pretty sure this is not the place to discuss the 22nd amendment :/


WHAT IS THIS MADNESS!?

Brute Shot, of course:





HOW IT IS MADE:

I couldn't choose between the first and the third Brute Shot model in the picture posted by Echo77, so I made a mix of them. I took the red barrel from it, the Spiker-like handle of the first and so on. The result is a Brute Shot with a front blade and other details.
The firing effect is custom, I took inspiration from some volcano eruptions:



The firing sound is the H3 one, while the explosion sound is (it's weird, I know, but it fits well IMO) the H2 firing sound. For the explosion effect I prefered the classic H2 explosion instead of the H3 one:



And, of course, AIs can use it as well:



The next weapon is the Needler, but I don't know when I'll start working on it, because tomorrow I'll start the university. Meanwhile, post your suggestions about the current weapon, as always.

Make the bottom of the blade transition smoother and maybe make better looking blood on the blade. I'll try to give references of both of my suggestions. Also good luck at University.(Just wondering is master noob going to have the tutorial dump anytime soon?)

Helpful reminder: http://forum.halomaps.org/index.cfm%3Fpage=topic&topicID=2979

People, relax! As I said before, his mother doesn't even love him, so let him be! Let him be happy.LET HIM FEEL SPECIAL!

ONtopic: The Brute shot, for me, just looks wrong. I don't know, it just doesn't look like a weapon used by Brutes. But maybe that's just me.

I do kinda see where you're coming from with that brute shot, it does seem a little off for brute tech.

Brutes usually use dirty, industrial, straight up savage looking designs for their weapons but this weapon just looks sleek, cool, and red, but not very brutish.

I think what I'm trying to say is the weapon looks TOO good to be brute tech. the textures smooth, not at all scratchy and worn (and brute weapons are VERY worn and scratchy, almost resembling post apocalyptic junk weapons), and the design overall is very sleek, compact, and optimized, which is not all what you'd expect from a brute weapon. I feel like if you made the design a little larger, cruder and dirtier it would feel much more like brute tech. Maybe go with a blander color scheme too, especially for the red section of the weapon, with some faded blues and rusty browns in the metal of the overall gun. Plus if the bayonet was more rustier and darker and covered with a lot more blood (preferably dark red blood or maybe even some spots of purple blood), it wouldn't be a bad thing.

Remember, brutes are supposed to be dark, savage, brutal creatures, so their tech should reflect it.
Edited by Delicon20 on Oct 5, 2013 at 03:58 PM

Well, well, well... it seems that someone is asking to get banned again...
This is the third time I find someone arguing on my topic. I asked to remain on topic and try to be kind, but it seems that you still haven't learnt the lesson. I have explicitely said that, if you have some problems, please DISCUSS THEM OUT OF THIS TOPIC. But I see just kids arguing. Even if you actually ARE a kid, you'd better try to act like a mature person, since most of the users here are older. If you're not able to do this, then go elsewhere, and stop trying to get my topic locked.



To be honest, it wasn't like I expected. Even if I have chosed a scientific university, the first topics are really boring (maybe because I have studied them billions of times at the high school), so the initial lessons are less exciting than I thought. I hope to see some interesting topic in the future days, though.

But let's stop talking about my life, and let's return back on topic. I have worked on the Needler, and I got this:







HOW IT IS MADE:

Unluckily, I couldn't obtain the result that me and Echo77 wanted. I have added the lower crystals, but I couldn't make them disappear via animation in first person, because with them I had too many nodes, and tool didn't want to compile the animations ç__ç So I had to leave them as an ornamental element. Alternatively, I could have made the crystal disappear in a different way (making an upper and a lower crystal disappear for every single shot), but since the animation makes the crystals move towards the inner part of the body, the lower crystals would have moved in the same direction, leaving their original location. Anyway, I have used a different animation scheme in order to hide the lower crystals in first person, so the player can't see if they have effectively disappeared or not:



Unluckily, if you stop the game, or pay more attention, you can see them, but as I've already said there wasn't much I could do =[

About the functionality, it is a bit crazy; it seems that having two different triggers that share the same magazine isn't possible, because the ammo count is split in two indipendent parts. For example, if I use 30 needles per magazine, and I make the weapon loose 15 needles with the secondary trigger, the first one uses just 15 needles, instead of using the whole magazine, and then it reloads. So, I had to use a different method: the secondary trigger uses an heat mechanism, that regulates the rate of fire. It seems to be overpowered now, since it doesn't waste the magazine, but I solved this problem: you can fire with the secondary trigger only if you're holding the left button of the mouse, and then the weapon goes in cooldown. This means that if you use the secondary trigger, you'll have to wait some seconds before using both the primary and the secondary firing button. In order to balance this, grenades are still usable. For who doesn't know it, the primary firing mode is the regular automatic mode of the old Needler, with the difference that the needles don't home and detonate anymore, while the secondary is a Shotgun/Scattershot-like effect that fires multiple needles. About the needles, they have a proper texture now:



