Scripted explosions + ARTILLERY BARRAGE for RPG, Detailed Explanation

[Kitsune]

After talking to Mex, I found out that you cannot make explosions just appear, so I came up with an idea.

My idea allows you to create explosions. Now just to let you know before hand, I will think of how to incorporate this into RPG (already go some ideas) once I can have someone confirm that my idea is possible to do. This is how it works:

For this idea to work, there is to be a pcj hidden somewhere in VC where it is not accessible or viewable to players
-Script calls for explosion at a target location
-Teleport pcj to target location
-Set pcj hp to 0
-Teleport pcj back to hidden place as it is exploding

If it works, the pcj should be teleported to a location and create an explosion due to getting to 0hp. The pcj is then teleported back (by then anything near the explosion would have already been damged) within milliseconds so that any players who witness the explosion will probably not notice the bike (even if they see, it would be black and camoflaged by the very bright explosion so they may not even realise it is a vehicle). The only problem with this that I see is if the bike is not teleported back fast enough do to lag or what not then the player will notice the pcj and it would make the explosion effect not that good.

Because of this problem that may be caused (pcj visible for too long), I though of another idea.

Explosions can be created but only if there is a "ground/floor". By this I mean something that a player can stand on such as a road or a roof. This is because the pcj is teleported just below the "ground/floor" where it can still damage things above (say a player standing or in a car), but not be seen. However, the pcj will still be teleported back to original hidden place as there may only be a thin "ground/floor" which does not conceal the pcj completely such as tree (but for my rpg ideas of what the explosions are used for, the pcj will be concealed ~97% of the time).

I said I would think of ideas for these explosions after somone confirmed the possibility of such a script working, but I want to put some out there anyway.
-Artillery Barrage (this requires multiple pcjs)
-Land Mine
-Bomb

*UPDATE*
Mex has let me know that once u set to pcj to zero hp, it takes about five seconds to explode so the vehicle is to be set to zero hp first then teleported to location just before it explodes then teleported back

*ARTILLERY BARRAGE RPG*
Ok, I have though of a detailed way to get the "Artillery Barrage" going for RPG:

There is to be an army skin which works together with the police in catching suspects, but for realism, the army is retsricted in what they can do, for example, they can only engage a suspect once he killed like 5 people or something (that is more rl, in rl when there is a mass killer on the lose such as that rouge mass murderer armed with a semi-auto rifle in Australia a while back (before laws against semi auto-rifles came in), the Australian Special Ops (not aussie swat, teh army ppl incase any non-aussies are thinking) was called to kill or capture him).

Now heres where I can put out a scenario. Say you have the mass murderer, he is barricaded in a building or even in an open space like ontop of washington mall or malibu (he may be accompanied by some other suspects or lower/same/higher wanted level aswell, but the main thing is there must be atleast one person that has that wanted level high enough for military to engage). For this senario, lets say the suspects are on top of malibu roof. The swat/cops are trying to take out the suspects but fail. As one of the suspects is of high enough wanted, the military can engage. However, the army are not just any normal figther, they have a trick up there sleeves, ARTILLERY BARRAGE.

If anyone has played Battlefield 2 before, you will understand better as it follows a similar idea. One military person goes to the location where the target location for the barrage is (say he runs inside malibu and goes up the stairs then uses a command so hes close to suspects who are on roof), he uses a command "/c !reqbar" (must be in pm hence /c, other players, expecially suspects, are not to know that you are requesting a barrage) which sends a request for artillery barrage. After he uses the command, all military get a message "John has requested Artillery barrage at x y" (the z value is important for the script as the barrage will be at his altitude but for purpose of making it look realistic, it will not be shown in pm. Alternatively you could just have, "John has requested Artillery barrage..." ). Now at this point I must note that the requests time out after say 1 minute or 30 seconds. After he made his request and other military got pm, a pink circle appears somewhere in military base, maybe near the door to that big barracks. To activate the barrage, a military person (a normal player going to pink circle will have no effect) must go to the circle. Once there he gets a pm "To begin barrage type /c !confirm" (again, this must be pm to make sure normal players dont know theres barrage underway). Once he types it the barrage begins. To make it rl, the explosions from the barrage do not appear immediately, there is a wait of maybe 14 seconds. At after about 7 seconds, all players get message "WARNING: Artillery Barrage Underway". Now if this were Battlefield 2 and you were capturing the enemy flag, were in an unsheltered area with no enemies around and you heard a barrage but didn't see one one your map, you may consider running for cover :P. Likewise here in VC, but hopefully for the cops/swat/military, the suspects do not choose to run  as they are to much under fire or distracted and not see message. When it comes to 14 seconds, the script selects 5 spots randomly around target area (for 5 "pcj explosions"), then does what I mentioned in my idea of how to get explosion working on those 5 spots.

