Slender Medic

So there I was, just minding my own business, looking at the SDK to see if there were any cool unused animations for Merasmus, when I found this and

AAH AHH AHH AHH if you can hear this please, they are right outside my door! No time to call for help

Haha! Yes! Zombie Halloween! Called it! Yes, it was totally obvious, but that doesn't matter. The important thing is that I called it and it is awesome.

TF2 just introduced Wave 666, the Mann Versus Machine mode that adds goddamn zombies.

Prairie Fort Companion

The Prairie Fort Companion
Split Level Sentry Pod

The first pod costs 125 metal, with subsequent pods costing a mere 75. You can build up to 3. Once at least one pod has been laid, it will activate a Gun. Once the gun is active, it will travel to whichever pod has enemies the nearest, and attack them. When a pod reaches 25% health, the gun will retreat to a different pod and attack from there.

This allows an engineer to patrol multiple areas at once, although he won't be able to secure any area as strongly. It's like a sentry gun crossed with an ender man. A minisentry gun that takes a little bit more time to set up.

This is based on an old, old idea I had that has long since been deleted from the SPUF.

Generic Melee Idea

The Leverage
Level 10 Crowbar
 +5% damage for every enemy within 100 Hammer Units
-5% damage for ever ally within 100 Hammer units 

This generic melee weapon gets stronger when you're by yourself! Of course, if you're in the majority it's not very strong.

The Medieval Wrench

The Olde Fashioned
Level XVIII Wrench

+25 HP
On kill: +25% to Ingredient Bar
Alt fire: Expends 25% ingredient to deploy Rake
Cannot Haul Buildings

The Rake
Deals damage to the person that steps on it, then breaks
Deals less damage if it hits enemies in the back   

So, Buildings in Medieval Mode is my most viewed blog post, probably because I link to it basically every time someone even thinks the words "clockwork" or "ballista". This is my idea of an alternative that feels Engineer-y without completely shattering the balance in Degroot Keep and making it a painful, boring slog. I mean, at least I think it does.

Anyway, the nufs and bolfs: this thing allows you to do something pretty basic. Create a little proximity trap that hurts anybody who walks over it. However, because the M2 button is now bound to dropping the rake trap, it cannot be used to haul buildings. Since you cannot haul buildings in Medieval Mode, that translates to pure benefits there, but a fair downside elsewhere. Originally the rake was going to be a bear trap made from a ribcage, but I recently posted a bear-trap looking weapon on this blog and anyway the Rake was funnier. Plus, a "rake" is old-timey talk for an unscrupulous person and we'll pretend that's entirely deliberate.

Why does it do less damage if the enemy backs over it? Because getting a rake to the nose hurts more than a rake to the shank, that's why, and also because it gives enemies a way of dealing with rakes that doesn't compromise their usefulness in regular gameplay (i.e. they cannot be shot to destroy them) and also makes your enemies behave in a silly way.

Spy Buildings

Part of my MvM building project, this is the logical conclusion for building weapons for every class. The Spy is a tricky class because of his covert nature. He's exactly what you'd expect from a spy--he should be ready to quit the territory at the drop of a hat. Sorry about the slow updates lately, I've been swamped with school work.

Offense:

The Flipped Asset
This mine-like building will snap up an approaching robot and spin it around, forcing it to fight its former comrades. It'll attack just like it normally would, albeit without moving. A Flipped Asset is not considered destroyed until the robot that it captures dies. Giant robots are immune but take damage from a Flipped Asset.


Support:

The Web of Deceit
Generates a field that distracts the bomb courier. Bomb couriers in range of its effect  that are not within a set distance of the real Bomb Target will head towards the Web. The WoD loses HP for every second a bomb courier is caught in its radius and cannot be repaired. Sentry busters will be distracted, but tanks cannot be persuaded to change course.



Transportation:
The Blind Spot
Generates an invisibility field. Allies will be ignored by enemy AI unless they fire an offensive weapon or are bumped into by a foe.

The Man in Tin

Everybody seems to think that the Engineer should get an Iron Man style suit. I disagree, but I have a lot of ideas on the matter that I think could fit into TF2's overall design style, without an unnecessarily elaborate changeover in mechanics, new keybinds, or inexplicable abilities.

When I was writing this idea out, I didn't bother with balancing it because I don't think it's a good idea. The engineer is a bit of a middle child in TF2, he fulfills both a defense and support role. He's not the best defender, or the best support, but he has more support capability than better defenders and more defense capabilities than better support.

So no, I wasn't balancing it, I'm simply experimenting with the form, looking for keybinds and controls that fit into TF2, that allow the player to make fun decisions with his loadout underneath the armor, and this is the result of that experimentation.

The Hand of Tin
Melee Weapon
Replaces the sentry with the Tinman Suit Generator
Alt-fire removes Tin Man Suit

The Tinman Suit Generator 
150/180/216 HP
30/20/10 seconds on suit generation
20/25/30 DPS
150 metal (+200 per upgrade)
Standing on this will activate the Tinman Suit. Upgrading the Tinman suit confers extra benefits to the suit, reduces the downtime between suit productions. It also repairs suits of any Tinman engies standing nearby. Building suits costs 100 ammo, repairing suits costs 1 ammo per damage tick.

Tin Man Suit

100/125/150 Armor HP
+10/15/20 percent damage to primary and secondary weapons
+25 jump height
At level 3, gains a bonus ability*
The generator grants additional benefits (?) while suit wearers are near it, and will warn you when you leave its proximity. The Suit will be destroyed when its armor HP runs out, when the Generator is destroyed, or when you use alt-fire on the Hand of Tin to manually destroy the armor.

