Expanded Arsenal

[XaserAcheron]

Expansion pack weapon plans! Oh no!

Current working MASTER LIST of COOL NEW GUNS to add:

• 2.EMG Magnum: Next-gen UAC energy pistol. Trades higher power for a limited ammo capacity.
  • Overclock: Highly-accurate quick-charging shot. Makes enemies stumble back.
  • Twin Arms: Two guns for twice the fun. Synth-fire.
• 4.Burst Rifle: Basic three-shot-burst rifle. 'Nuff said.
  • Reflex Sight: Single-fire ADS mode. (not much different than HAR's scope, but it's a replacement)
  • Piercing Darts: Fires a volley of projectiles which pierce through a few foes. Tiny nailgun!
• 5.Grenade Launcher: Shoots physics-bound projectiles that go boom. Larger blast radius than rockets.
  • Frag Munitions: Fires a big bomb that bursts into sub-bombs. Fun at parties.
  • Sticky Mines: Primary fire shoots sticky grenades. Alt-fire detonates. Awww yisss.
• 6.Lightning Gun: Q3A-style short-range directed energy weapon. Zappity-doo.
  • Chain Lightning : Does what it says on the tin. Trendy.
  • Tesla Trap: Fires a sticky shocky fixture that zaps enemies from afar; mini-bfg kinda, single beam.
• 8.Vortex Rifle: Sniper Weapon One. Builds up weapon charge as you aim down the scope.
  • Thermal Optics: Charged scope mode w/wall-piercing ability. Zoinks!
  • Fusion Dynamo : UT Shock Rifle altfire. Fires an orb you can shoot for massive combo damage.
• 8.Static Rifle: Sniper Weapon Two. Builds up weapon charge as you move.
  • Static Shock: Releases stored weapon charge in a radial A_Blast that shoves enemies away.
  • Kinetic Booster: Transforms stored weapon charge into a short speed burst. Can ram enemies.
• 9.Hellshot: Single-shot weapon that fires toxic darts. Poisons enemies for a short DoT.
  • Toxin Refinery: Launches a projectile which leaves a poison cloud behind.
  • Meat Seeker: Enemy-seeking smart missiles, with 100% more pun.
• 9.Reaper: Launches a volley of 6 bouncy projectiles. Fun for the whole family.
  • Bio-Magnetizer: Charge up and fire a powerful shot that pivots towards enemies when bouncing.
  • Soul Geyser: Evil flamethrower, muddafugga!

...No idea how I'm gonna place these in-game yet, and that's a lot of spritework and tweaks, so this is stricly a post-release thing.

[XaserAcheron]

I've been thinking lately that it'd be way cooler to give the formerly-MP-exclusive weapons new mod behaviors and put 'em in SP somehow. Much more interesting that way, but that means we gotta brainstorm some new mod-fires...

Current brain-dump, including descriptions of the primary fire since some have been reworked:

[EDIT] hey hey this list is OLD now; see above for the BETTER VERSION of BETTER-NESS.

• Burst Rifle: Basic three-shot-burst rifle. 'Nuff said.
  • Reflex Sight: Single-fire ADS mode. (original behavior; not much different than HAR's scope really)
  • Elastic Volley: Fires three bouncy bullets. Fire rate slightly slower to compensate for behavior.
• Hellshot: Halo-needler-esque weapon. Shots stick to enemies before exploding.
  • Irradiating Shot: Launches a bomb which leaves a poison cloud behind.
  • Meat Seeker: Enemy-seeking smart missiles, with 100% more pun.
• Lightning Gun: Q3A-style short-range directed energy weapon. Zappity-doo.
  • Chain Lightning : Does what it says on the tin. Trendy.
  • Tesla Mine: Fires a sticky shocky fixture that zaps enemies that get too close.
• Vortex Rifle: Sniper Weapon One. Builds up weapon charge as you aim down the scope.
  • Advanced Optics: Charged scope mode as described above. Pretty basic.
  • Fusion Dynamo : UT Shock Rifle altfire. Fires an orb you can shoot for massive combo damage.
• Static Rifle: Sniper Weapon Two. Builds up weapon charge as you move.
  • Concussive Shock: Releases stored weapon charge in a radial A_Blast that shoves enemies away.
  • Kinetic Boost: Transforms stored weapon charge into a short speed burst. Can ram enemies.

