: Yes, he must be talking about m1, cuz' he didn't mention the WSTE-M. I can't
: remember whether or not the alien weapon in m1 was instant-hit, because i
: don't really like it that much. I never really used the TOZT either. But
: don't criticize him for just a couple mere errors, i'm sure he worked long
: and hard on this, and the last thing ANY of us need is stuff like
: "man, get your facts right" and stuff. Keep your 'pleasant'
: comments to yourself, please.
The Alien Weapon in M1 was basically the same as the SMG, though I think it was a bit more accurate. And the inaccuracy was all in the horizontal direction, so you'd see a little line of expanding circles (the rebound effect) when you shot something. Its main advantage over the SMG is that it comes stocked with a healthy supply of ammo (though random), and its main disadvantage is that you can't reload the sucka; it's probably also somewhat less damaging than the SMG on a per-tick basis, with the SMG's two-bullets-per-tick firing scheme.
While not instant-hit, 'cos no 'Thon weapons are, the shots traveled mucho fast. If your projectile moves too fast, it can go right through a monster without interacting with said monster; I think this is due to the speed being calculated directly as Map Units (=WU/1024, if I have the correct name) per tick, and movement was quite definitely quantized, so if you stood at exactly the wrong place and your shot went more than 512units/tick, you could shoot through the center of another Marine. HOWEVER, it may check every half-tick, because I'm thinking that bullets in 'Thon go at 1024units/tick... so maybe the points projectiles pass through are every quarter of the units/tick speed? I don't know, though; I just remember in M1 playing with projectiles, and having my uber-fast weird-colored hulk-shaped pistol bullet pass directly through a fighter in Waldo World Arena, so most of this paragraph is just conjecture.
The Alien Weapon in M1 did look quite cool, though, and the M1 enforcers could have -- literally, I'm thinking, given the bullet dance (as I've seen the Battle Cat refer to it) from the rapid fire -- kicked M2/oo enforcers' collective behind. Maybe it was a gameplay decision, though: in M1, both Enforcers and Juggs have invisible, long-range, near-instantly-hitting projectiles, while in 2 and oo, these are replaced by slower-moving, visible heat bursts that can be dodged quite facilely at any significant range. This leaves only the Trooper with actual bullets, and Troopers don't fire either projectile unless their targets are reasonably close... was it just to cut down on the cut-down-from-afar-without-seeing-enemy factor?
-Lunair7
