[Erebus Alpha]

I'm developing a mod where the player plays as a Shivan in the third incursion, where all Shivan stuff is built to the same standards as the Lucifer. The GTVA may be content with ramming their bombs into stuff to deliver payloads like cavemen, but the Shivans have more sophisticated alternatives.

The Shivan analog to the cyclops emits a spray of beams in a narrow forward cone upon detonation. Because this is the most abundant and plentiful Shivan bomb, it's also the weapon they use for VLS torpedoes on capital ships. The bomber-launched version works great, but the torpedo version doesn't. The launchers refuse to fire their torpedoes at things.

This is the weapons.tbl entry for the capital ship torpedo, which refuses to fire:

Code: [Select]

$Name: Chaos Torpedo
$Model File: S_Bomb.pof
$Mass: 25.0
$Velocity: 200.0
$Fire Wait: 20
$Damage: 5
$Damage Type: Torpedo
$Detonation Radius: 1000
$Blast Force: 1
$Inner Radius: 1
$Outer Radius: 3
$Armor Factor: 1.0
$Shield Factor: 1.5
$Subsystem Factor: 1.5
$Lifetime: 120.0
$Energy Consumed: 0.0
$Cargo Size: 10.0
$Homing: YES
    +Type: ASPECT
    +Turn Time: 0.5
    +View Cone: 360
    +Min Lock Time: 4.0
    +Lock Pixels/Sec: 35
    +Catch-up Pixels/Sec: 70
    +Catch-up Penalty: 12
$Free Flight Time: 0.1
$LaunchSnd: 96
$ImpactSnd: 88
$FlyBySnd: -1
$Flags: ( "Bomb" "Huge" "no subsystem homing" "No Dumbfire" "corkscrew" "Spawn ChaosBeam,3" )
$Trail:
    +Start Width: 5
    +End Width: 25
    +Start Alpha: 0.7
    +End Alpha: 0.0
    +Max Life: 1.8
    +Bitmap: NewMiss1
$Impact Explosion: bomb_flare
$Impact Explosion Radius: 50.0
$Corkscrew:
+Num Fired: 4
+Radius: 10
+Fire Delay: 500
+Counter Rotate: 1
+Twist: 2.8
$Spawn Angle: 3
$FOF: 20
$Weapon Hitpoints: 45 
This is the weapons.tbl entry which works properly, but does not emit beams upon projectile death:

Code: [Select]

$Name: Chaos Torpedo
$Model File: S_Bomb.pof
$Mass: 25.0
$Velocity: 200.0
$Fire Wait: 20
$Damage: 5
$Damage Type: Torpedo
$Blast Force: 1
$Inner Radius: 1
$Outer Radius: 3
$Armor Factor: 1.0
$Shield Factor: 1.5
$Subsystem Factor: 1.5
$Lifetime: 120.0
$Energy Consumed: 0.0
$Cargo Size: 10.0
$Homing: YES
    +Type: ASPECT
    +Turn Time: 0.5
    +View Cone: 360
    +Min Lock Time: 4.0
    +Lock Pixels/Sec: 35
    +Catch-up Pixels/Sec: 70
    +Catch-up Penalty: 12
$Free Flight Time: 0.1
$LaunchSnd: 96
$ImpactSnd: 88
$FlyBySnd: -1
$Flags: ( "Bomb" "Huge" "no subsystem homing" "No Dumbfire" "corkscrew" )
$Trail:
    +Start Width: 5
    +End Width: 25
    +Start Alpha: 0.7
    +End Alpha: 0.0
    +Max Life: 1.8
    +Bitmap: NewMiss1
$Impact Explosion: bomb_flare
$Impact Explosion Radius: 50.0
$Corkscrew:
+Num Fired: 4
+Radius: 10
+Fire Delay: 500
+Counter Rotate: 1
+Twist: 2.8
$Weapon Hitpoints: 45
Some part of this code is causing the AI to not like using the beam-spewing version of the torpedo, and the only differences are the parts that make it spawn child weapons. Does a child weapon have to be a secondary? Alternatively, what happens if someone adds beam data to a secondary? Do I just have to make the 'ChaosBeam' weapon a secondary weapon instead of a primary?

The Shivans' version of the Helios is giving me slightly less irritating problems. I want to make the missile's explosion look like the subspace flash (at the end of a subspace window), to mimic making a very short jump into subspace, so it can warp inside of an enemy ship and explode. Setting it to spawn child weapons that are invisible, untargetable, and fast-travelling should handle the rest, but I'm not sure how to set the subspace flash effect as an explosion.

[Erebus Alpha]

Through trial and error, and a thorough reading of the weapons.tbl wiki page, I discovered a solution to the VLS torpedoes not working. Adding the "smart spawn" flag fixed it. Capital ship AI's can now properly use their beamspam-torpedoes.

Unfortunately, I have had less success in finding the files that generate the subspace flash effect. I could still use some help with that.

[Black Wolf]

The white flash from a subspace effect is, I believe, a scripting thing. I know very little about how scripting works, but that should at least give you a place to start looking.

[Erebus Alpha]

I got the subspace effect working. I gave the bomb local SSM properties, so it opens a window to subspace, and I set its lifetime so that it expires just before crossing the subspace window. Then it spawns the aforementioned child weapon that hits the target and inflicts damage.

Also, I discovered that child beams work best as type 0 beams. I thought a type 4 beam might be appropriate, but type 4's result in very bad hit detection when used as child weapons, and the beams occasionally ghost right through things without inflicting any damage.