Some Weapon ideas!

[Maxxe]

Hey, what's up? I'm Maxxe, and I have a few crazy/funny ideas.

Elemental Attacks: (Rare in Crates, Not Changable via Menu)

Fire:
When Fire is selected, the worm's eyes glow red. his hands are engulfed in fire. You aim, and shoot (no charge meter). Upon hitting an area, that exact space will spontaneously combust into a fire about the size of one and a half worms. This flame lasts three turns, or deals 200 damage. If created in the air, it will fall to the ground.

Water:
When Water is selected, the worm's eyes glow dark blue. He can only aim in front of himself. It works sort of like a Dragon Ball: A waves comes out attaching itself to the ground and deals 40 damage upon impact. It lasts a total of four seconds. It's main use would be to push people off from far away and with ease.

Earth:
When Earth is selected, the worm's eyes glow dark green. That worm has a "size three" paintbrush and has two seconds once clickred to draw out a formation. The formation becomes part of the terrain, and always has the "Dungeon" theme.

Lightning:
When Lightning is selected, the worm's eyes glow bright yellow. A prompt comes up similar to Air Strike. Once you click, a Lightning bolt strikes from the sky doing 3/4 of the terrain damage as holy grenade. Striking a worm randomly deals from 25 to 125 damage.

[robowurmz]

I like these. These would be good in any worms game, I reckon. Not too powerful, nice-sounding effects...Good.

[Melon]

Not too powerful

deals 200 damage.

Hmmmm.....

Anyway, having a super weapon that can deal 25 damage max is not the best of ideas (yes I know it's random but still...)
Also, I can't imagine the Earth one being possible to implement, and due to the 256 colour limit, you're never going to get 2 landscape themes in one level. Nice idea though.

[Maxxe]

Crap, you're right. Maybe it should just be the current theme.

By the way, 200 damage is if the worm stays on the fire, which can't happen due to the fact that he'll slide.

25-125 damage, and you can hit anywhere on the terrain, and damage the terrain a lot. 25 damage maximum? You mean minimum?

[Melon]

No.... what I'm saying is that if I picked up a super weapon in a crate (it's uneditable, so it's therefore a super weapon) and it was a strike weapon that did loads of land damage I'd think "WOWEEE!"

And then I'd be really dissapointed when it comes up and says it only did 25 damage.

I know that it CAN do 125 damage max, but damage should not be random. You don't have Holy Hand Grenades doing random damage, so when a weapon LOOKS powerful, it should be, otherwise it makes no sense. THAT's what I'm saying.

[Maxxe]

I see what you mean.

However, just the terrain damage alone will kill many a worm. The strike is unpredictable, therefore using it to only kill one worm is very advisable.

[quakerworm]

good ideas. the earth one would work, but as pointed out, there are palette limitations, which might restrict the types of terrain that can be drawn. lightning damage in many games has random damage ammount, and it seems to work pretty well. i think an element of randomness on some weapons could be a good thing for gameplay, as long as majority of weapons are predictable, as they are. yeah, it can be disappointing to see it deal only 25hp of damage, but the player should expect that possibility and treat the weapon as 75hp average +/- 50hp random.

[littlebee]

Lightning: Why not take a total damage value (say, 125) and allow the lightning to branch out? That is, point it anywhere on the map, and have it only strike worms. No land damage, but up to 125 damage points can be dispersed in a lot of ways.

Example: aim the cursor directly on a single worm, and the majority of lightning will come down and do 125 damage to that worm. If there are other worms within x pixel range, they get stray damage. If you put the cursor equally between 2 worms within x pixel range, the lighning will "split" off and deal 60-ish. The closer you aim to a single target, the more damage gets done to that target. This improves the predictability of the weapon, keeps the randomness you propose, and provides more options and strategy.

If you want land damage with lightning, you could also have it "dig" down toward a target, eating up its own damage points. That is, you've got lightning that will do 125 damage if it hits the worm with no obstacles in between, but a worm hides under 5 cm of landscape, and the lightning digs down, burning "fuel". When it reaches the worm, it strikes the remaining damage. Think of the function of a jetpack, turned into a weapon.

[robowurmz]

:D Littlebee, that is probably the best suggestion yet for the lightining!

[Maxxe]

Man, that idea rocks! Chain lightning!