armor piercing randomness

[the_Butler]

Just a few questions about mimmicking AP effects.

Firstly and no I'm not looking for sympathy, just understanding that I can be a bit dense- But at the beginning of the summer I got heat stroke and was hospitalized, so now I tend to be a bit thick and forgetful. I overlook things really easily now. So anyway-

I was wondering what the best way to mimic AP effecs was- So I was tinkering with some railguns in a mod and was thinking about making them damage devices, there's a defiant ship mod that has the phasers damage devices so I figured that looked like an AP effect, so is that a good way to go? I skimmed through a lot of weapons mods and even decompiled the games data whatsit with the command line thing you can download (that was a pain in the butt, a few months ago I could've sneezed and had it done but now,,,,) and explored how some of those weapons were made.

I'm losing track of where I'm going so I'll leave it at this before I look to stupid.

Thanks

[PM]

What do you want armor piercing shots to do? Do you want the shot to not get absorbed and continue through the target? Do you want the shot to ignore armor resistances (and vulnerabilities)? Do you want the shot to ignore armor and damage the hull (and instakill ships that do not have an interior)? Okay, that last one is obviously overpowered, but can you elaborate on what armor piercing effects you want, aside from device damage?

For shots that pass through targets after a hit, set passthrough to 100. (i.e., passthrough="100" within the weapon stats. See katana star cannon for an example of unreliable perforation.)

[the_Butler]

Well my understanding of game mechanics are a bit limited, but I was thinking of making armor like a quarter less effective with AP shots. That would make some of the early game projectile weapons more effective later in the game. I LIKE projectile and laser weaponry.

My ultimate goal is to make a ship mod that uses lasers and a mass driver pepper gun throughout the game, I've been thinking of various avenues of how to approach this and really with my malfunctions going further than thinking about it is in all likelyhood whats going to happen.

Ok, so here's what I'm thinking.

HI-laser main weapon. (High Intensity)- The weapon is variable frequency and after a few shots it can learn to bypass shields. This could probably be done with coding but I'll never figure that out and don't want to bother someone else with it. So I figured I'd just cheat it and make it bypass shields. I think there's a command on that already, like WMD or Devices. I think I saw it on a weapon.

Secondary weapon is a dual rail pepper gun, meant to spread as much flack in front of the ship as possible. While it's low damage unless a target takes the brunt of a hit, it's innately AP.

Tertiary weapons are 3 small turreted HI-lasers. They lock onto a fast moving target and fire a continuous beam until the target moves out of range or facing.

So for armor piercing effects, is it possible to reduce the abilities of armor to absorb damage by like a quarter or something along those lines?

I apologize but I'm being as clear as I'm able at the moment.

The ship I'm wanting to make is from some stories I used to tell my kids. It was called the "Tigershark". It was a small fast frigate, a one of a kind save the universe type of ship. It was shaped like a Tigershark, the weapons were what I mentioned above plus an anti-matter torpedo launcher that fired in bursts of 3, sorta kinda homed in on their targets and exploded in massive fireballs.

After perving several dozen mods I can do a lot of this stuff already, just some of the special effects I don't know how to pull off.

Thanks

[PM]

Your post is understandable. Much of the special effects you want is neither very hard nor tedious for an experienced modder.

For armor piercing as you describe, you multiply damage taken by armor by 1.333. (Or since the code does not like non-integers, multiply damage by 4 then divide by 3.)

The shield:x used by the game causes more damage to shields only. If you want the laser to ignore shields without damaging them and damage armor underneath shields, you need to do something like the pteravores, which bypass most shields and cause full damage. It is possible to do what you want.

WMD has no effect on ships, except for non-critical armor segments (which are being phased out for reinforced hull interiors in the beta). WMD is most relevant to stations. Without it, your weapons cause much less damage to stations than to ships.

Read this: http://transcendence.kronosaur.com/wiki ... descriptor

If you want to make your mod primarily for your family, and not something integrated and balanced for the game, consider generic damage. Effects that cannot stop all damage cannot stop generic damage. "Lasers" can be pretty beams while other shots appear as something else. If you must read "laser", "kinetic", or "antimatter" for its damage stats, you can always bait-and-switch; that is, show one thing for stats but fire another weapon effect instead.

Your "Tigershark" seems to feature linked-fire weapon slots. You will need to mess with that, and maybe virtual items to prevent player from removing your items. Do you have custom "Tigershark" ship graphics you want to use?

