[Open Assets] (archive) Revised abilities v9

[pastel]

This addon has been superseded by its remake here. The following content is archived as is.
Certain aspects of the mod are broken in versions 2.2.5 and up.

This is a script which overhauls character abilities, shields, and some of the physics. The list of changes can be found in the spoilers below.

Also includes these console variables:
twinspinspin - Swap Amy's aerial Twinspin input between spin and jump. Enabled by default.
supersound - Play the super music while transformed. Enabled by default.

Spoiler: Character ability changes

~Sonic~
-New ability Arc Jump: a double jump which extends airtime while jump is held
--Shield abilities can be combined with this ability
-Thok moved to Metal Sonic
-Increased shield scale to 1.05

~Tails~
-True holdfly implemented (not the multiability holdfly)
-Speed of flight reworked
--Tails quickly loses speed if flying faster than 20 fracunits while ascending
--Can accelerate up to normalspeed while not ascending
--Cannot accelerate while tired if speed is greater than 20 fracunits
-Fly timer reduced to 5 seconds, down from 8 seconds

~Knuckles~
-Speed capped at 20 fracunits while falling from a canceled glide
-Momentum is no longer halted during landing animation
-Can hold spin while landing during a glide to transfer momentum into a spin rather than skid to a stop
-Climbing is slightly faster

~Amy~
-Striking the ground with a Twinspin will cause a small rebound
--Rebound will not occur when landing on spikes or goop
-Hammering a horizontal spring will force Amy into a spin state
-Significantly reduced the ending lag of hammering while on the ground
-Twinspin refreshes after a short cooldown instead of upon striking an enemy
-Hammer frames provide invulnerabilty to enemies and projectiles (but not sector hazards)
-Act clear name shortened to Amy to prevent text overlap

~Fang~
-Reduced ending lag and momentum loss of shooting
-Can press spin at any speed on the ground to shoot the nearest valid target
-Initiating or ending Bounce will not cut momentum
-Enemies have defense against Fang's corks
--Stronger enemies can withstand more shots
-Bouncing with the Elemental Shield will spawn fire upon impact
-Reduced jump factor to 112 fracunits, down from 120
-I would have increased his shield scale but it takes an unreasonably large shield to cover him properly

~Metal Sonic~
-Hover replaced with Thok
--Thok uses dash frames
--Maintains speed when moving faster than actionspd
-Breaks spikes on contact
-Increased shield scale to 1.05
-No longer skids

~All~
-Jumping and spinning physics modified
-Minimum spindash speed increased to 25, up from 15
-Nospin characters can use their ability while in spring states
-Super characters charge spindash instantly
-New colors and descriptions for character select screen

Spoiler: Shield ability changes

-Attraction Blast homing attack can be chained as long as you don't miss
--Momentum from striking an enemy is reduced to make the ability more controllable

-Force Stop freezes your character in place while spin is held and will redirect stored momentum to the direction you're currently facing when spin is released

-Intentionally triggering Armageddon Shield's explosion will cause it to leave behind an Ash Shield
--Ash Shield has no ability but will damage the enemy that destroys it

-Elemental Stomp forces roll and provides invulnerability while stomping
--Cosmetic appearance of Elemental Shield adapts to the environment

-Flame Burst thrust speed is more consistent
--Can also damage enemies when used by nospin characters

-Bubble Bounce reduces momentum upon impact instead of canceling momentum on use

Spoiler: Super ability changes

Super Sonic
Passive - enhanced Arc Jump

Active - Comet Dash
A fast air dash which prevents you from losing height for a short time. Combine it with the Arc Jump for true air supremacy.

Super Tails
Passive - 50% more flight time

Active - Updraft
An initially weak whirlwind jump which becomes more powerful the faster you're falling. Pick up an electric shield while super to enhance this ability into a lightning jump that can chain into fly.

Super Knuckles
Passive - Fast climbing

Active - Meteor Drop
An Elemental-style stomp except it doesn't cancel your momentum. Devastates nearby enemies upon impact. Pick up an Elemental Shield while super to additionally leave behind a fire ring.

Super Amy
Passive - Drain Hammer
Amy loses rings twice as quickly as other characters while super, but striking an enemy with her hammer will award her a pack of rings. Hearts spawned by the hammer while super will hunt down enemies to drain from.

Active - Spiral Jump
A double jump which reaches incredible heights but cancels your momentum on use.

Super Fang
Passive - Warp Corks
Automatically teleport to any enemy you shoot and gain a speed boost.

Active - Teleport
Teleports a short distance forwards. Can pass through solid objects, but not walls.

