Broadside Batteries

I was wondering if there was a plug (or how hard it would be to make one) for EVN that modified the weapons like blasters, railguns, and FPCs to fire like broadside batteries on old Navy ships, like in Pirate of the Caribbean, or more specifically, the Junkyard scene in RvB.

Without changing the weapon exit ports on the ships, I believe I know how I could do it, it would just be very tedious.

Weapons can fire at fixed angles. Or you could use side firing turrets.

I think the real problem would just be modifying the appropriate ships. It seems like it would just take a lot of work. I'd need to modify all the ships I feel are appropriate to use modified versions of the weapons to fire as the broadside cannons, while the ships that would not use them still fire normal turrets. For instance, the Federation Destroyer would not use them because of how the ship looks, but the Carrier could. Similarly, a fighter with a blaster turret wouldn't use them either.

Then I'd also have to decide if I want to modify the mass, and availability, which would require some bit & stat work as well.

This post has been edited by Terrível : 10 October 2012 - 10:25 PM

You might be interested in my first hand experience with broad side turrets while developing CTC-C here, and one of my remarks on the experience;

@jacabyte, on 05 August 2009 - 06:39 PM, said in Broadsides:

I thought I had posted in here already? Oh well, I'll just have to post my experiences with broadside weapons from CTC-C again.

You see, the player could handle broadside weapons fine, but the AI would face the player and proceed to shoot fiery death out of its sides. It was promptly killed by the player, and AI ships with broadside weapons would never get anywhere before running out of ammo. So I removed the mention of the weapons from all player and AI ships and reduced the appearance rate of their outfits to 0%. They're still in CTC-C, but you need plug-ins in order to use them.

Now, keep in mind that these are projectiles weapons. I haven't experimented with side-firing/angle-firing missiles at all, come to think of it. I have toyed with the idea of making rear firing missiles, but I can't help but think they'd be too powerful in the hands of the right player.

So the primary issue is not that it can't be done within the confines of the Nova engine, it's that the AI is too stupid to know what to do with broadside weapons. If you can get the AI to handle broadside weapons correctly, more power to you.

broadside turrets (perhaps with a 45 degree angle) i can understand, but a fixed broadside cannon would be incredibly difficult to shoot anything down with.

That's probably why we don't see too many warships with broadside batteries anymore.

True enough. I didn't think about how the AI would try and use them. I could make them player-only, but that would require even more work.

I think I'll just let it die. It's an interesting concept, it just doesn't seem like it would work out well.

@reclusiveone, on 11 October 2012 - 05:14 AM, said in Broadside Batteries:

That's probably why we don't see too many warships with broadside batteries anymore.

I think the motivation for side-facing cannons had as much to do with the limitations of the cannon itself (space requirements, blowback, reload times) as with any great tactical benefit.

If you'd like to see an example of the broadside turrets I made, go ahead and download CTC-C. I keep forgetting JTH and I made it available to the public; http://www.ambrosias...howtopic=130540

Wasn't someone working on a TC called "Caribbean"? That put you into the Caribbean, in pirate ships, with cannons? I'm sure they ran into the same problem, and I know the plug died out at some point. I seem to remember there also being problems with collisions (or lack therof) and the hyperspace function.

@meaker-vi, on 12 October 2012 - 10:43 AM, said in Broadside Batteries:

Wasn't someone working on a TC called "Caribbean"? That put you into the Caribbean, in pirate ships, with cannons? I'm sure they ran into the same problem, and I know the plug died out at some point. I seem to remember there also being problems with collisions (or lack therof) and the hyperspace function.

Yes. I remember this, someone brought it up when Spartanjai announced that plane tc.

What if (theoretically) you were to modify the AI ships so that the "front" of the ship was actually the side they are firing from, while thrust from the engine still comes from the actual engine?

They would try to point the "front" of the ship at yours while firing.

Engine thrust would still push them making it look like the ship is going forward while they adjust to go, at least somewhat, around you in a circle.

There's still a lot of holes, such as the ship only being able to fire in one direction, horribly erratic AI movement in combat, and completely broken behavior out of combat, to list only a few that immediately popped into my head.

