Making Captain America's Shield... sorta

I'm in an RP zone where everyone seems to have hijacked a major world powers military weaponry. I have found I really stink at running and shooting or whatever... so i thought I'd try something other than a gun/rifle/bazooka.

I've sort of noodled out a little from scripts I've pulled from other items but.. this seems like I've made it way too complicated... was wondering if there is 'an easier way'.

1. Wear shield on left arm.
1.a. use to 'block'

2. prepare to throw 'frisbee style'
a. transfer to right hand (( make shield on left arm invisible?? ))
b. frisbee sling (( *is* there an animation close to this? ))
c. make shield in right hand inviso while 'bullet' (shield#3) moves to target. (( figure mouselook ))

3. Bullet / shield hits -- target (person) and/or building/object.
a. do damage or minor push
b. shield 'bounces' back to me

4. Bullet / shield hits nothing
a. timed 'return' to right hand for next throw.

What would be VERY cool would to be able to richocet and still strike a target like the comic version of Cap... but.. that might be straining the physics of the SL Universe and 'non laggy' script capability.


I've seen something that comes close.... one of those Xena warrior chick throwing circles... but.... it's all 'no access' scripting so I'm at a loss where to go poking about.

Is this just gonna be a lot of chopping existing library functions and crossing the fingers while testing in a sandbox?

You'd need to check out the rules of the zone. Most RP that requires a fight meter are quite clear about whats allowed in scripts.

Richocet would require some kind of script-assisted targetting I think, which may not be permitted. But as a general weapon it would very kool =)

The best place to start is by talking to the RP mods. Many of whom are scripters themselves and in my experience are happy to help their members with this kind of thing.

Details of the RP system aside, that all sounds a reasonable plan. You really have three components: the left arm shield (worn), the right hand shield (ready to throw) and the shield bullet (thrown). The main script could go in either left or right attachments.

Instead of dying once it has run out of time like a normal bullet, the shield can, say, go phantom, zoom back to the owner with llMoveToTarget, tell the owner to trigger a "catch" animation and _then_ vanish and die. You'd want a timeout on the main script in case the shield bullet gets lost somehow.

Your problem may come when animating the whole process of grabbing the shield and throwing it. The thing is, getting scripts to properly synchronise appearing and disappearing attachments is quite tricky anyway, and shields are _large_ and it is noticeable if there are two of them, or none of them. Err on the side of having none visible rather than two in general I'd say. You also really do not want to have to change hands whenever firing, as that will be really obvious.

I would probably have two modes - a worn, left-arm, melee mode, which lets you block and whack people with the shield, toggle-able with a held, right-arm, ranged mode, which lets you throw.

This sort of combination device can take a long time to write, by the way. I'd advise concentrating on one function or the other to begin with.

You'll probably have to make your own animations for this, but poses and strikes are quite easy to do with Qavimator.

Depending on the meter you're using the closest thing to a shield is rezzing a prim out of everythings sensor range. some meters also have a shield communication protocol built in. and I've thought about using the healing protocols to fake shield abilties(take damage then heal). All in all there's a high chance that the meter doesn't have a nice way to have a shield without being sloppy.

And after that if I were to make every custom script that a person wanted for the RP SIM I hang out in there'd be a huge backlog. It's a lot easier to go by guild/faction/whatever than by person, and a lot easier to balance.