Monday DTS start, rant and suggestions:

[LoneTiger]

Well, since daytime savings started yesterday my clock is messed up and will remain messed up for a week or so while the government steals 1 hour of our lives and sells it to the martians from jupiter in exchange of some cheap crap no one benefits from.

Anyhow, some suggestions for the next overhaul to make the game more interesting:

1.- PU's and Inventory.
* As many PU's offer a defensive bonus Vs certain type of attack those bonuses should never stop damage completely, IG shields, Deemer shield, Rock shields should decrease the damage 1/3rd p/shield pu to a max of 2 or 3 pu's. In short 2 IG shield pu's would stop 60% of the damage from a wand or SS but damage would still pass through hitting the player, whereas without a single shield pu would cause instant death. same for rocks, fire rocks, etc.

* Only a handful of passive PU's should work on the player regardless of which weapon is currently active, like health/shield regen pu'sbut no other.

* Fix the retention PU bug for MP5.

* Retention should have a limit, meaning that retention should work up to a certain number of times the player dies (this would not apply for resurrects) player dies 3 or 4 times, pu goes kaput, put another next wave.

* Blue wrench should be the only single tool that can have more thana single use with a chance of breaking up after each use.

* PU's should not disappear on certain weapons like SSR, the SSR pu turns a mini into another gun entirely when instead it should add up and be able to be removed if needed.

* Multiple single PU's should provide greater bonus than a single +5 PU and they should not be cumulative. Example:
A player with 5 single Protection PU's should have the same defense as a player with one single +5 Protection. However, same player with 7 single protection PU's should have better and increased defense, meanwhile the player using a single +5 Prot PU remains the same and cannot increase any further. The extra Prot bonus is obvious but also the cost in slots is high, same for speed and for damage PU's damage and speed +5 should not allow to add single speed and dmg pu's.

* Summon weapon PU, 1 single pu should give equal chance to summon any weapon (see weapon list tiers below) 2 pu's put together should have a greater chance of summoning any weapon from tier 2 or 3 and smaller chance of summoning tier 1 gun and 3 weapon summon's should havea greater chance to summon a tier 3 weapon and smaller chance to summon tier 1 or 2 weapons.

2.- Weapons:

*Weapon Tiers:
Tier 1 are the generic weapons that come with UT2K4 package with only exception of the MP5 replacing assault rifles, however assault rifles should be added as an extra weapon, these weapons or most of them should be ready on any map and should have either WoP bonuses/penalties or be magical.
Shield gun, MP5, Bio Rifle, Mine Layer, Link Gun, Shock Rifle, Minigun, Flak Gun, Grenade Launcher, Rocket Launcher, Sniper Rifle, Lighting Gun, Benelli Shotgun.

Tier 2 are the guns that can be upgraded, but these guns do not need a PU, to be used, these guns are natural the way they are, they can be positive or negative WoP bonus or simply be magical in some good or bad way.
Shock Cannon Gun, Assault Rifle, Web Launcher, Flare Launcher, Turbo Laser, Frag Grenades, Blast Cannon, Razor Gun, Light SSR,

Tier 3 are the guns that are the best of the best, these guns can pummel mostly everything though they might be dangerous if not used carefully they might as well kill the user and those around him/her.
Combat Shotgun, Particle Gun, Heavy SSR, Mortar, Super Shock, Little Lady, AK Bin Slayer, Laser Rifle, Wand, Redeemer.

I might have missed some guns, let me know what you think.
LT.

*Edit: Entered +5 vs +1 PU's.

[BaronVonRotterdam]

Well its a good idea. Ill toss it to joey and will see what he thinks.

[KnaveSkye]

It may just be my luck, but please let me know if im wrong. I am lucky to see a summon on most maps, let alone get to it. The few maps i get a summon(or 2 if im really lucky) I without fail summon frag grenades, turbo laser, mine layer, rarely grenade launcher,(usually on maps that already have it as pickup) and if im lucky a flare launcher. I can go months now without seeing a laser rifle/ak47/wand/lady/Combat shotgun. I dont cry, and im getting better with mp5 and feel lucky to find a blast cannon(favortie upgrade to weapon i know i can get) but it just seems like one of my favorite aspects has completely turned against me >.<

[[WOH]71redruM]

y knave. i get summons all the time but i almost always summon a turbo laser. it sucks . or any other p.o.s. weapon

[LoneTiger]

Weapon Sum PU is flawed right now, there's a pattern or a trick to get the gun you want or to get a good gun by placing the summon PU on a certain gun and on a certain slot that increases your chances of getting a better weapon, its not random and some people already know this rick and exploit it to get always their 'gun'.