[digdug]

If you want the laser to ignore shields without damaging them and damage armor underneath shields, you need to do something like the pteravores, which bypass most shields and cause full damage.

that works well.
Or, as an alternative, you can use the OnDamageShields weapon event.

this, added to a weapon, will make the weapon skip the shield completely and hit the underneath armor:

Code: Select all

<Events>
<OnDamageShields>
				(aShieldDamageHP) 
			</OnDamageShields>
</Events>

[the_Butler]

Ah thanks for the info.

When I was originally thinking this stuff out I was thinking that I could make the weapons start out as lasers, kinetic etc, but then add upgrade orbs that would allow you to upgrade the weapons but they would still show the laser and kinetic projectiles, I had given thought to faking it so to speak.

I re-perved a couple of ship mods and I think I can make the ship "auto-upgrade" based on the level of the system you gate into.

As for a ship model, nah- as I said I doubt I'll get very far. I AM working on the code stuff but I can't focus very well. So I'll do a bit every night till it's done, if it gets done.

Part of what I like about this game is playing it allows me to focus for some reason. I don't understand it, maybe it's because it's simple or something.

Thanks again folks.

[the_Butler]

I forgot my own stinkin' password, anyway!

I forgot my jumpdrive otherwise I would've uploaded/copy and pasted what I've gotten so far.

I'll message the original owners shortly and ask for permision to steal their code.

I've been cheating somewhat and copy and pasting out of other folks mods, like the rainbow weapons from the WE mods- I think that's where it's from.

My HI-Lasers are rotating-frequency so they can pierce shields, so I figured if they changed colors that would be a nice effect for the rotating of frequencies. I've already got these guns working but not satisfactory. I'm trying to make them fire one solid sustained beam, right now I've got them firing so fast that it looks like 1 beam- there's a weapon buried in a ton of xmls that states it fires one sustained beam, I think it's called the phazor or something, I'll find it and perv it's code and make it the way I want.

I also tried tinkering with some point defense ideas for the mini-turrets, but my brain isn't clicking right, or wasn't when I was tinkering at 3am this morning. FAcings are making me mad. I can look at the PD weapons in the games decompiled xmls as well as the modded ones and figure it out most likely.

The pepper guns, or I'm calling them "Rakes" was easy as the flails in the game are easily copied.

The "Rakes" and "HI-Laser" cannons I'm going to cheat a bit on, my normal games I stick with Omni weapons and missiles because my reflexes are terrible now so I'm going to make them auto-aim a tad like one of the machinegun type weapons in the game already. Not much, just enough where I don't have to be perfect.

This has moved a long ways from just AP effects.

Question for now, is it possible to make a "missile" track by weight or mass? What I mean is, the projectile will track a large ship better than a small one. My ship's "nukes" are magnetically bottled anti-matter torpedoes, they will be attracted to larger objects easier than smaller ones. I also want them to track semi-slowly. I mean they're not smart, fire them in the general direction and they will meander towards a target but not aggresively track like a regular missile. I mean it's just a big ball of death in a magnetic field.

Thanks in advance.

[PM]

It is possible to do what you want for your AM torpedoes, but it is not easy. Do you want the torpedo to track a predetermined target (standard procedure in Transcendence) or do you want the torpedo to be drawn spontaneously toward the biggest object in range as it flies ahead?

If the former, you can scan for targets around your ship during an OnFireWeapon event, replace aTargetObj with your new target, and fire your weapon.

If the latter, things can be much messier. If you cannot change a missile's target and direction in mid-flight, the only trick I can think of is to have the missile time itself out (after a very short delay) then spawn a replacement missile (where the previous missile died, with yet another timeout delay) with new target and direction. Repeat until it hits target or after dozens of respawns. This is how Diablo 2 handled guided missiles, and I have a few weapons in my Items912 mod that employ this trick.

[the_Butler]

Well for the AM torps I was thinking they would work like a regular missile, just not as aggressive and they would be more likely to track towards a heavier target than a lighter one.

Like, if going after a fighter- the torp would fly towards it but the fighter could side step it and the torp would keep on going, but if it were going after a larger ship, like one of those annoying brown square looking things that light me up with EMPs it would redirect itself towards it because it was bigger. Larger = more magnetic attraction.

I hope that makes sense.

Thanks again.

[PM]

If I understand correctly, the missile will go after its assigned target, ignoring others; but it if has no assigned target or if its assigned target was destroyed, it picks (another) one, favoring heavier targets?

