About a week ago, I was showing a friend of mine Cortex Command. After playing a few rounds, he mentioned to me, "There should be a weapon that shoots a spike and sends people flying." That sounded like a fun mod idea, and that is exactly what this weapon does.



The Railroad Spike Launcher uses a powerful electromagnetic solenoid to accelerate a rusted iron railroad spike to a high velocity. The spike, whose average width matches that of a .625 caliber bullet (though far surpasses one in mass), upon impact, rips its victim off his feet and sends him flying off into the distance.

Features:

Custom gun* and projectile sprites.
Rail spike only impales targets in its flight path.
Works on any movable object.
Parabolic trajectory.
Impaled victims travel with the flying spike.

Weapon sprite:
Projectile sprite:

*Actually, the weapon sprite is only partially made by me. I copied and edited the Heavy Sniper's sprite in MS paint to make it. The rail spike, however, is my own creation. Credit goes to Data Realms for providing the original sprite. I take credit for only the modification of it.

Future Plans:

Rail spike pins victims to the ground and walls.
Improved method of damaging impaled victims (ie. one that's existent) Added in version 1.1
Added effects.
Custom sound.
Conservation of linear momentum (larger objects shouldn't fly as far)
Whatever else I can think of.

**BETA NOTICE**
This mod is currently a Beta release. That being said, I need help with testing this weapon. If you come across any errors with the weapon, please post them. It will help me out a lot.

The main issue I'm concerned with is performance. The Lua script uses a CastMORay() to detect targets in it's flight path. This causes a lot of checks to occur every fraction of a second. To reduce performance drain, I've made it check in increments of 5 pixels. Checks are halted once the projectile hits a victim or its lifetime runs out. If you experience any sudden prolonged lag immediately after firing a Railroad Spike shot (and goes away after the round dies or hits a victim), please post and let me know about it. I want this mod to run well on a wide range of system specs.

Also sometimes, on rare occasions, the rail spike does not "catch" a target on impact and merely passes though him without sending him flying. If this repeatedly happens, please let me know. If possible, please provide a screen shot/gif (or just describe the situation).

I will appreciate any help that can be provided for improving this mod.

Currently Known Issues:

The barrel of the weapon's sprite is slightly smaller than the projectile itself (my ). Fixed! Thanks Siric
Impaled victims don't always receive damage on impact with the ground. However, if you can aim it right you can easily make them splatter on the ground.
Potential performance drain. The Lua script runs a ton of checks every fraction of a second. I've tried to reduce this as much as possible.
Projectile sometimes, on very rare occasions, passes through victims and does not send them flying.

Phew, that took forever to type . I hope you guys enjoy the mod . Also, feel free to include this mod in a larger weapon pack. Just be sure to give credit.


First release:


Version 1.1:
Added new damaging method. The spike will damage targets based on its velocity on impact.
Velocity threshold added for sending targets flying.


Also, I enjoy both feedback and suggestions.

Just for Fun:
Here are some early production .gif's I made to show my friend. Take note that these don't include the custom sprites.


I call this one Rail Spike Launcher Fail. This was before I made the projectile not collide with MO's. Here, the shot is bouncing off the soldier's helmet and THEN sending him flying.


This was the first test I made after fixing the glitch showed in the previous .gif. As you can see, Dreadnoughts don't get smashed easily.

I got one more image, but I'm having trouble uploading it. I'll post it later. Okay, got it:

Testing on a drop ship.

Cool, Testing.
Its pretty fun to use, but there are some issues.

1, As you said the barrel is smaller than the Projectile, An easy fix.

2, Two exactly the same launcher sprites, you can size the mod down by changing FrameCount = 2 to FrameCount = 1, and changing RailSpikeLauncher000.bmp to RailSpikeLauncher.bmp.
3, The Magazine is way too small for 2 Railroad spikes to possibly fit in it, Another easy fix.

Other than these, Perfect first Second mod!

Edit: Also, I made you an avatar for the heck of it.

Nice! This looks like a fun mod. Downloading now.

Judging from your post count, i'd say this is a first mod. Am I right? If so, this is very nice for a first mod. Keep the good stuff coming. I'm gonna go make a version of this deliciously retarded gun that acts like the Fail gif now.

EDIT: Fun, needs more lethality, REALLY needs a better sprite.

Wow! Thanks for the help. I added your sprite fix to the mod.

Heh, I didn't even notice that magazine thing. I'll fix that in the next release.

Oh, btw. Technically, this isn't my first mod, but close enough: http://www.datarealms.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=15198

Thanks for the avatar

Not in the mood of testing this gun right now. May come back and test it. But for a first mod is seems very neat.

This is pretty sweet. Although it functions exactly like Numgun's harpoon gun, it is still unique.

Awesome 1st mod.

Fix'ed

Looks like a lot of fun, and definetely better then your first mod. DL'ing.

Keep'em coming

Best mod ever!!! It's like numgun's one but 10000x better...

Ok, its official. Kyred is going places.

This is great, works well and is quite fun. Only problem I can see is the sprite, which isn't really a big deal.

I've updated the mod. The spike flies a little faster and now does some damage when hitting enemies. Also, the spike has to be moving at least 20 units per second to send someone flying (no more getting stuck to slow bouncy spikes).

Be sure to delete the old version before installing version 1.1. In case no one likes the new additions, I left the older version up there.

I"m still trying to get pinning to walls working. I've gotten close, but its really buggy. If you want to try it out, its commented out in the code.

As far as the sprites go, i'm not much of an artist. I have trouble just drawing straight lines =P

*Edit: Fixed index.ini error in version 1.1

Use the line tool.
Looks very cool, for some reason this was NEVER made before.
So, very original.
Make more mods!

This would be really cool if the sprite was changed from that sniper rifle like thing to a railway rifle sprite from the railway rifle in fallout 3

It looks like you just resprited numgun's harpoons.