armor piercing randomness

[PM]

Mod uploaded to Xelerus. It has an updated rainbow (generic) laser and an overpowered antimatter gun.

It just occurred to me that some weapons in Atarlost's Northwind Armories can redirect missiles they fire. Thus, it should be possible to make shots ignore targets until one is near (rather than assign one at time of launch).

[Atarlost]

Mod uploaded to Xelerus. It has an updated rainbow (generic) laser and an overpowered antimatter gun.

It just occurred to me that some weapons in Atarlost's Northwind Armories can redirect missiles they fire. Thus, it should be possible to make shots ignore targets until one is near (rather than assign one at time of launch).

I'm running all the tracking manually and manual missile acceleration doesn't influence direction so it would look horrible with a directional sprite like a missile and isn't that easily adapted to tracking an arbitrary space object rather than a distance and angle relative to the source.

[the_Butler]

Thanks PM and I am in your debt. I'll perv your mod demo and do the necessary tweaking if anything is needed. I think one your weapons mods has a weapon in it that uses those helium fuel rods as ammo so I'm going to see if I can do some tweaking on the AM torps, or most likely just make them energy hogs so a player won't be tempted to fire them to often. Dunno, have to do some testing and tweaking.

As for the AA guns, I think I've got a solution- They won't have their arcs the way I envisioned but they will be self firing. But really it's just a modified copy and paste job.

Thanks folks

[the_Butler]

I would like to officially think PM for his efforts, he's gone above and beyond for me and I wholly and truly appreciate it. The laser he made for me works like a charm and he even made it so it could help me aim a bit, and the AM torpedos he made work exactly as I envisioned them, they track perfectly ignoring smaller targets in favor of bigger ones with a huge preference for stations. They're perfect-

The modifications I've made was to cut the range down a bit, the AM torps are equally as deadly to friendlies and I decreased their damage by about half.

The laser cannons I decreased damage by 1/3rd and made them dual and also decreased their range by about 20% or so. They're also deadly to friendlies. They state they're lasers but they do generic damage so they rip through shields and armor- They're also rainbowed so they change colors like a rotating frequency laser would appear to do so in my head.

I also decreased their sell price to like 5 for both, tripled or doubled (don't remember) the energy use for the laser, and set the AM torps power use to like 50. You have to choose your targets carefully at the beginning because the torps will eat up your reactor. Lasers as well, just not as quickly.

Both weapons are overpowered up till you get to Jiangs star or so IMHO. But the idea was that you wouldn't need any other weapons and the fact that the HI-Lasers did generic damage they'd be good for the long haul.

I downloaded everything I could find on model making and I've already begun working on the actual ship model. No idea when it will be done but I'm working on it.

Thanks much folks, your efforts, especially PM are truly appreciated. Other than words I'd offer to make a custom mod for Oblivion or Fallout 3, but since my heat stroke/brain fry I've had to discontinue all my modding efforts for those games and passed those mods off to others. This community is far better than the nexus community anyway, when I said I had to discontinue my mods and explained why I was pretty much told to "go kill yourself". I doubt anyone here is really into bouncin' boob mods (oddly enough, my female employer was the one that requested I make that mod in the beginning, then everyone wanted it so I released it on the nexus). I made a lot of mods, but that's all gone now. Anywya


Thanks again folks.

[TVR]

Both restricted fire-arc ICX and special homing missiles can be created with code from the PDmod.

It turns out that doing the three auto-PD lasers right will take longer that anticipated. Automatic point defense weapons like the ICX or Longreach are treated as omnidirectional, and if you want them bound within firearcs, more code to check and prevent firing will be necessary. I do not have time to spare to figure the whole mess out.

This is actually fairly straightforward to accomplish, as the fire-arcs are 90 degrees and don't overlap. Just modify an existing PD device and use onMinorArc to check fire-arcs:

Code: Select all

(setq minAngleSeparation
	(lambda (startAngle endAngle)
		(block (angle1 angle2 minAngleDifference)
			(setq angle1 (modulo (add (modulo startAngle 360) 360) 360))
			(setq angle2 (modulo (add (modulo endAngle 360) 360) 360))

			(if (gr (abs (subtract angle2 angle1)) 180)
				(setq minAngleDifference (subtract 360 (abs (subtract angle2 angle1))))
				(setq minAngleDifference (abs (subtract angle2 angle1)))
			)
		)
	)
)
(setq onMinorArc
	(lambda (startAngle theAngle endAngle)
		(if (or (eq startAngle Nil) (eq endAngle Nil))
			Nil
			(if (eq (minAngleSeparation startAngle endAngle) (add (minAngleSeparation startAngle theAngle) (minAngleSeparation endAngle theAngle)))
				true
				Nil
			)
		)
	)
)

Thus, it should be possible to make shots ignore targets until one is near (rather than assign one at time of launch).

A slight modification to the Interceptor missile flightmodel is all it takes, specifically sysFindObject, checking the mass of each object, checking the angle of each object, and targeting the one with the best mass/angle ratio.

