prisoner 849 writeups

// TERMINUSEST13'S WRITE-UP
// ====================================================

CHARACTER NAME: Prisoner 849/Gina

Bot Personality:

Role (Gameplay gimmick they specialize in. What do they do that other people don't do?): Trickster
Fighting against otherworld threats means sometimes you can't play fair. Whether it's a last-second dodge of an attack, silencing her weapons to launch a surprise attack, or pretending to be dead to disguise herself, Prisoner 849 knows how to fight dirty in order to keep herself out of danger.
Prisoner 849 plays quite similar to Corvus, with an emphasis on inventory items and utilizing them. However, her items have a much more defensive bent rather than offensive, and her weapons are disturbingly powerful--her gameplay focuses more on distracting and harrassing enemy forces, and then smearing them away once they're occupied.

Fist (Very last resort weapon at first, can sometimes be buffed into usefulness by various pickups): Dispersion Pistol
The only Fist weapon that isn't actually a melee, the Dispersion Pistol is a weak blaster that travels slow and hits for a weak 15 damage. Secondary fire charges it up and launches a bolt that explodes for 11-28 splash damage. As it gets upgraded with the Damage Amplifier, though, it deals some unreal damage--fully upgraded, the bolts hit for 75 damage, and secondary bolts have 11-57 splash damage.

Pistol (Infinite ammo. Last resort weapon, can be used as a weak sniper to pick off dudes but mostly useless): Automag
A semi-automatic front-mag pistol, with a cartidge carrying 20 shots. Primary fire is a very accurate but slow-firing hitscan, while secondary fire flips it on its side for twice the firing speed with half the accuracy. Emits an extra clicking sound when firing the last five shots. All bullets deal 17 damage on hit.

Chainsaw (Generic utility item that's kind of nice to have but not needed. Generally a wildcard slot): Razorjack
A Skaarj weapon, the Razorjack is a wicked curved claw with a spinning razorblade in the center. Firing launches the blade at blinding speeds, causing it to ricochet all over--it deals 30 damage on impact, 105 on headshot. Secondary fire tilts the razorjack at the ground and launches it at an angle for more vertical bounce.

Shotgun (Uses Shells. A step up from the pistol, does a fair amount of DPS (in the range of 80-120), and can deal with medium range targets fairly well): GES BioRifle
Named due to utilizing Green Exploding Shit, the GES BioRifle launches volatile Tarydium sludge that arcs a short distance and thuds into the ground, waits a bit, then explodes for 40 damage. Impact also deals 40 damage, without the explosion. Secondary fire charges up for a larger, slower, much more powerful blob that hits/explodes for 75 damage. Unlike later versions, it automatically fires when full.

Super Shotgun (Flexible ammo type, another wildcard. This weapon must be useful in deathmatch, because it's the most common weapon you get. Because of how powerful the SSG was, it must match that power. Preferably close range, but there are exceptions--see Fusion Pistol and SLZ): Flak Cannon
The Flak Cannon is THE iconic Unreal weapon, and easily the staple weapon. Primary fire sprays scraps of hot metal, dealing between 80-180 damage. (Assumed total, because per scrap that'd be pretty fucking stupid), while secondary fire lobs a flak grenade that arcs and delivers 220 max damage. The shots have a very slight bounce to them, which makes putting them around corners an excellent idea.

Chaingun (Uses Clip. Rapid fire, close-to-medium range weapon. Should do suppression decently, and can double as a sniper rifle, such as the Doom's Chaingun and (naturally) BJ's Chaingun): Stinger
Originally a mining tool to carve away unwanted rock, the Stinger launches tarydium shards at a very rapid rate. Primary fire shoots a fairly accurate stream with 14 damage per shard, while secondary fire shoots six in a wide spread (that take only five ammo, surprisingly). It's a combination of shotgun and minigun.

Rocket Launcher (Uses Rocket Ammo. C'mon, it's a fucking rocket launcher. Big explody thing. Makes things go boom. Ranged AoE effect.): Eightball Launcher
The Eightball Launcher, contrary to its name, can only load up to six rockets at a time. Primary fire launches them in a straight line (with 85 damage per rocket), while alternate fire loads and launches them as bouncing grenades (with 100 damage per rocket). Holding alternate while primary is being loaded fires the rockets in a spiral configuration.

Plasma Rifle (Uses Cell. Fast-firing projectile weapon that doesn't cause explosions. High damage, and good at suppression.): A.S.M.D. Shock Rifle
The "And Suck My Dick" gun is a very powerful long-range weapon, and is also another iconic weapon of the Unreal series. Primary fire launches a long-range hitscan bolt, with a whopping 32 damage per shot. Secondary fire shoots a floating orb that hits/explodes for 55 damage. The legendary shock combo, firing an orb and shooting it with a primary, explodes for a whopping 214.5 damage. It's easy to shoot, but combos are difficult to land--especially in hectic deathmatch.

