Hard Light Productions Forums

Community Projects => The FreeSpace Upgrade Project => Topic started by: sigtau on October 03, 2009, 01:05:21 pm

Title: Fusion Mortar shockwaves?
Post by: sigtau on October 03, 2009, 01:05:21 pm
This has always bugged me.

The Fusion Mortar is a capital-mounted anti-capital warhead, and when it hits its target, it never seems to explode into a shockwave--let alone anything at all, really.

Why is this?
Title: Re: Fusion Mortar shockwaves?
Post by: Thaeris on October 03, 2009, 01:11:04 pm
According to the Wiki, FS2 has shockwave values for the Fusion Mortar. Also, a single rocket from the mortar doesn't do too much damage... it deals about 80 according to the Wiki. The Treb, in comparison does about 840.
Title: Re: Fusion Mortar shockwaves?
Post by: General Battuta on October 03, 2009, 01:14:16 pm
The fusion mortar is tiny and does almost nothing. More sustained damage than an SGreen, though.
Title: Re: Fusion Mortar shockwaves?
Post by: sigtau on October 03, 2009, 03:08:29 pm
I mounted a Fusion Mortar on a destroyer of mine, and watched the warheads fly towards their target--and I kept a close range with them (a Myrmidon can keep up with one of those).

They hit home, and I saw no shockwave.

Perhaps a small shockwave similar in nature to the bomb shockwaves (though, as stated, much smaller) would look a bit nicer?
Title: Re: Fusion Mortar shockwaves?
Post by: Thaeris on October 03, 2009, 03:17:05 pm
The Fusion Mortar is simply an awesome ship-to-ship dumbfire rocket... a glorified Tempest. Just like the Tempest... and most missiles, you're not going to see a shockwave. Like all/most FS2 ship secondaries, there's a degree of splash damage. That's it.
Title: Re: Fusion Mortar shockwaves?
Post by: General Battuta on October 03, 2009, 03:39:08 pm
I mounted a Fusion Mortar on a destroyer of mine, and watched the warheads fly towards their target--and I kept a close range with them (a Myrmidon can keep up with one of those).

They hit home, and I saw no shockwave.

Perhaps a small shockwave similar in nature to the bomb shockwaves (though, as stated, much smaller) would look a bit nicer?

Gameplay changes to a retail weapon are probably not a good idea.
Title: Re: Fusion Mortar shockwaves?
Post by: The E on October 03, 2009, 03:53:04 pm
Agreed. They didn't have shockwaves in retail; thus they won't get shockwaves in the mediavps. At least that's my opinion.
Title: Re: Fusion Mortar shockwaves?
Post by: Thaeris on October 03, 2009, 03:59:18 pm
Once more, glorified, awesome Tempest. The Harpoon does a base damage of 100, yet you see no visible shock wave from an impact against a target. The Fusion Mortar does 80 units of damage/hit. Logically, a visible blue bomb shockwave makes no sense.
Title: Re: Fusion Mortar shockwaves?
Post by: Snail on October 03, 2009, 04:21:20 pm
Some kind of prettified explosion or real impact effect of some kind would be nice. Probably a better trail too...
Title: Re: Fusion Mortar shockwaves?
Post by: Zacam on October 03, 2009, 04:22:16 pm
Thaeris: I think you've mis-read or are not understanding the Wiki article on Fusion Mortar. "$Shockwave Speed: 0" means no shockwave. Shockwave Radius 0 also means no shockwave.
Title: Re: Fusion Mortar shockwaves?
Post by: Thaeris on October 03, 2009, 05:35:49 pm
Thaeris: I think you've mis-read or are not understanding the Wiki article on Fusion Mortar. "$Shockwave Speed: 0" means no shockwave. Shockwave Radius 0 also means no shockwave.

I read it fully... then checked the actual .tbl file to verify that the data on the Wiki was accurate. FS1's Fusion Mortar does not have a shockwave radius, but FS2's equivalent certainly does. Furthermore, I don't believe any Fusion Mortar round, FS1/2, had a shockwave speed to it. This is comparable to most fighter-sized weapons... which don't have a shockwave speed applied to them. However, if you're in the blast radius, you're going to feel something. Anyone who's blasted something at close range to pieces with Tempests will know that... in other words, everyone does.  :doubt:

Finally, your comment about "$Shockwave Speed: 0" is invalid in terms of the Wiki; the wiki article provides no shockwave speed data for the Fusion Mortar. If there is an error with the Wiki, it's that "shockwave radius" pertains to blast radius.
Title: Re: Fusion Mortar shockwaves?
Post by: Akalabeth Angel on October 03, 2009, 06:10:43 pm
the fusion mortar launches a continous stream of warheads. Do people really want to see pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop on the target? That would look kinda dumb imo.

