MissileLauncher and Accuracy/Sprayangle

[SpikedHelmet]

I have noticed very strange behaviour with Missile Launchers and the Accuracy/Sprayangle tags. Basically they don't work right.

I am trying to create a swarm missile launcher type weapon that launches a burst of small missiles at things, and impacts targets like a "shotgun" with missiles spread out, some hitting, some peppering and raining down around it.

But this isn't very well supported currently because the Accuracy/Sprayangle tags don't do much, or do things in wierd ways.

Case in point my 20-burst missile launcher when set with very high Accuracy will start launching clusters of missiles across the map randomly. All missiles will hit the same point, but that point will often radically determine itself. However, even with accuracy >16000, about 3/4 of the bursts of missiles launched will travel directly to the intended target -- only ~1/4 miss wildly.

Experimenting, I decided to try to set each weapon to launch only once, with a short reloadtime. This time, every missile that was fired would arrange itself in a very obvious "V" shape from the actual target location (with the target location itself at the bottom of the "V" where the two lines meet).

Furthermore, this problem seemed to exacerbate itself at short range. The missile has a set max range of 2400. When firing at about 1/2 this distance this random V-shape pattern will be very obvious, but at closer to its max range its far less apparent and the missiles will seemingly "correct" this inaccuracy and hit the target point perfectly almost every time despite high accuracy/sprayangle settings.

This is a bummer because I would really like a swarm missile launch that sprays targets with burst missiles, but it seems I am stuck with either super-accurate swarms where every missile hits, or semi-super-accurate swarms where 3/4 of every missile hits and the other 1/4 go completely apeshit at shorter ranges but fly perfectly at long ranges.

Anyone know any fixes or workarounds for this?

EDIT: I'd like to find a solution without wobble and dance. To get the "spread on target" effect I want would require jacking these values up to a point that detrimentally affects the visual quality of the missiles themselves. Basically it looks like a crazy Lovecraftian quantum spider web of looming damnation.

[Silentwings]

You could have a look at how the Catapult (armraven) is set up in BA; I think you could find alot of what you need. Mercury/Screamer might be useful too.

[Google_Frog]

Many games use the strange wobbling missiles as features. Whatever happens we need a way to retain the current behaviour because for many it is intentional.

[Anarchid]

Anyone know any fixes or workarounds for this?

Lua it.

Since 93.0, there exists a set of nice lua callouts, like GetProjectileTarget and SetProjectileTarget.

You can use those to tell your missiles to aim at whatever points you like, if those missiles are guided.

So not only you can make random swarm rain effect, but you can also make it impact in precise geometric pattern, making your Macross Missile Massacre look like a real work of art! bonus points for pentagrams and such... or spiderwebs, yeah.

If you want unguided missiles instead, just use any other weapon type, just make it look like a missile by adding a trail and projectile model.

If you want your (guided) missiles to spread before launch, you can use fixedlauncher i think and use 20 empty pieces as origins, each in its own direction.

[Pressure Line]

the 'dance' tag should work

[FLOZi]

OP was unclear about what he's actually trying to do. Only accuracy and sprayAngle of a weapon can be changed on-the-fly, so wobble and dance don't help much.

Coding the behaviour entirely in lua is not something I particularly want to do, either.

[Anarchid]

Coding the behaviour entirely in lua is not something I particularly want to do, either.

Not entirely. Just provide individual targets to the missiles, so they don't all attempt to land on one spot.

What OP seems to want to do is cause the missiles to land in a hail somewhere around the target, so setProjectileTarget sounds like a valid rescue ranger.

Well that, or missile-lookalike non-missile projectiles instead.

[SpikedHelmet]

You could have a look at how the Catapult (armraven) is set up in BA; I think you could find alot of what you need. Mercury/Screamer might be useful too.

This effect is VERY similar to what I want as the end-result, except for the fact that the missiles don't track at all. I want spread, but also the ability to spread around a moving target. My missiles have much greater range so it's important.

Anyone know any fixes or workarounds for this?

Lua it.

Since 93.0, there exists a set of nice lua callouts, like GetProjectileTarget and SetProjectileTarget.

You can use those to tell your missiles to aim at whatever points you like, if those missiles are guided.

So not only you can make random swarm rain effect, but you can also make it impact in precise geometric pattern, making your Macross Missile Massacre look like a real work of art! bonus points for pentagrams and such... or spiderwebs, yeah.

If you want unguided missiles instead, just use any other weapon type, just make it look like a missile by adding a trail and projectile model.

If you want your (guided) missiles to spread before launch, you can use fixedlauncher i think and use 20 empty pieces as origins, each in its own direction.

Coding every behaviour in LUA isn't optimal, I'd really just like these tags to have more consistent results :)

Many games use the strange wobbling missiles as features. Whatever happens we need a way to retain the current behaviour because for many it is intentional.

Agree, maybe "fix" the issue by having some sort of "GuidanceInaccuracy" tag that has missiles logically impact various random points, the distance from actual target determined by the value. ie GuidanceInaccuracy = 100 would have missile randomly hit anywhere within 100 units radius of actual target point.

the 'dance' tag should work

It isn't modifiable though as FloZi said, which is what I need -- a way to change the accuracy of a unit's weapon depending on external influences.

[NeonStorm]

You could make 1 leader-missile which is perfectly accurate
(invisible and no damage if you want)

Use GetProjectileTarget every frame, add a random x/z offset for each projectile and re-set their targets with SetProjectileTarget

That will give you a formation.

You only need to remember this random x/z for each missile and make sure that the missile = {id, leader, x, z} entry in your table get deleted when the projectile dies.

If leader-missile is dead (=impact on ground) just keep the last coordinates+offsets you've got from it.

(EDIT: Or make another missile the leader, but then you have to re-align the offsets of your other missiles)

[KDR_11k]

Sounds like a bug to me. When I last dealt with these things (which admittedly was VERY long ago) missiles followed spray and acc the same way other weapons did: The projectiles spawned with a random error in their initial facing. Obviously a homing missile will seek to correct this error and thus a homing swarm would converge towards the target (depending on turnrate, spread and distance of course, they need a bit of distance to correct their flight path). Guidance also counteracts effects like wobble.

[raaar]

Code: Select all

...
weapontype=MissileLauncher;
range=2400;
wobble=1000;
burst=20;
burstrate=0.1;
flighttime=10;
weaponvelocity=450;
startvelocity=300;
weaponacceleration=50;
trajectoryheight=0.6;
...

currently it seems sprayangle only applies variation horizontally, and (in)accuracy is calculated only once per burst (in case you try to set "accuracy" instead of "sprayangle"). Wobble seems to work, somewhat.

[KDR_11k]

(in)accuracy is calculated only once per burst (in case you try to set "accuracy" instead of "sprayangle").

That's the reason why there are two different tags, sprayangle is within a burst while accuracy is only for the whole burst (basically spray is how inaccurate the weapon is and acc is how inaccurate the user's aim is).

[NeonStorm]

if you use a burst of >=2, does spray give you a centered median?

[KDR_11k]

It's random, there are no guarantees.