Hook

From DDraceNetwork


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The Hook allows you to maneuver around maps. It is always available and essential to almost every map. With it, you can:

  • Hook certain blocks to swing around
  • Hook other tees to pull them towards you and yourself slightly towards them

Use the hook by holding down secondary fire. Release it by letting go of secondary fire.

How it functions:

  • The hook moves in a straight line until it collides with either a tee or a wall
  • If the hook collides with nothing, it will stop at its maximum range
  • Hooking is not instant, it does have a travel time
  • Hooks do not nullify the former velocity of a tee, it's just another factor that influences it
  • Thanks to how thin it is, it can fit through diagonal corners between tiles


Block Types

There are a few block types which interact with hook:

  • Air or absence of the following blocks will let the hook right through
  • Unhookable tiles cancels the hook when hit
  • Hookable tiles which you can grab on with your hook and pull yourself towards it until you release the hook or get Frozen or Teleported.
  • Hook-through tiles ( + or + ), is a combination of a collision block in the game layer ( or ) and the hook through block in the front layer . This combination will not affect your hook. The hook will pass right through them like through air
  • Hook-stopper tile is the same tile as the Hook-through tile, but placed on air instead on collision. This block will cancel the hook like the unhookable tile. The difference to the unhookable tile is that tees and weapon projectiles don't collide with it.
  • The directional hook-through tile is rotatable and lets all hooks through in one direction and acts like the hook-stopper for hooks in the opposite direction.
  • The old hook-through tile (/) lets hook through, when placed next to a tile when hooking through in some angels.
  • Hook teleporter will teleport the hook to a different position on the map.

When your hook is active (anchored to a hookable block), your tee will be pulled towards the anchor point. There is no timer when hooking a block, so you can hold it for as long as you wish.


Hooking Tees

Hooking another tee will pull the tee towards you. Your tee will also be slightly pulled towards the other tee. Keep in mind, that due to friction, pulling tees is way slower while they are standing on the floor. In contrast to hooking a tile, a hook on another tee only lasts 1.25 seconds. Once the timer runs out, the hook will release from the tee. When touching the endless hook tile , this time restriction gets removed and you can hook other tees forever. This effect only wears of by touching the endless hook off tile . When loosing endless hook through this tile and currently holding hook, you still hold the remaining hook duration from that point in time. The endless hook effect can also be enabled map-wide by adding the map config sv_endless_drag 1 or by placing the endless hook map config tile somewhere on the map.

Hooking tees can be disabled by touching the disable hook collision block . Your hook will go through other tees when in this mode. Hook collision gets enabled again by touching the enable hook collision block . The hook can be permanently disabled on a map with the tune player_hooking 0 or by placing the disable hook collision map config tile somewhere on the map.


Pull limit of the hook

You will not be pulled all the way to the anchor point. Instead, when your tee enters a specific radius to the anchor point you will not be affected by the hook until you get out of it again. This is especially significant when trying to move along the ceiling. Try to re-hook the ceiling when your tee is directly below it, to stick tighter to it.


Hook hitbox of tees

The hit box of tees for the hook is actually larger than it is visually represented. While a tee looks about the same size as a tile and mostly also interacts that way, its hit box for the hook is much more generous. Due to this large hit box it is possible to hook a tee through a corner between tiles without having to do a hook with surgical precision. To see how big the actual hit box of tees are, you can turn on "fat skins" in Settings -> Tee -> Fat skins (DDFat).


Weak hook / strong hook

When hooking other tees, you won’t always pull them with the same strength. There are 2 different strength modes your hook can have, called "weak hook" and "strong hook". It is important to emphasize that a single tee does not "have strong hook" on everyone equally, they instead have either weak hook or strong hook on different tees, depending on spawn order. The tee that has strong hook on the other is determined by who spawned first. The tee that spawned first has strong hook and the one who spawned later has weak hook.

Weak and strong hook are especially noticeable in parts where you hook the other tee along the floor and when hammerflying.


Maps requiring weak

Most parts are easier (or sometimes only possible) with strong hook. There are very few parts on older maps where weak is an advantage or only possible with weak.

Known list of parts with weak as advantage or required (incomplete):

  • On Insane 3 at tele 6: this part is only possible with weak hook. This is due to the speedups not being strong enough to push the tee up when using the strong hook.
  • On 2Long at position x = 380, y = 33: you have to do an edge hook with strong hook. With weak it is enough if the other tee holds right (by default, D).
  • On Fucktastic at tele 30: Similar to the 2Long part, but three times in a row and the edge is to high to jump on it.
  • On Next at tele 4: The tee holding the hook needs weak for hook to have enough upward momentum


Tunes

The following tunes exist for the hook:

tune name default value comment
hook_length 380.0 Length of the hook. This is how far the hook can get before retracting. The length is always measured from the current position of the tee or the last hook teleporter.
hook_fire_speed 80.0 How far the hook advances each tick
hook_drag_accel 3.0 Factor to acceleration the hook gives each tick
hook_drag_speed 15.0 Maximum speed you can gain/give through the hook afterwards the accel is ignored
player_hooking 1 Enable/disable player hooking
hook_duration 1.25 Time in seconds how long tees can hook other tees


Advanced Behaviour

  • The hook has a maximum range. Once the hook reaches its maximum range, it will reset. Note that if you move away from the hook, that maximum range is reached faster, and you won’t hook as far. However, you can hook further by moving into the general hook direction.
  • The hook does not start directly at the border of your tee. Instead, it starts a bit further out, which makes it easier to hook through a gap between tiles when you are close to it.