[draegohn]

actually, this is where you are wrong, tigery. i sometimes have only had one wop picked up and used more than one summon on it, and the first gave me, for example, a grenade launcher. using another summon pu later yields a mini rl or such.

however, there are times i will be "lucky" enough to use up to 7 summons a map, and yes, each one gives me crap because i only have two wops to use them on. other maps it seems like one wop weapon is always giving bad summons, but the next map, same weapon wop gets me something good. so i think a nice thing is if one wop gives something crappy, then simply don't try any more summons on the same wop.

only joey and maybe his closer friends know the way summons work, but i have an idea how it does. there are probably a few, set up in tables as arrays or something with the primary categories as weapons. under each of these is maybe a listing of about 30 weapons, randomly assigned. these are what you can summon. now then, come time to summon, one of the files will be randomly selected, the weapon type sought, and under that, one of the 30 positions picked for one's summon.

people think i am lucky, but most times i don't announce what i get, other times then i bitch. like earlier today..of 4 summons i got 2 minelayers, frag grenades, and turbo laser. all off the mp5 too since it was my only wop, which is the gun i most often put a summon on and get goodies from.

my most common "good" summon is a combat shotgun, second most being howtzer. however, i almost never ever get a lady, ak, laser rifle, or super shock. this is kind of interesting since i consider combat (almost every map type) and howitzer (smaller or more confined maps) to be better than those weapons.

imagine back in the past when wand and enhanced ssr could be summoned loved getting a wand early, and using the old lightning rod (before it had adr use turned up) that could be kept going from wave 6 to the end. boy did that piss others off <,,< but it was fun!

anyhow, your most recent post seems to show your jealousy and anger when you see others with good summons often. just wait until you play often one day and summon something good 3 maps in a row..then others will feel the same about you!

anyhow, a well set up wop of any type can outdo those summoned super weapons if you have ability. usually these are flaks or rls, and since people are so score consious, know that the army guy waves are the most point rich one, so those weps that kill them so fast will reflect in score.

[draegohn]

oh, and my thoughts concerning your initial post:

first, the summon powerups and the tiers...bad idea. some maps people can only get 1 summon powerup if any. if you get more, consider yourself lucky. summons are fine as they are right now i guess.

the multiple pus better than the +5...again, this is not well considered. part of the game's funfun aspect is making due with what you have. if you can't get a +5 pu, then decide whether or not to use singles or not deal with other powerups to make room for singles. remember, we didn't always have titan, instagib, redeemer, or vortex shields, and thus threre was more room on most wops for single use. +5 pus used to be mkuch less than they are now

retention powerups used to be a one-time-use thing too. after one death, the powerup disappeared. these days, lower to mid level players really do need this pu to hopefully keep a weapon they can develop, maybe like one flak wop or one rl wop, hoping to get razor, flare or such to create a good primary wop to use eventually. however..

so many people these days are suciding every damn chance they get...it is annoying to say the least. most do it for the purple wrenches, of course. using retentions let them always keep all their weps and just suicide all the time. also, suiciding is now part of another double wrench return trick too i see some do as well. if anything, i think those that type: suicide into console should be forced to sit out 2 waves each time. i never suicide but to get a gold back IF i used it and then summoned something. maybe i actually suicide once every 4 days worth of playing. but no, most need to do it every wave until their weps is +10. pitiful. i make due with what i got, crappy or not.

anyhow, retention on mp5 i would like to see.

passive powerup effects won't be in the next patch. so speed 5 and hp/shield regen will only work on weapon in hand.

ssr mini pu used to not "disappear" actually, it used to be cheap. use it on one mini, it makes that ssr. remove and give it to another and they can use ssr. the whole map used to be ssr minis and it was like wand being spelled most maps and this was the old ssr mini too...each beam was a true powered ssr beam. as many beams as ssr mini heavy, and as powerful as a real super shock beam. imagine that! anyhowit would be cool ifit could be turned on or off, like other weapon powerups, but i heard there are issues with it. i requested that blast cannon pu be able to make mini into mini-rl, but there are issues applying that.

and lastly...

i like the idea for a better blue wrench. i think actually, blue wrench should be coded to work like a magic weapon maker. for about 50 adr, make the blue wrench work once. it can by chance 'break" or stay for another use where it could break or remain again. so many cursed weps are 3 or more, and the blue wrench skill is useless mainly for its cost and relative ineffectiveness on cursed weps.

[Scion]

I was thinking maybe blue wrench should have multiple lvls where you either get more, can toss it at second lvl, or you can use it on someone else gun but with chance to break, all sorts of ideas, but mostly just want the blue wrench to really be worth a little more, cause a -5 slow foot or -5 slowmotion suck when its your favorite gun or a gun that you have stuff for, or summon, or all/most your other guns are neg as well (it happens and it sucks when that chance occurs )

[LoneTiger]

I have no idea where the jealousy comment came from just irks that the same players always are running and winning points using the same damn guns, it gets very old very quick and yes there is a pattern on the weapon summon PU. I do have noticed that putting a weapon summon after you put down a retention then the rest of your gun's pu's chances you higher not to get grenades.

The SSR pu should be removable meaning if you take it off your minigun it stops being ssr, I'm pretty sure this is coding that needs to be cleaned up rather than patch up minigun with ssr code completely.

Single pu's should have a limit of +1 each pu (Max stack +10 would mean having 10 single +1 pu's) but not stackable with +5 pu's existing on gun. again this would give you an advantage at the cost of slots you could use for defense, where someone with 10 single +1 damage pu's would be tearing down monsters more quickly just as someone with 10 +1 def pu's would take longer to kill.

Maybe purple/blue wrenches idea using adrenaline would be better, however, the higher the weapon + the higher the adrenaline cost and also the higher the chance of purple wrench to break, same for blue one, the more - it has to fix the higher the chance for it to break.

LT.

[ZombieSlayer]

There are no tricks to the summons pu. You put one on, at the start of the wave it picks a weapon from an array and gives it to you. Unless of course you get nothing which is fun :D Oh and that's not a bug either, there is a 5% chance to get nothing using a summons.