Weapon Special Effects

Update...

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Originally posted by Weepul 884:
- Turreted beams : Will limit the beam's arc of firing to a swath of # degrees across the front of the ship. The value, unlike for cannons, is the distance (in degrees) between the two sidemost extremes. That means -90 would make a beam that can be aimed up to 45 degrees off of forward. eg. A value of -90 would make, essentially, a front-turreted beam. The beam will not fire at all if the target is not within that range.

Weep Is An Idiot pt. 1 - this has no effect. The turreted beam had side and rear blind spots checked. :redface:

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I haven't tried all weapon types, but certain others (guided missiles, freeflight rockets, and normal beams are examples) will not be affected by negative inaccuracy values.

I have not tried point defense weaponry, but only cannons and turrets are affected among the rest of them.

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Now, negative submunition theta values are more interesting.

Weep Is An Idiot pt. 2 - as the attentive Eugene Chin pointed out, the # is the angle between shots. This is why having a single submunition will not work - there must be multiple shots for there to be an angle between them, mmm? Anyway, for example, a burst of 4 evenly spaced shots would be a subcount of 4, subtheta of -90. With subcount 3, there would be one shot heading forward and two heading straight off to the sides. With subcount 2, there would be 2 shots each heading 45 degrees away from forward.

Values above -360 don't do anything special - they wrap around and the spacing is like the amount over a multiple of 360. However, it can do weird things to the direction the submunition shots are facing...

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Has anyone tried using negative values for inaccuracy since switching to 1.0.7? I've tried using them for the first time and they don't seem to work. I've got an unguided weapon, with inaccuracy -180 that fires straight ahead when it should be firing backwards.

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(url="http://"http://homepage.mac.com/jonathanboyd/evn/index.html")Classic4Nova plug-in(/url)

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Originally posted by Jonathan Boyd:
**Has anyone tried using negative values for inaccuracy since switching to 1.0.7? I've tried using them for the first time and they don't seem to work. I've got an unguided weapon, with inaccuracy -180 that fires straight ahead when it should be firing backwards.

**

Uhoh. I would test, but i am on windows.
This would suck bigtime.
-Az

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Quote

Originally posted by Jonathan Boyd:
Has anyone tried using negative values for inaccuracy since switching to 1.0.7? I've tried using them for the first time and they don't seem to work. I've got an unguided weapon, with inaccuracy -180 that fires straight ahead when it should be firing backwards.

Gimme a moment...

Yep, it works great in 1.0.7.

<random type="stuff" why="_nobody should care">
Heh, I tested it in SFA, and effectively killed it...gonna have ot wait till the next public release, whatever it may be... :frown: oh well. I got my answer. The KM scenario didn't work, but I found a Hermes to attack...then was blown to hell by a reinforcement fleet...
</random>

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The programmer's code of entomology: there's always another bug.
Windows users: stop asking for plugins. (url="http://"http://www.aznt.com/EVN/EVNEW/")Make one yourself.(/url)
(url="http://"http://www.cwssoftware.com")Sephil Saga Website(/url)

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Originally posted by orcaloverbri9:
**Gimme a moment...

Yep, it works great in 1.0.7.**

Hmm. Could someone download (url="http://"http://homepage.mac.com/jonathanboyd/evn/Missile.sit.hqx")this(/url), start a new pilot and try out the Shockwave missile? It should fire directly astern before going off, but won't for me.

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Originally posted by Jonathan Boyd:
**Hmm. Could someone download this, start a new pilot and try out the Shockwave missile? It should fire directly astern before going off, but won't for me.

**

Missile.sit.hqx is 404. I can see your iDisk is fine, and I can't get a directory listing, so who knows what the problem is. If you could fix the problem, I'd try it out.

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The programmer's code of entomology: there's always another bug.
Windows users: stop asking for plugins. (url="http://"http://www.aznt.com/EVN/EVNEW/")Make one yourself.(/url)
(url="http://"http://www.cwssoftware.com")Sephil Saga Website(/url)

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Originally posted by orcaloverbri9:
Missile.sit.hqx is 404. I can see your iDisk is fine, and I can't get a directory listing, so who knows what the problem is. If you could fix the problem, I'd try it out.

