Continuous firing or pulse beam weapons

[Aury]

I remember bobby had made some beam-type weapons, but I was trying to re-create an effect like that, and failing utterly; I found that once an object generating an exhaust tail has passed the edge of the screen, it can nolonger be seen. Also, there seems to be a minimum boundary for the length of exhaust trails. (And a graphical maximum; making it too long will result it sticking out the back of the playership)

I also tried a stream of particles, but it ended up looking ugly with lots of holes, or being stupidly powerful and having to have a very, very, short capacitor on it

[Song]

There are multiple styles of particles....each of them has its merits and downsides. Try them all.

[Prophet]

Look at the IFC, I used it as a template to make the tractor beam, uh, beam which came out pretty well.

[Atarlost]

Don't the lancers appear to be pulsed or continuous? (depending on whether the graphical effect is homogenous like greenparticle or shaped like moltenbolt)

[Vizth]

I tried it with greenparticle, lasers, and a few other things. The biggest problems I've run into is shot spacing and keeping the continuous beam effect while turning. It'd be nice if there was a way to make a laser or particle beam stretch from the point of origin until it hit something instead of just a bolt effect.

I've always liked the idea of a omnidirectional continuous beam weapon that did fairly low damage but stayed on like a hose until you let go of fire, or it overheated / drained it's capacitor.

If you figure it out share your findings with me pls. I've been scratching my brain for over a year on this. XD

[Aury]

I think I'm on the right track now; though I'll be tweaking it some more tomorrow. A basic one can be done with just exhaust effects at a low missile speed (like 50), while a more advanced one can be done with drawn effects like the IFC/IAC

[digdug]

back in the past you could do a firerate="0" weapon that would make an instant continuous beam. It has been removed as you can imagine.

[Aury]

Hmmm... that actually sounds rather what we are looking for...
Why did it get removed? +fast on a firerate 1 weapon?

[Atarlost]

Closest I can come up with for hitscan is

Code: Select all

	<ItemType UNID="&itInstantLaser;"
			name=				"Newtonian Laser"
			level=				"1"
			value=				"24000"
			mass=				"4000"
			frequency=			"uncommon"
			modifiers=			"MajorItem; EnergyWeapon"

			description=		"hitscan weapon test"
			>

		<Image imageID="&rsItems1;" imageX="96" imageY="0" imageWidth="96" imageHeight="96"/>

		<Weapon
				type=				"missile"

				damage=				"laser:1d4"
				fireRate=			"10"
				missileSpeed=			"3000"
				hitPoints=			"10"
				lifetime=			"2"
				failsafe=			"10"
				powerUse=			"10"
				recoil=				"0"

				directional=		"true"
				sound=				"&snLaserCannon;"
				>

			<Effect>
				<Shape
						directional=		"true"
						scaleLength=		"72" 
						scaleWidth=			"6"

						scaleLengthInc=		"3" 

						color=				"0xff, 0x00, 0x00"
						opacity=			"140"
						>
					<Point x="0"	y="0"/>
					<Point x="-35"	y="50"/>
					<Point x="-100"	y="0"/>
					<Point x="-35"	y="-50"/>
				</Shape>

				<Shape
						directional=		"true"
						scaleLength=		"72" 
						scaleWidth=			"4"

						scaleLengthInc=		"3" 

						color=				"0xff, 0x0f, 0x0f"
						opacity=			"255"
						>
					<Point x="0"	y="0"/>
					<Point x="-35"	y="50"/>
					<Point x="-100"	y="0"/>
					<Point x="-35"	y="-50"/>
				</Shape>

				<Shape
						directional=		"true"
						scaleLength=		"64" 
						scaleWidth=			"3"

						scaleLengthInc=		"3" 

						color=				"0xff, 0xff, 0xff"
						opacity=			"255"
						>
					<Point x="0"	y="0"/>
					<Point x="-25"	y="50"/>
					<Point x="-100"	y="0"/>
					<Point x="-25"	y="-50"/>
				</Shape>
			</Effect>

		</Weapon>
		<Events>
			<onFireWeapon>
				(for speed 1 30 (block (shot) 
					(setq shot (sysCreateWeaponFire aWeaponType gSource aFirePos aFireAngle (multiply 100 speed) aTargetObj aWeaponBonus))
					(objIncVel shot (objGetVel gSource))
					True
				))
			</onFireWeapon>
		</Events>
	</ItemType>

It has automatic passthrough 100 including against stations because of quantum. It probably also stacks damage because of not enough quantum. Since hitscan requires insanely fast shots and the game engine has collision detection problems past about twice lightspeed I don't think there's much that can be improved.

[Aury]

Sub-light beams are ok too I suppose (they are also easier to balance)

[Atarlost]

Well, the beams in the game already behave in accordance with special relativity. A firerate 2 weapon with effects that look good chained like that will behave like a continuous beam would.

[Aury]

Oh yeah, I'm aware of that; I'm going with a speed of .5c (these arn't lasers anyways), because higher than that results in having too long of a sub-segment to look very good.