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I think there should be a new Non-lethal flag. Instead of killing a tank it would blow them back. This would be very useful during races and skating maps. What do u think?

Problem: It would ONLY be useful on racing and skating maps. What good does it to stun (not really, even) instead of kill?

BZFlag does not revolve around racing and skating maps. How else will it be useful?

It has been suggested and rejected before.

Like a last one standing map u could hit people out of arena. I am not suggesting this be used on all maps jus the ones where they could be useful.

It's a good idea, especially for CTF.

Just like Low Gravity flag, it has flaws. Every flag has a flaw. Like LG is useless on a no-jumping map, unless the map is tailored for LG and no jumping. (which would require a large fan base to begin with to become popular)


CannonBallGuy
Little constructive critizism please?

I thought up a real original mod, but when I talked to some people there was an obscure guy named like jdo5 who came up with it before me.

A Meteorite / Vicious Muffin

Actually it's very useful, use your noggin

I could see a lot of use for it on Boxy War. Not so much lasermania unless it reached as far as the lasers did.

Would be semi-useful on Missile war.

FFA mode would be kinda useless except to irritate... but hey... What's more useless than the useless flag... The usele--... Nothing...


Ok, so if the graphics could be improved for it (Radial blurring?)
And of course the effect was practical and was setable.
(like how hard, how high it sends you if you get hit straight on)

Etc. etc.
The flag would be useable.

And yeah it might work for racing, but laying a banana or oil slick, or shooting a spiky blue shell, or lightning... that would seriously be good for a racing map... Whoa! Hey I think I have a good sounding game ther--- wait... nvm that's N64 Mario Kart...

I like the sound of this idea. If an enemy is running with your flag you could blow them into or over a wall for your teammates to finish him off

It would need to be mucked around with a bit to get the settings right, but in the end I reckon it's worth it.

A Vicious Muffin wrote:What good does it to stun (not really, even) instead of kill?

Sometimes it's fun to do other things besides killing other tanks. For instance, it was a lot of fun to hang out on Silvercat's overlord map with the invulnerable thief. Hang out on your opponent's base, and then steal and return your flag when they came up with it. This isn't the exact same idea, but think of the kinds of things you could do. For instance, push an opponent into the path of a teammate with the geno flag, etc.

MyLittleCainsaw
Do you have anything in mind for what would happen once someone was blown by this flag?
For example, would they by temporarily stunned if blown into a wall?

Other questions I have are:
Would there be a way to avoid it?
Or
Would it hit you instantly like a Laser would?

Then there's things like range, whether they have to be right infront of you or does it have a SW effect.

Or haven't you thought that far ahead?

I really have not thought about that to much but let me see.

1. There could be ways to get around it like hving a shield flag or depending on the size of the shot u could swerve out of the way.

2. If blown in to a wall the tank could lose its flag or get stunned.

3. How fast it shots are prob depend on the map.

4. I was thinking of it being a really big normal shot or maybe it could be made so the flag can be changed to an SW shot for larger maps.

What is the purpose??
When would you ever prefer to NOT kill an enemy?
Or is is a bad flag?
I don't get it.

No it's not a bad flag.

Think about if someone has got your team flag and your perhaps behind a wall. If this thing travelled through walls similiar to SW, you could stop the runner in his tracks.

Nobody said anything previously about the shot going through a wall and... SB anyone?

CannonBallGuy wrote:Nobody said anything previously about the shot going through a wall and... SB anyone?

I don't think it should go through walls, or rico, and it shouldn't be like SW

It should be like a normal shot.

MyLittleChainsaw wrote:2. If blown in to a wall the tank could lose its flag or get stunned.

Getting stun would never be accepted, it allows to much client control.

Most the flags out there exploit some type of code base. With the exception of TH and GM. WG allows you to jump and drive while your in the air, Laser calculates the segments as a whole, instead of finding the location based off a timestamp.

This flag would be the same, Applying a velocity movement on the tank based on the hit is like..... 2 lines of code...

I'm still gung-ho about bullets that cause effects to other players instead of directly killing them (EMP Pulse Cannon, Flash Bang, This flag)

Sadly it allows to much client control, so hopefully this stuff will be possible after 2.2 comes out

CannonBallGuy wrote:Nobody said anything previously about the shot going through a wall and... SB anyone?

I said 'if' it 'could' travel through walls..... etc.
This flag hasn't been discussed thoroughly as to what it will be like. I'd like to see it as a normal bullet, but have a different look, like SB does. Perhaps rico too because hitting a teammate wouldn't matter too much at this stage as I think no-one has come to the conclusion as to what will happen once hit by this flag.

Grace F wrote:as I think no-one has come to the conclusion as to what will happen once hit by this flag.

uh...

MyLittleChainsaw's thread starter post wrote:Instead of killing a tank it would blow them back.