Doh. I left out an 's' - should have been (url="http://"http://homepage.mac.com/jonathanboyd/evn/Missiles.sit.hqx")'Missiles'(/url). Originally started out as me testing out the negative inaccuracy thing, but I've built a few fun weapons now. Try them out and see. Make sure you've got weapons effects on in your preferences though, otherwise the point of most of them goes. I've even chucked in a couple of implementations of explosive reactive armour.

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Okay, it downloaded properly. Now, does it contain everything except dëscs (there are none, I noticed) necessary, or do I need to do all that myself?

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The programmer's code of entomology: there's always another bug.
Windows users: stop asking for plugins. (url="http://"http://www.aznt.com/EVN/EVNEW/")Make one yourself.(/url)
(url="http://"http://www.cwssoftware.com")Sephil Saga Website(/url)

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Originally posted by orcaloverbri9:
**Okay, it downloaded properly. Now, does it contain everything except dëscs (there are none, I noticed) necessary, or do I need to do all that myself?

**

Contains everything. I didn't bother with descs. Start a new pilot and try out the Shockwave weapon. It's a secondary one. Should fire backward, but doesn't for me.

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Originally posted by Jonathan Boyd:
Contains everything. I didn't bother with descs. Start a new pilot and try out the Shockwave weapon. It's a secondary one. Should fire backward, but doesn't for me.(/B)

Okay, I'll try out the missile. Gimme a moment.

Okay. I've got some news.
Good: These weapons kick ass!
Bad: The shockwave missile doesn't fire from aft. I'll check the resources. Moment, please.

Odd. The Shockwave missile is indeed set to -180. It may be an engine bug. Someone needs to talk to whoever's handling bugs about this and see what's wrong.

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The programmer's code of entomology: there's always another bug.
Windows users: stop asking for plugins. (url="http://"http://www.aznt.com/EVN/EVNEW/")Make one yourself.(/url)
(url="http://"http://www.cwssoftware.com")Sephil Saga Website(/url)

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Originally posted by orcaloverbri9:
**Okay, I'll try out the missile. Gimme a moment.

Okay. I've got some news.
Good: These weapons kick ass!**

Thanks. Annoy a carrier, then sit in the middle of the fighter swarm with Gridfire going off. Fun fun fun.

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**Bad: The shockwave missile doesn't fire from aft. I'll check the resources. Moment, please.

Odd. The Shockwave missile is indeed set to -180. It may be an engine bug. Someone needs to talk to whoever's handling bugs about this and see what's wrong.**

Could you make a quick plug that fires a missile bacward, check that it works on your computer and then email it to? That would go some way towards narrowing down what the bug (if one exists) is.

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Hmmmm. Fires forward for me too, on a PC.
Other negative inaccuracies work fine. How Bizzare.
If you do any complaining/reporting, do be polite - keep in mind this is an undocumented and propably little-tested feature. It is VERY strange how this one doesnt work. I have definately seen things with -180 inaccuracy fire backwards. Try making a copy of the light blaster, setting it to -180 inaccuracy (which definately works), and then changing one field at a time (making it more and more like this weapons) until you find what causes the change in behavior.
-Az

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It is here. EVNEW Public Beta (url="http://"http://www.aznt.com/EVN/EVNEW")www.aznt.com/EVN/EVNEW(/url)
Stuffit is a piece of .sit.

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Originally posted by Azratax2:
**Hmmmm. Fires forward for me too, on a PC.
Other negative inaccuracies work fine. How Bizzare.
If you do any complaining/reporting, do be polite - keep in mind this is an undocumented and propably little-tested feature. It is VERY strange how this one doesnt work. I have definately seen things with -180 inaccuracy fire backwards. Try making a copy of the light blaster, setting it to -180 inaccuracy (which definately works), and then changing one field at a time (making it more and more like this weapons) until you find what causes the change in behavior.
-Az

**

I've solved it - you have to use a weapon exit which has a non-zero value defined in the ship's shan. Exits which just have zero set in the shan and firing from ship's centre don't work. Interesting bug. Someone else want to duplicate my test to make sure it's not just my computer?

