EMP Grenades

[Overstatement]

...are you guys arguing over three threads?

Stuff doesn't have to work like it does in real life. It's a game and stuff works how we want it to work for balance purposes. And that's it.

I'm not saying this for the sake of reality. But it may affect a gamer's experince because EMP has been overused so lots of people know what EMP is, how it's made and how it doesn't make sense, even in the future's advanced technology. Chaff doesn't make sense so no one knows how it works but it would seem believeable. Isn't that partly why people love Spinter Cell? Because they love new ideas of future technology, not the same EMP grenade we've seen for years.

[B1nArY_001]

We should give the merc a airsoft gun then. rifles and bullets are in 100x more games than EMP grenades. As a matter of fact, I don't know of a game with EMP grenades. Granted I don't play a huge variety of games but I've never seen one. It seems like a relatively un-used idea when compared to mines, remote charges, frags, rifles, shotguns, uzis etc etc.

[Gawain]

good points.
there is a lot of emp stuff in bf2142 btw

[goodkebab]

game play wise emp=chaff

for project stealth=  grenades need to be visible so the merc knows what and where

name wise, we can use emp for the sake of differance....but it has to maintain the visibility of chaff.  How is up to our effects programmer.

spies, as a rule are not effected by there grenades -that includes smoke and cams


and Personally:  I think we really need chaff to go through walls.  CT has some damned clever mine spots that are impossible to get passed even with this feature.  (storage in Orph,  vents in Factory).  If we nerfed chaff like this,  you would realistically see the amount of impassable areas from mines and spytraps double.

Also, if we called it EMP,  it would be somewhat credible that it could go through walls.


And finally,  EMP exists already :  Nuclear Bomb, and Lightning disable electronics.

[Spekkio]

The storage poisons are impassable even with chaff in its current state, plus they're extremely far from a healthbox. That's what makes them so good (glad I originated those :)).

The factory mines are all passable without chaff going through walls.

There isn't one trap in the game that, if placed by the host so the laser goes straight, will suddenly be changed from passable to impassible if chaff stopped going through walls. Furthermore, your teammate can remove poison/traps anyway, which already diminishes their usefulness by a lot.

If you need to nerf the trap laser length back to PT's distance to compensate, then do so (this might make the impassible poisons in Storage unusable, btw). Chaff going through walls is too powerful and allows the spies to move way too quickly. There's no reason for anyone to want chaff to go through walls unless they feel that the spies should be able to run around the map virtually unimpeded. If you believe that, then we just disagree on a fundamental level.

ADDED: Just in case someone wants to throw the "EMP isn't stopped by walls" argument...if you are saying that, then you are saying that EMP grenades need to shut down every single electrical device in the map when thrown anywhere, including the spy equipment, until it wears off. In this case, gameplay must trump realism.

[Daybreak]

I really think that having an emp grenade would be a great addition for project stealth, while still including Chaff grenades. They might do the same thing, except for game play reasons you change it a little.

Chaff: Does what it's always done, but not through walls. the end.

EMP: does what chaff does, but affects spies, goes through walls but is silent. How do you see it would be a cool heat like light wave ripples through the air. I've seen the effect in other games, so I see no reason not to apply it here.

While looking at photos from UT3 and of our wonderful spy model, we have to make sure that the levels, and effects are just as cool and spectacular looking. Going from CT versus, to our Versus will be one hell of a jump.

[Overstatement]

Well apparently everyone hates the chaff effect and name (we should take a poll) for reasons that are beyond me (I still think it's a great idea). But if we're going to replace it, it would be nice to replace the name with something vague (like the less used name, ECM) and leave the team to come up with some kind of strange unique effect. The kind of effect where you don't know exactly what it does but looks very cool.

Either that or we put in some creativity. The gamer in me is just getting sick of seeing EMP in anything that has to do with fighting microchips. I'm also getting bored of GTA clones...

[Gawain]

i like the chaff effect.

no1 had any problems with the pt chaff nades, they didn't work through walls but had a much larger radius. i like the idea that you have to pull your gun out and shoot a chaff in a room (slower), but after doing so you were completely safe from any security and mines in it.

[Spekkio]

Having chaff and EMP nades is redundant, even if they have *slightly* different features. If new gadgets are to be added, I'd prefer that they be a bit more original than that.

I have no qualms with the current chaff name or gfx effect, but would presume both would be updated both for the sake of originality and risk of copyright infringement.

How about you drop it, a blue ring explosion ensues from the source of the grenade outwards to it's max radius, and then have some sort of effect that lingers until the grenade wears off?

[InvisibleMan999]

Yeah, if a new gadget doesn't have enough unique features to make it a significant addition to the game, then it's not worth the trouble of coding its graphics and animations.

As far as chaff going through walls, I can think of a few good reasons why they should:

Even if chaff doesn't go through walls, we need it to burst out around walls. nobody wants to detonate a chaff only to be destroyed by a mine that happened to be a little niche because the chaff didn't have a direct LoS to the mine. It's going to be difficult to code chaff properly to burst around walls in a fashion that works. Imagine one of those glitch mines that's inside a wall, and imagine if the chaff spread algorithm doesn't accurately penetrate wherever it happens to be hidden. You chaff, you run in thinking you're okay and the boom. A mine that happened to evade the chaff field blows you to pieces.

It's simply easier to code chaff as a wall piercing radius effect, because then you're certain that it disables all mines in its area.

[Gawain]

as spekkio and me already stated several times, chaff working through walls totally takes away the anti rush aspect of mines.

[Overstatement]

That's nice but don't go around saying it like there has been an official annoucement that we're going to change chaff. That's why I got confused. Maybe you can make a thread about it if there isn't already one.

I haven't been talking about adding a new grenade. I thought no one liked chaff and wanted it replaced with something else that works exactly the same.

[Spekkio]

Even if chaff doesn't go through walls, we need it to burst out around walls. nobody wants to detonate a chaff only to be destroyed by a mine that happened to be a little niche because the chaff didn't have a direct LoS to the mine. It's going to be difficult to code chaff properly to burst around walls in a fashion that works. Imagine one of those glitch mines that's inside a wall, and imagine if the chaff spread algorithm doesn't accurately penetrate wherever it happens to be hidden. You chaff, you run in thinking you're okay and the boom. A mine that happened to evade the chaff field blows you to pieces.

This is a "I think the spies should be able to run around freely if they take chaff" argument in disguise, since that's the only time you'd be using the quick-throw to get around a mine on the other side of a wall. For proxies you can just crawl and save your chaffs for something else; for lasers you will have to shoot the chaff anyway since the mine isn't going to be right next to the doorway.

Anyway, if they program the game properly then you won't have to worry about these glitches. Saying that something shouldn't be implemented because it might not work right is a poor argument, since everything has a possibility of malfunctioning.

[B1nArY_001]

ADDED: Just in case someone wants to throw the "EMP isn't stopped by walls" argument...if you are saying that, then you are saying that EMP grenades need to shut down every single electrical device in the map when thrown anywhere, including the spy equipment, until it wears off. In this case, gameplay must trump realism.

Not every EMP device is powerful enough to knock out a whole map or city as you see in movies. Like any bomb/grenade/emitter it has a "blast" radius determined by its payload or the amount of power behind the discharge. It's not really a question of realism but a question of what people think would serve the purpose of chaff but look and sound better. Like with any fictional item it only needs to be loosely based on reality and then artistic liberties can be taken.

So, the question is, which do you think is more visually appealing? A bunch of bow-tie sparkles in the air or something an artist can freely create a top-notch next gen effect for?

[Gawain]

the chaff effect can be done "next-gen", too.