The FireChucker

Description:

A perennial favourite with pyromaniacs everywhere, the FireChucker is the ultimate close support weapon. Primary fire is a standard flamethrower, capable of spewing burning death to a range of 40m. Secondary fire compresses fuel to be hurled as a ball of fire of variable size which will explode on impact. Because electronic systems are prone to EMP, it uses a low-tech pilot-light for ignition and is almost entirely mechanical in operation. This makes it heavy, but very robust and 100% reliable in the face of nuclear and electromagnetic based weapons.

Usage:

- Primary-fire is a standard flamethrower. It has short rage but does huge damage. It can set people on fire, doing even more damage. The flame will flow over surfaces, making it possible to 'bounce' it around corners to a limited extent.
- Secondary-fire hurls a fireball which not only explodes on impact but also damages anything it flies close to. It can be charged up in the same way as the BioRifle secondary-fire: At minimum charge the fireball is small, travels a long way at high speed but does low damage within a small radius; At maximum charge the fireball is very large, travels only a short distance at low speed but does massive amounts of damage within a respectable radius. Huge fireballs are good for temporarily denying access to a corridor. Note that if a large fireball hits something very close, it may dissipate before it has a chance to ignite fully.

There are two extra configuration options available in 'WoE_beta.ini': 'FireDensity' controls how many particles are used for the primary-fire effects. The default is 2. Lower this to 1 if you want to improve performance at the expense of eye-candy. Increase it to 3 if you have a fast system and want better effects. I highly recommend that you do not set it above 5 unless you have a super-computer or enjoy really low FPS. The second option is 'bNeverDropDetail'. The default is true. Setting to false means that particle density will automatically be reduced if the frame-rate drops below 'MinDesiredFps' (in UT2003.ini), helping to keep performance acceptable.