Page 1 of 1

Multiple hit BZflag?

Posted: Fri Oct 20, 2006 11:21 am
by asciimonster
Is it possible to play a BZflag map where you have to be hit multiple times before dying?

If not, whould that be a useful addition? It would certainly be a tactical challenge. You cannot just shoot and see who gets hit; you need to have a plan. Also if the person who is amaing at you is better, you have a chance to run.

Preferably the amount of times you need to be hit is one more than the amount of launch tubes, so you'll have to do a reload cycle to kill someone. You can also have flags that de- and increase your amounts of hits.

Posted: Fri Oct 20, 2006 11:23 am
by eagle
as far as I know the only way to do that would be with the shield flag...that would be a very cool map option.

Posted: Fri Oct 20, 2006 12:54 pm
by A Vicious Muffin
I think that it iis possible, but it would be kind of annoying. Yesterday. someone had shield and i had st. We were in a "jumping fight" bouncing into each other. I shot when I was next to him, and hit, bu since he had shield, he wasn't dead. The next time around, he shot, and I shot a little too late. I was dead. I think that if i had to be hit miltiple times, he might not be able to kill me as fast, and i wouldn't be able to kill him as fast.
Also if the person who is amaing at you is better, you have a chance to run
The only way to get better at BZFlag, such as any sport ( :D ), is to practice against the best. If not, you'll be the king of the noobs.

Posted: Fri Oct 20, 2006 2:29 pm
by Geo Dude
yes that would be cool but hard to kill someone :)

Posted: Fri Oct 20, 2006 3:32 pm
by ducktape
You guys if this is able to work it would take SO much time. so like eagle said
just use the shield flag and insted of 2 kills put it up to like 5 or 4.

Posted: Fri Oct 20, 2006 3:41 pm
by JeffM
no you can not do it, no there are no plans to do it. It's one hit to kill, per Tim. That is one of the rules that makes bzflag, be bzflag.

Posted: Fri Oct 20, 2006 4:32 pm
by ducktape
I agree with jeff I like the way it is. just thank the sheild flag.

Posted: Fri Oct 20, 2006 5:57 pm
by Sky King
JeffM2501 wrote:no you can not do it, no there are no plans to do it. It's one hit to kill, per Tim. That is one of the rules that makes bzflag, be bzflag.
I agree, there are lots of things that could be added to BZ that would create a much more robust playing experience... but as has been said before, part of the beauty of BZ is its simplicity. Flags, and the nearly insane creativity of some of the map designers, have already added all the complexity we need.

I think there are some ways in which the game has already lost some of that innocence... both the geno and wings flags, for instance, I think teeter on the edge of violating BZ's original philosophy. How the development team has been able to resist the temptation to go feature crazy, I don't know. Despite its limitations, BZ remains, I think, a masterpiece of balancing features with simplicity.

That being said, if one wanted to really go wild on this, an interesting "branch" in BZ would be to add a more complex physics package. In real life, tank armor design and projectile physics are such that your ability to kill is based heavily on:
  • -Distance to target: projectile decelerate rapidly and lose kinetic energy as they fly.

    -Angle of incidence: a square hit is much more likely to penetrate the armor than a glancing blow.

    -Shot placement: the armor on the front of tanks is several times thicker than the back; No M1 tank has ever been lost in combat to a frontal hit. I was on M60A5s as a younger man and spent hours in reverse, always keeping the front to the enemy no matter what.
The way the Army MILES (the "laser tag" system used in training) works is it takes all these factors and applies a "PK" factor, meaning probability of kill. In other words, a sophisticated kill formula might say "I was hit in the side by a super bullet, from close range, at 15 degrees off of perpendicular, and so the probability that this shot would kill me is 85%"... then a random number "dice roll" would determine if I died or not.

One could also introduce other notions of real tank warfare... Mobility kills (you've been damaged, you can still turn, and fire, but can't drive or jump any more)... and weapons kills (you can drive but the gun doesn't work... maybe you have to grab a weapon flag, or return to base, to get your gun back, but you don't lose a point.)

As you can see, once you start to factor in all the posibilities... the simple approach of "hit = kill" starts to sound pretty good. :)

Posted: Fri Oct 20, 2006 6:38 pm
by JeffM
the beauty of open source is that it would be simple for someone to make a fork of bzflag with extended rules like that. It' be a different game, but I think it would be rather fun to have more complex gameplay.

