Trouble with Beam Weapons

I'm currently making a plug for Ares, and everything was going smoothly until I started trying to make some ships have beam weapons. My problem is, the ships equipped with the beam weapons simply don't fire them. Does anyone know how to fix this problem, or has seen this problem before? It's getting really annoying. I've tried everything I can think of. Even when the ships have no other weapons and I'm mercilessly pounding them, they still don't fire. Help!

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'So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we can decide is what we chose to do with the time given to us."
- Gandalf, 'The Lord of the Rings' - J. R. R. Tolkien

Did you use default ships/weapons or have you created weapons/ships from scratch?

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There are only 3 kinds of people: those who can count, and those who can't.

In the "Special" panel of the object window (for your weapon), click on the tick. This should bring up a little display listing "Used for Attacking" "Used for Defending" and "Used in Transit" (or three things to that effect). Click the "Used for Attacking" box.

If you've already done that, I'm not too sure what else is wrong.

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Sundered Angel ,
The One and Only
Ares Webboard Moderator, and all-around Nice Guy
(Unlike that pesky pipeline)

I've also found that beams with an age less than 5 will simply not appear.

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"Welcome to our Pirate outpost. Please enjoy your stay, and realize that any irregular actions can and will be used against you in the afterlife."

Yes, I've ticked all the boxes involving 'use for attack' and 'use for defence' etc.
I am using the factory data, but these beams are made by me for ships made by me. The normal factory beams work just fine though.
I'm sure that my beams actually appear, but the ships just don't use them. I saw my ship using it once or twice, but hardly at all, which is strange since it has no other weapons.
Any more help would be nice. This is a really annoying problem! Thanks.

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'So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we can decide is what we chose to do with the time given to us."
- Gandalf, 'The Lord of the Rings' - J. R. R. Tolkien

A real simple fix would be to just duplicate a factory beam weapon and then rig it up so that it looks and acts just like yours. That would probably solve it.

Now try fighting with enemy ships that convert your ships every time they bump...

Impossible. (I thought I'd just stick that in there :D)

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"You will find that your device is highly non-functional...." - Bad Guy
(url="http://"http://www.shrout1.freewebsites.com")My Webpage!(/url)

OK, thanks, I'll give it a try!

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'So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we can decide is what we chose to do with the time given to us."
- Gandalf, 'The Lord of the Rings' - J. R. R. Tolkien

Of course, be sure that you give the weapon different numbers and identifying charcteristics - otherwise it may end up on an enemy ship.

Actually changing the beam itself was interesting, and it has been soooo long since I've used Hera that I don't know if I can help with that. Hopefully you won't encounter that problem.

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"You will find that your device is highly non-functional...." - Bad Guy
(url="http://"http://www.shrout1.freewebsites.com")My Webpage!(/url)

I've found the problem! For some reason when you tell the comp to calculate the beam's range, it gives a number around 600. I compared that to the 'trazer' beam, and the trazor had a range of over 50 000. The reason the comp wasn't using the weapon is because it didn't think it was in range. All I needed to do was increase the range to that huge amount, and it worked. Thanks for all the help guys!

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'So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we can decide is what we chose to do with the time given to us."
- Gandalf, 'The Lord of the Rings' - J. R. R. Tolkien

That's fine, I'm always happy to help a fellow nixon.

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There are only 3 kinds of people: those who can count, and those who can't.

Glad you figured it out - bugs are really annoying. My favorite was the one where I'd click back onto the transport after it had started it's landing sequence and then land with it. If it wasn't the last planet I had to capture then I'd end up travelling around being the various inaminate objects within the game. Shots fired from guns, missiles. Then I'd get tranferred to an enemy ship that wasn't suppose to be an enemy, in fact it was supposed to be a holographic porjection, but it never disappeared. Then I would be stuck as it, but I'd have no control.

Whew - should've started a new thread! Anyway - good luck with the rest of your plug.

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"You will find that your device is highly non-functional...." - Bad Guy
(url="http://"http://www.shrout1.freewebsites.com")My Webpage!(/url)

At one point in a Rock game (I forget who it was with), I became an EVAT. Not supposed to happen, but if both players can do it, I think it would be quite fun.

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"Welcome to our Pirate outpost. Please enjoy your stay, and realize that any irregular actions can and will be used against you in the afterlife."

Heh, we could probably start a whole new topic about 'various bugs to avoid, and to find.' 😉

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'So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we can decide is what we chose to do with the time given to us."
- Gandalf, 'The Lord of the Rings' - J. R. R. Tolkien

Quote

Originally posted by Fearra:
**Heh, we could probably start a whole new topic about 'various bugs to avoid, and to find.';)

**

No good. It would hit the maximum thread limit too fast (I think it's about 33 pages).

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"In literature as in love we are astounded by what is chosen by others." Andre Maurois

Post a "Various Bugs to Avoid, and to Find", but do like five separate ones. I'm also having some difficulty lately. Go to the "need help" topic in the Engineering Dept.

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"A life without danger is no life at all."