapon as if everyone had a Radeon 9700 128MB video card. No, they can't do that. It would destroy the game. Not everyone has those specs. Not everyone can afford that. They have to stick with the minimum requirements. Which is why there is no Flamethrower. The FPS drop for bare minimum was too drastic.

[Rayder]

Ok, Maelstrom is a flamethrower type weapon.

I don't disagree with you that a flamethrower spewing flames wouldn't harm a MAXs armor itself, but as you said the heat is what would do the damage, cook a MAX in it's armor.

A plasmathrower is an interesting concept, constant stream of super heated energy? now that would be fun.

I don't know what the PS engine could handle, thats what I want to know, if they're using an already made one, or one that they made specifically for PS. If its one they made for PS, I wanna know what it can do.

[Rbstr]

they had one way back in ealy beta and it got scraped, PS and wolfenstein do not use the same engine, they use differn graphics apps to, DX9(8),and OpenGL, respectivly. Woudl be nice to have PS on the Wolfenstien Engine though make the game a whole lot smoother, i can run the thing on maximum graphics and get no noticable Frame lag, and the Flamethrower in that is sweet.

[Rayder]

Thats what I wanted to know. If PS was on the Wolf engine, we probably wouldn't get some of the nicer stuff.

[Hexen]

I doubt the Wolf engine could handle vehicles or open areas anyway, let alone the number of players.

I dun see why the flamer effect couldn't be emulated though, its not that complex.

[Flammey]

For the same reason they don't add shifting environments. SE is blown trees, exploded walls, explosion craters, things like that. Fire is easy to impliment, not easy to maintain. Same reason Medal of Honor : AA didn't have much fire graphics to it. It could have been done, but maintaining the enhancement would drain resources fast. If they had added the flamethrower from beta people would be constantly getting kicked to desktop from the RAM drains that would be going on. It's harder on the engine than you think. Fire, to actually look like fire, has to constantly shift, change. There's a reason the plasma fire in the game it green smoke. Smoke is less complex than fire. Also the engine doesn't have to rearrange, or remove the background behind it. With fire the engine would have to be constantly drawing and redrawing the environment, to compensate for the fire. With the plasma smoke, it doesn't have to change the environment, it only has to add the green smoke, and then slowly remove it. There's more to this arguement than that. It would take a long time to present it. Let's just say a Flamethrower isn't, game wise, economical.

[Rayder]

For the hell of it, lets say everyone had the perfect system, the engine could handle anything you could throw at it.

Would the flamethrower be good for PlanetSide?

[Flammey]

Depends. How would a flamethrower be used. How would it damage things? What would it not harm? You could pour Napalm all over a Magrider and set it alight all you want. Your not going to hurt the thing. It's occupants just won't be able to get out.
It also depends on practicality. What would you rather have in that medium ranged battle? A Cycler? Or a Flamethrower? Me, I'd rather have the bullet weapon. Flamethrowers are short ranged support weapon. It's mainly for cleaning out emplacements. Wouldn't do much good in a tower battle though. Fire wouldn't go upstairs or downstairs too easy. Oh, I'm not saying it wouldn't. It just would have it's drawbacks. Plus the heat would bother Rexos and MAX's too much. And the fire probably wouldn't hurt them at all.

My opinion, in practise, a Flamethrower wouldn't be that useful.

[Rayder]

First off, it would go into the Special Assault category for lack of a better. Secondly, damage.

Infiltrators: They wouldn't get 2 feet

Standard: Also wouldn't get 2 feet

Agile: Still get damaged by the flames, but heat cooking them would be the biggest factor

Reinforced: Flames would do so little, its like a beamer on normal against a Vanguard. Heat would cook these guys faster than Agile.

MAX: No flame damage. Like being inside an oven at 450 degrees.

Open-cockpit: Pending on the armor, would affect driver and/or gunner.

Closed-cockpit: Pending on what vehicle, would affect driver. Otherwise heat might hurt them a bit.

ANT: Driver would be damaged by flame and heat to a lesser extent than infantry (Due to open windows)
AMS: See ANT
Empire Buggies: See ANT
Harrasser + Skyguard: Almost full damage by heat and flames (armor permitting) as infantry
Sunderer: Less damage than a driver in an ANT would take
ATV: Full damage.
Lightning: Would cook slowly due to thin armor
Deliverer: All occupants would be slowly cooked
Aircraft: Would damage vehicle itself slowly
All other vehicles: No damage to driver or vehicle.

Against terminals and whatnot, a fast destruction due to the burning of wiring or whatnot.

Against mines, the heat would cause them to explode after a second under stream. Spitfires would get melted pending on distance away, same with Motion Sensors.

Also, the damage to infantry and vehicles would depend on how close you are. In an enclosed space (bunker, hallways, etc.) the heat would bounce off the walls, cooking those inside twice as fast.

[Febnon]

Fun!!!

