Mod Ideas/CratePickups
CratePickups - the pickups are in crates!
Description
The gist is simple: all and any pickups (minus weapons) are replaced by crates.
The crates, when shot, release whatever it is that they replaced and - here's the best part - those little polyestrene 8s fall out too!
If a crate is destroyed outside, same behaviour as normal, but a chance of a crate falling from the sky, squishing the player.
The 8s, if jumped on, or destroyed, turn into lil' particles of polyestrene, and they cause the player to slide a bit.
Interested Scripters/Contributers
If you are interested in developing this mod for UT2003 then add your name to the list. Once you start development you should indicate that below (and hopefully include a link to a journal page). Before you start development you should also check this section to see if anyone else has started.
Discussion
DJPaul: What pickups could we replace with boxes? → Adrenaline, Ammo, etc.
Also, my brother came up with an idea that sounds somewhat similar to some Q3 mod i've vaguely heard of - spawning boxes throughout the entire level; each box is worth one point, and a frag 3. There's a timelimit, and the person who gets the most points, wins!
ZxAnPhOrIaN: It will be cool if those 8's would desinegrate (did I spell that right?) when they fall into water, slime, and lava like biodegradable peanuts. After they desinegrate, they will leave a cloudy, slippery mess.
EntropicLqd: In outdoor areas, when a create is destroyed, it should leave behind a pickup that doesn't respawn. Instead, a crate should randomly fall from the sky (hopefully dquashing a player 
). It could do with a "random contents" option that spawns objects in the same ratio as they were added to the level. An option to have the crates spawn randomly around the level would also be nice.
DJPaul: Not sure about that "random contents" option - the point of these things is to contain items (such as health). Should the crates respawn after the power-up is collected, but the wreckage of the old one remain?
Thinking about it, if we did let them respawn, I suppose you COULD choose the crates to respawn randomly.
EntropicLqd: The objects will have to respawn anyway. If the crates themselves don't respawn then it makes sense to keep the crate wreckage around for those objects that have these new fangled platforms to sit on - maybe remove it for those that don't. If you want to respawn the crates then you would want to get rid of the wreckage to prevent a big pile of destroyed crates from killing framerate. And if you respawn the crates then it's only a small step to having randomly respawning crates with vanishing wreckage.
ZxAnPhOrIaN: The wreckage should dissapear when a new box regenerates.
DJPaul: Yes, the box "wood" will disappear, but the 8s are staying.
ZxAnPhOrIaN: Shouldn't the 8s dissapear when they fall into slime, lava, water, or being shot at?
EntropicLqd: Wonder if you can get the 8s to be "pushed aside" when a player runs through them. That would be really cool. You could simluate wind and get drifts of 8s ..... (I'll get me coat).
ZxAnPhOrIaN: You probably could, but what would be really cool is that there would be a sound that sounds like walking though them, like walking through autumn leaves!
DJPaul: There is wind built into UT, so i'm *very* confident you could get things to "fly" in them.
ZxAnPhOrIaN: I will be willing to create the decoration for the 8s!
DJPaul: Add your name to the Interested Scripters/Contributers section then
DJPaul: ZxAnPhOrIaN - please email me at djpaul@djgenerationx.com
ZxAnPhOrIaN: The .t3d file? 
BTW: call me Zxan for short! 
Guest: Don't email me any files, just email me for chrisstakes... i've got something to discuss.
ZxAnPhOrIaN: Chrisstakes?
G-LiTe:: Sounds like a cool idea. If you'd like some more complication, you can also set a minimum and maximum for the amount of crates and just have them respawn every few seconds up till the maximum. Just as soon as the amount of crates drops below the minimum it'll immediatly spawn one.
Maybe you can also have some sort of effect on the disappearing of the wood, like a fade like decals or add some karma to it and have it slowly lift up like dead bodies do.
L0sT:Insofar as random spawning, back in the Amah: UT days I did a little mut that replaced all the health with exploding Nalibunnies, I kept a MAXbunnies global int that was filled in postbeginplay as the health was replaced, and had every bunny fill the Bunnycount int, kept it on a timer, and if Bunnycount<MAXbunnies spawn a new one on a random pathnode every ten seconds. I suppose the same could be done for the crates, though keeping pickup types in an array or struct or the like, the point is, I kept the number of bunnies on the map static, do the same with the random crates, and you don't unbalance gameplay!
DJPaul: Hmm.. karma 8s.
