Battlezone 1

Flash Cannon is practically useless in Multiplayer. Before 1.31 patch it was too strong.
We need to find a middle or not?

Well, in 1.0 it did 4000 damage per second, this I believe was a typo in the odf. It should do 400 damage per second.

The odf says this, but the beamgun code was broken somewhere, and it doesnt seem to effect ships much.

My suggestion of a fix: Alter the odf to make it do 0 damage, and make the vehicle/building impact explosions do the damage. I'd guess a damage of 40? or if that's too strong, 25? This should allow the flash to function normally again.

I say you should bring it back up to original BZ strength. Flash Cannon is a "fun gun", so why not make it fun and deadly?

Fun and deadly is good, and it eats ammo fast.

It needs to be a force to reckoned with in DM at close range.

Destructive, but at the same time leaving you out of ammo if you're not careful.

That's why I say it is fair. It does huge damage, but consumes ammo faster than I eat french fries. So it is perfectly fair, plus it is short range. It is balanced (within reason). So like I said, RESTORE THE BUGGA!!

AHH..The flash cannon.I like the flash cannon the way it is ,It tends to blind an opposing player but doing only little damage .Ammo consumption is a problem .Maybe if this thing was left stock damage wise ,but used little or no ammo? in conjunction with sp it would be loads of fun !NO one seems to mention the blinding effect . It is useful when used at close range with another weapon linked.

When I installed BZ from CD, the Flash Cannon was a strong weapon. I don't think it did 4000 damage, probably did much less, but I was able to kill several fighters with it before running out of ammo in the campaign. I'd even equip my Gun Towers with Flash because it could kill vehicles fast. Now when I play NSDF Mission 10 and grab the Flash Cannon they give you, it can't even take down a Howie with a full load! It only gets the Howie into red zone of hull. Equipping Gun Towers with Flash is now a serious downgrade, when it used to be a powerful defense.

Activision broke the Flash Cannon in BZ 1.3/1.4. It used be a high-damage, high-ammo-cost weapon. Now it's weak-damage, high-ammo-cost weapon. Which means nobody uses it, which is the same as removing it from the game. By strengthening the Flash Cannon, we're getting it back the way it was before it was rendered useless.

It's especially weak damage-wise in multiplayer because the beam code is flawed over the net. You can't get opponents tank into red with full load of ammo while they're holding still! I found that it takes 3-4 complete reloads to kill enemy tank ONE time.

It does even less damage in multiplayer than it does locally in single.

When I was making my own mod, I changed the classLabel of flash.odf from "beam" to "bolt" (like bolt buddy and blast, after all, they seem to work in multiplayer). That made it way too strong, so I decreased the damage from 400 to 25. That seemed to work nicely, but this hasn't been tested in multiplayer, only in campaign.

EDIT: I think it's still too strong. Just realized that it could destroy a Recycler in about 3 seconds in stock BZ.

I think we should reduce the damage it does (reduce from stock), but also reduce the ammo cost so that the weapon isn't completely useless.

After a lot of thinking, reading and testing I decided to do next about Flash in 1.5:

It will stay as it is in SP, "weak" as 1.31 patch made it. No reason to mess with single player when Flash works there. It's still pretty strong on "easy".

It will be removed from multiplayer armory and maps. There are 2 reasons for that;
1. it doesn't work right for all sides in the game. When I increase it's power, 1 player in the game gets stronger Flash, other weaker. It's obviously unstable. I think that's the reason they made it weak with the patch.
2. there's no (useful) Flash in the games for the last 10 years. Even bringing the original Flash would be silly, and let alone building another weapon on it. No one expects to be hit by it, so I'll leave it like that. it's removed from the (DM) maps and armory, cause now you would only pick it up/order it by mistake and downgrade your previous weapon by doing so (flashing effect for BDog is not worth of big ammo consumption).

I'm not closing this poll, you can still curse me or whatever.

It's your decision dude... But I don't agree. I loved the flash cannon from the moment I used it on Io in bz 1.0. But hey, if people don't like it, then as Spock said "The needs of the many are outweighed by the needs of the few". Cheers

You could replace Flash Cannon with Bolt Buddy on DM maps and/or armory.

If Flash Cannon cannot be fixed or made useful, I don't want it in single player either. I don't play SP on Easy, I play on Hard or Normal.

How about bringing the MAS Grenade back?

Bolt Buddy?
I have nightmares about that damn thing courtesy of the Furies. Mas Grenade does sound fun though, and yes I know what it does.

but furies wub you :3

Actually, Bolt Buddy instead of flash armory would be cool

MAS Grenade, was that the 'brainwasher' thing? It was pretty cool.

sorry for the miss understood but , flash , i thinks its only for SP in MP must be back MASS GRANADE !! but with a huge mana consuption , mm like the comet 1000 units . and repleace flahs for buddy bolt ( personaly i think buddy bolt its useless . hight ammo consuption . low dmg low range .delay of firing.)

LOL so the flash was stronger before? I guess the N64 version is stuck at 1.0, cause in the N64 version you can obliterate enemies with the flash cannon... Perhaps the flash cannon (weaker as it is now) should just take up less nano ammo

That is what I am thinking.
The N64 flash is so much stronger and devasting.
Though you can only have one of each weapon instead of 2 like in the PC version.