If someone wants to fix some effects for FSU, why don't they fix the lightning/sparks that show up when a ship gets damaged? They look like something out of retail in my opinion. The lines are too fat to possibly represent any sort of electrical effect.
Title: Re: Fusion Mortar shockwaves?
Post by: Droid803 on October 03, 2009, 06:28:22 pm
We don't need shockwaves for the fusion mortar. What we need is a bigger/better missile impact effect for it.
Title: Re: Fusion Mortar shockwaves?
Post by: Thaeris on October 03, 2009, 06:32:50 pm
I'll agree with that.

...Looking at the actual table a few minutes ago... it's surprising to see that the Fusion Mortar does "big damage." It does less damage than a Harpoon, after all.
Title: Re: Fusion Mortar shockwaves?
Post by: Tomo on October 04, 2009, 05:41:54 am
it's surprising to see that the Fusion Mortar does "big damage."
Do you mean the 'huge' flag?
That's just to let it destroy 'Big' ships.

Nobody said it had to destroy them *quickly*.
Title: Re: Fusion Mortar shockwaves?
Post by: Thaeris on October 04, 2009, 02:08:07 pm
That's exactly what I meant, Tomo.  :D

I was merely noting that it was interesting that, despite doing so much less damage than the majority of weapon systems available to fighters in terms of the individual missile, the Fusion Mortar is capable of knocking down a destroyer... theoretically... while more damaging fighter weapons often cannot.
Title: Re: Fusion Mortar shockwaves?
Post by: NGTM-1R on October 05, 2009, 11:43:02 pm
Delay-fuzed rather than the running into stuff and detonating immediately required of antifighter weapons.
Title: Re: Fusion Mortar shockwaves?
Post by: Commander Zane on October 08, 2009, 08:22:19 pm
If someone wants to fix some effects for FSU, why don't they fix the lightning/sparks that show up when a ship gets damaged? They look like something out of retail in my opinion. The lines are too fat to possibly represent any sort of electrical effect.
Actually out of Retail would be pixel-thin electrical damage effects. :P
Title: Re: Fusion Mortar shockwaves?
Post by: Aardwolf on October 08, 2009, 08:26:13 pm
If someone wants to fix some effects for FSU, why don't they fix the lightning/sparks that show up when a ship gets damaged? They look like something out of retail in my opinion. The lines are too fat to possibly represent any sort of electrical effect.
Actually out of Retail would be pixel-thin electrical damage effects. :P

I asked about that once, the problem is just that there's no texture for them (IIRC). I don't know if it's just not programmed to use a texture, or the texture is hard-coded and nobody's bothered to make one and put it in the mediavps, but I certainly would like to see it get textured as well.
Title: Re: Fusion Mortar shockwaves?
Post by: Stormkeeper on October 09, 2009, 01:40:06 am
tl;dr

But imo the only way for a rocket to deal significant damage is with a shaped charge and that probably wouldn't produce much of a shockwave.
Title: Re: Fusion Mortar shockwaves?
Post by: TrashMan on October 09, 2009, 07:24:16 am
Give it a bigger explosion. That's what I did in my FS2 install.
Now you cna see a nice explosion when it hits (but then again, I also REALLY turned it into  more awesome tempest - faster, more bang, but slwoer RoF)
Title: Re: Fusion Mortar shockwaves?
Post by: Axel Wers on November 13, 2009, 02:42:22 am
Agreed. They didn't have shockwaves in retail; thus they won't get shockwaves in the mediavps. At least that's my opinion.
And then why EM Pulse in retail had green tail, but in mediavps red? In this case I don't see any problem with Mortar's shockwave explosion. I created Fusion Mortar with small and fast explosion and it looks much more better than original.
Title: Re: Fusion Mortar shockwaves?
Post by: Spoon on November 13, 2009, 08:17:55 am
If you think about it for a moment you would realise that the color of the tail has no effect on gameplay. Adding a shockwave to a weapon that had none in retail Does have an effect on gameplay.
Unless you make sure the shockwave deal absolutely no damage and has no blast force. Then it merely becomes a visual thing.
Title: Re: Fusion Mortar shockwaves?
Post by: Dragon on November 13, 2009, 11:25:35 am
All missiles (Fusion mortar included) have some blast radius, so it's possible to add a shockwave without changing stats.
In fact, add this:
Code: [Select]
$Name: Fusion Mortar
+nocreate
$Shockwave Speed: 95
To some .tbm and then test the Fusion Mortar. It should give it a standard shockwave.
Also, you can change "$Name:" from "Fusion Mortar" to any secondary and find out that none of them have impact-only damage.
Title: Re: Fusion Mortar shockwaves?
Post by: Thaeris on November 13, 2009, 11:53:52 am
An explosion is fine, but due to the net damage of the rocket, a "shockwave" as in a bomb shockwave is illogical. Heck, the individual projectile does less total damage than a Harpoon!

