Weapons
Impact Hammer: IMO the Shield Gun was perfect. Primary was wieldy enough that you could make close range kills if you had to. Secondary was great for making concussion jumps. I don't think it was that usefull for just shield+running away, but if it was, you could just reduce the ammo so you can't put it up as long.
Enforcers: Yeah, it sucks that these are automatically dual enforcers. **** that. I think starting with single and then getting double was one of the best parts of the UT99 enforcers. The starting weapon didn't have to be that powerfull at spawn, but you could upgrade it so it stands even with the other weapons. Dual enforcers by default is just redundant stylistic bull****.
I think the other great thing about the UT99 enforcers, was buy being relatively accurate, it actually did something reliably and well. IMO, it was a little too powerfull, but with slightly toned down damage, it'd be perfect. The problem with the Ass Rifle primary is it's not powerfull, or accurate, or very fast firing; it really doesn't do anything reliably, and killing with it just feels like luck much of the time.
Assault Rifle: Not really necessary, but I think it could be viable as an optional alternative to the enforcer if fixed. IMO, grenades are a little too powerfull to spawn with considering they do only slightly less damage than rockets. You could scrap dual ARs, and just make grenades the post-spawn upgrade. Start with 0, but on ammo pickup you get like 10, and they could be fully as powerfull as rockets or flak bombs.
Shock Rifle: IMO in UT2004 it's fine. if you want to tweak it, fine; I don't have strong opinions on the shock really...I don't use it as much as most Unreal players.
Link Gun: Discussed in a sepetate thread, but IMO it needs either faster fire rate, splash damage, or faster projectiles. The way it's handled should probably depend on how the stinger pans out.
Stinger: I'm curious as to how this is handled. In UC2, it was basically just a minigun with ghei needler-esque alt fire. Hopefully, they ditch the homing ****, and just make atleast 1 of the fire modes a basic projectile-type attack. Since there doesn't seem to be a minigun, having 1 of the 2 modes be a basic minigun-type hitscan attacc would be fine with me. However, it could also just be a really fast projectile attack (like 4x rocket speed) with a slight amount of spread.
So, IMO, it could go something like this:
link primary- big bolts, 300 rounds per minute, 1x rocket speed, 30 damage, splash damage
stinger primary- medium shards, 600 rpm, 2x rocket speed, 15 damage, no splash
stinger secondary- tony shards, 800-1200 rpm, 4x rocket speed, 4-8 damage, slight amount of spread
Minigun - depending on how the stinger is handled, it might be redundant, it might not be... If it's not in the game, the enforcers or assault rifle could fill it's place.
Flak Cannon: IMO there is some damage disaparity between flak and rockets. Flak you have a very strong chance of killing in one hit. Rocket you have none, and while you can fire more than one at once, the slow charging time make this not much consolation. If rockets are ballanced to do 100 damage, then the problem is aleiviated...though I think the flak primary doesn't really need 9x13 damage, you could bring it down to 9x12 and it'd be fine.
Also, I think flak primary curently has a very fast fire rate for a shotgun-type weapon. Since it's projectile, and not hitscan, this may be somewhat apropriate, but it does feel a little spammy...to the point where it's almost a better volume-of-fire projectile weapon than the link primary. IMO, slowing the fire rate from 0.85 to something in the area of 1.25 to 1.33 seconds, and tightening the spread to increase damage outside of point-blank range...would make it more of a single-shot, power hitting, and less of a spammy, gradual attack weapon.
Rocket Launcher: IMO, rockets should be balanced so that they are more equal to flak in terms of single-shot killing power...in other words, get it up to 100 damage. If this means slowing down the rockets a bit, or starting players with declining 125 health, or something of the sort, that's fine. I just think there should be some sort of damage consistency to the power weapons.
You could bring back the grenade alt fire if the actual grenade/cannister gun can't do it, and there's no ass rifle.
Sniper Rifle: If there's no LtG, just make it like the LtG, but with a UC2-style sniper rifle model, and smoke trail. If there is LtG, then make it more like the UT99 sniper rifle. IMO, with fire rate same as shock primary, 20-25 damage for non-headshots, and 100 damage for headshots, you'd have something that has the same "feel" of the UT99 SR without being overpowered. I just think if you're going to have both SR and LtG, the 2k4 SR is not different enough to not be redundant.
Cannister Gun: IMO, I think changing ammo for the weapon in the proposed manner just makes it really akward. I'd rather have it act like seperate weapons, where you just press the "biorifle" weapon select key, and it bringing up the CG loaded with biosludge, or press the "grenade launcher" key and it brings up the CG loaded with grenades. Changing ammo uses up the alt fire button and feels counter-intuitive.
I really liked the UC2 grenade launcher. IMO, it was a perfect way to do it; bouncy grenades as primary, with sticky mines as secondary, and air-burst for combo fire. If they go for the "weapon switch" style of ammo switching, this would be perfect for the grenade ammo function.