Rail Detonator... in JA?

[Kurgan]

Somebody seriously needs to re-create JK/MotS's classic RAIL DETONATOR (aka Railgun) for Jedi Academy multiplayer.

 

This gun was so much fun to use!

 

Essentially it looked a lot like the Imperial Heavy Repeater does now, but with markings that suggested a kind of "industrial caution" theme... like it was a big dangerous tool. It fired primary rockets that were yellow which trailed smoke behind them and were slow, but threw off bits of shrapnel when it detonated (in an otherwise small explosion). So imagine a rocket explosion that had little flechette primary bits in it.

 

Secondary fire was where the REAL fun was... the little yellow darts would STICK to the surface they hit... whether a wall or a player. Now there are already things that stick to walls like Trip mines and det packs, but I think here you'd need to utilize that little doohickey the Grappling Hook for something similar.

 

Basically the dart would stick to the person, and continue smoking and making a hissing noise (like a fuse burning down) until it exploded. It would do like 1 hp damage when it hit them, and then a TON when they exploded, killing them usually. However if you ran INTO someone, a little over half the time, THEY would take most of the damage, and you could survive while they died! (the rest of the time you'd at least take them with you). Of course you could also launch multiple (usually about 3) darts into someone, sealing their fate. At best, they could turn on protect or grab some shields and hope for the best (if not doing the kamikaze run).

 

There was also a "seeking rail detonator" which was just a red pickup (pickups were three charges). When you switched the seeking railgun, it was identical except it had red markings instead of yellow. The shots would automatically home the nearest enemy player (WAAY better than the seeking rockets). Of course this was an incredibly cheap weapon that would make people very frustrated when on the receiving end (invisibility was no effect... electronics aren't fooled by mind tricks!). The best defense against it was to run around corners, turn on protect and hope for the best. Sometimes there would be multiple ones buzzing about like flies. They were relentless! So the ammo was super rare. Shooting the ammo on the ground also caused them to go off (same with all the ammo in Mysteries of the Sith). When no players were on screen, they would behave like regular (yellow) rail detonators.

 

So a very useful gun... intimidation weapon, backup rocket launcher, and poor man's mine layer.

 

Perhaps the seeking ability is too much... as adapting it for one of the regular modes on the gun would slow the rate of fire.

 

In Singleplayer the Trandoshans could also use it as a club (melee attack) at close range. In the design notes, this gun originally was planned to have a mode wherein you could stick a rail dart into someone (or something) and click a hand detonator to make it explode remotely.

 

Please bring it back! A high res model was made for JKEnhanced (a mod for JK1: http://jkhub.net/project/show.php?projid=242&section=screenshots&ss_id=project-242-7bEjG0Licn.jpg), but I much prefer the original look of the weapon from the JK original (also in MotS):

 

http://www.jediknight.net/csArticles/articles/000000/000075.htm (seventh image down).

 

[Forceboat]

Well, I do know that this gun will eventually be in not only the Dark Forces II mod but the MOTS mod as well. But I understand where you're coming from, you would like to see someone make one of these now. It IS a nice weapon.

[Kurgan]

Any news on this?

[-=*Raz0r*=-]

If anyone's still interested I may take this up as a mini mod and release the code after I release my portal mini mod

[hhunter6]

I am very most interested in this weapon for JA. What type of support do you need?

[-=*Raz0r*=-]

It'll be a code mod, so incompatible with any server-side mod such as JA+, MB2, etc.

Only available for MP, as we don't have the ability to create code mods for SP.

 

I'm just about done - I've replaced the rocket launcher, modified the missile impact function to stick to the player and detonate x milliseconds after impact, I just have to improve the client-side prediction, and perhaps play a sound whilst the rocket is inside them.

I think there was also a minor bug regarding NPC's. Not sure when it'll be ready for a release.

 

I'm no artist, so I can't model a rail detonator.

[hhunter6]

no worries, Thanks for the update!!

Just have to find a modeler now, hmm maybe SHreds from the JKE mod can be used?