Super Metal Sonic
Passive - Infinite air

Active - Hover
Metal Sonic's vanilla ability.

 

[D00D64]

Welcome to releases!

 

[Jake]

These are some pretty interesting changes. I haven't had time to play every character in depth, so I can't give you a comprehensive list of my thoughts on it right now, but I did play around with Metal enough to get a basic feel for him, since he's the character I'm most interested in seeing rebalances for.

I think for his hover move, it'd be more intuitive if canceling it was as simple as letting go of the jump button, rather than pressing spin. It feels a bit awkward to use, because my brain expects it to work similarly to Knuckles and vanilla Metal's hovering. Other than that, I kinda like what you're going for with this move. A part of me feels that its duration is a bit too short, but I found that it's good for jump correction while platforming at low speed, and crossing long distances like a long jump when running or in boost mode. I also think making him enter a spinning state while falling is a good call, so he doesn't feel too vulnerable while using it.

Charge, on the other hand, feels redundant and not terribly useful to me due to spin dash already being a good way to charge him up. I think it's cool to try incorporating his boss's pinch move into his moveset, but here it just doesn't feel enough. I don't know what I'd replace it with, to be honest... maybe his projectiles, or making him be able to bounce off of walls like in his boss? It's an ability I don't really miss whenever I get a shield, so I think providing some incentive to using both his mid-air charge or spin-dash charge would be a good thing to account for.

I also played around with the shields. I really love some of these adjustments, especially attraction blast being chainable and the stomp letting you move after hitting the ground. I also think your take on force stop is ingenious, it's extremely fun slingshotting my character into a different direction without having to stop moving entirely. However, I do think the vanilla game's ability has some usage for those who use it as a platforming tool, so my suggestion is to make it so that tapping spin uses the vanilla behavior of causing you to drop down, while holding spin lets you redirect your momentum.

I did try out the other characters to observe their changes, but I haven't played them enough to formulate any helpful insight on them. I think overall they're good or at least sensible changes; there's a few I don't agree with but I can at least infer your reasoning for them. The important thing is that to me it feels like you put a lot of thought into these rebalances and didn't simply get rid of every little thing people don't like about 2.2 like glide crouching. It's some good work and I'm interested in messing around with it more in the future.

 

[Frostiikin]

[redacted]

 

[EeveeEuphoria]

Now these are a lotta lil tweaks I like hearing the concept of. I especially like the fact you made the spindash go faster, cuz it does feel like it takes forever to rev up to max speed, when in basically any official Sonic game, you'd get there instantly (either by button mashing or just by holding the button for two seconds)

Also I LOVE the concept for the force shield, that was honestly one of my first thoughts with the shield like "dang, it'd be cool if it did that"!

...also, cancelable super form, it's good :p

 

[Rumia1]

Hello! I know compatability isn't usually your top priority and there's no obligation for you to do this, but could you add this to your Instashield check?

or player.mo.skin == "sonic"

Classic.wad completely disables Sonic's thok already and thus he can't use the instashield when it's loaded alongside this. I would've tried to do something about this myself but it would probably be easier just to have you add that.

 

[MotdSpork]

You should probably set the player.drawangle = player.mo.angle when Metalsonic uses his air charge thingy. Otherwise this can happen and it looks quite odd.

 

[pastel]

I think for his hover move, it'd be more intuitive if canceling it was as simple as letting go of the jump button

The reason I made it function like that is because the ability is on a fairly short timer and I thought it would feel awkward if the hover suddenly ended while jump is still being held. I'll mess around with the controls for it some more. As for the charge, I disagree about its redundancy but would still consider replacing the ability with something else if I have a better idea. Metal Sonic in general was very difficult to come up with decent ideas for despite being the character who ultimately caused me to make all of this in the first place.
Amy also deserves an honorable mention for being "I intrude on Fang's gameplay if you add anything to my kit" the character. I still might nerf the rebound.

I also think your take on force stop is ingenious, it's extremely fun slingshotting my character into a different direction without having to stop moving entirely. However, I do think the vanilla game's ability has some usage for those who use it as a platforming tool, so my suggestion is to make it so that tapping spin uses the vanilla behavior of causing you to drop down, while holding spin lets you redirect your momentum.

I had a variant of this implemented in an earlier copy where pressing jump while in stasis would cause you to drop down. I cut it out partly for the sake of not overcomplicating the shield and partly because it was too easy to accidentally use the wrong ability. It's still on the table for v2 if I can find a satisfactory input for it. I'll give your suggestion of tapping spin a try.

You should probably set the player.drawangle = player.mo.angle when Metalsonic uses his air charge thingy. Otherwise this can happen and it looks quite odd.

