Boomerang Shield Pickup Weapon

This pickup weapon allows the player to rapidly fire projectiles out to a medium range, which later fly back to the player and create a shield.

- When activated, the player files a projectile and gains the energy to rapidly fire more similar projectiles

- The projectiles may be continuously fired as long as energy remains

- Each projectile consumes energy, and the energy also depletes over time

- While the player has energy to fire the projectiles, a particle aura surrounds the player

- The particle aura changes color and flashes when critically low on energy for this attack

- The projectiles damage enemies they strike, but pass through without being dissipated

- Each projectile may only damage a given target one time during its flight

- The projectiles have significant spread for low accuracy

- After a projectile travels for a certain amount of time or strikes a wall or level edge, it stops moving

- While a projectile is stopped, enemy players can walk through it, but takes damage per unit time while in contact

- The projectiles do not damage the player who fired them

- After a certain amount of time passes after a projectile stops, it will rapidly fly back to the player who fired it, homing in with perfect accuracy and much greater speed than when it was fired outward

- The return flight has no range limit and will reach the firer regardless of distance between them (we should consider whether the return flight can pass through level geometry or if level collision destroys the projectile)

- During the return flight, the projectile passes through and damages enemies as before, except the higher speed makes it harder to avoid and it is aimed toward the firer

- When a projectile strikes its firer at the end of the return, it creates a special shield around the player or adds health to an existing shield, and then dissipates

- The amount of shield health granted by a projectile is a percentage of the damage it dealt after being fired by the player

- When a projectile strikes is firer upon return, an explosion occurs centered on the player, dealing damage to enemies, knocking them away, and claiming tiles within its radius

- When a shielded player would take damage, the shield is damaged instead, with the damage lowering the shield's health

- While the shield has very low health, its appearance reflects this

- The projectiles from this weapon do not have very much health, and can be reliably destroyed by contact with enemy weapons during flight or when stopped

- If a player picks up a replacement weapon prior to firing off all this weapon's projectile energy, all remaining energy is lost, but previously fired projectiles will still return after the normal amount of time and shield the player

- The shield only protects from damage, and does not stop other effects like knockback, hijack, or tile loss

- The shield slowly loses health over time

- The shield may be built up to be very healthy with multiple uses of the boomerang shield weapon, but there is a maximum amount of shield health possible, and its appearance changes to indicate that it is near its maximum

- The enhanced version of boomerang shield has a higher rate of fire, projectiles with faster outward flight, and more energy to fire the projectiles with

- The boomerang shield is the one of the most reliable weapons for straight-forward combat, providing sustainable offense for a time along with defense