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Is it possible to make a fighter wipe itself out with its first shot? I thought it was -- even saw a reference in one of the forums to putting the ammo at -999 -- but nothing seems to be working. Sigh. I thought I had a clever scheme to make smart missiles with bomb-pumped laser warheads (a la the Honor Harrington universe). Well, I hear EVN has all those neat functions (cannister weapon loads and so forth)...
(http://home.earthlin.../torpoutfit.JPG)
------------------ "Ame" Arashi
It's possible in EVO. Just give it a weapon with a lifespan of 1, and a speed equal to that of the fighter. Then make make it do enough damage to destroy the fighter in one shot, and make it detonate at the end of it's lifespan. Then, when the ship fires the weapon, it blows up in a big fireball. The ProxRadius will determine how close other ships have to be to it to be damaged.
------------------ Cuz I'm a 21st Century Digital Boy I don't know the Monty Python but I've got a lotta toys My daddy is a Renegade, his name is Hellcat Helian Wait a second...
if you're going for someting like the laser warheads, i'd suggest something similar to the above approach, but a little more refined (and complicated): create a fighter with your missile sprite and two weapon types. the first one (has to be the first one fired, otherwise you'll just get a dud) is your laser, with 180 inaccuracy and whichever flag it is which makes multiple weapons of this type all fire simultaneously (and give the fighter as many of these as you want shots coming out of the "missile," as well as exactly that number of ammo so it only gets one shot). the second weapon should be as described above, except with a very small prox/blast radus (so that the only thing damaged is the ship which fires it; make sure you have the flags set so that this weapon damages the launching ship too). this should give you a constant number of shots in random directions, followed by a single shot which will kill the "missile" (hopefully the ai will fire it as soon as it runs out of ammo for the first weapon, i.e. immediately)
------------------ if you find yourself in bed with a raving lunatic, don't worry: looks can be deceiving, it's probably not me
Roughly what I was thinking with the laser head, except allowing it "some" accuracy -- tie 4-8 semi-accurate turreted beam weapons together with the "fire all of this type" flag.
I still can't get the ship to self-destruct, tho. My copy of the annotated EVO bible doesn't list a specific flag for "detonate at end of flight". Oh; same copy also does not explain the $00A0 in the special flags of the UE fighter -- it may have something to do with being a bay-carried fighter?
Quote
Originally posted by Commander Arashi: I still can't get the ship to self-destruct, tho. My copy of the annotated EVO bible doesn't list a specific flag for "detonate at end of flight".
Wëap resource Flags 0x8000: Shot detonates at the end of its lifespan (useful for flak-type weapons)
Originally posted by Commander Arashi: Oh; same copy also does not explain the $00A0 in the special flags of the UE fighter -- it may have something to do with being a bay-carried fighter?
That's just the cumulative effect of x-offset (0080) and afterburner for advanced combat rating (0020). It's a hexadecimal number. Adding 8 and 2 produces 10, which in hex is an A. Hex is a base 16 number system, which means it needs 6 more digits, represented by letters A through F. A=10, B=11, C=12, D=13, E=14, F=15. To apply multiple flags in the same group, just add up their numbers and put in the total. This is what was done with the UE Fighter.
------------------ - Macavenger | e-mail: (url="http://"mailto:e-gamerguy1@home.com")mailto:e-gamerguy1@home.com(/url)e-gamerguy1@home.com
Originally posted by Macavenger: **That's just the cumulative effect of x-offset (0080) and afterburner for advanced combat rating (0020). It's a hexadecimal number. Adding 8 and 2 produces 10, which in hex is an A. Hex is a base 16 number system, which means it needs 6 more digits, represented by letters A through F. A=10, B=11, C=12, D=13, E=14, F=15. To apply multiple flags in the same group, just add up their numbers and put in the total. This is what was done with the UE Fighter.
**
Aha. I hadn't realized the x-offset was in the same flag. (I've been adding hex for years -- you need to calculate your own checksum when creating a MIDI "system exclusive" message: for programming a synthesizer)
Thanks for all the help. We should add that flag to the new EVO-BAE.
Originally posted by Commander Arashi: **Aha. I hadn't realized the x-offset was in the same flag. (I've been adding hex for years -- you need to calculate your own checksum when creating a MIDI "system exclusive" message: for programming a synthesizer) **
Ah, sorry for the unnecessary lecture then, I just assumed you knew about all the flags and not what the A meant.
Originally posted by Macavenger: **Ah, sorry for the unnecessary lecture then, I just assumed you knew about all the flags and not what the A meant.