I'm not proposing anyone try it at all, I'm just wondering if (since you all have more experience working with AI than I do) you could tell me what might happen if such an adjustment were made.

Basically, you'd see AI ships flying sideways. It'd look weird.

Edit: That being said, you could leave the graphics as-is and make the broadside turrets PD weapons. You'd also make every ship vulnerable to PD. Also make sure no ship uses standoff tactics. Ships would then circle each other and, hopefully, take a few shots once in a while. It would probably work best if all ships were inertialess, too, or else players could drift sideways away from pursuing AI ships while blasting them.

This post has been edited by DarthKev : 13 October 2012 - 03:52 AM

@darthkev, on 13 October 2012 - 03:42 AM, said in Broadside Batteries:

Basically, you'd see AI ships flying sideways. It'd look weird.

Edit: That being said, you could leave the graphics as-is and make the broadside turrets PD weapons. You'd also make every ship vulnerable to PD. Also make sure no ship uses standoff tactics. Ships would then circle each other and, hopefully, take a few shots once in a while. It would probably work best if all ships were inertialess, too, or else players could drift sideways away from pursuing AI ships while blasting them.

Even if you kept the engine where it is supposed to be? Or can you even do something like that?

Now, that's a decent idea. I didn't think about using PD weapons, but that would also mess with missile fire, though I don't really see a reason that a turret gunner couldn't shoot down a missile other than balance issues in the first place, unless there's a way to make them not target missiles.

You can make missile immune to PD, so that way missiles would be a threat and broadside might still work. As for the sideways ship thing, you'd have to make the graphic so it's pointing sideways. There isn't a way to change where the 'front' of the ship is for weapon reasons but have thrust originate from somewhere else. Thus ships would fly sideways.

Edit: As for Caribbean, I think I just came up with a solution to the lack of collisions. PD invisible beams. Make a PD beam with really powerful knock-back and an invisible beam (read: same color as background) that does damage. Then arm every ship with it. You'd also need to make sure all ships have no turret blind spots and make sure only the broadside turrets have the blind spots. Then when ships get close enough, they hit each other with the beams and push away, the damage simulating a collision.

This post has been edited by DarthKev : 13 October 2012 - 11:58 AM

Ah. I see now. I figured it would work like that, but thought it might be worth mentioning anyway.

And I'm guessing that there's not a way to make missiles/ship selectively vulnerable to weapons, so QLBTs and Storm Chainguns wouldn't work properly either.

Still, it's something to think about. I was never planning on doing anything with the idea, but the discussion itself is interesting enough.

@terr-vel, on 13 October 2012 - 06:44 PM, said in Broadside Batteries:

And I'm guessing that there's not a way to make missiles/ship selectively vulnerable to weapons, so QLBTs and Storm Chainguns wouldn't work properly either.

Actually, whether or not a ship or missile is vulnerable to PD is controlled through that ship or missile's resource. So you can select which ships and which missiles can be targeted by PD. This is how fighters and small ships are fired on by PD in EVN but not large ships.

This post has been edited by DarthKev : 14 October 2012 - 10:36 PM

What I meant is that there is not a way to make a ship vulnerable or not to a specific PD weapon.

If I were to make the cannons PD weapons, then the actual PD weaponry would also fire on those large ships, meaning that the Quads and Storm chainguns do not function properly. They would still shoot down fighters and missiles, but would have extra targets as well.

@darthkev, on 13 October 2012 - 11:54 AM, said in Broadside Batteries:

Edit: As for Caribbean, I think I just came up with a solution to the lack of collisions. PD invisible beams. Make a PD beam with really powerful knock-back and an invisible beam (read: same color as background) that does damage. Then arm every ship with it. You'd also need to make sure all ships have no turret blind spots and make sure only the broadside turrets have the blind spots. Then when ships get close enough, they hit each other with the beams and push away, the damage simulating a collision.

I want to say he tried that, and for one reason or another, it didn't work. Planets being one of them.

Something aside from accidental AI collisions when they try to dock/land? Or was that the issue?