[Erebus Alpha]

To take gameplay in an unusual and interesting direction in my mod, I've decided to give all of the player-flyable Shivan fighters and bombers their own special abilities (triggered by keypresses, like in the BP missions 'One Future' and 'The Blade Itself'). As this is my first release, I'll be focusing on just four ships for now - the Manticore, Mara, Basilisk, and Taurvi. Of those, the Mara will probably be the most complex.

Is there a way to make a weapon shockwave apply EMP effects and energy-drain effects to hostile ships only? Can this be accomplished with armor.tbl? The Mara's wide-area EMP system needs to not blow up Shivan bombs, nor interfere with Shivan sensors/aspect lock. Similarly, the area-effective energy neutralizer on the Mara needs to affect only non-Shivan targets.

Alternatively, are EMP effects cumulative? Does getting hit with twenty EMP-causing projectiles in a very short time scramble your systems for twenty times as long? Are 'electronics' flagged weapons (like the D-missile) cumulative in this regard too? Because if not, a swarm of untargeted and invisible heat-seekers spawned from the Mara may be more effective.

If neither of these is practical, I'll instead give the Mara non-area-effective abilities.

[0rph3u5]

Is there a way to make a weapon shockwave apply EMP effects and energy-drain effects to hostile ships only? Can this be accomplished with armor.tbl? The Mara's wide-area EMP system needs to not blow up Shivan bombs, nor interfere with Shivan sensors/aspect lock. Similarly, the area-effective energy neutralizer on the Mara needs to affect only non-Shivan targets.

Make the shockwave cosmetic and instead make an EMP effect apply to all nearby hostile fighters.... give me a sec to whip it up



Give it a repeat count and an interval time ... added variables for uncertain values or to expand the control over the system...
EDIT: oh, you may want to check if the invalidate-argument at the end is really neccessary ... I added it before I changed it to every-of (so the event would not trigger on the same craft over and over again, as it would be possible if it had remained any-of)

[General Battuta]

But then you've got to name every hostile ship in every mission you want to use the ability. That's valid - it's how I'd do it! - but it'd be cool to have a more elegant way.

[AdmiralRalwood]

It would be trivial to add flag to make the effect ignore same-team targets.

[Phantom Hoover]

is this not the kind of thing scripting is good for?

[Erebus Alpha]

But then you've got to name every hostile ship in every mission you want to use the ability. That's valid - it's how I'd do it! - but it'd be cool to have a more elegant way.

I noticed in retail FS2, in some missions (like the one where you find the Trinity on the other side of the knossos), enemy ships keep spawning and spawning, no matter how many times you destroy them. So you sometimes end up with 'Scorpio 87'. Does this mean that dozens and dozens of theoretical ships have to be named in the when-argument and every-of list? In a really big mission, that could end up being hundreds of ships.

It would be trivial to add flag to make the effect ignore same-team targets.

What flag? I'll take another look at the weapons.tbl wiki, but I didn't see anything close to an 'affect only other teams' flag.

[AdmiralRalwood]

It would be trivial to add flag to make the effect ignore same-team targets.

What flag? I'll take another look at the weapons.tbl wiki, but I didn't see anything close to an 'affect only other teams' flag.

I meant adding a new flag to the source code; the functionality does not currently exist.

[Erebus Alpha]

I've created a post in the FS2 SCP Coding forum, pertaining to this:
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=92086.0

However, between then and now, I've devised a...decent compromise: Missiles. Specifically, a parent missile that spawns heat-seeking child missiles. Those should be marginally effective at hitting multiple things around the player, while hopefully not hitting friendly stuff often. I'll use a SEXP to spawn the parent missile, as the special-ability-missiles are not going to be equippable in secondary banks.

To make EMP and energy-draining warfare look pretty, does anyone have some high-rez frames (1024x1024 maybe?) of a lightning/electricity explosion, suitable for use in a .eff?