But the update is not finished: I have finally found a compromise for the Mauler. Now the weapon fires both the old shotgun bullets and a proper bullet, with a small error, that can be used to headshot and kill enemies. In this way, I have combined both the old Mauler and the regular pistols:



And about the Brute Shot, I have rounded the blade, and tried to edit the texture in order to have a more primitive, brute-ish design:



If you think that it still needs something, don't worry: I kept the original texture in case of emergency.

Now... go with the suggestions!

The third-person model of the new Needler looks pretty good. A shame that the bottom needles won't retract properly. Since the dual-functionality is a bit tricky, it may be best to just give it one function: support-style needle weapon, or needle-based scattergun.

The new Mauler-based handgun should just fire a single projectile, I think, or perhaps a two-round burst: my thoughts behind this being buckshot requires a smoothbore for optimal performance, while a bullet requires a rifled barrel for accracy. This means that if the pistol were to use "buck-and-ball" (i.e. pellets and a slug) it would either have to be rifled (causing the pellets to spread outwards into a ring pattern, but ensuring reasonable accuracy for the slug) or unrifled (giving a good pattern for the pellets, but at the loss of accuracy for the slug).

The new Brute Shot looks interesting, although I don't think it needs the orange lights on the barrel.

I agree, it seems that I get into the Halo CE restrictions each time I try to get something original (though I don't know if OS would solve the bone count limit, but I'm not going to use it anyway). At this point, I'll remove the secondary firing mode. That's a shame, though, because I've always been intrigued by turning an existing Covenant weapon into an alien shotgun. That's why I tried to fuse the the shotgun and the pistol function for the Mauler, but I guess it's better to use a pistol burst. A two rounds burst could work, I'll turn the magazine size to 10 bullets instead of 5 so that the weapon will have the same performance in terms of lost slugs. Other than that, I can't see something better for what I'd like to have.

And about the Brute Shot, here is the weapon without the orange lights on the barrel (still an experiment, though):



In case you think that I can go on, I'll start working on the Fuel Rod Gun (that I decided to call "Needle Launcher")

Does it even matter?

I think not.

You can even be 20, but if you act in that way there's nothing to be proud.

BOT: Before you say something about that texture problem on the bottom part of the muzzle of the Needler, don't worry because I have already fixed it.

@Echo77: Yesterday I had an idea about the Mauler. Let's say that the weapon acts like a pistol; it fires a single/two burst shot, that can kill the enemy with an headshot, and maybe it has a contrail (or perhaps it can even be a spike and stick like the Spiker bullets, but without any effects in terms of damage). But what if the bullet, once hits a solid surface, like a wall, immediately breaks into little fragments that can reflect and hit the enemies? Something like the Spike Grenade, but of course not with the same damage and visual effects, and without the explosion and the detonation timer. This could give to the Mauler a more strategical purpose, similiar to the one that the Brute Shot had in Halo 2, where its bullets were able to bounce.
Just an idea, though.

It wouldn't really make sense if the projectile was a spike but if it was more of bullet-shaped object, it would be.

That's not a bad idea, having the bullet fragment on impact. It's remniscent of the "shredder rounds" used by Spartans in the books. However, realworld rounds that fragment are less likely to ricochet, for what that's worth.

A random spread could work as well. Maybe I could make the fragments invisible (like the shotgun bullets), or at least have a contrail. About the shape of the projectile, I could make a bullet with a spiked point, in order to justify the headshot ability, and a big cartridge case. Or perhaps I could make a 3d model of the original Mauler bullets shown in the H3 HUD: http://www.albanyhighcougar.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/halo-3-mauler.jpeg

Just a last question, and then I'll go on with the Needle Launcher: Now that the bullets break on impact, is it best to use a single shot, or a double burst shot?

Personally, I think the cartridge itself could look similar to a jacketed hollowpoint magnum round, perhaps with a steel case as opposed to the standard brass.

I think it might take some trial-and-error to figure out whether single-shot or two-round-burst would provide optimal balance.

haha did that.
Edited by spiral on Oct 7, 2013 at 07:54 PM

Those are really cool concepts!

