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January 2003

New weapon info and screens, other stuff
31 January, 2003 | by Mad Jonesy

Yet another News update, yet more content. No update on the two other new weapons, but I'm sure you won't feel disappointed by this news.

Sniper has coded in the Opposing Force Friendly Grunts, consisting of SAW, 9MMAR, Shotgun, Medic and Torch varieties. These are just another part of us adding in Opposing Force content, but they round off the new friendly monsters nicely.

All of the OP4 grunts are availiable in Friendly and Hostile versions and skins. As shown in the screenshots, the OP4 grunts use a similar skins to the friendly or hostile human grunts. Green for friendly. White/Urban for Hostile.

For those of you without op4, here is a brief list of what the grunts abilities are.

SAW Grunt

Similar to the HW Guy, but slightly less powerful and faster, this guy carries an assault cannon which is used to take out large groups of enemies quickly. He suffers from a decrease in accuracy at long range.

9MM AR & Shotgun

Pretty much the same as the standard Grunt, except with changed follow and stop sounds from Opposing Force.

Medic

This guy is probably the coolest of the bunch. He is armed with a standard 9MM pistol or Desert Eagle, but will respond to the OP4 Grunt calls for a medic and will heal them automatically back to full health. It is also planned to make it so that he responds to player calls for a medic, if they are close enough.

Torch Grunt

Armed with a Desert Eagle, this chainsmoking soldier also has a tendency to explode if he takes too many hits to his fuel cannister. However, he can burn open any doors that block the players path in a matter of seconds, making him an essential part of any squad.

Whole bunch of screenshots below:

   

   

I should have a fix list for you soon, but until then, have fun thinking up ways to put these into Sven Co-op maps.  

 

New weapon info and screens, other stuff
13 January, 2003 | by Mad Jonesy

I had nothing better to do, so I thought I might as well do a news update. Enjoy.

Progress on 2.5 is going great, mainly due to Sniper's coding and the hard work of the modellers. As a result, I've got some kickass content to show off.



Following my last news post, there was a lot of speculation about what the anomalous new weapon was to be on the forums. Answers varied from the spot on to the not so spot on.

If theres one suggestion which nearly always turns up, its the addition of a heavy support weapon. Forum regulars were speculating that the SAW from Opposing Force would make an appearance, but we've gone one better.

   


The Minigun is based upon the General Electric XM214 5.56mm Machine Gun, most famously appearing in the film "Predator". Its seriously overpowered and pretty heavy, so it was rejected for military use. Cool huh?

The weapon was modelled by Osido and actually turned into a Half-Life weapon by Flashbang, both have done a fantastic job and to me, the model and skin quality are at the level of modern FPS. If this weapon looks good to you in the below screenshots, you're going to love it ingame.

A minigun raises a lot of questions about balancing, mainly "how are we going to stop a group of 10 players chewing up Baby Gargs like gum?". Our solution is to stop the players from moving while firing, and having an extremely low speed when spinning up. Standing still, while on your own, trying to take down a Voltigore while not moving is a lot tougher than it sounds. Therefore players need support from other players with faster and more accurate weapons to kill the smaller critters and to distract the big ones, while the player with the minigun beats down the bigger nasties.

We also intend to give mappers the option to restrict how many miniguns can be carried by players at one time. Mostly to stop the weapon being overused and making every map easy. This might bring on a bit of ingame whining, but a good player with a MP5 is going to be better than a bad player with a minigun.

Despite these tweaks, its going to cause far more damage than any other weapon in the mod, and believe me, with the Voltigore you're going to need it.

As mentioned before, the minigun has to 'spin up' before firing. However, once the minigun is spun up and firing, its secondary fire can be used. Holding alternate fire will keep the minigun spinning, primed to fire, but without expending any bullets. Then, by pressing primary fire again, you can begin firing straight away. This should allow a player to fire in bursts, but without having to re-spin his weapon if there is a break in combat. As with the primary fire, this will cause the player to slow considerably, but not as much and without wasting ammo.

Overall, it is a unique and powerful weapon and hopefully it'll become a fast fan favourite.


A french site, Half-Life Expert, have gone and created a guide to Sven Co-op. If you can't read French (like me) then why not use Babelfish to translate and see what they have to say. Its pretty in-depth, looking at maps, monsters, a general overview and so on.

Go read the French version:http://www.halflifexpert.com/special.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=141
Go here to translate the page:http://altavista.com/babelfish

Thanks to the peeps at Half Life Expert for that.



Mod Database, one of the largest mod resources around, has recently published a feature on the The Top Mods of 2002. Natural Selection cleans up most of the awards pretty well, but there are a few decent mentions of Sven Co-op, especially in the cases of:

Mods which have seen Significant Enhancement

Best mods overall

Five mods you shouldn't leave home without [SC is #2!]

The whole article is worth reading, as its a good recap of what was a busy year for Half-Life modding, hopefully we'll grab a few top places next year, especially with what we have planned for 2.5 and 3.0.



The next news update shouldn't take too long, and with any luck, Sven will be back by then.  

  


 

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