flag idea: "front+rear"-fire

z[h]ero · Post by **z[h]ero** » Sat Aug 23, 2008 11:18 am

Flag idea: Additionally to the normal front-fire it adds rear-fire at the same time. That's all.

I could imagine this flag to be fun, as you could for example pretend to run away. Your enemy hunts you, and at the moment when he is in direct rear sight, you shot your rear-fire at him.

This would be some attributes fullfilling the requirements of new flag-suggestions:
This flag requires new skills, like:
1. Learning to aim with rear-shots.
2. Learning to drive backwards while shooting (would be a useful skill in some situations), what really won't be easy to master, even for the experienced players.
So the flag is the principle, easy to use, but difficult to master

Would be nice, if the rear-shot speed would be adjustable with a scale-factor during in-game with /set , as I personally would suggest to make the rear-fire a bit faster than the front-fire, as
"absolute shot-speed"= "tank-speed" + "relative shot speed" , and
"forward-tank-speed" > "backward-tank-speed" =>
if the "relative rear-fire-speed" would be equal to "relative front-fire-speed", the "absolute "rear-fire-speed" would be a bit slower

than the "absolute front-fire-speed".

If all existent flags would be scaled to a power of 0-10 (0=weakest flag), and 5 would be the default no-flag-fire then I would give this new flag a strength of 6-7.

Well, since few years this is my first flag-idea, so don't expect me to come up with a new flag idea. I did find out this flag idea basically already exists in the wiki flag-Ideas, however there it has JUST a rear-fire, so there it's a bad-flag as it's less powerfull than normal fire. Kinda pointless, as people would just immediatelly drop that flag

What do you think about this flag?
Feel free to add comments.

lol_u died · Post by **lol_u died** » Sat Aug 23, 2008 1:42 pm

good idea!

Quantum Tank · Post by **Quantum Tank** » Sat Aug 23, 2008 2:28 pm

That is... possible, and I don't immediately see anything wrong with it. It sounds like a pretty good idea to me, although don't get mad if one of the meanie developers come to snipe you down.

Post by **joevano** » Sat Aug 23, 2008 3:10 pm

snipe...

No, not really.

The shoot backwards flag on the wiki was accepted as a good idea, as well. I see this flag as tricky to use effectively, but that isn't a bad thing,as the flag could be it's own anti-flag. You would be firing in both forward and backward, so you would need to be careful of tks and ricos from both directions.

z[h]ero · Post by **z[h]ero** » Sat Aug 23, 2008 4:24 pm

Thank you all for the feedback.

donny_baker wrote:You would be firing in both forward and backward, so you would need to be careful of tks and ricos from both directions.

Yep.
(And we have already another accepted flag, where you need to be even MUCH more careful of tks and ricos, namely: Laser.
Just the difference is: With Laser the tks & ricos are often totally uncontrolable, however with the "front-rear"-flag these 2 aspects are kinda controlable)

donny_baker wrote:I see this flag as tricky to use effectively, but that isn't a bad thing,as the flag could be it's own anti-flag.

Indeed. I would express this "issue" with the known term: Easy to learn, difficult to master.
(But that isn't a real issue in my eyes, it's rather a welcome challenge)

lol_u died · Post by **lol_u died** » Sat Aug 23, 2008 4:43 pm

So is this flag going to be in Bzflag 3.0?

JeffM · Post by **JeffM** » Sat Aug 23, 2008 4:46 pm

lol_u died
no.

just because someone hasn't said it's a bad idea, doesn't mean that people rush out to develop it.

lol_u died · Post by **lol_u died** » Sat Aug 23, 2008 5:35 pm

JeffM wrote:lol_u died
no.

just because someone hasn't said it's a bad idea, doesn't mean that people rush out to develop it.

