Weapon rationale and placement - Taken from the design doc

Weapons Rationalisation



After initially taking a look at all of the weapons available to use in Unreal Tournament 2004, we have decided to only use a certain few. Our rationale for this is twofold.

First of all, we want our weapons in the game to be as straightforward as possible to use. If a player has to spend a large portion of their game time figuring out how to use a weapon, then to a large extent it is a wasted test. For this reason, we have opted to not include weapons such as the Bio Rifle and the Ion Painter, neither of which is straightforward to use properly.

Secondly, because the scale of our level is going to be fairly small in terms of an Unreal map, as we are only going to be testing in a 1v1 environment, we do not need to excessively clutter the level with weapons and ammo pick ups.

Taking this into account, ultimately we have decided on having four different weapons in our level, as well as the basic rifle which the player starts every game with. They are:

Minigun
The minigun is a fast firing weapon which has good all round use. It has a secondary fire mode which makes it better at range but slower firing. Its primary fire deals 7-8 damage per bullet, and the secondary fire deals 14 damage per bullet.

Flak Cannon
The flak cannon is a sort of futuristic shotgun. It fires several small pellets which make it extremely lethal at close range but woefully inaccurate at anything further away. Additionally, its secondary fire mode causes splash damage, meaning the player does not have to be 100% accurate to cause damage. Its primary fire deals 117 damage, and the secondary fire deals between 76 and 164 damage, depending on how close to the target the shot lands.


Shock Rifle
The shock rifle is a good range weapon with a fairly good rate of fire. The reason we chose this over the sniper rifle is that it doesn’t rely on a player’s skill with the scope to score hits. Like the flak cannon, it has a secondary fire function which deals splash damage to a target. The primary fire deals 45 damage per bullet.

Rocket Launcher
The rocket launcher deals a great deal of damage to a target as well as exploding on impact, dealing additional splash damage. Obviously a large amount of damage is dealt for a hit. Also it has a great secondary fire, which fires three rockets at once towards a target. The primary fire deals 80-88 damage.







Weapon placement rationale


Rocket Launcher
The rocket launcher sits in the middle of the map, visible to both players. You will notice there is only one on the map, which is because we want the rocket launcher to really dominate the battlefield when it is in play. To stop it being too powerful, it will be on a slow respawn timer and have limited ammo.

Flak Cannon
The flak cannons have been placed where they are as they are a short range weapon. Therefore by placing them relatively close to the centre of the map where combat is likely to occur most often is, we feel the most sensible placement.

Shock Rifle
The shock rifle is the main range weapon on our map, therefore it has been placed at a point which promotes the range abilities most of all, as it is right by the upper ledge on both sides of the map, to allow players to move out along the ledge and attempt to snipe the other player.

Minigun
Because the minigun is the all purpose weapon of the map, it makes sense to place it near where the player will spawn, as it will be the weapon we feel the player will use most often, so it is advantageous for them to get hold of it early on and familiarise themselves with it.