Weapons for World War III (BLADE)

Magnum- Not your regular gun. Then again, nothing at BLADE ever is. It acts like a regular eight-shooter, but it uses explosive charges. The alt-fire lets you unload the whole gun at once. The barrel spins for about a second, then it fires the charges in rapid succession.

Coilgun Targeter- Does just what it says on the tin. The gun does function as an assult rifle, but its real power is the alt-fire, which puts an infrared target for the overhead Cruiser to open fire with its coilgun. It takes about half a second to aim, fires, then takes about half a minute to reload and recharge the coils.

Minirocket Launcher- A minirocket is basically a powerful grenade with wings. These were developed to make Rockets more accessible to infantry. Also, the size of the ammo allows for six minirockets to be stored at once.
Allows for fire-and-forget and LASER-seeking modes.

Springsword- A katana that has its blade contracted when not in use via matter compression techniques. Named for the kinetic force made when the sword is 'unsheathed'. Because of this, many people put the sword to an object and spring it for massive force.

Items for Mach Racing

Rocket- (RO) Goes straight, small damage, fast
*x= X RO are fired

Heat-Seeking Rocket- (HS) Same as RO, but homes, (accuracy depends on heat, so it would be more accurate in a cold track) goes faster, and does more damage
*x= X HS are fired

Scrambler- (SC) Does 1 of these effects to nearest opponent: reverses controls, (35%) causes static to appear on screen for a while (like blooper in MKDS), (20%) fires all items in stock, (5%), stats such as health, items, and speed on HUD dissapear for a while (30%)
*x= None, if you have a SC, you can not get another until you have lost the first

Shield Shed- (SS) Lose shield, causes shock wave, damage equal to power of shield upon use
*2= 1/4 of shield remains
*3= ½ of shield remains
*4= Shield remains
*5+= Shield goes to max

Teleport- (TP) Switches places with random racer
*2= 75% chance you will advance in place
*3, *4= 100% chance you will advance in place
*5+= Switch places with racer in 1st place

Mine- (MI) Lays a moderate damaging but easily avoidable mine behind you
*x= lays x mines in a horizontal line behind you

Dusk

This is an idea I found when looking through my email. I originally sent this to Oog, another person on the team.

An optional location, but there's a mighty big sidequest here. EVERYONE in Dusk seems to be out of their mind. For example, there's the kid with the gas mask asking if you're his mummy, the gravekeeper/butcher, etc. Basically, the whole town's fucked up pretty bad. Your job is to find how it became this way, and how to turn it back to normal.

Keep in mind however, a store in Dusk sells some very... interesting equipment. The equipment's effectiveness increases with the amount of kills you've ranked up. Still, all this stuff's rather expensive, so if you want to get the equipment, you might want to "purify" Dusk a bit later.

Once you purify the town, it will quickly grow, becoming something very different. The poor people will move in, making the place their own. They have pretty good prices on everything, but not all of it's top quality. Still, there's a way to rectify that, by donating to the "Rebuild Dusk Fund". Others will occasionally donate as well, but you'll have to do most of the spending yourself.

Partially inspired by the Doctor Who episode "The Empty Child". Do a search for it on Google Video.

~Joel

Random Ideas

On my computer, I have a folder called the Vault. This serves the same purpose this blog does, but deals more with the specifics. (Usually). Here are two ideas from the Vault.

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A small reconniscence robot, used for mapping terrain and spying, among other things. A plate can be affixed to the top to carry things, usually beer.

The bot has a simple design- a body and six legs, ending in pads* used to stick to walls and ceilings when needed.

*NOTE: The Mk. I did NOT have the pads, ending in prongs instead. The pads were added after a rather nasty incident when a high-ranking soldier was accidently stabbed in the right foot with one of said prongs. To quote the victim; "It's been at least half a year since the incident, and my foot STILL stings a bit whenever I move. Also, I can not move my toes in that foot."

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A standard multiplayer FPS in the style of games such as Unreal Tournament, Quake III Arena, and Counter-Strike, but with a few new things, such as wallwalking a la Prey, but applied to the entire map.

One of the biggest features will be the weapon customization system. You start off with all the standard weapons, pistol, shotgun, rocket launcher, etc. You can buy upgrades for your weapons to increase their stats. Upgrades may also affect more than one stat. For example, a pistol scilencer will silence the gun, but will decrease the stopping power and spread.

The way you earn money depends on the gametype, for example in CTF, you will get a sizeable amount of money from capturing a flag, whereas in DM, the only way to get money is from frags. Also, you can LOSE money from doing things such as spawncamping. Don't even mention teabagging.

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The first idea is for BLADE, and the second is a game concept I thought of while I was in the shower.

~Joel

BLADE Politics & Government

BLADE cities (colonies) are largely independent of each other. Also, each colony is suited to a specific purpose. For example, One colony may be dedicated to astronomical research, while another is dedicated to robotics.
Colonies are usually located in orbit above planets, in cave networks, or are huge starships known as Cruisers. The latter is a bit risky since they are often dependant upon other colonies and other cities for food & supplies. However, their mobility allows them to go to places where they are needed. Cruisers are usually dedicated to exploration, scientific, military, and medical purposes.

One of BLADE's main principles is the population limit. Each colony is limited to a population of about 1500. This limit may be increased or decreased depending on the wellbeing of the colony. The purpose of this is so that every body knows each other, and get along well. This defeats the purpose for laws, so they are hardly ever made, if at all. If things things get really bad, people may be forced to leave. People will continue to do so until all is right again. Fortunately, this has happened much. Unfortunately however, the people that were forced to leave in one such situation formed their own colony and militia, and procedded to attack their original colony. Other colonies helped to defeat the attackers, but others deciede that if they could do it , why couldn't we? And they did, beginning the BLADE Civil War. *Sigh* Tough times... tough times...

"Power Struggle" FPS gametype

The basic idea is that there is a path which each team is trying to go down. However, they can not go any further until some condition is reached. Maybe the game could compare the amount of kills each team has had recently, or there could be an ball each team is trying to get to the opponent's side. Also, there would be a neutral zone. A map example at the start of a game might be something like this;

   ===========================
G=============B=============G
   ===========================

Later, it might look like this.

   ===========================
G========B==================G
   ===========================

And at the end, it would look like this, at which the blue team could get the ball through the goal.

   ===========================
G==B========================G
   ===========================

Of course, the path would be more convulted, with hiding spots, and other stuff.

B: ball
G: goal
=: path
The darkly colored =s are spaces the opposing team can not go into, no matter what. These areas would probably be spawn points, to keep down the spawn camping.

Come to think of it, this is a bit like the Bombing Run mode of Unreal Tournament, but one goal consists of an entire round.

~Joel

BLADE Data Rescource Management

Just something I thought of while I was idle. It's a bit techical, I know, but I think this is a good way for mods to be made.

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All of BLADE's rescources are put into .pak files. (.zip renamed, or whatever compression method suits the game best.) Textures are stored in textures.pak, models are stored in models.pak, etc.
The BLADE editor will allow you to compile your map into an install file. (.bri [Blade Rescource Installer]) Executing the installer will ask you for BLADE's file directory. Once you supply this, the installer will add the mod's files into their respective .paks, and add a .brl (BLADE Rescource Library) file. This file simply lists the location of the maps needed for the mod, which in turn list the location for the textures and other things needed for the map.
To uninstall a mod, you can do this from inside the game, or by executing a program in the BLADE directory. (Uninstalling the mod from within the game will also activate this program). Uninstalling a game will only remove the files needed for that mod that are not requested by any other mods. Since a lot of mods will be using the base models and other things, you'd damn well better not delete them!
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~Joel