Does this apply to the Brute Forms as well?

Maby...

It's for all. I'd like to explore a more aged and evolved form of the combat form, perhaps something with some sort of light calcium armor or something that begins to gestate more carrier forms. I would like to do something where we could "shield" the headshot region of the flood. I did some tests putting a biped in a seat on the chest of an combat form to block the "head" and trying to spawn infection forms when it was destroyed, but the biped seat system in CE seems to not like to do that.
Edited by Masters1337 on Dec 7, 2014 at 12:41 PM

I'm not sure if these are anything like what you're looking for, but they came to mind when you said "light calcium armor," "shielded headshot region," and "spawn infection forms":
http://www.halopedia.org/Flood_infector_form
http://www.halopedia.org/Flood_transport_form

Alternatively, there's always the Juggernaut, which sounds like it'd fit your criteria pretty well.

I'm pretty set on sticking with grunt/jackal & skirmisher/elite/human/brute forms for our flood. And infection form of course. The carrier form was intended to be the grunt form in the original game anyway.

The Flood Juggernaut in "The Mona Lisa" apparently started out as an Elite, if that counts (you can see the remains of its head and splayed mandibles near its right shoulder).


I can't remember ever reading or hearing mention that Carriers were originally intended to be "pure" Grunt conversions. I've always understood Carriers to be old Combat forms and/or Frankeinstein conglomerations of beings that aren't suitable for Combat forms (like Grunts, Jackals, etc). Bungie's "Feast of Bones" article does show an early concept of a Grunt-based form, but it looks pretty much like you'd expect a Grunt Combat form to look.
Edited by Echo77 on Dec 7, 2014 at 02:41 PM

The problem with something like that is that we have only so many slots for tags in a map file, as well as have to make sure we do not hit our model data cap. We need to better get an idea of where our resources will be before committing to assets as complex as that.

As far as the Carriers, the legs of the carriers are near identical to that of the grunts, and the explosion makes sense given the grunts breathe methane. So as far as our purposes it works. I know bungie had other plans for grunt combat forms for I believe H2... but I do not have the information on them readily available.

Limited tag space is an understandable concern, and it's not an area that I know a great deal about, so I've just been speaking with the assumption that a model for an "evolved Combat form with armor" wouldn't take up any more space than something Juggernaut-esque.

The legs are quite similar, but while Grunts do breathe methane, they neither naturally contain it nor produce it; methane is one of the byproducts of decomposition, though, so you could justify the explosiveness whether you went with a predominantly Grunt-based Carrier or not.

An evolved form with some sort of armor to protect the head would take up little space, and if it was to be something like a biped sitting in a bipeds seat, we would save even more internal resources. To do a form that requires its own separate model+animations+collision is likely more work than it's worth.

Yeah but they also have the tanks as well. Feels weird to me that the flood would evolve with a suicidal form in their lifecycle. The only other species I have ever heard of doing that is the face huggers in Alien, but the flood are based off that so maybe it's an intentional callback.

Ahh, that makes sense. I was about to say "Just give them helmets," but the I remembered that the Infection form isn't in the head. Maybe you could have the parasite latched onto their back instead of sticking out of their chest? You'd have to get around behind it to get a one-shot kill.

The tanks are Pure forms, and according to Halopedia:
"Pure Forms can only be produced when a Flood outbreak has amassed considerable amounts of biomass and formed a Gravemind. Once this threshold is reached, the Pure Forms provide combat support to the other Flood forms the Flood has at its disposal." Since the infestation didn't reach that stage on Installation 04, and a Gravemind had yet to form, there were no Pure forms.

The Carriers may be suicidal, but they're also reproducing: for every worn-out Combat form that gets converted into a Carrier, anywhere between 4-12 new Infection forms can be formed and gestated within, which can each go on to infect a host of their own.
Edited by Echo77 on Dec 7, 2014 at 09:07 PM

And the monarch butterfly.

Thank you for the valuable input Herr Dennis.

I was just searching up flood infector and I found this ugly and creepy thing.
Don't understand bungie sometimes, they love to throw good stuff in the garbage





http://i707.photobucket.com/albums/ww79/sshers1/5d8d7d80-3aea-4583-8afa-5765e97a95e2_zps63499495.png
Edited by unkowndevelopername on Dec 8, 2014 at 12:07 AM

I'm pretty sure that wasn't a Bungie concept. I believe someone from Halomaps was working on it not too long ago.

