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Knockout arrow?


Thrashaero

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Sorry if this has been suggested a bunch...can't find the search function

 

anyway, i was thinking there should be an arrow with a steel ball on the end...same purpose as blackjack but from afar

 

of course, some may find this to make things a bit too easy, but also an arrow with a steel ball for knockout purpose seems like a pretty obvious thing to come up with vs an arrow that can magically grow moss, as well as some maps could be made extra hard for such a device to become necessary or something? or maybe the arrow would have to be specifically aimed for right at the back of the head/top of neck to work

 

 

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Have people actually gotten knocked out this way? Would the arrow not be likely to kill them due to physics? (vs. a blackjack which strikes the neck differently)

 

Plus, you could just use a gas arrow, which can also be used as an expensive torch put-outer.

Edited by jaxa
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Sorry if this has been suggested a bunch...can't find the search function

 

anyway, i was thinking there should be an arrow with a steel ball on the end...same purpose as blackjack but from afar

 

of course, some may find this to make things a bit too easy, but also an arrow with a steel ball for knockout purpose seems like a pretty obvious thing to come up with vs an arrow that can magically grow moss, as well as some maps could be made extra hard for such a device to become necessary or something? or maybe the arrow would have to be specifically aimed for right at the back of the head/top of neck to work

 

If you watch this older trailer at this particular scene (I've put a timestamp on the scene, if it doesn't work, it's 2:47 in), you'll see the gas arrow in all its glorious action. It has an area effect for the short while that it's knockout glass cloud lasts. If a group of people is close together, especially guards that can't be directly knocked out due to special helmets - you don't need to target an individual NPC, but just hit the area the group is standing at, preferrably at head height. The cloud will spread and put the NPCs to sleep very quickly. Simple trick, but highly preferred when using the rarer and more expensive arrow gas arrow. You need to make gas arrow shots really count, since they tend to be in short supply, due to their sheer power.

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I've got some thoughts on this which may or may not be of interest

 

I believe game designers can add a weapon like this if they want to, so I'm not seeing a huge reason for adding it to the main mod, unless it proves to be really popular among players

 

Possible advantages of a KO arrow might be reusability - like noise arrows, precision - being able to take out a single AI in the middle of a group without raising an alarm

 

Effectiveness could be limited by only having them work if they hit the back of the AI's head or some small target area like the whole head, however that doesn't give them much advantage over a BJ & sneaking, but it would stop them being the tactical nuke of the game

 

Game designers could engineer situations where it might be useful, such as a group of AI where you have to cross the sight lines of some of them to get to the one you need to take out, or the one you need to get is in a large open space & always turns round before you can get to them, but it's a lot of effort just to showcase a new weapon

 

I'm rather ambivalent about the idea, it might be nice to have but we already have a lot of weapons

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As i wrote above, i rather have missions feature more weapons, than actually invent new weapons. So we have gas arrows. Very few missions actually have gas arrows in them. I get that those are a bit tricky, because they're quite might, but... may not be a bad idea to incorporate a few of them in the missions. Would also make a great diversion to the blackjack.

 

Also, wasn't there a gas mine? Not sure now.

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As i wrote above, i rather have missions feature more weapons, than actually invent new weapons. So we have gas arrows. Very few missions actually have gas arrows in them. I get that those are a bit tricky, because they're quite might, but... may not be a bad idea to incorporate a few of them in the missions. Would also make a great diversion to the blackjack.

 

Also, wasn't there a gas mine? Not sure now.

 

Gas arrows are expensive in the shop, as they should be, and giving the player too many gas arrows could make missions very easy.

 

Maybe you only want multiple free gas arrows in really huge missions, like on the scale of T2: Life of the Party.

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In fact there is no number key left for another weapon :)!

The amount of numbers doesn't limit the amount of weapons, as you can cycle through them. However, mappers are free to exchange one weapon with another. If your mission doesn't feature fire arrows for example, you can use its slot for your custom one.

 

Most missions only feature a limited amount of the weapons belonging to the core mod anyways, and most of the times most of the weapons featured are unneccessary to finish the missions, as they often just got added because the mappers thought it would be good for the players to have them, without creating situations were the player really needs them.

 

So as long as most mappers create missions that are designed to be ghostable any discussion about adding new weapons or tools that don't get used anyways seems a bit pointless to me.

 

Just my two cents, though. :)

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well gas arrows are expensive and rare like has been said, but they don't need much for aiming. the steel ball or beanbag arrow could be cheap and reusable but are a gamble, since they could be hard to aim to hit the right spot (or heavy and cause waivering) and cause big suspicion if one doesn't aim it right.
I just figured it would be an easy arrow to make/buy but hard to master.

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I just figured it would be an easy arrow to make/buy but hard to master.

Could this feature be added to some of the other arrow types? Like e.g. the noisemaker arrow who already has a big metallic head. So if you hit someone head on, he will be knocked out. If you miss him, you will get the noise. Or does these make noise from the moment they are shot? Which doesn't really make sense at it would give away the thief's position. Or could the vine arrow entangle the head of a hit guard with vines and thus strangle him to unconciousness? BTW, what happens if an enemy is hit with a rope arrow? That end looks sharp, will he take damage? What happens when you hit someone head on with a water arrow?

Edited by wesp5
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Rope arrows deal a small amount of damage, water arrows don't iirc.

 

Adding features like this to already existing arrow types in the core mod is a terrible, terrible idea. It will affect all existing missions. As said you can add all kind of crazy stuff to your own fm, but things that are intented for the core mod really needs to be an enrichment for the gameplay, and I can't see how this is the case here. If you want a cheap arrow that is able to take out guards at the distance but requires you to shoot at the ai's head, use the broadhead arrow. That is what it is for.

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The problem is that the broadhead arrow can kill the NPC and that could be something you don't want, specially on no kill missions, i'm with Springheel on this, use gas arrows instead. Mission makers imo could just include one or two in a mission, even if the player don't buy one on the store but make it so the player as to find it.

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It would be interesting to see some variants for current arrow types. In a particular mission, from a mapper with some coding experience. Obs himself has experimented with new arrow types and new weapons. Check his videos.

 

You can pick up and throw obects with your hands. Right now you can use it to throw stuff around and distract guards that way. It would be very interesting for players to be able to pick up a brick or a good sized stone and knock someone out with it from a distance, with a good aim (maybe not everytime, but give it a % chance of working). Specially in one of those missions where you start with no weapons or equipment. Mappers could control the existance of these objects in their maps. I remember discussions about this back in the day... Even though damage from massive objects falling on characters has been added since, I dont think it was done for small objects you can actually throw (not so much mass but great velocity). I think they do alert them, but I dont think you can KO people like that. We should probably ask grayman. ;)

 

Another thing we talked about was "vector awereness". If the character didnt see the object being thrown, sure he'll wonder what the noise is about and go investigate the impact zone. But if you throw something right in front of them or hit them with it, one would expect the AI to ignore the object completely and actually investigate the direction it came from instead (even if he cant see the player).

Edited by RPGista
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Ive played around with adding new arrow types and weapons/ tools to my FMs. Some of it works and some of it doesn't. I've found it hard to create gameplay scenarios where a new weapon type or tool is really necessary, but I'm sure there all kinds of creative ways to find new uses for stuff.

 

Im not sure if a long range knock out arrow would be much different than the gas arrow as mentioned. However, it would be interesting if that same arrow could also be used to silently hit switches from a distance or something. Or like how the holy water changes the properties of your water arrows, maybe there is an interesting way to change your broadhead's to blunt tip arrows or something.

 

Anyhow, its an interesting idea if you can find good reasons for it.

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