Hard Light Productions Forums

Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => FS2 Open Coding - The Source Code Project (SCP) => Topic started by: Nuke on January 09, 2004, 07:17:30 am

Title: Minigun Discussion
Post by: Nuke on January 09, 2004, 07:17:30 am
i was poking around the forum and i found something ive been waiting for, but didnt know it was already implemented. i found that by adding $pbank=x (x = primary bank number) to the properties of a rotating subobject that you can link that subobject's rotation to the firing of bank x. i have already implemented this feature in one of my ships and it adds some serious cool factor. i have a few questions and a few ideas about this feature and thus created this thread in hopes of the expansion of this feature.

for my questions:

1. are there more options to this feature than i am already aware of?

2. how do i sync the rotation of the weapon with the fire rate of the gun? i noticed that it uses the speed specified in the $rotate section of the subobject properties to determine how fast the gun should spin. however the gun spins faster with low numbers and slower with higher numbers. id figure that rpm should equal shots per second (or 1 / $Firewait: x) divided by the number of barrels in the gun (rpm=(1/firewait)/barrels).  i take it that the value in $rotate:x is the tiime it takes the thing to make a full turn (let me know if im wrong). if that is the case do you simply set $rotate: to the firewait of the weapon tims the number of berrels ($rotate: = $firewait: * barrels)? ok, now my brain hurts.

3. does the rotation speed take in account the fire rate change that occurs when you link your weapons?

4. can i use this on turrets? if so, how?

ideas for how to improve this include:

1. sipn up and spin down fire rate acceleration/deceleration.

2. use on turrets (if not already implemented).

3. kicking guns. could be done by using a $translate:distance (in freespace units) instead of $rotate:.  gun would kick back to that distance along the axis slected in the subobject properties, and then return to ots orifional position.

4. use with secondary weapons (also if not already implemented)

please let us continue this discussion.
Title: Minigun Discussion
Post by: Bobboau on January 09, 2004, 10:50:12 am
rotaion is in radians per second (I think) there are 2PI radians in a full rotation so multiply the numbers by 6.283185307, and see if that works better
Title: Re: Minigun Discussion
Post by: Goober5000 on January 09, 2004, 11:23:45 am
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1. are there more options to this feature than i am already aware of?
No.
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2. how do i sync the rotation of the weapon with the fire rate of the gun?
Experiment with the rotation rates.  It's just another spinning subsystem.  The rotation rate number is the amount of seconds it takes to make one full rotation.
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3. does the rotation speed take in account the fire rate change that occurs when you link your weapons?
No, and I think that'd be a bit complicated.
Quote
4. can i use this on turrets? if so, how?
No.
Quote
ideas for how to improve this include:

1. sipn up and spin down fire rate acceleration/deceleration.
Ugh.  Very tricky, and not likely to be implemented.
Quote
2. use on turrets (if not already implemented).
Not possible, because of the way the turrets are done.
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3. kicking guns. could be done by using a $translate:distance (in freespace units) instead of $rotate:
There is a huge, huge distance between putting something in the POF file and making it do this in the code.  This is flat-out virtually impossible with the current engine.
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4. use with secondary weapons (also if not already implemented)
Secondary weapons fire much more slowly, so what's the point?  (EDIT: If you really want them, though, I see no reason why they can't be added.)
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please let us continue this discussion.
Sorry to shoot you down, but there aren't really many more possibilities for this feature.
Title: Minigun Discussion
Post by: Nuke on January 09, 2004, 11:47:35 am
damn, and i started putting gargantuan miniguns on one of my super death bombers.:D
Title: Minigun Discussion
Post by: Goober5000 on January 09, 2004, 11:59:27 am
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Originally posted by Nuke
gargantuan miniguns
That's an oxymoron if I ever heard one.  But why does this preclude what you're planning?  It still works, and nobody is going to look closely enough to pay attention to all the small details.
Title: Minigun Discussion
Post by: Nuke on January 09, 2004, 12:49:56 pm
thats easy for you to say, this bomber is huge and the gun is bigger than certain fighters, not to mention that the bomber carries 2 of them.
Title: Minigun Discussion
Post by: Woolie Wool on January 09, 2004, 01:15:07 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Goober5000
That's an oxymoron if I ever heard one.  But why does this preclude what you're planning?  It still works, and nobody is going to look closely enough to pay attention to all the small details.