Also, does the missile has better tracking against heavier targets than lighter ones? If so, you can have copies of the missile effect with identical stats except for maneuverability, with lower values for better tracking. Then select and fire one of those effects against a given target based on its mass.

[the_Butler]

If I understand correctly, the missile will go after its assigned target, ignoring others; but it if has no assigned target or if its assigned target was destroyed, it picks (another) one, favoring heavier targets?

Also, does the missile has better tracking against heavier targets than lighter ones? If so, you can have copies of the missile effect with identical stats except for maneuverability, with lower values for better tracking. Then select and fire one of those effects against a given target based on its mass.

Yeah that sounds right. I think of it as a magnet, it will be attracted to nearly anything, but heavier targets will be more attractive, and lighter targets just don't have the pull necessary to keep the missiles attention. I mean it will track a small target, just not as aggresively as a larger one. I'm really sorry I'm trying to be clear, 4 months ago I could've figured this out on my own and done this but I'm all but brain dead now by comparisson.

Anyway-
I perved the rainbow weapons pack to see if I could figure out the color changing mechanics and it is way to complicated. I'm going to do some copy and pasting tonight to see what works how and why but I recently downloaded the beta and a new mod that only seems to work with the beta "phasers" it some of the coding looks different in that mod.

Since I'm having some issues learning how mods are coded, should I wait till the beta is gold and more people are modding for it with the new stuff? I'd hate to have a breakthrough and then have to learn something new since I have issues picking stuff up as is.

I'm really trying, and I thank you folks for the help.

I've downloaded a massive amount of pictures of Tigersharks- My son had originally drawn the ship but I've since lost those pictures so I'll doodle a few and scan them and upload them. They only have stripes as juveniles though.

I've done a rough up of the ship itsself as far as code goes.
I'm using the aguptera ship model stripped down and my stuff added.

Dual HI-Laser cannons fixed forward with a 20 degree fire arc to help with my terrible aiming. No special effects yet till I figure them out.
daul "Rake" cannons (modeled after the Flails), fixed forward and no special effects till I figure out the AP effects,
1 AM torp launcher, no special effects but fires in bursts of 3 and tracks like a regular missile. Eventualy I plan to make this fueled from helium fuel cells if available, and/or maybe eat straight off the reactor. Higher power use OR ammo.
3 AA/anti-missile omni lasers. Haven't done these yet. They're going to autofire at incoming missiles, 1 on the right side, one on the left, 1 facing back. I've perved the MAWS and IPX (I htink they're called that) auto weapons but I got confused so I'll go back to those later.

The main weapons won't take up any slots, the ship will have a 50 ton hold, 3 additional slots for weapons, 4 for random items, and hold upgradeable to 120 I think is fair.
I haven't decided on speed and turn rate, but in my stories the ship was insanely fast and could turn on a dime- I was thinking of 3 maneuver and 30 max speed. 4 armor facings. I'll pay more attention to other ship mods, normally I just play what looks good regardless of balance, I don't care about balance so much as what's fun. So I'll od some comprisons esepecially with the stock shps.

Ok I'm done I'm getting the hsakes and my spelling is getting bad so thanks folks.

[sun1404]

From your descriptions I imagine the ship would be about the size of a small frigate at least. For that, 25cc speed is more than enough(That's faster than most ships in the game, except a few very fast fighters) the maneuverability value shouldn't be too low or it would be hard to pilot it, and almost impossible for fine-tune aiming. I think 2 is touching on the edge. Might need some training before you can pilot it easily. 1 is absolutely unfeasible. The ship'll turn around itself three times before you can stop pressing the turning button.

Be sure to set thrust somewhat high, or the ship would have high max speed, but would take forever to accelerate to that speed. I think the thrust/mass ratio should be about 5 at the least, for the ship to accelerate fast. Also, more armor facings would be good, I think. It adds difference to your ship, and frigates should have more armors than fighters. Six to twelve segments is fine, IMO.

[PM]

(The_Butler:) Tell you what, I will make a demo mod that will have a sample ship with a modified rainbow laser, antimatter torpedoes, and maybe your missile defense; then upload it to Xelerus where you can grab it and do whatever you want with it. Don't worry, it will be an obvious development mod, made to help you, not steal your thunder. I will call it Butler mod or something similar.