I don't really think Bungie post-H1 really knew what to do with the Flood or what their real purpose was in H1. There was something I was reading from a Bungie employee who said they weren't sure what to do with them since fighting with them was tedious and that they wanted to write them out of the story in H2 and H3. Apparently they never played 343 GS, 2 Betrayals, Keyes or The Maw..

The treatment of the Flood in H3 is laughable, in how they were integrated into the campaign, although they were finally made more interesting overall in the sandbox.

Ssher4's Flood Tarantula. Interesting Concept, poor execution.

I could see the Sentinel Enforcer being a good addition (and a bad one) to deal with the flood in open levels like C20, C40, D25?, D30?, D40.
However I doubt that they will be added.
Edited by Infinite Guardian on Dec 8, 2014 at 09:35 PM

We have our asset for the Enforcer so we still plan to include it.

Oh I thought it was flood infector.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwCG6nZGbVU&feature=youtu.be

Here's a little treat to keep you all tided over. I present to you... THE NEEDLE SUITE!!
Okay, pretentious title I know, but this is the current state of all the needle-based weapon sounds in SPv3. In order of br00tality, we have, the Needler, the Shredder, and the Impaler!

Of course, none of these weapon models are final. We're still keeping that somewhat under wraps just now, but enjoy the pew-pew ;)
Edited by beaucephal on Dec 10, 2014 at 08:33 PM
Edited by beaucephal on Dec 10, 2014 at 08:34 PM

While interesting I do have a few qualms.

Needler: While having a very nice sound to it, the sound detracts somewhat from the more elegant design of the needler. Personally I believe its supposed to have a more energy based sound as opposed to the physical "THWACK" sound that it seems to emit.

Shredder: Just going off the principle that its a brute weapon, and the spiker model, I'd be one to say that it should have a more physical sound as opposed to the energy one it emits (basically swapping the needler base with this one, whats up with that anyhow?). Brute sounds are often chunky and mechanical, not techy and electric.

Impaler I have no idea whats going on with but that thing sounds really interesting. Looking forward to seeing its actual operation.

The shredder in spv3 is the predecessor to the needler. Brutes get issued last generation weapons by the elites in our story. It be like if the U.S. issued WW2 weapons to certain races in our own military. So it's not really a brute weapon, although it fills the same role as the spiker.

I like the logic behind this because it's similar to what the the US and other nations did IRL. Recently adopt new weapons? Give older ones to allies to halt/advance the spread of communism.

Yep, they went from being something that could make you take a dump in your pants to an enemy that honestly wasn't scary at all.




Will this Enforcer be able to smash vehicles like it does in Halo 2?
Edited by Megatron on Dec 11, 2014 at 11:50 PM

Just judging from the video, it seems the impaler will be some sort of needle sniper rifle that will one hit super combine, and if you miss, the projectile will ricochet every where.

I was curious how they got it to supercombine with just one needle, and what I found out was pretty cool. beaucephal says, "IIRC it's technically a separate projectile class, albeit one that behaves similarly to standard needle projectiles." This means they can bend the rules of what regular needles do (i.e. 7 needles-to-explosion) to balance the gun without messing with the needler.

I like the sound the Shredder makes, sounds very metallic and lethal, while the sound after the projectiles fire does sound a bit energy based, but good job though.

I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU GUYS ARE DOING A LIBRARY:EVOLVED!!!

I ALWAYS HATED THE LIBRARY

I think that's why they're doing it, to make it better.

It's not a supercombine, because it's only one needle. They just used the same supercombine detonation effect and linked it to the big nasty impaler needle (instead of the normal needle shatter) which is very easy to do.

except really, really inaccurate... so they put a scope on it.

In-lore it could be a supercombine, technically. A supercombine is, obviously, a combination of 7 or more needles that then create an explosion. The needles could combine inside the weapon, then explode when they hit a soft target like regular needles do.

How is it inaccurate?

When zoomed it is as accurate a sniper, but is not "hitscan" like the human sniper rifle, it has the same projectile speed as the human pistol. It's based off similar mechanics as the Binary Rifle in H4, but is more fair and less frustrating to fight against. Plus headshots actually matter unlike the Binary Rifle.

Look closely at the beam of light when he fired unzoomed. Unscoped, it's really inaccurate. No 360 noscope blindfolded trickshots for you