Seperate weapons for high/low trajectory
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Seperate weapons for high/low trajectory
(Skip to the bottom for a summary, I got a bit long-winded)
I'm already using a workaround for this problem, but it's a little hacky (no disrespect to Archangel, who designed it). The problem is that, under just the right conditions, they'll fire the low-trajectory weapon when they should be firing high trajectory, or even worse, they fire both.
Although the current high/low trajectory implementation is very nice to have, an improvement might be made by allowing modders to specify different weapon(s) for when a unit is firing high/low trajectory.
For instance, things like plasma batteries (guardian, punisher, etc) become severely overpowered when attacking certain targets, by virtue of their high default impulsefactor and AoE. Yes, I could just reduce thei impulsefactor and AoE and be done with it, but from both a realistic and a gameplay perspective, it doesn't make very much sense. When you fire modern-day artillery high into the air, when it comes down it hits with the additional force of the kinetic energy from the speed it gained on the way down thanks to gravity. For instance, drop a penny from a one-storey house's roof, and it bounces on the ground. Drop it from the top of a skyscraper, and it would not only be lethal, but would probably go several inches or something into pavement.
While plasma in the TA universe doesn't necessarily have the properties of a penny, it's reasonable to believe that the energy released upon impact from a high-velocity, high-altitude shot would be far greater than a direct-fire shot. So. I have two weapons, each activated by the shot being fired in a different range of angles. Direct fire has a small AoE and nill impulsefactor, high trajectory explodes and devastates the entire immediate area, throwing small units into each other and buffeting larger ones. Looks great, but is a little hacky.
If units with high-trajectory could optionally have two weapons specified for each "real weapon", even if this would mean limiting its total weapons to 8 rather than 16, it would result in better gameplay and realism.
I'm already using a workaround for this problem, but it's a little hacky (no disrespect to Archangel, who designed it). The problem is that, under just the right conditions, they'll fire the low-trajectory weapon when they should be firing high trajectory, or even worse, they fire both.
Although the current high/low trajectory implementation is very nice to have, an improvement might be made by allowing modders to specify different weapon(s) for when a unit is firing high/low trajectory.
For instance, things like plasma batteries (guardian, punisher, etc) become severely overpowered when attacking certain targets, by virtue of their high default impulsefactor and AoE. Yes, I could just reduce thei impulsefactor and AoE and be done with it, but from both a realistic and a gameplay perspective, it doesn't make very much sense. When you fire modern-day artillery high into the air, when it comes down it hits with the additional force of the kinetic energy from the speed it gained on the way down thanks to gravity. For instance, drop a penny from a one-storey house's roof, and it bounces on the ground. Drop it from the top of a skyscraper, and it would not only be lethal, but would probably go several inches or something into pavement.
While plasma in the TA universe doesn't necessarily have the properties of a penny, it's reasonable to believe that the energy released upon impact from a high-velocity, high-altitude shot would be far greater than a direct-fire shot. So. I have two weapons, each activated by the shot being fired in a different range of angles. Direct fire has a small AoE and nill impulsefactor, high trajectory explodes and devastates the entire immediate area, throwing small units into each other and buffeting larger ones. Looks great, but is a little hacky.
If units with high-trajectory could optionally have two weapons specified for each "real weapon", even if this would mean limiting its total weapons to 8 rather than 16, it would result in better gameplay and realism.
Why not evolve the tdf language into something like:
Add a bit of scripting to this stuff and give us more power without having to use up additional weapon slots needlessly (even though it wouldn't matter for 99.999% of units). If you did this you could also seamlessly allow for different models or whatever under certain conditions (say, a Star Destroyer fires at another cruiser. It'd use the Turbolasers at high power, with long reload. But for fighters, it'd use much smaller, low powered, high ROF shots instead). In fact... just convert it *all* into lua and make *all* of this stuff defined in a single file
Code: Select all
[Weapon_Name]
{
asdf;
[%angle% < 45]
{
velocity=
impulse=
etc
[damage]
{
asdf;
}
}
[%angle% > 45]
{
velocity=
etc
}
}
Re: Seperate weapons for high/low trajectory
High trajectory shots fall for rarely more than three seconds, and assuming that x velocity is neglible due to the fact that its initial trajectory is much greater than 45 degrees, the high trajectory round wouldn't be moving faster than 30 metres per second.Caydr wrote:While plasma in the TA universe doesn't necessarily have the properties of a penny, it's reasonable to believe that the energy released upon impact from a high-velocity, high-altitude shot would be far greater than a direct-fire shot.
I <3 my Gnomeh!
