Fired up Generations just the other day and I'm already back into the fray, addicted as ever!  A MOD like this always keeps me coming back....where else can I play 5 of my favorite games all in one neat package?

I noticed that the Earth Pistol was under review for some tweaking (flipping through the weapons gallery).  I particularly liked the idea of making the pistol do more damage as you get closer to an enemy (akin to the pistol of Wolf3D).  To further the connection between the classic and the Earth Class, perhaps the rate-of-fire could be increased slightly.  It currently fires about as fast as the Doom Pistol, and from my experience, the Wolfenstein pistol could fire at a slightly faster rate.

Running a test of "how many shots can be fired in 10 seconds", I counted aprox. 27-29 shots in 10 seconds for the Wolf Pistol, while the Doom pistol scored aprox. 25-27 shots.
(These values were taken from the original games, not Generations)

The Knife from WOLF3D scored the same as the pistol (you can swing the knife about 27-29 times in 10 seconds).  Perhaps it could be tweaked as well?

Just some ideas.  Yes?  No?  Maybe So?

Indeed it will be difficult to gauge just how much damage the pistol should do, as WOLF3D did not contain any multiplayer to test such things.  When you base the damage of the pistol off basic guards, you get almost insta-kills at close range, which obviously shouldn't be the case in deathmatch.  SS take 3 or 4 shots while officers take about 2.  I guess one would have to know their hitpoints to really flesh that out.

Upon further inspection, the Machinegun actually uses the same system as the pistol (more damage up close)...however I don't see a reason to implement that in Generations (the rate of fire is significantly higher in this mod).  The Gat seems to follow a different system....it pretty much kills any guard with a couple of shots no matter where you are (or so it seems)....and again, this doesn't need to be transfered to Gen......the Gen Gat already has a fast-as-hell rate of fire, and tweaking the damage as you get closer...well you can only imagine the results of that...Not a good idea .

Never the less, I love the idea if its applied to the pistol.  Getting shot by any guard with a pistol doesn't feel too good in WOLF3D (takes pretty good chunks off your health)...so perhaps it could be based off the damage YOU TAKE from officers or brownies rather than the actual damage dished out by your pistol.  Testing and balance would be necessary and if it cannot be "down to a fine line" when compared to WOLF3D, thats no biggie.  I'm aware that your trying to balance out the classes, which is a good thing (For example, I don't  mind that the Q1 rocket doesn't move at the EXACT speed of its original counter-part...but its damn near close).

Either way, the Earth pistol does stand as sorta useless at the moment.  Whether its more like WOLF3D or RTCW is no matter, but some unique traits would make it more than just the weapon your holding upon respawn.

The Duke class would have the most powerful weapon of all!! money to give to trippers.

But the shrinker would be impossible to do.

[bump]

this thread gotta little off topic 

I had a little idea.  I noticed that the Strogg Machine Gun and the Earth MP-40 were pretty much the same, save some accuracy differences (I'm guessing).  Both do 8 damage and both have a ROF (rate of fire) of 600.  What if you changed the damage of the MP-40 to 10 insted of 8?  Most of the time when I respawn, I find myself using the pistol, because it does 10 damage (like the gat), and every now and then I can get a frag with it before getting something better, which isn't the case (for me) with the MP-40.  I feel as though its almost a waste of precious bullets to be using it, as its the weakest in terms of bullet damage for the Earth Soldiers.  You could balance changing the damage to 10 by lowering the ROF to, say, 500 or 550 (as opposed to 600).  What do you think?  This way, all Earth bullet weapons would provide equal damage.  Sorta makes sense, as they are using the same type of bullet.  While this would make the Pistol less useful, you could counter this by giving it a unique feature, like we were discussing before.

Perhaps the pistol doesn't need a special feature.  I read that the ROF you show on the image gallery are based on rounds-per-minute.  In that case, if the Doom Pistol is 150 RPM, then the Earth pistol (if we wanted the exact speed of the WOLF3D variation) would be somewhere around 160-162.

So if we were to compare:

Doom Pistol:

Damage = 12
ROF = 150

Earth Pistol:

Damage = 10
ROF = 162

Doom's spread is a little looser, but it has first shot accuracy and does more damage, although at a slower rate.

Earth's spread is pretty tight, making most shots fired hit the mark (and fire at a faster rate).  However, it does less damage.

This sounds like its pretty balanced, but I could be wrong.

And don't worry.  I'm not taking this completely seriously (despite that I'm putting a lot of thought into it  ).  I don't expect anything to be implemented, unless everyone on the team agrees.  You guys have the final say on everything.  I'm just tossing around ideas.