Weapon minmum range tag

Weapon minmum range tag

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centurion-1
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Joined: 31 Jan 2006, 20:53

Weapon minmum range tag

Post by centurion-1 »

Hello!

This one is simple, i think, simply a tag like the weapons maxrange tag, only it would be minrange and simply specify the minimum distance to the target a unit can have and still fire said weapon. This is to prevent arty and support weapons being used in close combat...

thanks!

modderss / fans please support the idea if you think its worthwhile?
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Guessmyname
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Post by Guessmyname »

I think this already exists
Sean Mirrsen
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Post by Sean Mirrsen »

There's a minbarrelangle thing to disallow certain units from shooting below a certain angle - ergo, under a certain distance. But it would be easier to use if we could just specify the distance also.
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FLOZi
MC: Legacy & Spring 1944 Developer
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Post by FLOZi »

+1 from me, it would be rather useful, especially as it could be applied to LOS weapons that minbarrelangle shouldn't apply to
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centurion-1
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Post by centurion-1 »

I'm just going to BUMP this shamelessly, since i really need it for my HRPs wich are LOS weapons firing in trajectotyheight=1 and it looks silly when they fire really close...
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KDR_11k
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Post by KDR_11k »

I'd also back this since I've got units that "order airstrikes", i.e. fire weapons from a very high gunpoint (a few thousand units up) and I don't want them to use those weapopns to strike a target that's right next to them (mostly because of AoE).

Alternatively, how about a "distance to closest friendly" tag that would prevent the unit from automatically firing when the shell would come down closer than n "pixels" to a friendly unit (again for said units, kinda annoying to have them blow away half your attack force because an enemy scout got close enough)? Or is that implemented and I can just not find it?
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Guessmyname
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Post by Guessmyname »

Spring is already far, far too paranoid about shooting friendlies (and even the sodding trees) thank you. Keep your artillery seperate from regular units, put them on hold fire and manually order them to fire at targets. Artillery aren't good for shooting moving things anyway, and making sure artillery shells don't land on advancing forces is your job as commander
Egarwaen
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Post by Egarwaen »

Guessmyname wrote:Spring is already far, far too paranoid about shooting friendlies (and even the sodding trees) thank you.
Not really. Beamlasers, for example, will refuse to shoot if there's a friendly or a tree in the way. Dumbfire rockets, on the other hand, are only all too glad to blow away a friendly unit that's standing still right in their path.

centurion: Shouldn't the HRP be a ballistic weapon? Especially on the Spit, where its mounted on its back and fires up over its head?
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centurion-1
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Post by centurion-1 »

Yes it is supposed to be a ballistic weapons, but because of a Spring quirk missile type weapons with smoketrails cannot be ballistic at the same time, and that sucks. However with the trajectoryheight=1 weapon tag the weapon flies up into the air in a 45 degree arcing pattern and appears to be a ballistic weapons. However at close ranges it just looks silly. Another problem with defining it as a LOS weapon is that there are no accuracy modifiers so all the rockets in the salvo lands in the same spot, taking away from the area saturation support weapon. I might switch out the weapon to behave like a ballistic weapon just to get this right despite the lack of smoketrails... I'd wish missileweapons could be ballistic...
Egarwaen
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Post by Egarwaen »

Check the way Argh does the Archers in Nanoblobs. There is a way to get smoketrails on ballistic weaps.
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KDR_11k
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Post by KDR_11k »

Nope, those are missiles and use the wobble tag to generate inaccuracy. I wish sprayangle would work on missiles, the wobble looks silly in many cases.
Egarwaen
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Post by Egarwaen »

KDR_11k wrote:Nope, those are missiles and use the wobble tag to generate inaccuracy. I wish sprayangle would work on missiles, the wobble looks silly in many cases.
Right, but they're the right thing for Heavy Gear HRPs, which fire in an arcing trajectory with inaccuracy.
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centurion-1
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Post by centurion-1 »

wobble, you say? Where could i get more info about this tag?
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KDR_11k
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Post by KDR_11k »

I don't know where you can find info, I never found much documentation about TA Spring but you can add the tag to your weapon def and see what happens. Values of a few thousand should produce a visible effect, the missiles start curving randomly. You get drunken missiles. Not sure how exactly the value works, the impact area tends to spread overproportionally more with larger numbers. It works with direct trajectory missiles too but since the randomness is along the flight path instead of the impact site you'll see them sail past the target and come down a few kilometers behind it.
Gnomre
Imperial Winter Developer
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Post by Gnomre »

65536 = 360 degrees. While I don't know exactly how this relates to wobble (probably how far it can turn in any given swerve), I know it's the scale it uses.
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Fanger
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Post by Fanger »

The Wobble tag works like the Turnrate tag... turnrate is a rate at which the weapon turns towards its target.. wobble is a rate at which the weapon will turn in a random direction.. its very hard to control slight differences in value will cause a massive shift in spread..

Another note about wobble is that the turn rate tag affects wobble so the higher your turnrate the higher your wobble is going to have to be to affect that weapon.. this only works with missile weapons as does the high trajectory tag...


That said We need minimum ranges the reason for this is very simple:

Missile units firing via wobble unless they have a massive wobble (thus making them insanely inaccurate) tend to become very lethal at short range something that most people dont expect from an "artillery" unit. Because unlike the accuracy tag wobble's inaccuracy is based on how long the missile has to fly to the target, at short range their is almost no inaccuracy this means units firing Raven/catapult style volleys become absolutely deadly at short range as all 10-20 of the missiles they fire will hit the same target for massive damage..
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Drone_Fragger
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Post by Drone_Fragger »

Fanger wrote:absolutely deadly at short range as all 10-20 of the missiles they fire will hit the same target for massive damage..
Hit its weak point for MASSIVE DAMAGE.

Sorry, Couldn't resist.
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Pxtl
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Post by Pxtl »

I would be all for this with one specific modification: the AI knows about it. Units move forward to get their weapons into maximum firing range, and likewise I want to see my artillery intelligently back off to keep an enemy within minimum firing range.
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Soulless1
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Post by Soulless1 »

Pxtl wrote:I would be all for this with one specific modification: the AI knows about it. Units move forward to get their weapons into maximum firing range, and likewise I want to see my artillery intelligently back off to keep an enemy within minimum firing range.
well KAI already does, so that's not a problem :-)
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AF
AI Developer
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Post by AF »

He meant Sub/Game AI not skirmish AI.
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