Suggested several times (i've suggested it myself at least twice); what we are looking for here is essentially an extensible LUA setup of some sort in the scripting language. However it somewhat compelx is the reply I've gotten; I'm relatively familiar with TASpring Scripting Doohickies (its pretty nifty and not overly complex to add bits and pieces etc) but the preoblem comes because integrating LUA to "do stuff" and pass commands to TASpring engine proper is a complete pain in the ass. The engine is very tightly integrated right now; it works closely with scripting bits.
The two must be divorced! Or broken up. Or convinced that they should bcome swingers.
Of course, last time I actually poked with code was months ago, so I may be compeltely wrong now.
But this was my answer at the time
Suggested several times (i've suggested it myself at least twice); what we are looking for here is essentially an extensible LUA setup of some sort in the scripting language. However it somewhat compelx is the reply I've gotten; I'm relatively familiar with TASpring Scripting Doohickies (its pretty nifty and not overly complex to add bits and pieces etc) but the preoblem comes because integrating LUA to "do stuff" and pass commands to TASpring engine proper is a complete pain in the ass. The engine is very tightly integrated right now; it works closely with scripting bits.
The two must be divorced! Or broken up. Or convinced that they should bcome swingers.
Of course, last time I actually poked with code was months ago, so I may be compeltely wrong now.
But this was my answer at the time
fyi, the penny thing is a myth. They tried it on mythbusters. The penny has too much air-resistance to do that much damage.
And really, we need customized toggles. The devs keep adding toggles for things like immelmans and stuff like that - really, making the toggles customizable per-unit and just changing the way units react to the given toggles seem to make the most sense - I assume you'd like that in GEM where individual weapons could have enable/disable toggles and "high trajectory" is a meaningless concept.
And really, we need customized toggles. The devs keep adding toggles for things like immelmans and stuff like that - really, making the toggles customizable per-unit and just changing the way units react to the given toggles seem to make the most sense - I assume you'd like that in GEM where individual weapons could have enable/disable toggles and "high trajectory" is a meaningless concept.
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Re: Seperate weapons for high/low trajectory
You need to revisit basic newtonian physics. An artillary projectile only loses energy to air resistance the longer it's airborne. If the artillary has enough kinetic energy on firing a projectile to push it a few thousand feet into the air, then it has that kinetic energy weather it fires it at 10% or 80%. A projectile fired several thousand feet into the air will be traveling slower then a projectile fired at low trajec because the longer airtime exposes the projectile to more air resistance and gravity is a null, because it works the same way pulling an opject with momentum moving away from it down as it does with an object moving towards it. 9.8meters per second constant accelleration, this applies to both decelleration and accelleration.Caydr wrote: For instance, things like plasma batteries (guardian, punisher, etc) become severely overpowered when attacking certain targets, by virtue of their high default impulsefactor and AoE. Yes, I could just reduce thei impulsefactor and AoE and be done with it, but from both a realistic and a gameplay perspective, it doesn't make very much sense. When you fire modern-day artillery high into the air, when it comes down it hits with the additional force of the kinetic energy from the speed it gained on the way down thanks to gravity. For instance, drop a penny from a one-storey house's roof, and it bounces on the ground. Drop it from the top of a skyscraper, and it would not only be lethal, but would probably go several inches or something into pavement.
While plasma in the TA universe doesn't necessarily have the properties of a penny, it's reasonable to believe that the energy released upon impact from a high-velocity, high-altitude shot would be far greater than a direct-fire shot. So. I have two weapons, each activated by the shot being fired in a different range of angles. Direct fire has a small AoE and nill impulsefactor, high trajectory explodes and devastates the entire immediate area, throwing small units into each other and buffeting larger ones. Looks great, but is a little hacky.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ ... 20velocity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_velocityterminal velocity
n : the constant maximum velocity reached by a body falling through the atmosphere under the attraction of gravity
The crowd is right... KE gained from the fall = KE lost in the rise, plus you lose KE to air resistance so net, a high arc shell will have less energy than a low arc shell.
Fun fact about terminal velocity - an ant can survive an impact on pavement at it's terminal velocity (which is slow) so an ant can survive a theoretically infinite fall, at least in Earth atmosphere/gravity.
Fun fact about terminal velocity - an ant can survive an impact on pavement at it's terminal velocity (which is slow) so an ant can survive a theoretically infinite fall, at least in Earth atmosphere/gravity.
Now I want to drop ants from the CN tower to test this.Erom wrote:The crowd is right... KE gained from the fall = KE lost in the rise, plus you lose KE to air resistance so net, a high arc shell will have less energy than a low arc shell.
Fun fact about terminal velocity - an ant can survive an impact on pavement at it's terminal velocity (which is slow) so an ant can survive a theoretically infinite fall, at least in Earth atmosphere/gravity.
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