Hi folks. Been a while, eh?
So...I've had some rethinks about the mod's direction. A few concepts are out, a few new ones are in.
First of all, the "soul weapon" concept-- basically a conceit to get the Crucible, Soul Cube and the Hellheart into the fray-- is formally discarded. I really did think over implementation of it quite a lot, and came to the conclusion that it's not worth the effort.
Secondly, I've decided to expand the weapon roster one more time to 111 weapons total. I was wanting to stay at an even 100, but I looked and found that a few ammo types-- namely, rockets, static charge and railgun slugs-- were grossly underutilized compared to the titanic numbers of weapons that use bullets and cells, for instance. Plus, a couple of ammo types didn't have a properly hard-hitting, heavy weapon of their own. So...only way around that was more weapons. And all the new additions are going to be available to all player classes (only relevant if you're playing with CB). Furthermore, some weapons have seen alterations-- chief among which is the Hellshot, probably my least-favorite creation in the mod as it sits in 9.1.
Next, I'm gonna be implementing a few more alternate attack functions on some weapons. Namely, all rotary-barrel weapons bar the gunner class's Gatling will gain the same switchable-spin function as the Skulltag cannon on slot 9. This will mean that you can have the weapon spin down immediately after releasing the fire key (as is the current behavior for most rotaries) or remain spinning for a few seconds, during which time you can fire the weapon but can't throw grenades or switch weapons until the gun spins down. A few new additions will also have a straight-up altfire on the Zoom key, as that's ending up the "alternate weapon function" key; coincidentally all the weapons with a defined altfire will be Unreal-series weapons, as I've decided on adding those to the canon. This also means the flak cannon will gain its altfire back in the bargain.
All weapons will now have a universal melee kick, bound to the "weapon state 1" or "user1" key. The kick will knock enemies back and do damage on par with a punch, but will not drop the little goodies that kills with slot-1 weapons do. The kicks do however get the full benefit from berserk packs, so use those mighty feet just like you would in Duke 3D.
Next up...the long-overdue monster writeups WILL be part of this update. I'm only about 15% of the way done writing them, and I'll finish and implement them after I finish with the new-asset additions. New weapons also means new writeups for those too-- they'll come as part of the whole package.
I have no release date in mind; it's done when it's done. I figure the last major update I'll end up doing might be 9.3, where I add some more monsters into the mod. As it sits, there are more weapons than there are monsters; that doesn't feel right to me, and when I get all this shizznit done for 9.2, 9.3 will likely see the additional monsters and/or any needed bugfixes and rebalances...and from there, I don't know where I'll go with it. Most likely, I'll put it into maintenance; I've got a much stronger computer now, so compatibility isn't a problem, but I will keep the mod as compatible as I can while preserving the desired experience. I'm also not going to make it into a total performance hog; it will remain comparatively light on the special effects and such.
Thank y'all for your patience; and I highly appreciate the feedback and reviews I've gotten. I'm a depression-addled mess, but I firmly wish to make the best mod I can for y'all and for myself.
After all, that's how ZX started; it was my remixed version of the original QuakeStyle. Became its own thing in short order. Thank y'all for helping me along the way.