It's not an oxymoron, really. A minigun is a Gatling-style machine gun with six barrels.
Title: Minigun Discussion
Post by: Nuke on January 09, 2004, 02:02:35 pm
seven
Title: Minigun Discussion
Post by: Goober5000 on January 09, 2004, 03:37:48 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Woolie Wool
It's not an oxymoron, really. A minigun is a Gatling-style machine gun with six barrels.


You're thinking too hard... it was a joke.  Gargantuan minigun.
Title: Minigun Discussion
Post by: magatsu1 on January 09, 2004, 03:56:04 pm
1. sipn up and spin down fire rate acceleration/deceleration.
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1. sipn up and spin down fire rate acceleration/deceleration.


a sound f/x for that might be pretty funky.
Title: Minigun Discussion
Post by: TrashMan on January 09, 2004, 07:00:41 pm
I like miniguns/gatlinguns...

Maby I should add something like that on one of my ships...

How about a corvette with a Massive frontal gatling plasma cannon?

Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu...
Title: Minigun Discussion
Post by: Deepblue on January 10, 2004, 12:47:40 am
:wtf:


:wtf:


:wtf:
Title: Minigun Discussion
Post by: magatsu1 on January 10, 2004, 06:50:37 am
that should be
"vrrrruummmmm, budabudabudabudabudabudabuda, vrummmmm"


:p
Title: Minigun Discussion
Post by: TrashMan on January 10, 2004, 07:55:59 am
Quote
Originally posted by magatsu1
that should be
"vrrrruummmmm, budabudabudabudabudabudabuda, vrummmmm"


:p


I don't remember hireing you for the sound effects!?
Title: Minigun Discussion
Post by: RangerKarl on January 10, 2004, 09:04:24 am
Stupid factoid, but.....

A Minigun  (copyright, General Electric) is a 6-barreled electrically powered gatling gun derived from the M61 Vulcan, but scaled down. So technically it should be "gargantuan gatling" which sounds better phonetically, but of course doesn't have that whole oxymoronic (lol) schtick to it.
Title: Minigun Discussion
Post by: magatsu1 on January 10, 2004, 09:26:19 am
Quote
Originally posted by TrashMan


I don't remember hireing you for the sound effects!?


you didn't haved to hire me. You can have that for free.
Title: Minigun Discussion
Post by: Nuke on January 10, 2004, 10:49:25 pm
i personally like the gau-8 avenger, a 7 barreled gatling gun also made by ge. it can fire anywhere between 30 and 70 rounds per second. any time i try to get that fire rate out of the freespace engine, it eighter slows down the game, or doesnt render the shots. id like a supre fast rendering meathod that may be used in insanely fast firing weapons.

it would be nice if we could have a sound effect to go along with the spinning barrels.
Title: Minigun Discussion
Post by: Deepblue on January 10, 2004, 11:37:07 pm
Anyway back on topic.
Can we please put in shell ejection. Example: the Grendel in Starlancer.
Title: Minigun Discussion
Post by: magatsu1 on January 11, 2004, 01:18:20 pm
at a guess that would either be: pofs, messy to put in and a bit of a drain
or:
pcx: looks crap. I know what you mean though. Looks good in FPS.
Title: Minigun Discussion
Post by: TrashMan on January 11, 2004, 06:06:30 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Nuke
i personally like the gau-8 avenger, a 7 barreled gatling gun also made by ge. it can fire anywhere between 30 and 70 rounds per second. any time i try to get that fire rate out of the freespace engine, it eighter slows down the game, or doesnt render the shots. id like a supre fast rendering meathod that may be used in insanely fast firing weapons.

it would be nice if we could have a sound effect to go along with the spinning barrels.


Yeah..and the Avanger fires 30mm bullets with depleted urianium that can tare trough armour like like it was tissue paper!

I allso made gatling guns (3 of them), but found that there really is no sense in going above the fire speed of 0.01

Even with this, it's a Shivan massacre. ;7
Title: Minigun Discussion
Post by: Bobboau on January 11, 2004, 06:18:55 pm
if you want to simulete higher fireing raate weapons you should probly try ether particle spew, or a trail
Title: Minigun Discussion
Post by: Nuke on January 12, 2004, 12:49:40 am
i never go below 0.04, or 25 rounds per second. i use a tiny 4 poly pof file with a glowpoint and a beam glow that looks kinda cool. slower miniguns use a more bullet shaped pof. my fastest firing gun uses a particle spew. the laser code works fine if you limit the life of a shot to 0.5 or less and so i compensate by increasing the velocity of the rounds. its funny though that my bullets go faster that nost of the original lasers.