Unused Multiwinia Powerups?

[The GoldFish]

That's interesting actually; tripods never had sound files before, maybe now they do..

(investigates)

Didn't notice any sounds, and tripods still work as well as they did before (just like xander said) - the 3 tripods just wandered around the field scaring DGs and trying to shoot things. To be honest they were actually pretty neat, because they move around a lot more than normal viral units - I'd quite like to see a bring back tripods.

[xander]

That's interesting actually; tripods never had sound files before, maybe now they do..

(investigates)

Didn't notice any sounds, and tripods still work as well as they did before (just like xander said) - the 3 tripods just wandered around the field scaring DGs and trying to shoot things. To be honest they were actually pretty neat, because they move around a lot more than normal viral units - I'd quite like to see a bring back tripods.

If tripods could be made to work, I would love to see them. Actually, they would be pretty nifty as part of the Futurewinia's team (like the tripods in War of the Worlds). However, as things stand now, they consider the entire map to be within their range, thus they suck in actual play. Also, I never thought they had powerful enough weapons. ;)

xander

[lorant]

Oooooh...

They're awesome!

If it's not under NDA, is it possible to know exactly why they were dropped out of the game? Their slow pace make them look really scary, and also very distinct of all other baddies. If they were somehow vulnerable, e.g. only when they "crouch" to fire, they would be perfect, IMHO.

[Xocrates]

I believe Tripods were dropped from Darwinia, they probably are not in Multiwinia by that same reason.

[Kuth]

I'm curious, what do these tripods look like?

I gather they were on the cutting room floor from Darwinia?

[The GoldFish]

http://tgf.the-icebox.com/crapmods/whatsthattherecomingoverthehillisitatripoooood.JPG

That's ta tripod! They wander around and when they fight enemies they duck down and fire dual lasers at stuff.

They didn't work in Darwinia because they were basically abandoned units - they had very basic AI and couldn't hurt anything, really - they seem to think their attack range is twice as far as the distance their lasers actually travel. Their basic AI made them charge across the whole map if needs be towards the closest enemy unit, and since in most Darwinia levels it was few vs many viral units, they really didn't work well.

However in multiwinia, they work quite a lot better (in theory) as there are often many enemy units, and are entirely uncontrollable and passive, like other viral units, except, they won't just hang around whever you made them, you could spawn them WITH your troops, and march in towards the enemy with them. And then you can just forget about them and let them mince around trying to hurt things. I think they would actually make very nice powerups, if they were finished off and made a little better. They would work better than pretty much any other viral unit with any sort of worldspawn hazards within a level because they're so slow, and will always start moving towards your DGs even if left alone.

[Kuth]

Seconded. I'm hoping for some new content in the next patch (aside from the map editor). As there's consideration on powerups, perhaps this might be one of a handful of powerups included?

[Krion112]

Please Introversion, add the tripod as like a triffid spawn unit or an egg spawn unit, like the virus, but have it use like a laser beam that gets twice the distance and sweeps back and forth, but is really weak,so it's fair, and lower the ai range... I would just love for my ideas to be implemented into multiwnina

[TheRileyDuo]

I don't think that Gorden Freeman and the combine would be very happy with this addition...

[Mas Tnega]

What are they going to do, complain that lifting stuff from War of the Worlds is their IP?

[Krion112]

After unzipping the .main file to put in NukeLord's map, I looked at the other files to explore the possibilites of giving Multiwinia it's first Graphics mod (for the user interface). Looked at the powerup icons and found some "Interesting" exceptions:



The filenames, from left to right and top to bottom, are:

Fireextinguisher
Control
Fireextinguisher (repeated, lazy me :\)
Dropship
Laser
Shaman
Tank
Taskmanager

When I saw the tank I immediately thought of the huge monstrosity briefly seen in the first test videos of a multiplayer Darwinia. It may have been the same unit. It also seems that Shamans might have been considered as actual ingame units once upon a time. The Dropship I presume was an airborne APC, though with the APC being able to traverse any kind of terrain I guess this became moot.

Though I wonder what some of the other things were, like the Task manager, Laser, and Grenade (not shown here). Fireextinguisher would have been nice, but I wonder how it functioned ingame when first proposed.

Dude... Taskmanager was the way to update the amount of programs you could have in Darwinia.
The tank is an old beta unit of Darwinia, and I hope they get the TankBattle maps going so we can see them in action.

Laser Increased the range on the Darwinians and Squads lasers. And the controller was with the old method, where the offcer would fire a type of nade to control the darwinians, and only those Darwinians would listen. But it was left on the squads. If you already noticed these I will delete this post

[Major Cooke]

I don't think that's the Laser. It looks more like a rocket to me.

The only reason I saw Tripods useful in Darwinia was the ability to shoot and kill Soul Destroyers. Now that was funny.

[xander]

I don't think that's the Laser. It looks more like a rocket to me.

Play moar Darwinia, n00b. That is the icon for the laser research item, which increases laser range. Also, if you had read the quoted post, you would have noted that the filename for that icon was laser.bmp.

xander

[Major Cooke]

Bite my shiny metal ass.

I was stating my opinion. =P

[jelco]

Bite my shiny metal ass.

I was stating my opinion. =P

No matter how 'funny' this may have been intended, I'll just make it clear that this is not the attitude we tend to like over here. xander was making a valid point, trying to avoid facing that by randomly shouting stuff like this will only help you earn some high-quality ire from the community.

Jelco