How to Make Decoy Flares

No not the PD weapon

Important In order for this to work, seeking weapons must have 'Prox. Triggered by non-targeted ships' flag checked.

First I made a ship that had no speed or accel. and 1 shield and 1 armor with about 30 degree turn rate (so it moves from frame to frame) Recommended: 'Check ship is untargetable' flag
Optional 'vulnerable to Point Defense's' flag checked.

Next I took the Decoy Flare graphic from EVC (you can make one or use a different) and put it into the game, but set it's rël8 and rëlD graphic to be in the 1000 range (So it can be a ship) also I created a Shän for this 'weapon'. Then I created a bay and a fighter oütf resource and the fighter in the wëap resource that launches the Decoy Flare in the shďp resource. (in other words make a bay for the Flares)

Another optional step would be to make the flares have a Point Defense weapon that's ammo would be the ship.

Ideas

Have the ammo of the Point Defense be fuel and the flare be a 'hidden turret'.

Another Idea I came up with is to have the Flare have a unguided projectile turret instead of a Point Defense. Thus resulting in an 'Everlasting Space Mine', this will work even without the 'Prox. Triggered by non-targeted ships' flag.

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I came up with this idea a couple of days or so and tested it. Then I searched the boards for a way to make Flares and came up with nothing so I decided to post my discovery. Feel free to use or build off this idea in TC's or plug-in's.

Have fun and Happy Decoying :hector_bird:

Note: My wording of this might be wrong if the flares doen't work, please, post that it doesn't work and I will double check this post again.

Nifty. I would suggest giving the flares an invisible, silent PD weapon with a range as big as they are, a super fast rate of fire (say, 15 shots a second), a burst count to give it a fair chance of hitting the missile, uses ammo at end of burst cycle, and set the ammo type to self-destruct when used.

Interesting, though you still can't make them actually 'decoy' missiles. Only asteroids can do that - if only you could make a weapon that launches asteroids 🙂

Well, it could decoy some submunitions I think.

Also, to add to my last post, to give the decoy flare a limited life so the player (most likely) can't scoop them back up in their "flare bay", give it a second, ridiculously long range, zero damage, invisisble, silent turret weapon with a reload rate of however long you want it to last, self-destruct ammo type, a burst count of two, and uses ammo only during the burst reload cycle.

Just a thought - what if you used the ProxRadius field in conjunction with the "subs fire at nearest target" flag to make missiles appear to be decoyed? Or do Eugene Chin's discoveries mean it will just follow the same target?

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Also, to add to my last post, to give the decoy flare a limited life so the player (most likely) can't scoop them back up in their "flare bay",

Thought about it. This is what I came up with, I made them 75 credits, cheap enough so that it's not worth it to go back looking for them, but expensive enough for beginning players to conserve them. I also made the ship unselectable so you can't just hit the 'A' key to search for them.

JoshTigerheart : I thought that Colosseum was a great TC. Perhaps you should make a sequel.

Does negative Jamming attract missiles? I've always wondered, but am not in a posistion to test at the moment. Thanks for this IT 000.

Now that would be interesting. Maybe I'd make a missile trap. It's a fighter with a negative jamming number, and has a really effective PD weapon. Missiles head towards it, and it blasts them.

Yeah, that was the idea. And it would make deocy flares a lot easier, not that this method is bad.

@templar98921, on Jul 31 2008, 10:04 PM, said in How to Make Decoy Flares:

Does negative Jamming attract missiles? I've always wondered, but am not in a posistion to test at the moment. Thanks for this IT 000.

Not really. It, if it works, will merely negate effects of jammers or inherent jamming. Remember, jamming doesn't make missiles switch targets, so neither would negative jamming.

@orcaloverbri9, on Aug 8 2008, 01:30 AM, said in How to Make Decoy Flares:

Not really. It, if it works, will merely negate effects of jammers or inherent jamming. Remember, jamming doesn't make missiles switch targets, so neither would negative jamming.

Actually, it can. Just in an extremely limited fashion of using the "lock onto parent ship if jammed" flag. Also, one could argue that missiles switch targets to asteroids when distracted by them.

Hmm, I couldn't help but notice this. I assume this thread is about simulating a true decoy weapon like found in the first to EV games, so that players can launch flares manually rather than have the PD fire it automatically. Well, reading and trying to comprehend your instructions, I have to wonder. Couldn't you just create a duplicate wëap resource that submunitions from the original from the very first frame with the PD properties?

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Hmm, I couldn't help but notice this. I assume this thread is about simulating a true decoy weapon like found in the first to EV games, so that players can launch flares manually rather than have the PD fire it automatically.

Correct.

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Couldn't you just create a duplicate wëap resource that submunitions from the original from the very first frame with the PD properties?

I am not sure. However, the advantage to having a Ship rescource over a PD is that the missiles will veer slightly to hit hit ship if it gets in their way.

@it-000, on Sep 29 2008, 02:43 PM, said in How to Make Decoy Flares:

I am not sure. However, the advantage to having a Ship rescource over a PD is that the missiles will veer slightly to hit hit ship if it gets in their way.

Well, that would be a Nova advantage right? But I imagine that people who may want to port some of the plugins from the old EV games may want to keep the authentic design intact. I'm planning to do that with mine when the time comes.

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Well, that would be a Nova advantage right?

Yes.

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But I imagine that people who may want to port some of the plugins from the old EV games may want to keep the authentic design intact.

Nova does not support missiles (or in this case Decoy Flares) being able to attract other missiles.

@it-000, on Sep 30 2008, 02:25 PM, said in How to Make Decoy Flares:

Nova does not support missiles (or in this case Decoy Flares) being able to attract other missiles.

No, but there are ways to work it around that to make it work without having to compromise the design of the weapon.