Well I know that. I was just wondering. So then why do you even have this Topic "Enhancements" anyway? If people will post ideas and then people say it's a cool idea and then it never happens? Seems like a non-sense Topic to me!

tw1sted · Post by **tw1sted** » Sat Aug 23, 2008 5:56 pm

It is not a non-sense topic. If people present good ideas that seem logical, well thought out and people seem to like it, it may get added to future versions. This does not mean it will, but there is a chance it might.

Marines · Post by **Marines** » Sun Aug 24, 2008 2:31 am

A Heart Attack wrote:it may get added to future versions.

How long will bzflag last?

Post by **joevano** » Sun Aug 24, 2008 9:19 am

Well it's been around for 16 years already, so as long as there are active developers and players...

tw1sted · Post by **tw1sted** » Sun Aug 24, 2008 3:52 pm

MARINES wrote:
A Heart Attack wrote:it may get added to future versions.
How long will bzflag last?

That's like asking "How long will I live?" Chances are you aren't going to die tomorrow, but you really have no idea what will happen down the road.

Post by **L4m3r** » Sun Aug 24, 2008 7:19 pm

"AssCannon" could be a fun bad flag, but I don't know how I feel about having a flag that does front and rear at the same time... AFAIK, there are no flags that shoot two bullets at once.

JeffM · Post by **JeffM** » Sun Aug 24, 2008 9:30 pm

the current system would not support more then one shot at a time.

z[h]ero · Post by **z[h]ero** » Sun Aug 24, 2008 10:21 pm

JeffM wrote:the current system would not support more then one shot at a time.

Hmm, too sad.

Just a question, I don't know the system, but wouldn't it be technical possible to implement a double shoot with "little" effort, namely like that:
If the user presses the shot-key, it fires the default front-shot.
Immediatelly afterwards the code exectues another code-part for the rear-shot, namely:
changing the bullet-settings (location of bullet behind tank, and shot-speed=negative), and then it executes the shot-code.

Or is this the technical issue: The front+rear flag should have (in my opinion) the double amount of shots than the other flags, as else it would be less powerful than the default non-flag shot.
Is this the issue: Bzflag doesn't support different amounts of shots for flags?

JeffM · Post by **JeffM** » Mon Aug 25, 2008 1:22 am

Not in the current code. The shots on screen are directly tied to the reloading "shot slots". It's not a good system and we are working on Refactoring it to be more flexible. But it is a task that is much more difficult then any of us had thought.

TheguywholikesLINUX · Post by **TheguywholikesLINUX** » Tue Sep 09, 2008 6:11 pm

You could put the reload time to half to compensate for the shots.

A Meteorite · Post by **A Meteorite** » Tue Sep 09, 2008 6:30 pm

TheguywholikesLINUX wrote:You could put the reload time to half to compensate for the shots.

Perhaps, but seems like a pretty hackish way for the intended effect.

Spending more time refactoring code and making it more modular and pluggable seems like a better investment, as not only this sort of thing would be possible, many more things would be possible (dynamic shots per flag via a plugin, anyone?).

As for the suggested flag, I'm not sure if I would like it. If you had double the shots and your back shot was a tad faster, maybe. Although I personally like the bad flag idea of back shot only a bit more.

r0gue113 · Post by **r0gue113** » Mon Sep 15, 2008 1:01 am

and here we arrive on the ultimate problem of the universe- simplicity is way to overly complex.

I think the "AssCannon" as L4m3r said, would be brilliant as a bad flag.

Something about this that might be a little quirky is the forward momentum of the tank, applied to a bullet fired backwards, could be a little weird- or is the code not that complex?

A good example of when the dual flag would be useful is on Two Tanks- I'm always down by my teleporter, after getting an alert from a teamie that a ST is around. When I dont immediatly see him, I spin around and drive in reverse- he sees me moving "forward" on his radar, comes out behind me, and I see him, then the advantage of the ST is abolished- with the dual flag, not only would this strategy be more effective, but I would also not be defenseless from behind... or.. er.. in front....