Posted: Sat Oct 21, 2006 8:08 pm
by Theme97
There is some sort of "multiple hit BZFlag" at the moment.
I have made a Hitpoints plug-in that gives you Shield if your "HP" is bigger than 0.
Every kill you make gives you +1 HP (if you're already less than the limit).
Dropping the flag (getting hit, pressing the Drop Flag key) does -1 HP (if your HP is already bigger than 0).
You can download it at http://theme.freehostia.com/bzflag/plugins/ and it has a configurable HP limit.
When I get around to it, I'll make everyone spawn with full HP.

(The obvious downside is you can't hold any other flag if your HP is greater than 0.)

Posted: Sun Oct 22, 2006 12:25 am
by eagle
Theme97
the only problem with that is the good players get a lot of shields, which makes it even harder to kill them....then they kill you and get another SH




I still think multiple hit would be cool, even though its not gonna happen, though im sure a map maker will find an easy way to do it.(Theme97's idea but you only get 1 SH and when you get killed its gone...you dont get another when u kill someone.)

Posted: Sun Oct 22, 2006 11:34 am
by JumpingPat
???

Posted: Sun Oct 22, 2006 11:14 pm
by Hannibal
The flag isnt exactly tiny..its about the vertical size of a tank.

Posted: Mon Oct 23, 2006 6:56 am
by JumpingPat
???

Posted: Mon Oct 23, 2006 11:06 am
by eagle
or maybe we can just add a glowing orb around the tank that goes away when they've been shot :?:

Posted: Mon Oct 23, 2006 9:00 pm
by A Vicious Muffin
How about this: every time someone is shot, they are awarded a shield flag. It is instantaneous from the time you are shot, so when a line of bullets comes at you, you dont die in between the time you lose your flag and the time where the bullet hits you. The creator of the map could specify a number of shield flags given to you. There's only one problem. You can't drop your flag, because you'd have to drop it the amount of times its given to you, and you cant get other flags because you already have a shield flag.

Posted: Tue Oct 24, 2006 5:07 am
by Hannibal
Then how would anyone die, Muffin?

Pat, thats just the flag's 'pole'. the 'flag' itself is about 1/2 the horizontal width of the tank. and it is white, so I think its hard to miss flying through the air. For those radar-players, a tank with a flag has a different icon than those without.

Posted: Tue Oct 24, 2006 7:44 am
by JumpingPat
???

Posted: Wed Oct 25, 2006 6:28 am
by Waistless
why the inflexibility, just add a server variable for *hits to kill* which will always be default set to 1, and if the variable is higher than 1, a small bar shows up somewhere with your HP. Standard servers wouldn't use it, but very unique ones would. And it would be up to the server owners to advise players of these server-specific changes.

Posted: Wed Oct 25, 2006 6:57 am
by JumpingPat
???

Posted: Wed Oct 25, 2006 4:02 pm
by JeffM
Waistless
you can do that, but it makes the game protocol incompatible with 2.0.x, you would have to change the protocol ( since you are changing the rules ). and then you aren't bzflag, but a fork of bzflag ( a slightly different game ). The server can not magically make the client draw stuff, or decide when it's a good time to die.

since the game is open source, you are more then welcome to do that in your own fork.

Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2006 2:54 am
by A Vicious Muffin
Hannibal wrote:Then how would anyone die, Muffin?
You don't keep on getting shields given to you, just 3 or 5 times.

Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2006 8:43 am
by Waistless
you can do that, but it makes the game protocol incompatible with 2.0.x, you would have to change the protocol ( since you are changing the rules ). and then you aren't bzflag, but a fork of bzflag ( a slightly different game ). The server can not magically make the client draw stuff, or decide when it's a good time to die.

since the game is open source, you are more then welcome to do that in your own fork.
I know, it was meant to be a suggestion for 2.2.x or later :) But yeah I understand with the set rules now.
or maybe we can just add a glowing orb around the tank that goes away when they've been shot
Hey, that would a great idea for a graphical enhancement for the current shield, you'd just make it so it would not make the tank look larger ;)

Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2006 9:07 am
by JumpingPat
???

Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2006 11:20 am
by eagle
Waistless
yea the glowing orb....you could just make a little purple outline around the tank or somthing.