Now you may think that this could be abused so there are to be some safeguards that must be added:
-Barrage can only be used when there is suspect with high enough level
-Barrage request can only be done if atleast 100m close to suspect

Another thing is what if multiple military players request barrages. Well, you could add somthing to the begin barrage command, "/c !confirm nick/id" that way if there are multiple requests, you choose whose to do.

Now what about the $$$. First off, if the suspect with high rank is with other suspects but the other suspects are also killed or only killed by the barrage, the army people still get money, just not as much. Considering how hard it may be to get somone killed (though easy if suspects are stupid and ignore WARNING: Artillery Barrage Underway :P), any barrage killing of suspects should give substantial money, a lot more than any old cop/swat jail/kill. The way it works is If the suspect has died from "explosion" within 3 seconds of barrage and was atleast 20m (depends of radius of barrage) from target location, the person who requested the barrage and the person who confirmed the barrage both get money. Given the fact that the reward for artillery kills would be a lot and assuming the army requester and confirmer dont mind, they can send some money to those cops/swat/army who helped  (lol i dont think i need to include that but meh).

[Watti]

hmm Well Mex is More of a Pro at VCMP Scripting than Me... but... Cause there is !getcar or something ... It Gets ur XY and sends it... So.... maybe... if we have the PCJ up some were High.. but u need to type a command say /explosion... to activate it... but it could be in a Job or something.... Like... Delivers.. or something ...

EDIT: Some one needs to be in the car to Take Damadge

[Mex]

Wow, great idea and explanation there Ghost, it all seems possible to do.
I'll look into it more soon.

EDIT: Some one needs to be in the car to Take Damadge

Not if you manually set the vehicles health

[Kitsune]

I think i'm getting addicted to thinking of ideas for VCMP

-ANTICHEAT for Weapon/Ammo cheats
-ANTICHEAT for HP/Armour cheats
-Pay'n'Spray
-Scripted explosions
-Artillery RPG

And all in about 3 days :P

[Goodblue]

grrrrrrrreat idea 

[Kitsune]

I have more army ideas on my other topic "Military Class, Detailed Overview":P
http://www.argonathrpg.com/forum/index.php?topic=9560.0

[gunnie]

and slower PCs then? like i posted be4 at the wrong place, some PCs are slower and have slower explosions which causes unsychronised explosions

[Kitsune]

and slower PCs then? like i posted be4 at the wrong place, some PCs are slower and have slower explosions which causes unsychronised explosions

I will use the artillery idea as a example for what I am saying:
If somone has a bit of lag, the delay that they will have will not be significant and could be ignored even if its around 2 seconds. There are very little players with uber lag but for the ones that exist, all they get is a bit more time to run away from the explosion (a little gift to them as their comps are too slow ). Anyway, if they lagged that much, they would run/walk/drive much slower so some of the delay compensates for that.

Besides it is very unlikely that you get such a situation where you have an unber lagger with uber high wanted level


*UPDATE*
To make the artillery more realistic, the explosions should appear after set intervals of maybe 0.5 seconds and I think it should be much more than just 5 explosions. Also make the artillery hit area approximately the size of the roof of malibu club.

[Jnn]

Sounds very cool, but is this really needed?

[Kitsune]

There is no "need" for any new features to VCMP server. We could have it just like MTA server. But seeing as there are much more capabilities in VCMP it would be good to take advantage of the features. Also such things mean that if there is a military skin, they get more than just powerful weapons like the M60. It would be good to have military skin but incorporate it into RPG with scripts like things that the Military can use in rl. I detailed some other military ideas I came up with here: http://www.argonathrpg.com/forum/index.php?topic=9560.0

Besides, even if we don't end up using artillery, I'm sure the scripted explosion will be good for somthing...

[Hess]

I like this idea

[gunnie]

but isnt it when the bike explodes, it will be teleported away? so, slow PCs will only see a bike in fire, not the explosion isnt it?

[Kitsune]

Then just make it not teleport it back via script as it goes back nearly immediatly after it blows up anyway. The making it go back via script was to just make the explosion more visually appealing by reducing the time the pcj is visible for. Alternatively you could extent the wait time till return to accomidate possible lag.

Might I add hardly any players have really really big lag.

[gunnie]

true, but players can see the bike then, maybe a bit fake then

[Kitsune]

You don't know how much of an impact seeing the pcj has on the effect till you've tested and optimised such a script. Also you could add come other things to script to help hide pcj but before discussing those, I think it's better to wait for what Mex has to say after he created a test script.