Ammunition Regeneration... is it possible?

Or other ways to simulate this...

Hi, I've been working on a way to simulate the "gun energy" in Wing Commander, for my TC... so far I've been using Fuel to power my weapons, but this causes a slight problem that you basically have ships that can jump as many times as desired without problem since you constantly regenerate fuel at an astounding rate! ...

Is there a way to create self-regenerating ammunition for weapons? like regenerates 1 unit of amunition every 30 frames etc...

Or if anyone can think of an alternative method of simulating this, it would be apreciated.

It's not hyper-important, but it would be helpful to my TC if it can be done

Thank you for your time,
Eric Langlois

If fighters not being able to jump isn't an issue, you could try setting the fuel capacity of a fighter to less than 100; it would prohibit your fighter from ever jumping out no matter how fast the recharge rate.

Well, you can regenerate ammo using crons, but then you'd get ammo every day, rather than frame.

UE_Research & Development, on Nov 14 2004, 05:47 PM, said:

If fighters not being able to jump isn't an issue, you could try setting the fuel capacity of a fighter to less than 100; it would prohibit your fighter from ever jumping out no matter how fast the recharge rate.
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It's what I did so far... but some fighters possess jumping capability... so do all capships. crons aren't an option either, obviously... If by tomorrow there still is no known way to accomplish what I need posted here, I'll go by the "no energy" standard used in most plugins... I'll have to find a way to challenge players another way

It might be possible to allow the player to "jump" between systems without using a hyperdrive in the typical way.......either using hypergates, or simply having spobs with always-activating missions which move you to the next system over.

I'm not terribly familiar with Wing Commander, having only played Heart of the Tiger a bit and nothing else, so I don't know if that's something you want to consider.

You could develop a weapon, say a missile, that uses energy as opposed to ammunition. I am not sure what exactly you would have to do, but I have seen a guided projectile (actually it is supposed to be an FPC burst) that uses energy in the Plug Pack V16. If you do it like that you could have the graphics as a missile but have it use the energy instead, so it would kind of be like a gun (with rounds that look and act like missiles) that takes energy. With a solar panel or reactor, you would regenerate energy and be able to fire more.

I think I misread the post at first, since it seems that you have it doing what I suggested. The one jump idea is neat because then you have to make a choice of running or fighting at a given time. It would certainly make pilots think twice about attack someone if they aren't able to simply jump out when things get hairy unless they have let their energy replentish. If you wanted, you could be nice and give them 2 jumps, so they can fight a little and still maybe have energy to jump.

Hmm, the jump gate idea is deffinately worth looking into... it might make it more "wing commander" since the jump drives of wing commander are artificial wormhole generators that penetrate a weakness in space to go to another system that happens to be "in the way"... the size of the weakness usually determines where it goes and how big it can be (what sized ship can move through it)... at least, that's based on my observations, a detailed (and likely different) explanation can be found at wcnews.com if this stuff interests you...

Using the jump gate idea, I'd like to know something...

Is there a way to eleminate in some way the ability to jump using the EV Nova jumping system? (without removing the jump connections... they serve as a guide for the use of the gate system... it gets annoying to plot a course when you don't know wich system goes where)

As for erikthered,

In Wing Commander, most fighters don't have jump drives early on... by giving fighters less than 100 energy, you are forced to stay in a given system to perform your missions... By doing this, you will practically always have a little help... making the fights a little less dangerous, but not necessarily less challenging since you might end up without help at all

If you are part of, say, the Terran Confederation mission string in Wing Commander 1, you will be based off of the TCS Tiger's Claw, a destroyable spob that moves from system to system, bringing you with him

Complex, perhaps, but it creates a vastly dynamic and realistic point of view for fighter pilots that are dependant on their mothership to survive in space.

Maniac Angel Raptor, on Nov 15 2004, 05:23 PM, said:

Is there a way to eleminate in some way the ability to jump using the EV Nova jumping system? (without removing the jump connections... they serve as a guide for the use of the gate system... it gets annoying to plot a course when you don't know wich system goes where)
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You could try adding a nebu image with all the links on it. You can have one image for each zoom level of the map so it just might work.

Guy, on Nov 15 2004, 08:52 PM, said:

You could try adding a nebu image with all the links on it. You can have one image for each zoom level of the map so it just might work.
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There's still the problem of not being able to see nearby unexplored systems... And maps become useless

Maniac Angel Raptor, on Nov 15 2004, 10:07 PM, said:

There's still the problem of not being able to see nearby unexplored systems... And maps become useless
View Post

Maybe you could set the jump radius really high. But that may not work if the max jump radius is smaller than the system bounds.