No 'fence taken. I finally realized I had an outdated copy of the bible (okay, I had six copies of the bible. Now I know what to look for to make sure I'm using the most complete one!)
Originally posted by Commander Arashi: **I still can't get the ship to self-destruct, tho. **
That's because the AI won't fire the weapon if it's singificantly out of range, and the ships would have to be right on top of each other for the second weapon to be considered in range.
perhaps you should give the self-destruct weapon really long range, but also give it a huge prox radius (and still a small blast radius). that way the ai will fire it, but it'll proximity detonate as soon as it's fired. side thought: was the reference to honor harrington just for explanation, or are you doing a plug based on the series? i considered doing a plug based on the series for a while, but the ev engine just doesn't suit it that well. if you're not doing it, maybe i'll give it a try in the nova engine after i've explored its scenario a little
Originally posted by nighthawk: **perhaps you should give the self-destruct weapon really long range, but also give it a huge prox radius (and still a small blast radius). that way the ai will fire it, but it'll proximity detonate as soon as it's fired. side thought: was the reference to honor harrington just for explanation, or are you doing a plug based on the series? i considered doing a plug based on the series for a while, but the ev engine just doesn't suit it that well. if you're not doing it, maybe i'll give it a try in the nova engine after i've explored its scenario a little
I'm not doing it; I'm just messing around. Many things simply don't translate ("Roll Wedge!") And I'm not happy with how the weapon is working -- pretty much ready to stop tweaking and go on to something else.
Yeah, the prox radius is how I've been going of late. I think to convince the silly ships to fire I need to make it a turreted guided missile. Still, that only covers the nuke head. Since AI ships won't fire multiple weapons, would have to convince it otherwise to use the lasers and too easy for it to miss, change its mind, and otherwise go flying off unharmed.
i finally broke down and looked at the nova bible, and it seems it will be quite possible to do this in evn. still can't really handle impellers too well, but it can handle a whole lot more of the nyphti little tricks (i.e. ejecting missile pods which each fire some number of missiles which, in turn, detonate into a burst of laser fire) than evo. i think evn could be used to make a pretty decent plug to that effect
Originally posted by nighthawk: **i finally broke down and looked at the nova bible, and it seems it will be quite possible to do this in evn. still can't really handle impellers too well, but it can handle a whole lot more of the nyphti little tricks (i.e. ejecting missile pods which each fire some number of missiles which, in turn, detonate into a burst of laser fire) than evo. i think evn could be used to make a pretty decent plug to that effect
Ver' nice. I assume you, as a Honor Harrington fan (my friend calls her "Hrrr Hrrrrrm"), you saw the rather detailed graphics in "Ashes of Victory." Plenty of info there to model the ships...but, boy they is ugly!
(My scribble of the impeller-drive missile outfit) (url="http://"http://home.earthlink.net/~nomuse/torpoutfit2.JPG")http://home.earthlin...torpoutfit2.JPG(/url)
yeah, i don't really like the way the ships are described in honor harrington (i think that's some law: the quality of any scifi is inversely proportional to the aesthetic pleasure of its ships. further evidence: david feintuch's midshipman's hope series). but there's still a lot of interesting stuff in there, and i do kinda like the idea of challenging the popular opinion that starships should look sleek and streamlined (unless we find something like weber's inertial dampener, aerodynamics can't possibly come into play in a ship's velocity on a human timescale, and it would be extremely dangerous to travel at speeds at which aerodynamics would matter)
Originally posted by nighthawk: **yeah, i don't really like the way the ships are described in honor harrington (i think that's some law: the quality of any scifi is inversely proportional to the aesthetic pleasure of its ships. further evidence: david feintuch's midshipman's hope series). but there's still a lot of interesting stuff in there, and i do kinda like the idea of challenging the popular opinion that starships should look sleek and streamlined (unless we find something like weber's inertial dampener, aerodynamics can't possibly come into play in a ship's velocity on a human timescale, and it would be extremely dangerous to travel at speeds at which aerodynamics would matter)
I do love the functional details of Weber's ships. It isn't just "Ahead, Warp Factor Six." You have to worry about striking the wedge and the strength of the sidewalls and reconfiguring to Warshawski sails and the health of the alpha nodes and so on. And then, of course, about the only space navy in fiction where "Crossing the T" is a sound tactical move.
Ona side note, I was just reviewing Gray Lenseman et al. I was tempted. A little. Negaspheres, Trenco, Zwilniks, the Eich... of course, the "inertia-less drive" goes right out the window...