The argument for that is on the first page of this thread, actually...
Title: Re: Fusion Mortar shockwaves?
Post by: haloboy100 on November 13, 2009, 12:28:57 pm
I don't think there should be a shockwave; rather an updated cooler-looking explosion affect to make the fusion motar seem something more than an exploding-pea shooter. (even if that what it is in the end; it'll just look cool.)
Title: Re: Fusion Mortar shockwaves?
Post by: Thaeris on November 13, 2009, 12:52:39 pm
Cooler-looking BOOMZ are always nice. Because individually they're not too damaging, you'd probably want a Harpoon-sized blast, as has been alluded to so many times before.
Title: Re: Fusion Mortar shockwaves?
Post by: Axel Wers on November 14, 2009, 09:50:42 am
If you think about it for a moment you would realise that the color of the tail has no effect on gameplay. Adding a shockwave to a weapon that had none in retail Does have an effect on gameplay.
Unless you make sure the shockwave deal absolutely no damage and has no blast force. Then it merely becomes a visual thing.
Little shockwave from blasted Fusion Mortar has almost ANY effect on capital ships.
Title: Re: Fusion Mortar shockwaves?
Post by: Thaeris on November 14, 2009, 10:51:16 pm
*Facepalm

I'm not saying a want for visible Fusion Mortar shockwaves is wrong, as you're entitled to your opinion. However, if your opinion is that the Fusion Mortar should have a visible shockwave, I'm saying your opinion is stupid.

Seriously, think about it. The numbers don't add up for it to be dealing enough damage to be spitting out a bomb-type visible shockwave upon impact. A pretty explosion? Fine. The FSU does stuff like that all the time. But a visible shockwave? No.
Title: Re: Fusion Mortar shockwaves?
Post by: Mongoose on November 14, 2009, 10:56:00 pm
The thing is, although the Fusion Mortar's damage is quantitatively less than many other weapons in the game, from a qualitative standpoint, it does a whole lot more.  Unlike most missiles, it can actually kill an enemy capital ship, provided you sit around long enough for it to happen. :p
Title: Re: Fusion Mortar shockwaves?
Post by: Thaeris on November 15, 2009, 07:53:26 pm
That's very true, Mongoose, and I've noted it before. However, an explanation akin to the one like NGTM-1R made earlier in this thread is much more reasonable than a visible shockwave.

...And I'm quite certain that I've never seen the Trebuchet crack off a visible shockwave upon impact... and that classy gal does a whole lotta more stuff than the Fusion Mortar when it hits you!
Title: Re: Fusion Mortar shockwaves?
Post by: haloboy100 on November 16, 2009, 01:46:42 pm
A shockwave added (albeit small) to the Fusion motar would make it comparable to torpedoes in the way they look, implying that it has similar applications and power, which it certainly does not.

It is, however, no ordinary missile, at least from my opinion. So I think a special unique explosion is worth warrenting.
Again, though, this is my opinion.
Title: Re: Fusion Mortar shockwaves?
Post by: Thaeris on November 16, 2009, 02:03:43 pm
 ;)

Never disagreed with that. The FSU makes prettier explosions all the time.
Title: Re: Fusion Mortar shockwaves?
Post by: haloboy100 on November 16, 2009, 02:06:59 pm
I was thinking of something like a fireball affect. I don't know why, but I keep seeing the explosion from the mega missile in Descent 3, which has a shockwave. That's something we obviously don't want. :P
Title: Re: Fusion Mortar shockwaves?
Post by: Mongoose on November 16, 2009, 08:21:08 pm
Now someone needs to slap a shark face on a Harbinger. :D
Title: Re: Fusion Mortar shockwaves?
Post by: haloboy100 on November 18, 2009, 01:47:59 pm
That would be awesome.