i was thinking that. I say just make the stingers alt fire shotgun style just like in unreal and how the flak cannon does it. However make it a hitscan shotgun. Make the reload time REALLY long and make it stronger then the flak cannon.
Essentially you don't want to miss with this gun because it takes too long to reload, but it will be worth it because it is the strongest gun in the game. You would also be discouraged from using it from too far away: despite being a hitcan fire mode, it has an incredible spread, and it's highly unlikely that you would land every projectile on one enemy.
Agreed, this would be sort of a super shotgun configuration which could work quite well. Hitscan shotguns generally have a longer reload time than UT's projectile Flak, which makes sense since flak is harder to use (you have to lead) it needs a faster refire rate to compensate.
Shotgun fire mode? Flak Cannon anyone?
There is some overlap between all firemodes. Bio, flak bombs, and grenades are all nearly identical except for what happens when they hit a surface. Link Primary and Sniper are almost the same except one activates shock combos and the other headshots. Rockets and flak bombs themselves are very similar except on arcs. Link projectiles, Stinger projectiles, and Ripper projectiles have always been very similar except for the ricochet and headshot of the ripper.
All in all nearly every type of attack has been repeated at least once besides the shotgun attack, I don't know what makes you think that the shotgun type should be exempt from duplication, particularly when it actually offers the least redundant option.
Stinger is fine as it is (except the primary fire spinup makes it more spammy and less effective at its intended purpose of a finishing weapon).
Yeah, but without the spinup, it would be too easy to use, particularly as a finishing weapon. As it is, there is a nice balance between finishing options and if you want the easiest one (minigun) you need a second to wind up. Otherwise just use the enforcer, shock primary, or some high-volume projectile attack. Were the windup not there, people would be crying "n00b weapon" just as people do with the Q3 machinegun, even in CPMA where it's nerfed. The windup is also really not that long compared to weapons like the Q2 chaingun. It still gets at least as many bullets out during the windup as the enforcer alt fire without the huge accuracy and delay penalties.
The projectiles on both weapons are generally not worth using, so I don't really care that they are similar. The weapons are differentiated enough by their hitscan firemodes that it doesn't matter.
Sounds like
someone doesn't know how to lead.
The homing shards were cool too. Good enough to squeeze in a bit of damage into an unsuspecting target with auto-aim but crappy enough so someone who saw them coming could evade them. Not to mention reject them. If you had no target selected they followed your crosshairs which enabled some mean manouvers too.
I think Epic simply were afraid of putting homing shards in the pc version because everyone would be screaming "consolization".
Come one, you know you would!
So instead they went with the "skilly" version and made them pin-point accurate straight firing. A bit boring if you ask me, but still miles ahead of the lame miniguns in UT99 and UT200x.
Why they didn't keep the overheating is beyond me.
Personally I thought the homing alt fire was really lame. Someone spilled Halo in my UT! Design wise, weapon in competitive FPS should always have power in proportion to the skill it takes to use them, and homing minimizes the skill ti takes to use a weapon, which means it either has to be so weak that it's useless, or it will be overpowered and promote skilllessness. You can balance it, but is it really worth it just for the novelty of a homing weapon? Not really imo.
To differenciate the weapons in UT3 further I think it would be cool if the stinger shards locked on to people slightly and followed your crosshairs. Following crosshairs as alt-fire and locking on to people as prim-fire plus alt-fire. That way it wouldn't overlap with the link-gun alt-fire.
This isn't a bad idea, as it's essentially just achieving the same purpose as increasing the contact area of the projectile (shock cores and link projectiles generally are physically larger and catch people more easily than, say, bullets or beams) which makes the weapon more effective at area denial and supression.
Someone posted they are different enough and that they are used for different purposes already:
Yes, they ARE different. As different as an uzi and a kalashnikov in most other games, but that's not different enough for Unreal, imo.
I strongly agree. There at least be a stronger difference in the speed/damage ratios if nothing else. Right now the link primary is like 20% faster and 20% weaker than the stinger alt, and it should be at least 50-100%.
No replies from the OP... heh
Yeah sorry about that, I meant to reply sooner but got sidetracked. I actually started a reply 1-2 days after the OP, wrote a few paragraphs, got interrupted and saved it in a text file, then accidentally deleted it later. Then I didn't really feel like coming back to the thread and rewriting everything so I procrastinated my return.
In any case, I agree that there are minor differences and uses to each of the present modes, I just think they could be stronger. Since I generally like the projectile attacks better than hitscan, I don't really mind having 2 different places to get a projectile weapon it's kind of nice actually. I do think a more unique combination of modes could be attained though.
As far as a version of the Linkgun with 2 different projectile modes, perhaps the solution is to replace the Linkgun with a variant of the Ripper. In addition or instead of varying merely in speed/damage ratio, you could vary in effects; headshot and ricochet vs splash damage, etc. Since the UT1 Ripper primary was too spammy and cheap before, the rate of fire could be slowed to something more comparable to the UC2 ripper or even the UT1 ripper alt. In exchange, the ripper alt could be sped up and weakened so it is closer in rate of fire and use to the UT3 Stinger alt..it could still have a bit of splash damage but far less (think Quake 4 Nail Gun). This would serve the dual purpose of making the ripper alt less redundant with the Rocket Launcher as it was before, AND help it serve the same purpose of the Link/Stinger projectile weapon it would be replacing.
As for the Link alt shaft, I've just never cared for it too much. Yes it's spreadless and only works at close range so it takes some skill and has a niche use, I guess I just don't care for it because it's too simple and direct. Also the *Link* idea was a good one in theory, but I don't think it works in practice and it's always seemed like some silly novelty Epic uses to say "look what we thought up" and justify a weapon that otherwise seemed limited in use to the average gamer. I also don't play many team games, so I used it even less. Sometimes I even revert to calling it the Pulse Gun cause I don't consider the link to be a very significant factor in its design.
Lastly the overheating thing on the UC2 stinger...honestly I didn't even notice it was there till it was pointed out. Then again I didn't use the Stinger that much since you could only have 2 weapons per match...choosing a full-auto hitscan weapon as half of your whole arsenal always seemed a bit cowardly to me and also unless you had Udamage it wasn't that useful since other weapons generally did more damage faster. If it had the UT3 Stinger Alt I would have used it and liked it a lot more (I actually like using the UT3 Stinger a lot, I just don't like how it makes me question the purpose of picking up the Link Gun, in other words I like it too much) and I also think it would have fit a lot better in UC2 that way.
In conclusion, the current Link Gun isn't terrible, but I would like it better if primary had, say, twice the travel speed of the Stinger alt, and half the damage, instead of the current minor 20%-30% difference in speed and damage. This would also work out better since the shaft's limited range means the projectile is the Link's long range mode, whereas normally projectiles are specialized for close range, so faster projectiles would certainly help it.
