R9A Arrowhead

[Menacing Marshmallow]

R-9A Arrowhead

R-9 "The Savior" Mass Production Model



The iconic R-9A Arrowhead was the first fighter to contact the Bydo Empire. This basic ship was so successful that parts of its design are integral to nearly every other R-craft created.

With the Bydo defeated, the machine's been repurposed into a combat racing vehicle, Utilize the powerful FORCE device and take out the competition!

Armaments: R9A Fighter

• 7 SPEED
• 3 WEIGHT
• Due to the nature of the Arrowhead being a flying vehicle, it is not affected by offroad or friction!

Armaments: Force

• Hitting an item box with the R9A will grant you a Force instead of the standard item roulette!
• Press the Item button to fire your Force, press it again to return it to your front end.
• Running into your Force device without returning it with a button press will attach it to your back!
• The Force device can block items and incoming attacks, swap it from your front to back over the course of the race for maximum efficiency!
• Running into items or other players will give you a short speed boost, though carefully traverse turns, the R9A Arrowhead cannot survive impacts to its armor.
  
  
  
  Play aggressively with this unique weapon, Full efficiency with the Force device is the key to victory!
  
  (To toggle the Arrowhead back into a regular racer, type into console rtype_lua on or off)
  
  Special thanks to Angular's programming work to make this racer a reality

​

 

[D00D64]

Well I'll be damned if this ain't radical. Welcome to releases!

 

[Menacing Marshmallow]

Changelog:
- updated to 1.1, fixed a bug that shifted over the item roulette border in some resolution settings, and other misc fixes to icons etc.

 

[Icezer]

Current version has a bug related to flipped gravity. Trying to use the force while gravity is flipped will spit an error at you and keep it from firing.

Lua/LUA_RTYPE:514: bad argument #1 to '?' (number expected, got userdata)

 

[DipsyDoodle]

What an interesting contribution!

After putting this ship through its paces online during a long afternoon and evening, I have a few thoughts on possible changes.

Arrow needs to start the race with Force, but it should be disabled for a couple of seconds after the race starts. A scramble for the first item set can cause Arrow to miss out on Force or expose itself to the pack if it can’t move Force to the back. This is somewhat mitigated with temporary invincibility after hitting someone behind you, but on some maps it’s easy to knock Arrow into a wall as the pickup happens and dump it to the back of the pack.

Force needs to respond to a return call sooner (very shortly after it’s sent out) and it needs to return much more quickly. Trusting one’s fate to what is essentially a single Orbi is less than reassuring.

Arrow needs one or more passively, continuously regenerating armor point(s).
Pickup boxes could help this regenerate, as could being in lower positions or being farther from opponents in front.

Force needs minor tracking/homing.
Something like Twisted Metal PS3 mega machine guns, where they somewhat follow an opponent at a distance but don’t perfectly lock on.

Force could use an indicator of where it’s about to fire.

Arrow needs a catchup mechanic.
If it falls too far behind, it has no one and no thing to hit to gain boosts, and it can’t close the gap with a normal comeback item. This is especially brutal with low player counts.

Arrow needs to be able to shift Force to its aft end via simple button input.
Some tracks (like Cosmic Eclipse, multiple Rainbow Roads, and Blue Sphere Land) have no walls, so Force can’t rebound to be picked up. Also, in lower places, when opponents start picking up Invincibility and Grow, Arrow’s an easy target if it can’t get Force to the back.

When attached, Force needs an indicator of what part(s) of Arrow it will block and what parts are exposed. Drifting into Bananas is a frequent occurrence with inconsistent results. Driving straight into rigged Bombs is also inconsistent.

Arrow needs a limit on offroad travel.
Some maps (poster-children: Mario Kart maps and Sonic Mania Special Stage maps) have abundant offroad that makes winning with Arrow skill-less, and other players comment on this. Should the limit be a meter that runs out and has to regenerate? Perhaps Arrow can only travel at 80% of its normal speed?

After Force hits something and Arrow temporarily gains invincibility, it could use an indicator of how much time is left before it wears off.

Cross-mod compatibility issue: using Force when a server is running Hornmod with anti-spam can trigger a blow-up from playing Arrow normally.

As Icezer mentioned, inversion causes Force firing issues.

Thank you for bringing a quality creation with unique mechanics into SRB2K!

 

[DipsyDoodle]

After another night of testing my opinions above stand, although I do have a thought about Force return and back-mounting: If pressing Item once sends it out, twice were to freeze it in place and thrice return it, then not only would the freeze make it easy to predictably pick up the Force on the track, it could also make Force useful as a stationary trap.

This suggestion might be a bit aggressive and controversial, but I also think Force should hit on return. Get some Blackheart/Dormammu/Dr. Strange/Lieselotte physics major self-tracking projectile nonsense going.

 

[Lightsideluc]

I'm going to disagree with Dipsy here, a competent player spamming Force and recalling it immediately can be an incredibly oppressive, well, force on the field. Spawning with it would be immensely powerful in the tight packs at the start of a race. This goes doubly for any sort of homing function, since having an Arrowhead on your ass is already dangerous enough without it making up for a player's aim.



The one-hit-kill nature is also too integral to the character's flavour, it's better to embrace the jank and accept this can never be truly balanced, but the wildly different playstyle makes it worth experimenting with anyways, so long as it isn't overpowered.



The main issue is that Arrowhead has no catch-up mechanic if it's separated from the pack on tracks that don't have extensive offroad, and if a track has extensive offroad chances are Arrowhead can create an easy lead when helmed by a competent player that knows the Brake button exists. Perhaps allowing the Force to be consumed by holding the Item button could grant a invincibility-like speed boost? This would be channeled like Grow so you can't pick up another item with it enabled (could still cancel early) and would be disabled if you're in the top-half of the pack (if the game can recognize such a distinction) to prevent front running abuse.


I will agree that a 'Repulsors' meter for going offroad might be necessary to balance big lawnmower tracks. Perhaps it recharges when you either don't have Force or Force is attached and you're on the track, but so long as Force is being fired it doesn't charge so you can't have offense and cuts at the same time. Either that or a percentage speed loss (which can be mitigated with the above catch up mechanic).


All that said, I've greatly enjoyed how different Arrowhead is, and these suggestions are more so *other* players find it palatable enough to not demand its unique features be disabled because it's too powerful while still remaining competitive.