I sort of forgot directionchar existed and didn't bother to test any of this using it. I also noticed the charge timer doesn't reset correctly when the ability is interrupted. These issues will be fixed in the next update, coming whenever 2.2.1 happens because said update includes something that doesn't work in 2.2.0.

 

[Boost]

Is it intended for Metal Sonic to keep his Air Charge between jumps as long as he doesn't actually use it?

 

[pastel]

​is it intended for metal sonic to keep his air charge between jumps as long as he doesn't actually use it?

​i also noticed the charge timer doesn't reset correctly when the ability is interrupted.​ these issues will be fixed in the next update, coming whenever 2.2.1 happens because said update includes something that doesn't work in 2.2.0.

​​​​​​​​​​

 

[Pyrakid Wolfo]

zI think Force Stop should re-set player's vertical momentum, I wish you could have it to where you could charge it to dash, but that's probably too much. Sonic already has a midair dash (Thok) so it'd be redundant. Just an idea for Force Stop resetting the player's vertical momentum.z

---------- Post added at 06:13 AM ---------- Previous post was at 06:02 AM ----------

Also I think that Insta-Shield shouldn't be forced. I kinda like the Sonic Lost World Bounce mod. So, you can leave it like seperate. There's already an insta-shield.lua. If this is not the same .lua you can like just leave it here seperate. Or even add a console that disables insta-shield (the lamest option). The Ash Shield allows me to use the SLW bounce tho also. Also when having the ash shield and dropping into a pit, you get hit as if the pit was a spike, and then you die.z

 

[Pyrakid Wolfo]

The Ash Shield also allows you to drown and survive.z

 

[V1ral]

Been playing with this - mostly to test rebalanced Metal, honestly - and it works great! I actually really like the bigger focus on his Overdrive, and how his new midair charge works like a delayed Thok if you need it for corners or boss hits. The hover nerf still feels strong, letting you get more out of pretty much any scenario where you'd think to use it.

Fang's changes definitely make shooting things outside of boss acts more viable, and bouncing around feels more fluid without the momentum cut. The biggest weirdness I've seen is probably his Elemental Shield slam, since you pretty much never see him in ball form otherwise.

 

[Revolution]

There's a problem with this mod. Castle Eggman 2 (along with other levels) suffers under extreme lag thanks to this mod. Can you do something about it, please? I find there's no point in playing that level if you can't use the new gimmicks.

 

[pastel]

There's no slowdown with this loaded on my end.

Note that loading Lua does have some performance impact. If you're already struggling to run the game at full FPS a large script such as this is not going to do you any favors.

 

[Makavo]

This is a really good script. It feels like it would've been in an official update. The Insta-shield, however feels like it lasts too long, and the sprites and hitboxes are too large. I would prefer if the duration of it was shorter and the hitbox was smaller. Kind of like how Dirk did it. Though, overall, this was really good script that I would recommend to anyone.

---------- Post added at 10:44 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:35 AM ----------

Also, found out if you descend in flight assist with Tails, he seems to take longer to ascend. Is this intentional?

 

[Revolution]

There's no slowdown with this loaded on my end.

Note that loading Lua does have some performance impact. If you're already struggling to run the game at full FPS a large script such as this is not going to do you any favors.

I think it might be my PC. Because this lua is the only lua that lags the game. I'll try splitting the lua in seperate parts, but if that doesn't work, there might be something wrong with an individual strip of code.

 

[Revolution]

Why does the interface do that? And why haven't most people noticed this by now? (I know I'm not the only one with a crappy PC, and this only RECENTLY started happening.) And why only in 2.2?

 

[Revolution]

Now these are a lotta lil tweaks I like hearing the concept of. I especially like the fact you made the spindash go faster, cuz it does feel like it takes forever to rev up to max speed, when in basically any official Sonic game, you'd get there instantly (either by button mashing or just by holding the button for two seconds).

Gotta love how people like the idea of instant spindash charge when Super. I edited the script so that when I play, the instant spindash charge is gone when Super. I've always liked it that way, because it's more "classic-ized" to me. (Also, I already had a script that makes characters charge their spindashes in 1.5 seconds instead of two.)

 

[Prime 2.0]

I think it might be my PC. Because this lua is the only lua that lags the game. I'll try splitting the lua in seperate parts, but if that doesn't work, there might be something wrong with an individual strip of code.

Adding any lua, including a blank script with nothing in it will cause the game to be laggier in general because SRB2 turning on the lua interface makes the game laggier. It's not specific to this script.

Also, please try to avoid double or triple posting. If you have more to add right after posting and nobody else has said anything, usually you can just edit your existing post.