This is my first mod so please be patient if there would be problems. There are so many mods that I cant possibly be sure that there were nothing like this but I hope it would bring at least something innovative.

There is no trivia and background information about the weapon yet so let's get right to the business.

(Yes, the sprite could do with some more work, I know. Later on this subject)

ISME stands for Intellectual Superheated Matter Emitter. It is a versatile weapon system with 3 firing modes (Lua scripted) for short to medium range action. Modes are: "whip", "straight", and "shield" (see icons on image below). Also there is tunable power level which changes behaviour of every mode in its own way (by default tuned by scrolling up and down, unfortunately I had to disable weapon changing on scroll for this since I never use it, be warned. More details on controls are at the end of this post).


Now here is some action filmed on Astro (thanks to Voracious32 by the way) mission:

Astro 2
Astro 3
Astro 4

Of course this is rehearsed battle. It actually takes some skill to not to kill yourself on some weapon settings and while we are at it here are some incorrect usage cases:

Killing yourself with a whip

I intend to make this gun balanced so your own projectiles are harmless to you only in "shield" mode and even then only while plasma cluster is compressed.

"straight" mode. Depending on power level it may be anything from medium range fast firing SMG with low damage to in-your-face face-melting plasma torch capable of penetrating bunker modules but with a range comparable to a digger (third picture from Astro - maximum power perfect for penetrating thin walls). Another example:

Notice long reload times and fast depleating ammo - another step thowards balance.

"whip" mode. The most dangerous to use sine you easily may rip your own head off but potentially has a great damage and longest range. While the stream is contained by the controlling force field (LMB pressed) it behaves remotely like a rope. When you release the stream travels by inertia. Compressed plasma clusters may then disperse harmlessly or detonate by reaching containment field limits, upon contact or forced to by pressing Down key). Power level controls focus point (remotely length of a rope). I think it's very fun to use. Some more examples:


Whip 2
The glow (or on this GIF's it's more of a blur) around the steam is indicating control field.

"shield" mode. Wraps you in a force field sphere and streams plasma on its surface (reflecting the heat from convection and radiation alike so its relatively safe fore you). It is tying to stop incoming projectiles by directing micro prominences of plasma at high speeds at them, evaporating part of a projectile and slowing it down at the same time. Laser impulses also may be slightly dispersed by this screen. Power level controls shield radius. Large radius allows field more space to work with (better protection) but stretches the screen too thin to do any damage to large objects (low or no damage). If shield is disabled before it disperses all remaining plasma is shot in your aim direction but range is very limited due to field been focus on you.

Shield mode code is a mess in need of rewriting or major optimisation. It runs smooth for me but I think it may be very laggy on slower machines.

And for dessert the weapon may actually be damaged! Not gibbed or destroyed but made (nearly) useless:

A well aimed shotgun shot destroyed Containment Field Emitters or "these blue wingy bits at the front of the gun that I can see on the first animated picture but not on the gun icon" and you can see the result (you still can set the damaged gun toself destruct after that and drop it - but I am not sure if this function will be available in first release).

Default controls are:
Increase/Decrease Power - Scroll Up/Down
Set modes, as before: F,G,H
Reload: R
Set next mode: pie menu + right
Set previous mode: pie menu + left
Force decompression: down
You can easely costumize them and set some defaults in /Scripts/BindweedSettings.lua.

Also this weapon was planned as a part of a small mod of about 5 guns and 1 actor but I am not yet sure if I can cope with this amount of work before I get bored. Anyway I want to add something like a concept art for this gun like I did for one of my pistols (from that same set) and I would like to know if is it worth it (in other words do you think that it is decent enough?)



Known bugs/problems:
Rarely mode indicator may disappear and the gun would not shoot properly - changing mode helps to fix this. I think I'll get rid of this bug with the next update. Seems to be fixed.

Gun position in actor's hand is wrong. When the actor is lieing on the ground the gun sometimes end up IN the ground. Needs some ini fixing. Fixed.

