Design & Discussion: Shrike

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Ishq
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Joined: Tue Mar 06, 2012 8:32 pm UTC

Design & Discussion: Shrike

Post by Ishq »

The Codename: Shrike (formerly Vulture. Name is, of course, still up for debate)

Basics:
The shrike will be a medium sized alien that specializes in harassment of humans. It will have health comparable to the marauder and will be priced similarly.

Attacks:
Primary: Slow, medium damage claw attack. Since the shrike will likely be an aerial fighter, it will most likely strike the head in overhead attacks, and due to flight velocity, it will be unlikely to get in more than one hit anyways making fast repeat fairly useless.

Secondary: Perk system. Can upgrade it to perform a variety of tasks from a ranged attack, to a suicide attack.

Passive: Running into humans while flying at high velocities will do damage proportional to velocity. Starts at 40 damage max to naked humans and will be reduced by 10 for every stage of armor the human has. (larmor – 30, heavy – 20, bsuit – 10).

Flight Mechanics:
The flight will attempt to simulate somewhat realistic aerodynamics, so flying will not be like using noclip or flying around as spectator. This is complicated by the fact that flight characteristics are highly dependent on the density of the air, which our game conveniently disregards. Perhaps, in the future we can allow mappers to control the density of air, but for now, I will simply assume density is constant everywhere. This will have the main consequence that altitude will no longer have any effect on flight properties.

Initiating Flight:
The shrike will have a jump powerful enough to propel it into flight. This jump will be akin to a pounce in practice.

Flight Control:
There will be a stall speed, the minimum speed one must maintain to continue flight. Further, turns will not be instant—a turning radius proportional to your velocity will be maintained when you turn (high velocity, large turn radius). Your view will roll proportional to your turn radius when you turn and will be capped to an approximately 30 degree cone from your forward direction and you do not move in the direction in which you move. This may make it easier to attack people while flying so you don't hit the ground when you attack a player under you. Aliens will also have a fixed level of stamina for speed control. The faster you go, the more stamina you utilize. Stamina will regenerate slowly.

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