Railroad Spike Launcher v1.0 [beta]
About a week ago, I was showing a friend of mine Cortex Command. After playing a few rounds, he mentioned to me, "There should be a weapon that shoots a spike and sends people flying." That sounded like a fun mod idea, and that is exactly what this weapon does.
The Railroad Spike Launcher uses a powerful electromagnetic solenoid to accelerate a rusted iron railroad spike to a high velocity. The spike, whose average width matches that of a .625 caliber bullet (though far surpasses one in mass), upon impact, rips its victim off his feet and sends him flying off into the distance.
Features:
- Custom gun* and projectile sprites.
Rail spike only impales targets in its flight path.
Works on any movable object.
Parabolic trajectory.
Impaled victims travel with the flying spike.
Weapon sprite:
Projectile sprite:
*Actually, the weapon sprite is only partially made by me. I copied and edited the Heavy Sniper's sprite in MS paint to make it. The rail spike, however, is my own creation. Credit goes to Data Realms for providing the original sprite. I take credit for only the modification of it.
Future Plans:
- Rail spike pins victims to the ground and walls.
Added effects.
Custom sound.
Conservation of linear momentum (larger objects shouldn't fly as far)
Whatever else I can think of.
**BETA NOTICE**
This mod is currently a Beta release. That being said, I need help with testing this weapon. If you come across any errors with the weapon, please post them. It will help me out a lot.
The main issue I'm concerned with is performance. The Lua script uses a CastMORay() to detect targets in it's flight path. This causes a lot of checks to occur every fraction of a second. To reduce performance drain, I've made it check in increments of 5 pixels. Checks are halted once the projectile hits a victim or its lifetime runs out. If you experience any sudden prolonged lag immediately after firing a Railroad Spike shot (and goes away after the round dies or hits a victim), please post and let me know about it. I want this mod to run well on a wide range of system specs.
Also sometimes, on rare occasions, the rail spike does not "catch" a target on impact and merely passes though him without sending him flying. If this repeatedly happens, please let me know. If possible, please provide a screen shot/gif (or just describe the situation).
I will appreciate any help that can be provided for improving this mod.
Currently Known Issues:
).
Impaled victims don't always receive damage on impact with the ground. However, if you can aim it right you can easily make them splatter on the ground.
Potential performance drain. The Lua script runs a ton of checks every fraction of a second. I've tried to reduce this as much as possible.
Projectile sometimes, on very rare occasions, passes through victims and does not send them flying.
Phew, that took forever to type
. I hope you guys enjoy the mod . Also, feel free to include this mod in a larger weapon pack. Just be sure to give credit.Credits:
Siric - providing a larger barreled weapon sprite.
Data Realms - the weapon sprite is based off the Heavy Sniper's sprite made by them.
Siric - providing a larger barreled weapon sprite.
Data Realms - the weapon sprite is based off the Heavy Sniper's sprite made by them.
First release:
Attachment:
Version 1.1:
Added new damaging method. The spike will damage targets based on its velocity on impact.
Velocity threshold added for sending targets flying.
Attachment:
Also, I enjoy both feedback and suggestions.
Just for Fun:
Here are some early production .gif's I made to show my friend. Take note that these don't include the custom sprites.
I call this one Rail Spike Launcher Fail. This was before I made the projectile not collide with MO's. Here, the shot is bouncing off the soldier's helmet and THEN sending him flying.
This was the first test I made after fixing the glitch showed in the previous .gif. As you can see, Dreadnoughts don't get smashed easily.
Testing on a drop ship.
Nice! This looks like a fun mod. Downloading now.
Thanks for the avatar
It's like numgun's one but 10000x better...
