"Gutripper" Torpedoes

I've been thinking about the possibility of a weapon that damages a ship, then keeps going to do more damage later. I've figured out how to make a homing weapon hit a ship, go through, then come around and hit it again.

The first stage weapon has a proximity radius and blast radius larger than the distance weapon travels in a single frame (e.g. If a weapon's speed is 1200, then it travels 12 pixels in a single frame. Radii of 15 are possible for this, but I use a prox radius of 35, and a blast radius of 40.)

This submunitions into a second stage weapon that has the same speed and blast radius, and a prox radius 10 pixels smaller, and a proximity safety large enough to carry it through the ship. Tack on recursive submunitions for fun.

The end effect is a torpedo that passes through a victim again and again, doing damage with each pass.

I have noticed that larger targets (Think Pirate Carrier) tended to foul the process, producing no submunitions. Smaller ships, however, will be victimized almost systematically.

When I was talking about this with my brother, he came up with the topic title.

Torpedo or missile? Torps tend to have a larger turning radius so they would be less efective as a "Gutripper." I do have a question tho. Can it be done as a unguided projectile? So it would be like the projectile has enourmous kinetic energy so much infact that it passes through multiple ships. But in either case I will recreate the "Gutripper" missile/torpedo so I can witness it.
Sounds cool. Hope it works as I see it.

Oh and how ever did you figgure this out?

(Edit): I made myself a copy of the plug from your specifications and set the missile recursion to limit at 20 but for some reason it would "Rip" twice then hit the target ship. Do you know why this is? Note that the target was a Fed Gunboat/Scout ship if it matters.

This post has been edited by WonderBoy : 21 May 2006 - 09:22 PM

@wonderboy, on May 21 2006, 06:00 PM, said in "Gutripper" Torpedoes:

I do have a question tho. Can it be done as a unguided projectile? So it would be like the projectile has enourmous kinetic energy so much infact that it passes through multiple ships.

Been there, done that. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find the plug right now, but basically the weapon had a ProxSafety longer than its life, so it wouldn't interact with anything, blew up at the end of its (1-frame) life, and submunitioned recursively. The "sprite" was made up of the weapon's explosion, set off every frame or two.
Eugene Chin's method would also work, if you want a shot that only explodes when it reaches a ship- it would also have the possibly-useful side effect of having its life shortened when it hits a ship.

(EDIT) Found the plug, cleaned it up, attached it. Works with standard Nova, have fun. And this new Quick Edit feature is nice.

Edwards

Attached File(s)

• FireballWeaps.zip (725bytes)
  Number of downloads: 37

This post has been edited by Edwards : 21 May 2006 - 09:22 PM

@edwards, on May 21 2006, 09:48 PM, said in "Gutripper" Torpedoes:

...And this new Quick Edit feature is nice.

Yes now that it works.

(on-topic)But does it work on asteroids? The Chin's method doesent work on asteroids like I thought it would.(/on-topic)

@wonderboy, on May 21 2006, 07:30 PM, said in "Gutripper" Torpedoes:

But does it work on asteroids? The Chin's method doesent work on asteroids like I thought it would.

Nope. Because asteroids only take direct impact damage (no blast damage), I don't think there's any way to have a weapon damage an asteroid and keep going. Submunitions don't fire if the parent weapon is too close to what it hits.

Edwards

When messing around, I once created a similar weapon. It had recursive submunitions, a small blast radius and a proximity delay longer than its life. It didnt allow it to go through asteroids, though, but it did go through any ship. I had checked these flags: Detonate at end of life span, submunition fires toward closest ship. And then I had it fire five recursive submunitions about every 5 seconds. It was a homing weapon with a rather good turn rate.

The result was this: it would head for the aimed ship then "stick" to it, flying circles through and around it. After 5 seconds, it blew up, dealing a bit of damage and spawning five more things like itself. Some would stick to other ship and some would stay on the target. This kept expanding exponentially and eventually destroyed everything in the system. But here's the most interesting part: after the system was emptied by destruction, the lil' missiles would sprint quite far in random directions. But because of the submunition fire toward closest ship, whenever a ship jumped in, after a few seconds, you'd see them coming back from nowhere and destroying them. It was very fun to watch, though it was obviously totally unbalancing, even if it was decoyed by asteroids and whatever, once the first shot subs they would hardly disappear from the system. It would be interesting if it could stick to the player as well but I don't think it could happen unless you're really trying to: set the flag can hit parent ship if jammed and make it jammable and then roam around targets that can jam it.

This is giving me ideas for special effects, though, if you made it something special and invisible. Things such as radiation damage and such.

On the asteroid topic, it seems that unless it can go over them, there's no weapon that can go through them.

Well Edward's "FireBall Weapons" while totally unbalanced did pass over asteriods but that was it; no destruction. The reason I was asking is that it would make a excelent mining weapon. And for the homing ones it would be ammusing to watch. I'm gona make Psycho's Version 'cus it sounds like fun

Yeah, but you gotta admit those FireBall weapons sure came in handy. I was using the plug-in with Arpia. It was a time saver when that bug came into play, the one where an armada of Arpian warships kept chasing you. I used a hypergate to exit out from one point, the Arpian fleet did the same, only I cloaked immediately so they all lined up perfect for the kill, and with the Hellfire weapon, WHHHOOOOOSSSHHHHH!!!!.

This post has been edited by Coraxus : 23 May 2006 - 08:42 AM

Yeah its fun. I used it to take over a few planets on a pilot I made for testing weapons.