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Originally posted by Jonathan Boyd:
**I've solved it - you have to use a weapon exit which has a non-zero value defined in the ship's shan. Exits which just have zero set in the shan and firing from ship's centre don't work. Interesting bug. Someone else want to duplicate my test to make sure it's not just my computer?

**

Holy crap. Well... that is interesting. I came across this same thing on my computer- I have two copies of Nova on my computer, one with the standard data files, and one with just the bare minimum, which defaults to a shuttle with all 0's in the weapon positions... This definitely fixed it. It's still a bit annoying though. Perhaps you should send it to mrxak to send to the beta list before 1.0.8?

However, I did find a few oddities... In one weapon I made ("Weapon 3 (backwards)"), which has a count of 30 and a speed of 1500, with -180 inaccuracy, if I shoot it, it seems to return to my ship, boomerang-style... very odd.

Another, if you set the weapon's speed to a negative value, it also shoots backwards.

Finally, if you set a missile's guided turning to a negative value, it does strange things. 😉

I think all of these are demonstrated in the plugin (url="http://"http://www.evula.org/infernostudios/downloads/WeaponsTests.zip")here(/url).

~ SpacePirate

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Eat blazing electric death!

(edit: Capitalism only works in theory...)

(This message has been edited by SpacePirate (edited 01-02-2004).)

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Originally posted by SpacePirate:
**Another, if you set the weapon's speed to a negative value, it also shoots backwards.

Finally, if you set a missile's guided turning to a negative value, it does strange things. 😉
**

First of all, with the negative speed, does homing still work properly? And secondly, I don't have time to test the negative guided turning thing. Could you be more specific as far as what it does?

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everywhere a slice slice.

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Originally posted by Katana:
**First of all, with the negative speed, does homing still work properly? And secondly, I don't have time to test the negative guided turning thing. Could you be more specific as far as what it does?

**

1.) I doubt it... I'll try it out. Nope. Not in the least. :? For some strange reason, the weapons always shoot towards the bottom-right hand corner. However, I'm certain you could use submunitions to achieve a similar effect. This functions exactly the same as the -180 inaccuracy, except for the guided bit, and the boomerang thing I'm getting...

2.) The missile turns away from the target, instead of towards it. Therefore, instead of targeting the enemy, it flies away from it. It could be quite useful for 'faulty' weapons. 😄

Back to the 'boomerang' effect I'm getting, the weapon seems to be bouncing off of the edge of the screen, and returning directly back to the player. Does this happen with anyone else?

~ SpacePirate

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Eat blazing electric death!

(edit: I hate ubb.)

(This message has been edited by SpacePirate (edited 01-03-2004).)

So, it runs from the targeted ship? How odd... What if the ship were to try to chase down the weapon. That would make for some interesting effects... Hmm. With the negative speed homing weapons, does it also run from the targeted ship?

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Here a slice, there a slice,
everywhere a slice slice.

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Originally posted by Katana:
**Hmm. With the negative speed homing weapons, does it also run from the targeted ship?

**

Nope. It always shoots directly for the bottom right corner or the screen. Always.

~ SpacePirate

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Eat blazing electric death!

Now that is extremely odd... Does that only happen for guided weapons? Negative values are so useful... 😄 Does anybody know off-hand if beams can have a negative length?

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Here a slice, there a slice,
everywhere a slice slice.

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Originally posted by Katana:
**Now that is extremely odd... Does that only happen for guided weapons? Negative values are so useful...:D Does anybody know off-hand if beams can have a negative length?

**

As far as I've tested, only guided weapons go to the corner.

Negative beam lengths is a bit odd... It usually fires behind the player, but fires forward whenever a ship (Targeted or not, hostile or not...) is directly in front of the player...

~ SpacePirate

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Eat blazing electric death!