Hard Light Productions Forums

Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The Modding Workshop => Topic started by: BengalTiger on October 16, 2007, 04:22:40 pm

Title: Artillery
Post by: BengalTiger on October 16, 2007, 04:22:40 pm
As I'm taking my first steps in modelling (I'm slowly building the hull for my ****), I figured out I should do something easy:

(http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/3197/artyhj5.jpg)

The battleship thread (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,49258.0.html) inspired me...

I'm planning on giving the bullet some glow/shine and table it to make it have a mini meson bomb explosion (some 15% power), but that's for tomorrow.

So what do U people think?
Title: Re: Artillery
Post by: dbtkenny on October 16, 2007, 06:36:36 pm
sweet idea be fun to see how it come out in the end
Title: Re: Artillery
Post by: gevatter Lars on October 17, 2007, 03:55:24 am
This kind of things would be cool if it would be possible to add a proximity type of explosion. So you could have two types of ari ammo. One that hits the target and releases most of its damage to it and another that goes of close to a target...what might include fighters.
It would be an evil anti fighter weapon when you shoot it into a formation...blasting away everything around it. Or you could use it to disarm a target. While the ship itself survives the explosion the turrets most likely won't since they aren't as well protected.
If you go for shielded cap it could overload different shield quadrants at the same time.

I like the idea of having such a weapon but instead of a solid shell I would say that a big missile with very low maneuverability would be more realistic.
Title: Re: Artillery
Post by: S-99 on October 17, 2007, 05:04:12 am
Use flak guns?
Title: Re: Artillery
Post by: gevatter Lars on October 17, 2007, 05:11:14 am
If you got one that shoots over the distance of an ari ok.
Title: Re: Artillery
Post by: Roanoke on October 17, 2007, 05:43:40 am
This kind of things would be cool if it would be possible to add a proximity type of explosion. So you could have two types of ari ammo. One that hits the target and releases most of its damage to it and another that goes of close to a target...what might include fighters.
It would be an evil anti fighter weapon when you shoot it into a formation...blasting away everything around it. Or you could use it to disarm a target. While the ship itself survives the explosion the turrets most likely won't since they aren't as well protected.
If you go for shielded cap it could overload different shield quadrants at the same time.

I like the idea of having such a weapon but instead of a solid shell I would say that a big missile with very low maneuverability would be more realistic.

self-destruct and special explosion in FRED ?
Title: Re: Artillery
Post by: gevatter Lars on October 17, 2007, 07:40:16 am
In a bigger battle that would mean quite some scripting wouldn't it?
Anyway that was just an idea. You can still make it and impact type and add a big explosion radius. That would most likely be the easiest part.
Title: Re: Artillery
Post by: Vengence on October 17, 2007, 08:55:02 am
 :eek2:

I can fit a fighter into the barrel of a Hurricane 5's main guns. They fire 1km long bolts at 6km per second and rip apart capital ships... the size of that bullet dwarfs the width of that beam...
Title: Re: Artillery
Post by: colecampbell666 on October 17, 2007, 08:57:00 am
It would be an evil anti fighter weapon
Especially since it's the size of a fighter. :D
Title: Re: Artillery
Post by: BengalTiger on October 17, 2007, 11:35:32 am
Thanks a lot for the positive feedback :)

First thing- the Shell on the screenshot is just a table'd Ulysses to show the .pof (6+ months of .tbl edits really give strange ideas).
Second thing- thanks to the comments, I think I'll make at least 3 versions of the Arty Ammo:
1. Anti-Capship, with dark gray armor penetrating tip (as shown or darker), and meson device in the back (blue glowpoints- like the original M-Bomb,WIP), marked by the red stripe and the letters ACMS (anti capship meson shell).
2. Anti-Fighter (the Yamato had something like that- the shell exploded near an enemy formation spitting thousands of shrapnell, great fireworks show, but didn't work because it was impossible to aim the 18 inchers at small airplanes, even at a distance), which will not have the dark gray tip or meson bomblet, but will be filled with some antifighter shrapnell (tbl edit in progress), marked by a green stripe and the letters AFSS (anti fighter shrapnel shell). If it works, I'll keep it, if not- delete.
3. Indirect Fire Support, which will be the Anti-Capship with a yellow stripe and IFSS (indirect fire support shell), this shell will be a ship object, which should be Fredded by whoever uses it to warp out facing the target and ordered to suicide attack it.

