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Today we're going to talk about another tricky technique: Launching!
First some history: Because of a bug in Quake, players were able to launch
themselves by shooting a rocket at their feet while jumping, thus
Rocket-Jumping was born. It was a very popular exploit so id Software never
fixed it, they even encouraged it with later games, but that's the Quake
engine. Epic didn't want rocket jumping, instead they added the Impact Jump
capability of the melee piston, whereas the rocket launcher was a very
powerful weapon. A single rocket didn't boost your jumping height and range
very much, several rockets at the same time did, but then you'd also be
dead. So in regular Deathmatch, it never was a problem, but in team games
without friendly fire it's possible to launch a team-mate.
Contrary to popular opinion, rocket launching wasn't a planned feature, it's
simply a little bug. The Unreal code should limit the velocity and momentum
caused by any weapon, to prevent launching, but it's programmed in such a
way as to cause kind of a racing condition. A spread of six rockets will not
be counted as a single boost, instead it checks each rockets independently,
and one rocket alone won't be limited. For the hackers among you, take a
look at the AddVelocity function of the Pawn class to see the actual code.
Epic's strict policy of not making any gameplay changes themselves means
that this bug won't be fixed for UT. In other gametypes it's not much of a
problem anyway, but in Assault it is, launching can let you assault the base
in ways not considered by the level designer. Launching is probably the
number one factor why regular Assault games tend to be over within a minute,
it's also an obvious factor why newbies have such a hard time in Assault,
and it's plain and simple a bug. With the Assault Bonus Pack, launching is
impossible by default, although the server administrator can activate it. I
made it an option both because of its popularity among hardcore players as
well as it's potential for additional strategies and tactics. It should not
be used on servers targeted at newbies and casual players. Check out the
server name for info on its settings, if it says Turbo, it supporting
launching.
By the way, there's another possibility of launching besides rocket
launching, it's called impact-launching. It works similar in principle, you
hit your team-mate with the Impact Hammer, and their jump is boosted. It's
even more powerful because several players can charge their hammers next to
each other, and by combining fire power that way, the launch is even
stronger. In fact, with this technique, it's possible to launch a player
from before the foxholes in Overlord through the gun cavern opening so the
map can be completed within a few seconds. Things could get out of hand too
quickly which is why I protect against all kinds of launching by default.
Speaking of protection against launching, there's also a protection against
any boosting by team-mates, to prevent team-killers from shooting others on
their team into lava or off the train. It's also active by default, highly
recommended for public servers, so make sure to play on Assault Bonus Pack
servers to enjoy all of the benefits of fixed Assault.
Installment Four - Designing Assault Levels
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