Code: Select all

<ItemType UNID="&itInterceptorMissileLauncher;"
		name=				"Interceptor missile launcher"
		level=				"7"
		value=				"15000"
		mass=				"2000"
		frequency=			"uncommon"
		modifiers=			"MajorItem"

		description=		"This launcher is designed to accommodate the rapid launch of high-velocity Interceptor missiles."
		>

	<Image imageID="&rsItems1;" imageX="0" imageY="480" imageWidth="96" imageHeight="96"/>
	
	<Weapon
			fireRate=		"15"				
			powerUse=		"30"
			launcher=		"true"
			sound=			"&snMissileLauncher;"
			>
			
		<Missiles>
			
			<Missile ammoID="&itInterceptorMissile;"
			
					type=			"missile"
					
					damage=			"kinetic:8d8+16;"
					missileSpeed=	"60"
					interaction=	"100"
					
					hitPoints=		"1"
					lifeTime=		"1"

					directional=	"true"
			
					>
			
				<Effect>
					<Image imageID="&rsMissiles2;" imageX="0" imageY="0" imageWidth="32" imageHeight="32" imageFrameCount="0" imageTicksPerFrame="0"/>
				</Effect>
				
				<HitEffect>
					<Image imageID="&rsMediumHit;" 
						imageX="0" 
						imageY="0" 
						imageWidth="32" 
						imageHeight="32"
						imageFrameCount="12"
						imageTicksPerFrame="1"
						/>
				</HitEffect>
				
			</Missile>
		</Missiles>
			
	</Weapon>
	
	<Events>
		<OnFragment>
			(not
				(or
					(if (ls (objGetData aCause "age") 100)
						(block Nil
							(if (eq (objGetData aCause "baseVel") Nil)
								(objSetData aCause "baseVel" (sysVectorSubtract (objGetVel aCause) (sysVectorPolarVelocity aHitDir 60)))
							)
							(if aTargetObj
								(block (shot NewDirection FireSolution)
									(setq FireSolution (sysCalcFireSolution (sysVectorSubtract (objGetPos aTargetObj) aHitPos) (sysVectorSubtract (objGetVel aTargetObj) (objGetData aCause "baseVel")) 60))
									
									(if (not (eq aHitDir FireSolution))
										(if (ls (abs (subtract aHitDir FireSolution)) (subtract 360 (abs (subtract aHitDir FireSolution))))
											(if (ls (subtract aHitDir FireSolution) 0)
												(setq NewDirection (add (add aHitDir (min (abs (subtract aHitDir FireSolution)) 12)) 360)) <!-- Turn counterclockwise --> 
												(setq NewDirection (add (subtract aHitDir (min (abs (subtract aHitDir FireSolution)) 12)) 360)) <!-- Turn clockwise -->
											)
											(if (ls (subtract 360 (subtract aHitDir FireSolution)) 180)
												(setq NewDirection (add (add aHitDir (min (abs (subtract aHitDir FireSolution)) 12)) 360)) <!-- Turn counterclockwise --> 
												(setq NewDirection (add (subtract aHitDir (min (abs (subtract aHitDir FireSolution)) 12)) 360)) <!-- Turn clockwise -->
											)
										)
										(setq NewDirection FireSolution)
									)
									
									<!-- default -->
									(block Nil
										(setq shot (sysCreateWeaponFire &itInterceptorMissile; aAttacker aHitPos NewDirection 60 aTargetObj Nil aWeaponBonus))
										(objIncVel shot (objGetData aCause "baseVel"))
										(objSetData shot "baseVel" (objGetData aCause "baseVel"))
										(objSetData shot "age" (add (objGetData aCause "age") 1))
									)
									<!-- -->
								)
								(block (shot)
									(setq shot (sysCreateWeaponFire &itInterceptorMissile; aAttacker aHitPos aHitDir 60 aTargetObj Nil aWeaponBonus))
									(objIncVel shot (objGetData aCause "baseVel"))
									(objSetData shot "baseVel" (objGetData aCause "baseVel"))
									(objSetData shot "age" (add (objGetData aCause "age") 1))
								)
							)
						)
					)
					true
				)
			)
		</OnFragment>
	</Events>
</ItemType>

Hmm, this is actually fairly complex to describe, but I could get it done if you want it.

[PM]

After experimenting with Atarlost's WE fusion cannon code, I managed to make the torpedoes track only whenever a target is nearby. I still need to make some tweaks because stations and planets are much more massive than ships, and they draw in the torpedoes, making them useless (or worse) in some areas. I had made stations and planets count for less, but since The_Butler wants them to count most, I will need to play around with values.

Questions to The_Butler:
* Do you want the antimatter torpedoes track anything, including friendly objects (except your ship for obvious reasons)?
* Do you want antimatter torpedo explosions hurt the player (or the attacker)?

I will probably re-release the mod, and rename it to Tigershark Weapons.

[the_Butler]

After experimenting with Atarlost's WE fusion cannon code, I managed to make the torpedoes track only whenever a target is nearby. I still need to make some tweaks because stations and planets are much more massive than ships, and they draw in the torpedoes, making them useless (or worse) in some areas. I had made stations and planets count for less, but since The_Butler wants them to count most, I will need to play around with values.

Questions to The_Butler:
* Do you want the antimatter torpedoes track anything, including friendly objects (except your ship for obvious reasons)?
* Do you want antimatter torpedo explosions hurt the player (or the attacker)?

I will probably re-release the mod, and rename it to Tigershark Weapons.

Honestly they work fine as is, they do everything I've ever pictured them or described them doing in my stories or in my head. It's like you read my mind.

In one case I even watched the outside uhh,,, "balls" cris-cross each other and go after targets that was actually further from them and I can distinctly remember telling that happening in one of my kids stories. They work absolutely perfectly.

As for tracking planets, the only time they tend to do that is if a planet is fairly close to the path of the torps. I haven't used the mod you made for me in the regular game, just in the beta 2 version so if theirs some differences in the behaviours then I don't know how they'd work in the regular game.

Thanks again folks.