So I was reading the Cool Nova Hacks thread...

Shots passing through ships.

And I noticed there was conversation about shots passing through ships, starting with this post. Rather than clutter that thread, I thought I'd clutter the boards instead and make a new one. My question is this:

Couldn't you just make the mask pure black, and have the shot recursively sub into itself, while exploding? Then the shot couldn't contact the ship, but it'd still do damage as it passed through.

If yes, I have uses for this...

This post has been edited by Templar98921 : 20 January 2011 - 04:33 AM

If the mask is pure black, then the shot will be invisible. If that is what you want, then yes, you can make the mask pure black.

However, you can also make the shot’s explosion look like you want the shot itself to look. Then even though the shot itself is invisible, you will be able to see it whenever it explodes. By having the weapon constantly explode, you can make it look like the shot itself is moving.

Thus, you produce a self-submunitioning weapon whose shots will pass through ships, causing damage as they go, and will not disappear until the last submunition has finished.

Damnit, Qaanol, stop saving the day. We need a Super-Qaanol shirt or something.

This post has been edited by Templar98921 : 20 January 2011 - 06:56 AM

This is interesting. In HOTS I actually want to design a similar weapon, except it stays with the target rather than go through it. There are two types of this weapon: acid, and energy. There's an initial shot that hits the target, and then submunitions into an alternate version that's fast enough to stay with the target wherever it goes, so it looks like it's stuck on the ship doing more damage. I haven't tested it yet, but if it doesn't work a variation of Qaanol's method could work.

I only mentioned the all-black-mask because it was brought up in the original post.

It’s just as easy to make the shot have a normal mask and a normal graphic. Give it a ProxSafety longer than its Count, and make it a Flak type weapon that submunitions into itself. Then it can have whatever explosion you want, and it doesn’t have to be constantly exploding to be visible. It can be set to explode only every few seconds if you like.

If you set it to submunition toward its target, then it will even track cloaked ships.

I have a very similar effect to what DarthKev describes planned for my secret project. But that’s probably never going to get made. I called it poison rather than acid though. Translucent green noxious cloud sprite.