Crashes. Didn't encountered them myself for a long time but I still can't guarantee that it cant happen. Fixed.

Something may go wrong when the gun is passed from one actor to another. If this is the case the gun will be either useless or will self destruct if lieing on the ground. Seems to be fixed.

Several Bindweed guns in one actors inventory is bad. The worst thing that may happen is that if you drop a gun but keep 1 in inventory the dropped one will be useless (and should self destruct). Working on it.. looks like I'll have to rewrite most of the code to fix this.

Gun placed duringe editing phase of a skirmish is useless and and should self destruct. Same as above.

It is somehow possible to regain control of a damaged weapon. Seems to be fixed.

Planned functions/mods/etc. (not necessarily in that order and not sure when):
1. Add more gibs, maybe more complicated gun-damage model. Add custom sound effects and other ini stuff.
2. Adjustable self-destruct (instant, on drop, on drop and timer, on death)
3. Adjustable binding (bind the gun to specific actor or Team or none so enemy would not be able lo use or even pick up the gun)
4. pop-up menu to control the two above - otherwise space above actor will be too clattered.
5. Maybe abstract from ingame ammo counter and use lua instead to do crazy things like several types of ammo for one weapon, ammo regeniration over time, more flexible firing modes and so on.
6. Working on mod pack.
7. If I have some steam left by that time I am going to make a pistol from Another World (Ahh what a game! ) or something like ZF-1 (mech sized probably)

I am sold.
I love it, and I am not sure how you got the display to appear.

Then I got very sad when I did not see a download link.
Needs to be in Mod Making.

Full of the spirit of Awesome, this one.

Forgot to mention.

Best first mod ever.


Possibly you could make the shield levitate the actor (divide velocity when being fired) and make it so when you fire the shield it pushes the actor back. Maybe that would fix some problems with self deaths.

Very very awesome.

The Whip mode is by far the most awesome, but the over all theme of
using the same kinds of particles for different purposes is very intriguing.

Moved to Mod Making for now, and I'll move it back when it is done.

keen to see the mode switching code. i want to see how the game copes when its bought with a craft.

Do want. Very very much so.
I will be downloading this the very moment it becomes available.
Your lua-fu amazes me.

Hax!



Judging by the gifs, that charging bar seems to be hard to see at what level it is. Maybe use a more apparent and/or darker color?

This is your first mod?

amazing! it looks very wild! I just hope it will be less laggy what it seems

See now this is the level of quality that we should expect from first released mods

Thanks for all your replies.
The mod is now attached to the first post - feel free to download . It is still far from perfect mind you. Do not try to give several Bindweed guns to one actor and avoid passing the gun in a crowd - it may still cause some problems. Crashes are mostly dealt with so if you encounter one please tell me. I'll add more details about known bugs/to-do list to the first post shortly.

CrazyMLC, self deaths are actually intended - otherwise the gun is too powerful, but if you don't like it uncomment lines 45 and 52 in Scripts/pixel.lua. Explosions would still hurt you but the stream itself wouldn't.

numgun, i changed the power indicator color to a darker shade and it is really much better now (old ones are still included in a downlowd), thank you.


NaXx, maybe GIF's are just not loaded properly? I would not say that this is laggy.

Far from perfect?
It's easily one of the best mods to hit the forums. You're the next Abdul, man.

Mac compatibility is composed entirely of not using backslashes. Essentially.

Also, please capitalise the i s in I. Please? Your grammar is great otherwise...

Mm.. then there IS a problem. Backslashes are used in my lua scripts because the gun name in ini is ISME "Bindweed" (so in lua it is "ISME \"Bindweed\"") or lua dose not count? Anyway soon ill fix this.


Thank you for correction.

I am unsure of the ramifications of backslashes in Lua. However, any backslashes in a .ini will be registered as invalid filepaths on a mac.