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Mines Concept

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Overview[edit]

In the past many people have pondered the possibility of adding dropped Mines to BZFlag. There have been a number of problems with them. This document will describe the overall problems with them as well as possible implementations that could work.

Problems[edit]

Mines have some core conceptual problems with regards to gameplay. The main problems are related to how the BZFlag damage and hit system works.

Since BZ doesn't have a damage system and every hit kills it's target, mines become frustrating in that they kill a user with little to no visual warning. In order for mines to be effective a user has to "stumble" upon them. In BZ that would simply make a user blow up for no reason that they can see.

Conversely if you make mines show on the screen and radar people would just drive around them and they would not be as effective.

Since the mines would be on the ground and tanks can't aim down, there would be no effective way to remove them with out ShockWave or letting them time out.

All of this works out to gameplay that isn't fun.

Suggestion: Popup mines[edit]

One option would be to have mines drop and be shown on the screen and radar. In radar show the detection radius and make it rather large. If a tank moves over a specific speed in this radius the mine will activate. The GUI on the tank should tell the player when they are nearing the activation speed.

When the mine is activated it should jump up into the air and spin around firing out a random circular spread of normal shots. These shots will be attributed to the player that laid the mine and subject to the normal team kill rules.

A shot that flies over a smaller radius around a mine should also ether activate it or destroy it.

The flag should have a longer reload the normal and not allow normal forward shots.

This will make the mine be a danger on the field that can effect all players. Skill in placing and activating the mine can make for fun gameplay. Players would have a way to defend against the mine, and death from it is not ensured due to the random spread