[Rbstr]

I don't know a flametrower could get hot enough to melt stuff that the aromor is made out of, i think it would be changed into a plasma thrower for the futuristic feel and that woul ddeal damage to all but vehicles and maxes, kindof liek having a plasma grenade constantly going off and stacking realy fast, that could be fun. Think of those spawn battles, a guy opens the door and another lets loose the plasma though the doorway. The flame would also have to bounce a little so you could shoot around slight bends. Realy depending on how its made it can be good or bad.

[ZjinPS]

Focused Plasma Generator: common pool

Just give it ammo like the AV, big, bulky and hard to carry enough to do any real damage.

Example, when I carry a striker.. my typical compliment is 3 boxes of ammo.. 9 reloads. Barely enough to drop two MAX's.. why only 9? well.. theres cycler ammo..a nade or 2.. maybe a rek or glue gun.. you get the idea..

Just make the weapon only capable of bursts.. each burst uses an ammo counter..and limit the amount of ammo a player can carry.

On the other hand..(besides having 5 fingers) a striker would be nice if ammo boxes were the size of 9mm boxes. I bet I could carry over 100 striker rounds..

...mmmmm striker rounds... :drools:

Or even better, make it a shoulder fire weapon.. and the missle has a plasma grenade effect x2. THAT would be fun.


and if your still reading..

How about a universal special assault type weapon, that is shoulder fired, but can carry mixed ordanance. Anti-armor..anti personel..plasma..jammer... ofcourse, youd have to keep the AV damage down to keep Striker, lancer and Phoenix users happy. But it would no doubt be a hoot.

Hell, I can think of ways to blow shit up all day.

[Biohazzard56]

flamethrower is unlikely , its more CPU/RAM intensive also keep inmind the FPS and the client side hit dection not to mention texture buffering and its damn annoying a big ass flame in your face. Halo did handle it well

[Rayder]

If you didn't notice my post I'll sum it up for you "What if the flamethrower wasn't a performance problem and it would run fine everywhere?"

[Hexen]

Then it might be a considered addition.

Personally though, I'd really love to see Vanu energy blades and energy shields. That would be COOL. :) A melee side to PS!

I dunno what the NC and TR equivalents would be though. Maybe NC could get a personal shield for infantry and large 2H chainblade, and TR could just get a nice plain sword and shield. Hehe.

Mind you this is the future, such weapons and shields would be made of sturdy metals. :D

Anyways, never gonna happen. Just thought it'd be cool.

[Gunslanger]

plasma is liquid, right? would be kinda stupid to be spewing tons of liquid out in front of you, it would be splashing all over you. i agree, if there was a flamethrower, it should be plasma thrower. just make it shoot out mist cloud of plasma. will that be too hard on graphics?

being that its close quarters, i do think it should added to HA, and be common pool. i think maybe it should have an appearence of flamethrower and it'll show you with the tank on your back. also, the disadvenage of having it should be for your remaining fuel to explode on you when your armor is gone(just an idea-although this leads to some really cool kamakazes) damaging all nearby.

[Hexen]

Actually I read somewhere that plasma was the fourth state of matter.

Solid, liquid, gas, plasma. :P

nfi what that means though.

[Gunslanger]

lol. the only plasma i've ever heard of besides science fiction movies/books is the plasma in your blood. i've seen that in real life before. its kida yellowish orange color was in liquid form all the times i've seen it.

i really always thought plasma(in game) was just a really hazardous liquid, lol.

[Flammey]

Plasma state is a sort of solidified liquid. Kind of like goey jello. Almost a liquid, not quite solid. Plasma is also a type of fuel. Not the same thing as plasma state. Plasma where is concerns energy isn't the same thing as say a Plasma TV screen, or Plasma of the blood. Plasma as a fuel or energy source is rather like napalm, I'm thinking. But when it's set on fire, it's like letting a silk cloth go into a breeze. It's very light when on fire. This is all just speculation from things I've seen and read. Everyone else's idea of plasma seems to lead to the same idea.

As for a Plasmathrower, it could easily be implimented into this game. As Gunslanger said, why couldn't it just be a green cloud like it is for nades? Answer is that it can be done just like that, and It wouldn't effect FPS or Ping too bad at all. As I said, the engine doesn't have to redraw the surroundings when things are done as smoke, so it's not too hard of the engine. Why doesn't SOE do it? I suggest you wait patiently. None of us can know for certain what SOE is working on or not.

[Rayder]

Plasma is the fourth state of matter. Plasma can only be made with extreme (when I say extreme, I mean extreme as in the stars) heat. The closest source of plasma to us here on Earth is the Sun, seeing as it's a star.

A plasmathrower would be great, just spewing out a green mist that burns all it comes in contact with.

[Dharkbayne]

I'm pretty sure the PS engine was developed specifically for this game

[Rbstr]

We just did this in Cheistry, Plasma its the Fourth Stae of matter at witch the tempuratures are so high and there is so much energy that the electroms get striped form thier nuclueus making a weird gas that somtimes has liquid properties.

I also think that some type of shield similar to a riot shield would be cool, it could go on a left arm slot made especialy for equipment, like cuds, REK's, tagerter, meds, and eng stuff, but no wepons.