Lets talk about "adding" stuff to the game.

quentin · Superior Participant Joined: 15 Oct 2007 Posts: 59

I have a thought Embarassed

What if we could get the physics engine to recongnize certain textures that would cause the portal projectile being shot to ricochet instead of just disappearing.

Just a thought, I dunno anything about coding but if the "power" balls could bounce, why not the projectile?

msleeper · Posted: Mon Oct 15, 2007 5:25 pm Post subject:

There is a brush entity called func_portal_bumper, this might bounce portals but I haven't checked it out yet.

raceriot · Test Participant Joined: 15 Oct 2007 Posts: 23

http://www.primotechnology.com/2007/10/17/half-life-2-portal/

quentin · Superior Participant Joined: 15 Oct 2007 Posts: 59

All they are doing is tricking the game engine, I am talking about a mod.. where anyone can download it and play it against eachother...

msleeper · Posted: Thu Oct 18, 2007 2:00 pm Post subject:

That won't be possible for some time until the full SDK update is made - which according to the Valve programmer mailing list, may be weeks and not days. I'll see if I can dig the email up and post it in the news.

quentin · Superior Participant Joined: 15 Oct 2007 Posts: 59

That would be great!

Mapster · Loves Cake Joined: 16 Oct 2007 Posts: 432

It would be awesome to have a mod where it's hl2:dm but there is a secret portal gun somewhere.
And only the one that finds it will have it.
So when they die it dissappears.

msleeper · Posted: Thu Oct 18, 2007 4:52 pm Post subject:

I think something more along the lines of Holy Wars would be cool, where the person with the Portal Gun would be trying to avoid everyone else, so on. That was a great mod for HL1.

quentin · Superior Participant Joined: 15 Oct 2007 Posts: 59

msleeper · Posted: Fri Oct 19, 2007 12:49 pm Post subject:

Yeah, same sort of concept. The Holy Wars mod brought that into Half-Life and it was a ton of fun.

quentin · Superior Participant Joined: 15 Oct 2007 Posts: 59

OK think I have something going here in my mind and I want to run it by you guys if any of you think it is a good idea / want to be involved... I've already started on the design doc and will probably have something up here soon if response is good.

I would like to make a single player mod, where gorden freeman investigates the happenings here at Aperture Science, and possibly lead into (but not creating) borealis.

What do you think?

Motive? G-Man wants to get a hold of the portalgun for his own uses.. seeing as how Shell/Chell... is still in possession of it at the end of the game.. yeah?

Toss me your opinions.

Crooked Paul · Posted: Sat Oct 20, 2007 4:38 pm Post subject:

I definitely like the idea of a surface that ricochets the portal beam. That could really be interesting. Also, I thought of a couple other elements that could be used to good effect.

First, how about a Weighted Explosive Cube with a nice red-accented paintjob?

Of course, since you don't have any conventional weapons, you couldn't shoot it, but suppose it would explode when it hit something with enough force. You'd have to figure out how to send it through a series of portals to build momentum and hit its target. It could be used to take out turrets or to break glass to open new paths. Or you could trick turrets into shooting it after you'd placed it where an explosion would be useful. (Maybe the exlposive cubes could even be used to take out so-far indestructible missle turrets?)

A clever level designer could even turn this idea around and give you an explosive cube that you would have to get to a button without blowing it up.

Second, I think a non-portalable slippery surface would be really useful. You could use it to make slides or ramps that would change the direction of the players momentum while hardly slowing them down. For instance, let's say you made a J-shaped brush with this surface. The player could put a horizontal portal at the low end of the J, fling himself through it, and his horizontal momentum would be redirected upward by the J-ramp. (I hope I'm explaining this clearly.)

What do you guys think?