Hyper Railgun for UEFN
Expanding my skills in Unreal Engine & Verse, Hyper Railgun is a UEFN Island offering a 1v1 Railgun Deathmatch Gamemode with a signature mechanic of a 'recoil jump'. Directly following up on the concept of the standard Railgun and my prior work with Project: Railgun, I aimed to expand this particular weapon archetype I beloved in Fortnite to make a gamemode centered around it. When considering the multiplayer implications of such a weapon and augmenting it, one of the immediate limiting factors implemented by Fortnite is a charge on the Railgun. As it is to put it bluntly, frustrating to be killed instantly from near full with a single shot, the weapon faces significant trade-off in that firing speed. From that perspective, the implementation of the recoil jump mechanic is a natural complement to this principle.
'Free' mobility that one has no true cost has a similar potential to cause frustration, and the Shockwave Hammer from C4S1 is an example of that mobility pushing a weapon too far. However, what we also know is that mobility with a skill ceiling and a justified cost like the Rocket Jump, often makes for exciting moments for players and spectators. In a 1v1 deathmatch, expending your weapon's one and only shot to try and move into a optimal position is our 'cost'. I built the map to feature several elements of verticality to take with a Railgun, and line of sight blockers to make that choice worth it in many situations. Yet, especially with a piercing weapon, a good read is all the opponent needs to punish a poor play using their own high damage weapon. Putting all of this thinking together into a Island with Verse Code to enable the concept, Hyper Railgun is a complete UEFN project creating a uniquely dynamic 1v1 deathmatch experience.
- UEFN Version used in Development: v40.20
- Platform: PC
- Island Specifications:
- - 1v1 Deathmatch, first to 5 Eliminations Wins.
- - Railgun has been enhanced with 'recoil jumping', firing the weapon in the air has enough pushback to act as a second jump.
- - Verse has been utilized to enable this signature feature, utilizing a Movement Device as the critical actor with responses to player fire actions aligning it for distant activation.
Verse Highlight
At the heart of Hyper Railgun is the pushback jump that transforms how one has to navigate the map, allowing creative approaches to combat in lieu of building tools. More accurately, at the heart of Hyper Railgun lies a Movement Gadget. One of my first thoughts when learning Verse was to try and adapt various functions i've tried in Unreal, settling on 'modding' a weapon through tracking the inputs. The Railgun Weapon was nearly exactly what I wanted, and setting up a Movement Gadget to orient itself to launch in a counter-direction when falling through Verse was a relatively simple process. The true problem came in synchronizing it to the Railgun Fire, as the 'Fire Input' would resolve immediately while the weapon is held to charge, when can give the 'Release Input' before or after the weapon actually fires in game!
To resolve this, I realized the power of simple math and delays. By tracking if the player releases early compared to their initial input, we can delay the attempt to launch until the weapon does fire. And, if the player holds long enough for the weapon to 'auto-fire', the logic to simply apply the launch and stop waiting for the release input. Put together, the Verse Code has functionally modded in a pushback jump over the existing Railgun, transforming it into our 'Hyper Railgun'.
Functionally, the 'recoil' pushback is a Movement Agent we orient to launch the player correctly. There are numerous steps involved in timing this right with the Fortnite 'Railgun' weapon that can charge and fire after the initial 'mouse trigger' was sent.
Acknowledgment
- This project was created using Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN). Fortnite and all related properties are © of Epic Games, Inc. This work is not directly affiliated with or endorsed by Epic Games.