Introduction 
 

In this project I was set to program a system for my Game later on (Nuketown ‘86) where I have coded a weapon system for shooting aming and reloading.
 

This system is a crucial part of the Gameplay of what I am making as it defines how players play the game of a classic run and gun PVP game. The learning process is within the understanding and deployment of skills in the Unreal Engine 4 program more specifically programming. I can use these skills later on in life for other UE4 based games.

 

Main Body
 

This section is about how I went about making my game mechanics and what I found to help me develop them.

 

The Guns
 

I started by looking at gun systems to see which one I would like to use, whether it be a projectile gun or a hitscan gun. The two styles have their own pros and cons but I will use hitscan for its flexibility and modularity so I can make gun classes that are seen in games like Call of Duty.

 

The Code Blueprints
 

The blueprints I created were in an attempt to follow a tutorial by a YouTuber by the name of Ryan Laley who has a big catalogue of tutorials to follow. The tutorial I followed explored the uses of a custom system compared to the stock one in UE4’s template files and which one was better. The better system is the reworked one that has been rebuilt because it has a larger amount of flexibility and editability to make more gun classes for other play styles.

 

The route I followed was the Hitscan path because it replicates a similar system to what the Call of Duty Games use. I feel that my work with the Tutorial for the guns went well even though some things are ever so slightly different but it does the same job as what is seen in the videos.

The good points about my side of the system is that i have managed to work in Models that I have found online that fit the era that I'm reworking the Nuketown map for also it gives me the insight to edit and add my own guns to flesh out the ways of elimination and to break up the boring Standard that most Gun Based games use.

The Most used FPS Guns include the Desert Eagle a .50 AE Pistol; it's a little over the top because it’s large and heavy yet packs a satisfying punch.

Next is the Skorpion an assault rifle that's just over used yet it being a great gun it's depicted to be more than it really is.

The next firearm that's mundane and overused is the MP5. I am still going to make my own version of it that follows its real life counterpart than the edited version in games.

The H&K G11 is a rare gun that is very unique yet is used quite a lot in games. This however might make it in my game because it's a rare gun and not because it has a tendency to be common in games.

 

The Map
 

I started with a base version of the Nuketown map in Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War because it has easy access to replicate the map to then expand and modify for my own personal uses like a 48 player map with multiple objectives or convert it into a 6 to 8 player Zombies Map. I started with making a scale test to see what size things need to be so I can then whitebox a template to then fully Model in Blender to then export as a more solid Whitebox version.

 

I set the scale by making a pair of cubes for the Bus and Truck that are in the middle of the lines of sight in the map. Once I had this scale marker in place it gave me a starting point to then make the rough outline of the houses and supporting structures around the place. My iterations to the map are more along the lines of the playspace seen in CoD as the original map is documented as the smallest CoD map in the games series.

 

As the map has visible detail joined to the normal play area for the game modes I would like to take advantage of the extra space to then add a new set of sight lines from the road into the town. This might add a small issue into the flow of the map as a new spawn point would be at a 90 degree angle from the original 2 spawns.

 

My future plans for my iteration of the Nuketown map is to mirror it at the end of the road to give the map the opportunity to be used for a higher player count. My reasons for this plan is that it could make for a nice extension to the play space and add an extra challenge for players to face. The reason behind this is that it breaks up the original sight lines of the original map by adding perpendicular lines to then make players think differently due to the added lines that they can be shot from.

 

The Leaderboard
 

I started by grabbing in-game screenshots which I then imported into Adobe Illustrator to then Draw/Trace the base design of and to make an alignment tool for when I imported it into Unreal's UI Editor. The functionality is currently limited to holding the Tab Button to show the UI. The score reading code is yet to be implemented to make the Scoreboard/Leaderboard functional.
 

Conclusion
 

The overall outcome of the separate systems of the Guns and the Map with Corresponding Scoreboard is a good starting point for my overall project. The things I still need to flesh out are the buildings on the map and the code for the Scoreboard and a Health System to track player kills and deaths. Besides the missing pieces the project is going well and I am learning ways to model buildings and how the players interact with the map. Moving on from here I am going to learn a way to code in the scoreboard functions and implement the multiplayer health for a test game with some class members. Other things that I can do later to develop my skills are to rebuild or remake some of the assets that go into the game and to expand the gun system to allow floor pickups and multiple layouts to select from.

 

Bibliography

 

Laley, R. (2018). Unreal Engine 4 Tutorial - Shooter - Guns Part 4 Reloading. YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcz7urLfzsM [Accessed 27 March 2021].‌

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Laley, R. (2018). Unreal Engine 4 Tutorial - Shooter - Part 6 Iron Sights. YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyj6TCrXGN4 [Accessed 10 April 2021].

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Laley, R. (2018). Unreal Engine 4 Tutorial - Shooter - Part 8 Hit Scan. YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCwfVbyIX9o [Accessed 16 April 2021].

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Petersen, J. (2014). 12 guns that are more popular in games than they are in the real world. [online] gamesradar. Available at: https://www.gamesradar.com/uk/12-popular-shooter-weapons-werent-common-you-think/ [Accessed 27 May 2021].

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