You will be dual wielding a second weapon when your primary or secondary is out (regardless of what t is)

*Bonus Abilities List:
Exploding debris (the suit's chunks will explode when shot at, like pumpkin bombs)
Hover jump (hold jump to slow a fall)
Goom stomp (deals damage by falling on enemy heads)
Fortify (crouch to repair HP)

Minecraft-Dustbowl

Found this online and it combined two things in a way that just blew my mind. I don't normally like to post other people's content, but look at that! It is crazy, man, that is crazy town. Minecraft TF2. It sounds pretty exciting. Unfortunately the specific class setups for the 8 classes aren't readily available on their website. But from the videos seen here, it seems to be a fully functional map with no mods necessary to play.

Now, I realize of course that this is by no means the first TF2-themed map, or the first functional TF2-themed gameplay. I started thinking about ways to outfit Minecraft Steve like the Mercs as one of my first major Minecraft projects, but I never did it because, well, I liked the native art on Minecraft enough to let well enough alone.

Still though, you have to admit it's pretty sweet.

Morgan

Morgan is the oldest TF2 unlock that I actually remember, and one of my proudest moments on the Internet. Here it is, the thing that made me feel as though I could actually write about this stuff for my own amusement. Definitely not for a living, but for my own amusement.

Morgan
While held:
66% clip size (4 rounds)
120% reload time (1.2s + .6, 3 seconds for full reload)
125% firing interval (~.75s)

While Deployed:
100 HP
35-50 damage
Cost: 25 metal
.5 attack interval
1 second deploy time
26 ammo
Can't be upgraded or repaired
Sappers destroy Morgan in one second and cannot be removed
Automatically self-destructs upon Engineer death
Automatically reequips upon wrench-hit, saving remaining ammo

The Morgan is a technological marvel. Originally developed to discourage eagle attacks in the Badlands, Dell adapted it for its modern use in worksite security. Engineers who have their hands full constructing the team coffee machine or puma attracting engine can rest easy knowing their backs are safe and sound so long as their trusty Morgan automated defense turret is around.

Writing Weapon Unlocks

Writing unlocks is something I do a lot here at On The Subject of TF2. In real life, I do it all the time. Almost subconsciously, I tend to turn everything into a TF2 weapon at some point or another. It's just something I enjoy doing. I'm not the only one, either: the SPUF forums are soaked in a hip-high slurry of weapons ideas. About forty somebodies have an idea every day for a new weapon that should totally be in TF2, and while I don't think anybody seriously thinks their ideas are going to totally get picked up, everyone always really hopes. It's like auditioning for American Idol by walking past Simon Cowell's house and singing really loud. Every day.

Anyway, I just wanted to kind of write out my process so I could get some perspective on it. These aren't actually in any order.

Keymapping
 Building a mechanic means remembering how keymapping works in TF2. Most weapons have access to M1 and M2, so you can have a primary and secondary fire. Hold M1 is also an option, but the only use of it I've seen is charging stickies for greater distance. Some weapons have special activation on taunt, but those abilities are generally expensive. I try to avoid taunt action for personal preference. Get creative! Some weapons could interact with your other action keys, especially the crouch and jump keys.

The Demoman and the Spy are unique, in that they have specific weapons bound to M2 that trumps everything else. The watch, the stickies, and the charge are all universally activated on alt-fire, no matter what weapon is out. That means that primary and melee weapons can't use M2 for these classes. I think that presently, the Soldier is the only class with zero alt-fire abilities across every unlock.

Bars + Benefits
Lots of weapons have bars these days. Some weapons--like Jarate, Bonk, or Mad Milk--use them in place of ammo counters, to let you know when it's safe to use that weapon again. Others have them as incidental meters, showing you how far your sticky will fly or how much damage your sniper rifle has charged. The final and most common bars are charge bars. They reward you for doing something specific:

Have A Plan
 There are lots of potential goals in TF2 that a new weapon can reach. Expanding a class's role in combat, or drastically changing their playstyle, introducing a new mechanic, patching a balance gap, or just being fun... your unlock should do something like this. That said, do not try to raise skill ceilings. You can introduce new skill trees, but making a class harder to play (and then giving them extra benefits for mastering the more difficult moves) is not the best goal, since it doesn't introduce any new skills other than "coping with unnecessary problems". Downsides shouldn't be arbitrary limitations, is my point.

Additionally, stat-stealing is fine if you have a plan. Think the Blutsauger would be fun for the Scout? You can't just steal the stats, explain what you're doing and why the scout deserves those benefits.

Be Fun For Everyone
Make sure your design is fun.For me, "fun" means making interesting and unique choices and getting interesting and unique results. It's pretty common to design unlocks that counter specific scenarios, but the more specific the scenario, the less likely you are to carry that weapon in your loadout. Having something that's fun to use will make it more accessible than something that counters a specific scenario, especially if that scenario only lasts for a few seconds. Nobody's going to carry around an anti-banner to defeat that one soldier that's carrying a banner. But somebody might decide that carrying around a support banner is better than using a shotgun.

Generality
Weapons should be general, in my inexpert opinion. I don't like weapons that fit into very narrow scenarios. The Pain Train only comes out when you're attacking on CP maps. The Razorback only comes out when you're getting harassed by a spy. They have their place, but I don't like them and generally try to avoid writing them. Unlocks that only work in certain gamemodes are best avoided. However, if a weapon is better in a specific game mode or map type, mention it. "This weapon is better for the small maps typical of Arena Mode". "This weapon is useful for vertical maps like Egypt."