Not 100% sold on all these ideas -- Reflex Sight in particular is boring and a HAR clone, and Vortex's charged scope is kinda obsoleted by Gauss, but that's exactly what the existing weapons did...

[also, "Fusion Dynamo" is a loltastic name but I thought it was funny, so there we are. Suggestions welcome in case it's too bad. :P ]

This may end up being a post-1.0 thing (expansion pack?) since it's strictly not necessary, but it'd be cool.

[XaserAcheron]

Awesome thought of the moment: replace VR's "Advanced Optics" with "X-Ray Optics" and allow you to pierce through walls to a target. CHEAP TACTICS ENGAGE!

...For balance, I'd love to figure out some way of making it so you can only target enemies that have been woken up, so you can't just instakill everything from behind corners. Or something. May be tough to balance AND implement, so, uh...

Also that behavior would need to hella revert for the eventual actual-multiplayer mode, because gorram. :P

[XaserAcheron]

So, now that the multiplayer expansion is a thing, there's one very important shootygun to add to the list:

• EMG Magnum: Next-gen UAC energy pistol. Trades higher power for a limited ammo capacity.
  • Overclock Switch: Highly-accurate quick-charging shot. Makes enemies stumble back.
  • Dual Wield: Two guns for twice the fun. Synth-fire.

Feeling that post-1.0 idea. Need a catchy name for the expansion though...

[XaserAcheron]

Having actually used the Hellshot a bit in multiplayer now that it doesn't totally suck, I noticed its altfire does a DoT effect (never managed to score a hit before :P). May be worth making ARGENT's eventual Hellshot primary just do some poison DoT primary rather than stick-and-explode to be less Needler/MicroMissile-ripoff, plus it fits with the whole "bioweapon" theme it seems to have going for it.

[XaserAcheron]

Updated the OP with the current list of plans, and have now made it super-clear this is for the possible expansion pack. Egad!

[XaserAcheron]

Some more idea spitballing: because the sub-theme of ARGENT is "more options!", I'm thinking of exposing the new guns by making each of them "replace" an existing one and provide the following options per-weapon:

• Sequential: For the first appearance, spawn Weapon A; for the next, spawn Weapon B. Repeat. Maybe do this per-map rather than per-instance.
• Random: Does what it says on the tin. Randomly spawns weapon A or B.
• Always: Outright replaces Weapon A with Weapon B (grenade fanatics rejoice!)
• Never: Don't spawn Weapon B at all.

For replacement candidates, here's what I'm thinking so far (A on left, B on right):

• Shotgun: EMG Magnum
• SSG: Vortex Rifle
• Heavy AR: Burst Rifle
• Chaingun: Hellshot
• Rocket Launcher: Grenade Launcher
• Plasma Rifle: Lightning Gun
• Gauss: Reaper
• Chainsaw: Static Rifle

The Chaingun/Gauss replacements may seem strange until you realize they're the boss monster drops. :D

Static is a bit unusual in its placement, but I'm thinking of going the "it doesn't use ammo, oooo" route. Would make it a utility-focused weapon since the whole "move to charge" thing is an unusual use case for a singleplayer environment.

Speaking of ammo, there are two new types:

• Slugs: Partially or completely replaces Shells depending on what weapons are selected. Used by EMG and Vortex
• Souls: Dropped by enemies. Used by Hellshot and Reaper.

The big question here is whether or not I want to either:

• Make the expansion a separate .pk3 (leaning toward this; maybe call it "ARGENT Overload" or something)
• Add the expansion to the main .pk3 but disable the new guns by default (mehhhh.....)

...because I'm a weirdo and absolutely don't want to change the balance of the pre-expansion wad by doing an on-by-default, opt-out sort of thing.