Vine Arrows

[fllood]

As the Topic Description says...

 

Also, are vine arrows restricted to verticals (walls) or are they as well designed to be able to hang from any horizontals (like ceiling)?

 

Tracker 2787and Wiki are still vague on what to expect from 1.07 on.

All advance spec info will be of help consider them for WIP maps ...

 

Thanks.

Edited July 7, 2011 by fllood

[Springheel]

TDM vines don't hang. They're not ropes like T2, they're like the climbable vines already in some maps. You shoot an arrow at the wall and a patch of vines grow, which you can them climb like a ladder. The vines will grow on most rough surfaces, though we're still working on establishing which ones.

[fllood]

The vines will grow on most rough surfaces, though we're still working on establishing which ones.

Thanks Springheel.

 

While deciding please make sure all the materials they grow to will have an easy distinguishable common visual feature players can rely on to avoid try and error ( + waste of ammo) frustrations

[grayman]

While deciding please make sure all the materials they grow to will have an easy distinguishable common visual feature players can rely on to avoid try and error ( + waste of ammo) frustrations

 

 

I updated the Wiki with these comments:

 

Surfaces more than 60 degrees off vertical will not accept an arrow (i.e. ceilings and floors).

 

If the surface doesn't accept the vine arrow, the arrow will bounce off and you can retrieve it.

 

 

--------------------

 

Along with the code delivery, I marked a set of surfaces as vine-friendly in SVN. Testing prior to the 1.07 release will adjust that set as needed.

[New Horizon]

While deciding please make sure all the materials they grow to will have an easy distinguishable common visual feature players can rely on to avoid try and error ( + waste of ammo) frustrations

 

Given that some surfaces might not be as easily distinguishable, the vine arrows simply bounce off surfaces they won't work with...so there is no waste of ammo. You can retrieve the fired arrow.

 

Unlike regular arrows, vine arrows are padded on the end and have vine tendrils wrapping around them, so they're padded and don't break upon impact.

[Glyph Seeker]

Holy carp, this sounds brilliant - I thought they'd just be like T2 ones - ie, not hugely distinctive from rope arrows - this feels like a bit more of revelation!

 

Great work, guys. =3

[New Horizon]

Holy carp, this sounds brilliant - I thought they'd just be like T2 ones - ie, not hugely distinctive from rope arrows -

 

Nope. This was always our intention for vine arrows. We haven't mentioned them in awhile, but our early interviews promoted them often.

 

In my opinion, Ion Storm should have thought of using vine arrows in this way when they made Deadly Shadows and couldn't implement rope arrows. Rather than coming up with climbing gloves, they could have made a variation of the moss arrow decal and made it grow on walls.

 

Oh well, their oversight was our gain.

[fllood]

I marked a set of surfaces as vine-friendly in SVN.

thanks grayman, so if reading it well these are the candidates so far:

 

tdm_stone_brick.mtr

tdm_metal_grate.mtr

tdm_decals_vegetation.mtr

tdm_stone_cobblestones.mtr

tdm_roof.mtr

tdm_nature_dirt.mtr

 

Ammo retrieval is nice for vine arrows

[New Horizon]

Ammo retrieval is nice for vine arrows

 

Yup, that's only if it fails to attach on a surface of course. If the vine grows, then that arrow is spent.

[Midnight]

Sounds much better than just being like a regular rope arrow,I look forward to seeing these in action.

 

Something that i liked from TDS was moss arrows that temporarily cause a guard to choke and cough when fired in their face.

A similar weapon behaviour occurred to me as a possible alternative function of vine arrows, fire one at an AI to cause them to be immobilised for a short time by a mass of quickly growing vine tendrils.

[New Horizon]

A similar weapon behaviour occurred to me as a possible alternative function of vine arrows, fire one at an AI to cause them to be immobilised for a short time by a mass of quickly growing vine tendrils.

Probably not an option for TDM, most of us weren't fans of TDS...especially the slap stick comedy, like the moss filling the AI's mouth. In reality, that moss would have grown down their throat, and filled their lungs. It would have been an agonizing death.

 

The player already has a ton of tools to thwart or otherwise immobilize the AI.

 

A weapon like that would set AI into high alert in TDM...they would run off and alert all the other AI in the area. Wouldn't be much fun. I think we would much rather that the vine arrow remain a tool, rather than becoming a weapon.

[STiFU]

In reality, [...]

 

But humor aside, I think it's good to have many gameplay options and up until now, there nothing similar to that, besides flashbomb to some degree.

[New Horizon]

 

But humor aside, I think it's good to have many gameplay options and up until now, there nothing similar to that, besides flashbomb to some degree.

 

Well, I wouldn't hold my breath that vine arrows would be made to attack AI. It would require new animations and behavior. Plus I don't really think we're interested in making them an offensive weapon as well as a tool. At least I would be strongly against it.

[Giskard_hun]

hmmm. I use vine arrow on a full vertical surfaced wall which has "rough_big_blocks02" texture, but doesn't work. The arrow recoils from the wall and after it falls to the ground, start to "dancing" (maybe there is a problem with the collision model) + I can pick it up again.

[RJFerret]

Does that texture list vine compatibility? Many blocks don't do it, but some have dirt in the grout to support vine growth.

[Giskard_hun]

where can I check it?

[Springheel]

Any stone wall that seems sufficiently 'craggy' to hold vines should work, though it's possible a texture was missed. Do you know the name of it?

[RJFerret]

Might it be useful to provide, or is there already, an invisible surface that supports vines, à la climbing materials of various sounds, which could just be tossed in front of any surface the mapper wants vines to work on without needing a texture tweak?

[stumpy]

non of the big block textures are vine friendly, it might just be that the blocks were considered too big to support vines.

[Obsttorte]

where can I check it?

The texture description says "vine-friendly"

[VanishedOne]

I've just made an oblong block with a "vine_friendly" material, copied it, and made the copy a func_static. Vine arrows create vine patches on the side of the func_static but bounce off worldspawn.

 

Edit: ah, traced the problem. I'd accidentally set "name" on worldspawn, which stops the vine arrows working on it, presumably because their script checks for $world.

Edited March 3, 2015 by VanishedOne