"The IFEX® Impulse firefighting gun was developed as an extremely versatile tool for fire brigades and rescue teams all over the world. With small quantities of water, these highly effective firefighting devices are able to extinguish even large fires. The high discharge speed of more than 400 km/h and the large cooling surface allow an effective firefighting application from a safe distance. [...]"
The IFEX 3001 Impulse Gun will be introduced to the game as the first ranged non-lethal weapon.
Its main purpose will be to distance opponents from the user and their teammates. As a bonus it will be able to maintain its real-life role as an effective means to extinguishing fires (this will be done instantly in-game to keep the feature useful). The short blast area of the weapon will deal no damage but will instead stop opponents dead in their tracks and fling them back over large distances; the closer the player is to the barrel when shot, the farther away they will be flung.
Angled properly, a player intercepted from below or from mid-air can be potentially shot off-map, or flung through multiple objects and dealt fatal fall damage.
// Main Features
- The IFEX 3001 will not make use of any existing long-range projectile. It will shoot in a cone and will be limited by range[1]. The cone can consist of SteamSpawner nodes, or similar-looking nodes colored in blue to represent water, or any other variation thereof.
Here's a (very bad) demonstration:► Show Spoiler - The closer the player is to the barrel the higher their flight velocity will be when they're pushed back. This is represented by colors in the image above; being in the red area when shot throws players back very far, in the orange half that, in the green players will only be staggered and disarmed[2].
- No physical damage is dealt to players present in any area of the cone.[3]
- Fire nodes present in any area of the cone will be removed instantly. The (previously) burnt items will remain intact[4] but will not be repaired.
- If a player (or a fire node) are outside the short area of effect they will not be affected.
- Will be placed in the primary (3rd) weapon slot.
- Can fire 5 blasts[5]. The weapon will be automatically cycled in a similar fashion to a pump-action shotgun after each blast as to avoid abuse.
- Can be considered a power weapon due to its potential to instakill enemies. Since the flamethrower is also a power weapon (and can be seen as its counterpart, setting things on fire), the chances to encounter either should be similar.
[1] Width/length of the cone can be reduced/increased as seen fit.
[2] Flight velocity from being shot out of each area can be altered as seen fit (e.g red - 100%, orange - 75%, green - 25%).
[3] Players close to the barrel (red area) can be dealt some damage (say, equal to that of a punch). Damage output from the weapon itself can be introduced but shouldn't be high to keep the weapon non-lethal (that is the whole point of it).
[4] Wooden objects in the red area can be destroyed instantly (that way the weapon can also be used as a cover-remover).
This can constitute as a nerf - forcing players to reconsider firing the weapon at nearby objects.
[5] Ammo count can be reduced to 3 to increase the value of each shot. Kind of finicky since a smaller ammo reserve will incentivize players to ditch the weapon to use another.