I am sure that if it did anything else the devs would not approve on the simple grounds it would be to powerful (like stun or knock flag away)

MyLittleChainsaw wrote:u could hit people out of arena

If you get out of the arena you get auto-kicked. That's not fun.

If thyour tank is moving too fast (I believe the flag will blow tanks away faster than the moving speed), you get auto-kicked again.

If the enemy is running away with your flag, you'll send the tank closer to the base. That's not smart.

The enemy is right in front you, just kill him, don't let him alive. This flag IS a bad flag, you can't kill anyone with it.

BinarySpike wrote:

Grace F wrote:as I think no-one has come to the conclusion as to what will happen once hit by this flag.

uh...

MyLittleChainsaw's thread starter post wrote:Instead of killing a tank it would blow them back.

I am sure that if it did anything else the devs would not approve on the simple grounds it would be to powerful (like stun or knock flag away)

I said no-one has come to the conclusion because there has been quite a few suggestions.
So the idea is that it would just knock them back because

the devs would not approve on the simple grounds it would be to powerful (like stun or knock flag away)

Fair enough How far would the 'knock back' be?

Saber wrote:If the enemy is running away with your flag, you'll send the tank closer to the base. That's not smart.

That's why you don't shoot the runner in the back

Saber wrote:The enemy is right in front you, just kill him, don't let him alive.

What if there are many tanks in front of you aswell? Teammates perhaps, this flag comes in handy in that situation because there isn't a risk of blowing you and your teammate to bits

Grace F wrote:

Saber wrote:If the enemy is running away with your flag, you'll send the tank closer to the base. That's not smart.

That's why you don't shoot the runner in the back

If you shoot the tank in the back, it will get closer to the base. If you shoot on the side, it will just go away and keep driving to the base. Then you must be in front of it and if your in front of someone you can't kill, you won't survive.

Grace F wrote:

Saber wrote:The enemy is right in front you, just kill him, don't let him alive.

What if there are many tanks in front of you aswell? Teammates perhaps, this flag comes in handy in that situation because there isn't a risk of blowing you and your teammate to bits

Then you will send all your mates away and you'll get destroyed by the enemy with the flag who will stay alone. I think it's as bad as teammate killing or taking the flag to the other base because your actually helping the other team.

Saber wrote:

Grace F wrote:What if there are many tanks in front of you aswell? Teammates perhaps, this flag comes in handy in that situation because there isn't a risk of blowing you and your teammate to bits

Then you will send all your mates away and you'll get destroyed by the enemy with the flag who will stay alone. I think it's as bad as teammate killing or taking the flag to the other base because your actually helping the other team.

The problem is that "as bad as team killing" is just an opinion, all be it arguably a good opinion. It would not be acted upon by the server as if it was a tk.

It is this unregistered "like team killing" element that worries me about non-lethal flags. The thief flag already sees bad behaviour from certain players who argue that it is not tking to act against a team mate by stealling good flags from them, and so not against the rules but rather fair game. To add more elements where such a player can get away with behavour that acts against the rest of their team without registering as a tk in my opinion will not be a positive outcome for the game.

Given that this flag also has limited good uses, I would not look forward to seeing this flag added.

Jeez so many arguments it hurts. First about the hit out of arena i did not mean that u would go outside boundries i meant like fall off platform and die type of thing. With a non lethal flag it could open up a new area of maps. Like for example sumo matches, first to knock the other opponent out of the ring wins. There is much more to BZ Flag then killing each other.

If the enemy is running away with your flag, you'll send the tank closer to the base. That's not smart.

That is why u wouldnt shoot in back of him, either u would wait till he jumps to get onto base or try to get around him to knock him away.

I think the point is, if you can hit them with a shot, it will kill them. that is way "better" in most game modes then stopping them.

if you REALLY wanted this it would be better served by a server option that woudl turn all shots into non lethals, and let a plug-ins set the no-move and no-shoot fields for the tank like freeze tag does.

it makes no sense to mix lethal and non lethal shots in the same game. Making it a flag would do that.

bzflag is a game about shooting tanks... that's it.

you can achieve the same effects as "pausing them" right now with a simple plug-in mod for your "race" servers, simply set the spawn position to the place they died. Then they will have "paused" for a death time.

If you think that this could be useful, think of it as this way:

You're in a war. You have a stun gun, while everyone else has sniper rifles and machine guns.

Now, who do you think will last longer? You? Or everyone else with sniper rifles?

Sure, you might be able to temporarily put people out of action, but they're still active, and can still kill you.

The only thing that would make this a good flag, imo, would be to "freeze" people with your bullets. Bouncing them back to me is pointless. And the "freeze" idea? I think it might be a little to complex.

both the v2_0branch and SVN TRUNK now have a new plug-in named "Phoenix" it will respawn you where you die. If you haven't died before it will start you in the normal spawn for the server.

If this "stun gun" blew the target tank way up into the air for 15 seconds or so, it would have accomplished something that killing the same tank (which normally puts them out of commission for only 5 seconds) could not have.