BFG9000 (MUST AT LEAST PARTIALLY USE CELL--maps often give only BFG and Cells. Mass death dealer. Balance goes out the window with this; itdeals monstrous damage with no remorse, countered only by its thirst for ammo.): Redeemer? Singularity Cannon? Ion Painter?

Unique Item: Dispersion Pistol upgrades + random item resupply

Strengths (What can they do really good?):

Weaknesses (What do they really suck at?):

Notable Inventory Items (What stuff from their game can be represented, and what does it replace?):
(Pickups done with every backpack/berserk)
- Flares (?)
- Dampener (reduces weapon noise)
- Voice Box (plays footsteps and weapon firing noises, aggros enemies and gets them away from the players)
- Force Field (Creates a temporary impenetrable, purple coloured, cylindrical-shaped barrier which can be used for protection, to block narrow corridors, or a stepping stone to higher places)
- Damage Amplifier (permanent increase for Dispersion Pistol and ASMD's damage)
- Invisibility

Notable Gameplay Perks (What gameplay stuff from their original game is especially noteworthy?):
- Dodging
- Feigning death (Can cause enemies to not aggro on the player, but aggros on other players, or ignores the player and walks by)
- Footstep walking sounds
- Armor all stacks together (Can use blue armor AND green armor AND megasphere for ULTIMATE PROTECTION at the same time!)

Unused weapons are Quadshot (which wasn't in Unreal), Minigun, and Sniper Rifle.



// IJON TICHY'S WRITE-UP
// ====================================================
Fist (Slot -1): Very last resort weapon at first, can be buffed into usefulness
                by unique pickups (see berserk)

BEST FIT: Dispersion Pistol

It's the very first weapon you get, and you hardly ever use it except to break
crates open and to take down weak enemies. Skaarj dodge it almost every time,
and since they're the most common enemies in Unreal, this makes the Dispersion
Pistol nearly useless. However, the Dispersion Pistol upgrades can break it out
of its uselessness, and make it a decent weapon, provided you can hit with it.

Possible break from Unreal: Make dispersion pistol upgrades actually increase
the damage per ammo, rather than decrease it. That was stupid design on Epic's
part.

Chainsaw (Slot 1): Wildcard slot; can be used for basically anything as long as
                   it doesn't get to be more powerful than the SSG.
BEST FIT: GES Bio-Rifle

On one hand, the Razorjack/Ripper has its trademark cutting heads off, plus the
being able to guide blades to your crosshair is a neat concept. The problem with
the Razorjack is that the cutting off of heads would require changing every
monster to detect headshots and supplying new sprites for them with their head
lopped off - and what about the cacodemon, pain elemental, lost soul, iron lich,
disciples of D'Sparil (who may or may not just be floating robes), and so on and
so forth? Tracking the crosshair would also be a bitch, and wouldn't be doable
with seeker missiles.  It'd require more custom ACS thrusting the razorjack
blades on a plane perpendicular to the player's aim to the place where the plane
intercepts the player's aim, and while I could probably pull that off, there
could very well be online troubles with that. It just sounds like a coding
nightmare.
On the other hand, the GES Bio-Rifle is relatively easy to implement. It's just
lobbing green shit everywhere, right? The only hard part would be having
bio-blobs merge together, but I can see that being doable with creative use of
A_Explode and A_CustomMissile. Its charged shot would also be fairly easy to
implement (if tedious), and you wouldn't need to recode every monster in Samsara
to support this. It's gimmicky and can be deadly in the right hands. Worst comes
to worst, it'll be another Laser Cannon.
It'll still have it hard spots with coding, but it's a lot more doable than the
Razorjack.



Pistol (Slot 0): Last resort weapon, can be used as a weak sniper to pick off
                 targets running away or simply far away.
BEST FIT: Automag

This really doesn't need explaining.



Shotgun (Slot 2): A step up from the pistol, does a fair amount of DPS (in the
                  range of 80-120), and can deal with medium range targets fairly well. Can be
                  either burst (as with the shotgun) or automatic (as with the firemace).
BEST FIT: Tarydium Stinger

This served the purpose of the Doom shotgun. It didn't excel at any one thing,
but it could hold its own in a firefight (albeit not excelling), and had its
uses. Ammo for it was common, and you got 20% of your max ammo per pickup. How
often do you get shells in Doom?