Tell you the truth, my version of the rainbow laser is obsolete in 1.2 beta land. I have a new version in the works, but I lack the time now to update many of my mods to 1.2 as quickly as others (and myself) desire.

Tigershark is a small fast frigate? I guess size is close to EI200 or EI7000? Armor segments used by a ship of that size range from 6 to 12.

Insanely fast? The fastest ship in the game is Hornet battlepod, at .35c. Nothing else in the (standard) game matches that speed. Very few ships even have .30c, and those that do are fragile. You will want at least that much. It is overpowered, but that is the point, right?

Maximum turning speed is a combination of facings and maneuver. Unless your ship features a swivel for all weapons, you want at least 36 or 40 facings for your ship. Otherwise, precise aiming of weapons without omni or swivel is too hard. Maneuver of 2 is a given. (Maneuver of 1 does nothing more than 2 for you, but makes AI unable to pilot the ship correctly if ship has more than 20 facings.) If you must have turning speed that matches a Hornet or Wind Slaver, then you need 20 facings and swivel capability with all weapons.

You definitely want high thrust to mass ratio, somewhere between 10 to 20. Wolfen has about 10, depending on cargo and equipment. Get thrust too high and you cannot control your speed. About 30+, you break or go to max speed instantly, but no other speed in between.

There is no such thing as too much cargo space. If you want to be reasonable (yeah, right), you can have default capacity of 100 tons and upgradable to 200. (There are no cargo holds in standard that give more than 100.) If you really want to be overpowered, give your yourself 200, 250, or maybe 500 tons of cargo. You can go even higher, but then you wonder where does your ship put all of that junk?

If you never want to lose turning speed, you need a modicum of mass. If your ship must be light, 100 is alright. You can still get overburdened with that. (Overburdened ships turn slower.) If you never want to be overburdened, you want at least 200 mass, possibly more depending on your armor mass limit and capacity.

As for armor limit, 12 tons will let you equip most of the interesting special armors. 20 tons will let equip any armor other than capital ship armor (massive Tharsis, Hexphase P1300).

EDIT - Worldship plate requires 15 tons.

[the_Butler]

Well in the stories the ship is extremely fast, that's what it was built for. Run in with everything blazing, slice open the hull of a ship 100 times bigger and haul ass. It would fly to a target, turn sideways and open up with everything while raking the side of a battleship or whatever, the lasers would penetrate the shield and slice open the the length of the hull, and it had enough armor and shielding to protect it from a broadside temporarily. That was the idea. Except the ships AI decided to go for a joyride and it eventually picked up the hero and then a friend of the heros gets hurt and he transplants her brain into the ship where it combines with the AI and becomes the ship which led to many more stories told nearly everynight over the course of a couple of years.

While I don't generally care about how overpowered a ship is I do like to play fair for the most part.
6 armor facings sounds fair, I don't want to overdue the cargo capacity because even in the stories it had limited cargo and only hauled the most valuable of cargos (mainly data because FTL ships could move faster than transmitted data, so running "data" could be very lucrative for a fast and armed ship.) I tend to like to mine so I decided enough cargo to make mining and ratholing weapons was reasonable.

I do appreciate the help, but I'm not worried about anyone stealing my thunder, my thunder ran out at the beginning of the summer when I got to hot and cooked my brain.

If you want to do that ship demo you were talking about PM I won't say no, but only if you have the time and want to. I am learning, just not as quickly as I'd like to and after perving the newest game files I'm getting a little spooked.

[PM]

I think I will pass on the demo ship for now. 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. The other way I am familiar with, linked-fire weapons, requires the fire button held down. If you want to keep things simple, and must have automated missile defense, I recommend you forget about firearcs for anti-missile, and just let the device have omnidirectional capability and fire three shots like the IM90.

What I can do is upload updated rainbow laser code and the antimatter weapons. I can do those quickly, and I will probably upload something in a few hours.

Powerful but fair...
* For cargo, you probably want a default of 75 or 100 tons, and allow expansion up to 200. Your ship is bigger than Sapphire or Wolfen, and probably as big as an EI200. It is very easy to fill cargo up with hundreds of tons of junk. If you want to loot everything in the game, even 10,000 tons of space is not enough.

* For speed, .25c or .28c if you want to be "fair". .25c is Wolfen speed, and the speed given by unenhanced Titan engine. .28c is the speed given by an enhanced Titan engine. It will still be faster than most ships. No frigate-sized or larger ship is faster than .20c (without an engine upgrade).