Broadside Turrets

I'm in serious trouble here, methinks

I need an affirmative yes or no; is there a way to get AI ships to use broadside weapons? (Turrets with blindspots to the front and to the back.) I've read that it's possible if you have a ship animation that turns the ship 90 degrees, but I don't want to do this, as Qaanol pointed out that when animations are turned off the ships will be flying sideways. I'd like to keep CTC-C relatively small, so I don't think I can afford to use the extra graphics. I've experimented with Broadside weapons for AIs and found that they won't purposely use them, the idiots that they are, even when you fly along side them.

If there's a way to make AI ships use these weapons, that would be a big help for CTC-C. Thanks in advance.

If all else fails, try making an A.I. version of the weapon and set the blind spots on the ships that use it. It'd be somewhat limiting if you have lots of other full turrets, but that might work. I had to make an A.I. Flame Exhaust because they didn't use the normal one right (albeit in an amusing fashion).

Well, see, I'm debating about whether or not it's worth it to even have broadside turrets, due to the number of broadside turrets I have (Exactly 2 for the moment) and the number of other, more useful full turrets and swivel guns.

I'll try setting front and back blindspots in the ship resource itself, but this is not a viable solution as it will nerf PD weapons severely.

@jacabyte, on Jul 17 2008, 12:14 PM, said in Broadside Turrets:

Well, see, I'm debating about whether or not it's worth it to even have broadside turrets, due to the number of broadside turrets I have (Exactly 2 for the moment) and the number of other, more useful full turrets and swivel guns.

I'll try setting front and back blindspots in the ship resource itself, but this is not a viable solution as it will nerf PD weapons severely.

you could have the pds weapons sub into themselves in 1 frame, and sub to nearest target... They should appear to work properly that way, even with the blind spots.

What about just making broadside unguided projectile guns? -90 accuracy invisible weapon that subs into the 4 or 5 of the real thing immediately with a small subtheta to mimic innacuracy. Or does innacuracy work for sub launches if its set in the submunition?

Because then you'd have to have a 'Left' and 'Right' version, or fire in both directions at once.

@lnsu, on Jul 27 2008, 10:44 AM, said in Broadside Turrets:

What about just making broadside unguided projectile guns? -90 accuracy invisible weapon that subs into the 4 or 5 of the real thing immediately with a small subtheta to mimic innacuracy. Or does innacuracy work for sub launches if its set in the submunition?

The computer wouldn't recognize it, and would be firing 90 degrees away from the enemy.

It would actually be quite amusing; the ship would line up with the player and proceed to burst Volleys of Doom and Destruction out of its sides.

Sounds like something for JoshTigerheart's Department of Utterly Useless Plugs. Or I could change my department so it has more than one plug, the random graphic hurler. Hmm...

I already had the ship that would charge at you, guns blazing backwards in an early pre-alpha version of Colosseum.