Coterminus - Major Media Update Part 1 - Weapons news

Hello!

First and foremost, I'd like to apologize for the relative silence regarding the status of this mod over the past year. It goes without saying that 2020 was difficult for a lot of people and there were circumstances out of my control that prevented me from working on Coterminus for most of the year. I resumed work on the mod a few months ago and have been working pretty steadily since.

With that out of the way, I'd like to welcome you to the first part of a 4-part media update! This first article will highlight some of the weapons that I've worked on and tweaked over the years.

When Coterminus releases, you can expect to find the full roster of beta weapons included in the mod, although almost every single weapon has been updated pretty significantly. I had two goals in mind with every weapon that I updated:

1. Try to keep the quality of the assets (weapon models, animations, textures, etc) on par with Valve's work circa 2003-2007. This ensured a visual consistency between the weapons.
2. Try to make each weapon unique and viable from a gameplay perspective. This would allow me to plan on actually using every single weapon from the beta in gameplay at some point in the future.

I feel like at this point I have done a pretty good job of achieving these goals with most of the weapons, although I would never truly consider this work done. Gameplay demands in the future may call for more tweaks, time will tell.

You'll find an assortment of videos below which showcase some of the weapon functionality along with a short write-up about each weapon.

AR2

I spoke about the ar2 a little in the last article, but to reiterate, this gun has has had its model and textures updated a little, and its code has been almost entirely rewritten. Check out the video below:

AR1

The ar1 has similarly had its model and textures updated, but unlike the ar2, the ar1 was in a much worse state in the beta. I had to fill holes in the model, create all animations from scratch, create some custom textures, and produce sound effects. The code for the ar1 has also been entirely rewritten.

HMG1

The hmg1 model and texture were supplied by Battlepope who was making a HL2 Beta weapon pack for GMod. Special thanks to him for his hard work! I added custom animations and sound effects to his model as well as rewriting the code for the hmg1.

Flaregun

The flaregun model was in a pretty poor state in the beta, so I worked to improve the model while also adding custom animations, sound effects, and textures. The code has been largely left alone for now.

Gauss gun

This gun has seen only a few changes. I experimented for a while on how to handle gauss ammo since I couldn't find a lore-friendly reason for there to be gauss ammo lying around in HL2. What I've settled on for now is that the gauss gun holds a certain amount of ammo in the form of a "charge." This charge allows for 20 shots of sustained fire and will start recharging itself once firing stops. You can see this demonstrated in the video below. Besides that functional change, I've also added a number of small details such as the fan at the back of the gun spinning and some glowing textures.

Molotov

Molotovs no longer cause an explosion when they break but instead they set fire to any flammable npcs in range of where they land. They also cause a number of small fires to pop up around the impact similarly to how it worked in the beta. The model, textures, and animations are all mostly made from scratch.

Incendiary Rifle(irifle)

I experimented a lot with this gun over the years. I liked the original concept behind this gun in the beta but I felt that it lacked a purpose, so I did what I could to make it feel more unique and increase its utility. What I landed on is what you'll see in the video below. It is functionally very similar to the crossbow in HL2, and in fact I have replaced the crossbow in gameplay with the incendiary rifle.

Sniper rifle

Last but not least, the sniper rifle. This weapon was really fun to work on. The model was donated to me by a friend and the firing sound effects were donated by Jasper Carmack, but everything else was created by me. That includes textures, animations, particles, and rewritten code. I've also added a fun new feature to the sniper: bullet penetration. As you'll see in the video, bullets from the sniper rifle will penetrate anything that is the right material and isn't too thick to stop the bullet. That includes npcs, world geometry, and props. I think this functionality adds a nice differentiation for the sniper and I look forward to creating some interesting gameplay elements utilizing it.

That concludes the first part of the media update! Look out for Part 2 - NPCs, which should be coming in the next few days. I would love to hear everyone's thoughts about what I've shown thus far so feel free to leave a question, comment, or suggestion below.