It also handles both automatic and burst. Its automatic fire, while not being
too terribly impressive, still gets the job done (even if it sounds faster than
it actually is), and its alt-fire provides a good burst of close-range hurt,
close to a Doom shotgun blast.



SSG (Slot 3): Another wildcard. This weapon must be useful in deathmatch,
              because it's the most common weapon you get. Because of how
              powerful the SSG was, it must match that power. Preferably close
              range, but there are exceptions - see the SLZ and Fusion Pistol.
BEST FIT: Flak Cannon

It basically was the SSG of Unreal, as well as an impact grenade launcher. Both
fire modes tore through enemies with ease, and Skaarj seemed to not care about
dodging flak shells, meaning they blew up quite nicely. It's extremely close
range; especially with Doom speeds, one could easily dodge a Flak Cannon primary
fire at medium range, not to mention how little damage it'd do anyway. It
literally cannot do long range - gravity will pull the flak chunks down to the
ground after a short delay. Plus, seeing how everyone remembers the Flak Cannon
from the Unreal series, it's just as iconic as the SSG. It's a clear match.



Chaingun (Slot 4): Rapid fire, close-to-medium range weapon. Should do
                   suppression decently, and can double as a sniper rifle (see
                   the Doom chaingun, and naturally Blazko's chaingun).
BEST FIT: Minigun
This also really doesn't need explaining. Since the Stinger takes slot 2, what
else would fit?


Rocket Launcher (Slot 5): Big 'ol explody thingy launcher. Makes things go boom.
BEST FIT: Eightball
Um, duh? It's a big 'ol explody thingy launcher that makes things go boom. The
only other thing that could possibly fit is the Flak Cannon, and that's slot 3.

Note: Its being able to fire 6 rockets at once will almost definitely get cries
of OP. We're gonna need to figure out how to deal with that.



Plasma Rifle (Slot 6): Fast-firing projectile weapon that doesn't cause
                       explosions. High damage, and good at suppression.
BEST FIT: ASMD

It's not a very good fit, I'll admit. But the other possibilities have been
exhausted, and Unreal didn't really have a set plasma rifle; other weapons
tended to cover the niches left by the lack of a plasma rifle. It can do
devastating amounts of damage with its shock combos, and while its base primary
and secondary fires will need a buff (non-shombo ASMD shots were very lackluster
in Unreal), once it's buffed, it'll be able to lay the hurt very well.

I'm thinking that in coop, the ASMD's primary fire will deal 120 or so damage at
the cost of 5 cells, while the alt-fire will deal 140 damage at the cost of 6
cells.
Shomboing will drain an additional 9 cells on top of the normal cost, making a
shombo cost 20 cells altogether. A shombo would deal a toppling 450 damage in
coop, laying waste to most all weak monsters and severely wounding the heavier
monsters. This would have +FORCERADIUSDMG, although boss monsters might resist
some of the damage. Preferably not much - the shombo was deadly, and it should
stay deadly. It's hard to use, it should have huge payoff.

In DM, have it toned down. Primary fire would deal 60 damage per shot, alt-fire
would deal 70 per shot, and a shombo would deal 250 damage. I know people like
Ivan will have a field day with it, but it's P849's plasma rifle. It should be
deadly.


BFG9000 (Slot 7): A mass death dealer. Balance goes out the window with this; it
                  deals monstrous damage with no remorse, countered only by its
                  thirst for ammo.
WAS THE BEST FIT: Combat Assault Rifle, from Return to Na Pali
BEST FIT: I have no fucking clue, Redeemer I guess?

I don't feel very easy with this fit, but the CAR did basically do everything.
It was a deadly close range weapon, and could snipe with ease. The only limit it
had in RTNP was the low amounts of ammo you got with it; you really only got
ammo for it from UMS supply crates.
Naturally, it'd be massively buffed. It spat out bullets faster than even the
Minigun, and since this would be in the BFG slot, having each bullet deal 25 to
35 base damage in coop (hell, maybe even more) would turn the CAR into a
n
amazingly effective crowd cutter, turning even the strongest monster into chunky
paste in short order. In DM, this would be massively nerfed - imagine taking 70
damage per bullet from the CAR. You'd cry for the nerf hammer faster than I cry
for FBF_NORANDOM for Ranger. 15 base damage per bullet would be much more
reasonable.

Its alt-fire is not hitscan. While it is deadly accurate, it is also a
projectile moving very quickly - I'd place it at twice the speed of the SO's
bullets. In coop, this should deal a solid 300 damage, at the cost of 5 cells...
well shit. I just realised that the CAR's alt-fire would completely remove the
use of the ASMD.
Well then, how about that Redeemer? It's UT99, but what other choice do we have?
Remember, the BFG does 78.75 damage per cell on average.