[-Norbert-]

Code: [Select]

+Beam Piercing Effect Velocity: 500
+Beam Piercing Splash Effect Velocity: 500
+Beam Piercing Effect Variance: 0.0
So in order to make the tables compatible with nightly 5832+ those three lines have to be added to every beam in the table. But what do they mean exactly?
Do they controll how fast the debris are speeding form the ship or how far out they go?

And on a sidenote: If a ship is set to invulnerable on 1% hull, does it get pierced by beams?

[Fury]

+Beam Piercing Effect Velocity:
Velocity of beam piercing effect, practically means length of the effect. Higher value, longer effect.

+Beam Piercing Splash Effect Velocity:
Same as above, but for the splash effect that goes opposite direction.

+Beam Piercing Effect Variance:
Basically determines how spread out piercing effect is. For example slasher type beams could use value of 0.025.

I don't know about 1% invulnerability, never tested. Try it out and don't forget to try guardian too!

[General Battuta]

And on a sidenote: If a ship is set to invulnerable on 1% hull, does it get pierced by beams?

You should always use the 'rand' operator to randomize the guardian threshold, if possible.

[MatthTheGeek]

Seems that the beam start to pierce as soon as the hull is below critical, whether it's guardianed/invulnerable or not.

+Beam Piercing Effect Velocity:
Velocity of beam piercing effect, practically means length of the effect. Higher value, longer effect.

+Beam Piercing Splash Effect Velocity:
Same as above, but for the splash effect that goes opposite direction.

+Beam Piercing Effect Variance:
Basically determines how spread out piercing effect is. For example slasher type beams could use value of 0.025.

For those interested, personal tests made me choose 900 velocity for a credible effect. I'd like to know which value everyone find fitting.

Thanks for the description of the Variance effect, I'm trying it out

[Dilmah G]

And on a sidenote: If a ship is set to invulnerable on 1% hull, does it get pierced by beams?

You should always use the 'rand' operator to randomize the guardian threshold, if possible.

I had no idea about this.

[-Norbert-]

I wasn't really planning on fredding a mission. I just though that if invulnerable ships are still pierced, I could just set up my table file in a way that gives every beam a different value for the effect and then have those beams fired in sequence on the target, to see which value looks the best.
Just to see a couple of different settings in one go instead of constantly restarting the test mission.

[Fury]

For those interested, personal tests made me choose 900 velocity for a credible effect. I'd like to know which value everyone find fitting.

I'm using weapon velocity/4. For beams 500, which is then highest velocity of all weapon piercing effects. Works well.

Edit: Damn, not two. Four.

Edit 2: And in fact, beams were using 500 as velocity value in the three screenshots I posted two pages back. Which is significantly shorter than what it was in builds preceding 5832 and in the first screenshot.

[-Norbert-]

Just put together a little testmission with a 1% invulnerable Sathanas and a few Mjolnis firing at it.
A few refused to fire at all and the actual Mjolnir beam didn't punch through. But the BFRed and BGreen which fired a few seconds later punched through nicely.

Any idea why the MjolnirBeam can't pierce? Here is what my table entry looks like. I just took the three lines out of Fury's example in the other thread and pasted them below the original table entry.

Code: [Select]

$Name: MjolnirBeam
+nocreate
$Impact Explosion Radius: 75
$BeamInfo:
+Beam Flash Effect: ParticleSmoke01
+Beam Flash Radius: 50
+Beam Piercing Effect: Exp04
+Beam Piercing Radius: 75
+Beam Piercing Effect Velocity: 500
+Beam Piercing Splash Effect Velocity: 500
+Beam Piercing Effect Variance: 0.0
Edit: Did a bit of further testing and non of the Slashers is piercing the Sathanas either.
Edit2: Just tested the same with a Demon instead of a Sath and there the beams punch through nice and clean. But apart form BGreen, BFGreen, LRBGreen and BFRed the beams punch only through a Sathanas on my computer if the Sath is already exploding (no matter if it's invulnerable or not).

Oh and I put my table entries to 300 now, except the slashers, those I set the 150.

[Fury]

It might be because the game doesn't think one hit from slashers or MjolnirBeam does enough damage to kill Sathanas at 1% hull. For beam piercing effect to occur, the beam would have to do enough damage to score a killing hit. This is calculated pre-impact and thus target may survive the hit if the beam can't do its full damage, piercing effect would still occur during the duration of impact. That's the default behavior anyway, I'm hoping Wanderer would implement a way to override that.

http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=67790.0

[-Norbert-]

In case someone doesn't want to (or knows how to) make their own beam pierce table file for Blue Planet AoA and doesn't want to wait for the re-release, you can have mine  

Unless I oversaw something I put all the beams from BP AoA into it, with the exception of one. In the table file is one "HRed". At first I though it would be from the Dante, but that one uses only stock FS2 beams. While it does show up in FRED I have no idea what ship it's supposed to belong to.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[General Battuta]

The Director's Cut re-release is intended to work on 3.6.10 Final, and so it won't include beam pierce effects (so far as I know.)

[Dragon]

In the table file is one "HRed". At first I though it would be from the Dante, but that one uses only stock FS2 beams. While it does show up in FRED I have no idea what ship it's supposed to belong to.

It's used by Ravana somewhere in the campaign, it was added to it via FRED.

[General Battuta]

It is!?

[-Norbert-]

The Director's Cut re-release is intended to work on 3.6.10 Final, and so it won't include beam pierce effects (so far as I know.)

All the more reason for me to make my own table file then


Okay.... the table file worked fine on the Beam test mission and on the cutscene mission. But as soon as the first real mission starts the game tells me it can't find two weapons....
What did I do wrong?

Edit: Scratch that. the problem seems to come from using the nightly build, since I get the same error even when not using my custom table.
Despite the warning the mission itself seems to run fine though.

[Fury]

The Director's Cut re-release is intended to work on 3.6.10 Final, and so it won't include beam pierce effects (so far as I know.)

What Battuta doesn't tell you, is that I am planning to release 3.6.12 update to AoA later. When this happens I'm not sure, but at the minimum I'm waiting for the first fs2_open 3.6.12 release candidate. This update brings many new features to AoA, including new beam effects, custom AI, post processing and whatever else I can implement without much hassle.

What remains unknown is whether this 3.6.12 update will be officially supported. Custom AI alone has potential to heavily change mission balance.

[-Norbert-]

Will it be possible to switch the custom AI on/off in the Launcher?

[Fury]

No

Edit: To continue my previous post. I already have all weapons covered when it comes to these new effects, so all you have to do is to wait for the 3.6.12 update for AoA to get them.

[Dragon]

It is!?

Or at least was in 3.6.9.
It may also be in 3.6.10 release, I don't know if a current WiP version still have it.

[-Norbert-]

Could it be used as the sidebeam in the missions against the Lucifer?

[Darius]

HReds were the Lucifer's forward beams, and the Ravana's in "Keepers of Hell".