Hmm... using Guy's idea, set the system's jump radius to maximum. I'm pretty sure that it doesn't reach the system bounds though. So, give each ship an outfit that sets the jump radius even farther. I'm pretty sure that it still won't reach the limit, but people will have to go pretty far if they want to jump, and some people aren't taht patient.

If you increase the jump radius with an outfit by 11,000 pixies, it will preclude the player from jumping. The system wraps around before the player reaches that range.

However, the "Jump Range" outfit type doesn't affect A.I. ships, so it will not do anything to A.I. fighters. They will retain the ability to jump out of the system, if they have fuel, even if the system doesn't connect anywhere.

This post has been edited by Eugene Chin : 15 November 2004 - 09:22 PM

Don't A.I. ships jump out even with 0 fuel and no connections anyways?

I think the best way to go about all this is as follows:

1. increase the jump radius to maximum
2. add an invisible outfit that increases the jump radius even further
3. create a "jump drive" outfit that decreases the jump radius to a good jumping radius, allowing player ships to easily use their 100+ energy to jump out... as long as they didn't just recently use all their energy blasting away at an enemy.

There might be some concern that without a quick jump to save your skin in rough situation, but fear not... Wing Commander generally runs along these guidelines,

Advantages:
Light Fighters = Speed, they can outrun practically everything
Medium Fighters = Good All-round, they have fair speed and firepower
Heavy Fighters = Heavy firepower, these ships pack good firepower but usually (but not always) lacks a bit in speed
Heavy Bombers = Massive firepower, Massive endurance, these ships can take a beating and a half, and dish out just as much...
Corvettes = Fast capship, fighter-base weapons, these ships are fast compared to most capships, they don't pack the firepower of the big boys but they are deadly against fighter-craft.
Destroyers = Moderate firepower, These ships sometimes carry fighters, but more often carry big guns, albeit a limited amount. They are the first class of ship you DON'T want to mess with if you aren't in a bomber or heavy fighter!
Cruisers = also known as Light Carriers, these ships are big guns with a pack of smaller ones along side... (the fighters it carries), don't even come close without at least a torpedo in your arsenal!
Carriers = Big... Slow... Moving target... The only good thing about this type is the large number of fighters it carries... and it's anti-fighter weaponry. A simply destroyer should take this down without a problem if it hasn't launched it's bombers yet.
Dreadnoughts = Massive Killers... Don't even THINK about fighting these things unless you pack 2 or 3 torpedoes and a fairly large escort wing because it will shred you to pieces whether your a fighter or a cruiser!

in general, Heavy bombers and up can jump, but anything lower can't (until you get to the later parts of the game, then most fighters also can jump)

So if you can't jump... and you aren't powerful... chances are, you can outrun the enemy and outmaneuver most missiles...

Maniac Angel Raptor, on Nov 16 2004, 02:39 AM, said:

I think the best way to go about all this is as follows:

1. increase the jump radius to maximum
2. add an invisible outfit that increases the jump radius even further
3. create a "jump drive" outfit that decreases the jump radius to a good jumping radius, allowing player ships to easily use their 100+ energy to jump out... as long as they didn't just recently use all their energy blasting away at an enemy.View Post

Wait a minute. The only way to increase the jump radius is by using an outfit, isn't it? There should be a field in somewhere like the char resource to let you specify the default distance. You only need to prevent the player from jumping, don't you? You can tell the AI to just use the hypergates.
Anyway, if you include this outfit with every ship then your "jump drive" outfit could simply remove it when you buy it.

You can also increase jump radius in the syst resource.

Now you're talking

I guess this doesn't even qualify as a problem anymore, but I'd still like to know something, what would be a good radius to put the jump radius in the system, and on the outfit? I suppose I could simply put the maximum, though I don't know if that will cause any problems...

Uhh, I can't see a jumpradius field in the syst resource in any of my editors. I'd suggest just having a default outfit on the ships which increases the radius by 11,000 as Eugene said. Then you buy a jump drive outfit that removes the first outfit and you're back down to 1000.

Hmm... O wait. I remember wrong. Well, I guess then the only way to change it is to use an outfit. I think I remember seeing a second way to change jump radius, but I forgot.

What would the behavior be of, say, 4 exclusive guns with a salvo size of 2, medium wait between shots, long salvo reload?

You would always be able to fire two or so consecutive shots, but if you keep firing, eventually all of the salvo reloads will coincide.

Granted, it isnt perfect, since having every weapon be at the first of its salvo is much better than having every weapon on the second shot of its salvo, and the first state would never become the second without firing off shots, but it would still act like a weapon that needed a charge that you could save up.

This depends on how nova staggers shots and handles salvos, but it might work ok.