1) I have already made a Carbine, but that plasma blade intrigues me, and if I'm not wrong Dumb AI wanted a plasma blade on a covie weapon, too. Perhaps I could add it to some of the remaining Covenant weapons, or maybe even to the Major Sentinel Gun. Promethean Knights have an hardlight blade mounted on their left arm, so that technology could fit to a Forerunner weapon.

2) I have not planned to add a portable Plasma Turret, since there is already the Shade Turret, but on the other hand I'm going to add a portable Machine Gun Turret. I have also planned to put the H3 Plasma Turret on the Spectre. If you are looking for a portable Plasma Turret, though, you can find it in the map H2 Headlong.

3) That Fuel Rod Gun is absolutely beautiful. I'm going to use that design for the Needle Launcher, though with a different color scheme and without the fuel rods as magazine.

4) Those weapons look Forerunner to me, but I don't know where to use them. The blade that I was talking about is also there, so I'm going to confirm that choice. Maybe I could turn the Sentinel Beam into something similiar to those weapons, or at least take some parts from them.

5) No plans for a Rail Gun, but I was thinking that the Spartan Laser could inherit that design.

And about the vehicles, yes, I'm going to make them too. Check my to-do list in the previous pages to see which vehicles I'm going to modify. The Cobra design looks good for the Warthog (though I'm going to leave the weapons of my vehicles untouched), and same goes for the Vampire, that seems good for a Wraith.

instead of using the cobra for the warthog, use the Aardvark. its basically a warthog that's enclosed

That's a pretty cool vehicle. It needs a passenger seat, though, but that's not a problem. Maybe I could take the Cobra color scheme for the Gauss Warthog.
Edited by SOI_7 on Oct 8, 2013 at 03:59 PM

I'm really itching to see all of this stuff thrown together into one map, or at least a series of maps. They look like a lot of fun to play with.

Most of the content he made hasn't been released (to my knowledge).

Stating facts =/= measuring love of any kind

Fact: Most of SOI 7's stuff hasn't been released or leaked

Opinion: I don't really care whether he does or not

Actually I have stopped releasing my tags when I started my weapons set, but all the previous tags (included the Ranger Elite that he was talking about) are in this topic, and can be downloaded.

@50predator50: I don't know if you mean a H3 replica or a CMT style replica, but I could recreate them as well. I have even a Commando model lying around (though I didn't make it, and needs a lot of fixing), but for the moment I'd prefer focusing on the tags that will be in my mod. Then, I could work on something on request :)

UPDATE: I have worked on the Needle Launcher:





HOW IT IS MADE: The design is based on the Fuel Rod Gun concept art that RangerDanger found, though the color scheme resembles the Needler and the H1 Fuel Rod Gun. A set of 5 blue needles has been added, and the projectile uses the same model:



The functionality is the same of a standard anti-air gun. The bullet is effective against vehicles, but with units the damage is lower than the human counterpart. Bullets don't bounce, but the effects are pretty cool:







And, finally, all the sounds have been updated.

Does it need something? If not, I announce that the next weapon will be the Gravity Hammer.

I don't really know what to think about it. Compared to the original designs of your other stuff it looks like a recolored fuel rod gun, really. Do the needles have a detonation delay like a stock needler?

Possible modifications:

Many Covenant weapons don't have visible triggers. I think you should remove it.
Edited by Dumb AI on Oct 11, 2013 at 03:45 PM

the trigger definitely looks odd. maybe see about custom needle shaders (make the needles chubbier please) and maybe have a more reflective casing. also perhaps add more of the displays and meters like in the h1 FRG and hr flak cannon.

IMO it looks really fantastic! Looking forward into seeing the final product!

I think the gun would look good if it had more of a pinkish, lavender color.

actually thats a lie. In halo 1 they dont, but in the rest of the halo games (namely 3, reach and 4) they do have visible triggers. Best examples being the Plasma Pistol, Plasma Launcher, Concussion Rifle, and FRG. The triggers are oddly shaped, but they are there. I know that the Carbine and Plasma Rifle always lacked triggers, though.



I agree with everything except the front. Having a needler shaped muzzle for this would probably seem a bit weird because of the size of the projectile. Having something perhaps bigger, but sleeker, might fit better

I don't see a trigger on the Plasma Pistol., and if all the Covenant weapons in Halo 1 lack triggers, and the Covie Carbine and Plasma Rifle lack triggers, then I don't think it's a lie to say "Many Covenant weapons don't have visible triggers".