I already have ideas how much damage each type should make, but more on that later :P
I'm also creating a battleship with 6 (3 on top deck, 3 on bottom) turrets, 3 guns each for this ammo (10 meters caliber), but I'll need a couple weeks and maybe some help on that one- 3d models is something I'm beginning right now.
Title: Re: Artillery
Post by: Scooby_Doo on October 17, 2007, 06:20:01 pm
Make it out of Top Antimatter  :eek2:
Title: Re: Artillery
Post by: Titan on October 18, 2007, 01:24:03 pm
when's the release date  :D

the AF one sounds sorta like (cant remember name) you know, i think its called the synaptic, you launch it, then i goes boom and launches 10 rockeyes
Title: Re: Artillery
Post by: Mav on October 18, 2007, 03:44:20 pm
the AF one sounds sorta like (cant remember name) you know, i think its called the synaptic, you launch it, then i goes boom and launches 10 rockeyes
Yep - just use lots of Tempests instead of Rockeyes.

And the name you were searching most propably was "Piranha" (a pretty fitting name, I'd think :D ). Though Synaptic was, as far as I can remember, it's FS 1 equivalent (sorry, if my assumption you were speaking about FS 2 should be wrong...).
Title: Re: Artillery
Post by: S-99 on October 18, 2007, 09:22:43 pm
Make it out of Top Antimatter  :eek2:

Reminds me of that Top brand tobacco i make rolleys with (maybe i should try the anti-matter variant?). **** the pirahna, study the infyrno.
Title: Re: Artillery
Post by: Scooby_Doo on October 18, 2007, 09:52:49 pm
Imagine something that big slamming at high speed into a Sathanas...   probably weight several million tons  :lol: it'd go straight through the ship (and probably the planet behind it)
Title: Re: Artillery
Post by: Mav on October 19, 2007, 03:42:04 am
Sure - but not through the Lucifer and possible relatives of it... :mad2: ;7

(as long as it's out of subspace, of course :doubt: )
Title: Re: Artillery
Post by: Scooby_Doo on October 19, 2007, 03:53:04 am
Sure - but not through the Lucifer and possible relatives of it... :mad2: ;7

(as long as it's out of subspace, of course :doubt: )

No but it would push it way out of the way... plus depending on fast it was launched (not sure how'd you launch something that heavy fast) it might do structural damage to the luci.  I'm sure it would weight many times the luci.
Title: Re: Artillery
Post by: Send in the TMF on October 19, 2007, 04:39:19 am
on the subject of sub munition missiles/bombs
a friend who will remain nameless... has a cluster missile in the mod he is making (im giving ideas)
that is almost like dropping 40 Helios bombs on something... PER MISSILE >_> *but cuz its like crazy large you can only carry like 4-6)
Title: Re: Artillery
Post by: Mav on October 19, 2007, 04:52:55 am
Structural damage would certainly be absorbed by the shields, and maybe even some of the kinetic energy (though I'm not sure on that one).

But what just comes to my mind, is that your glorious "antimatter warhead" won't detonate on shields - they aren't matter that it can react with... against them, antimatter won't be any more effective then ordinary-matter mass drivers :mad2: ;7. Which might be one of the reasons the Lucy's shields couldn't be downed in FS 1 :nod: .

Oh, and by the way - try my capship mod (if the download isn't removed already... in that case I'll have to re-upload sometime next week :blah: ) if you want to see Lucy-class shields in action. It's "only" on a Ravana there, but still strong enough by far :D .

I'm sure it would weight many times the luci.
Huh? You're overdoing it a little bit here, aren't you? That bullet might be larger then a fighter, but certainly nowhere near a superdestroyer... it'd have to be of some really superdense material to outweigh those, for example like white dwarfs or neutron stars - and in the FS universe, it's certainly more likely that the Luci itself is made up of such material then something the GTVA put together... :nod:



@Send in the TMF:
Oooh, really?... Well - first, anyone can raise spawning numbers as high as he wishes. And second - you should see the original version of my supercap antifighter missile in action - something like 18*7 heatseekers per salvo... you DON'T want to be near when two or three of these salvoes go off :D :nod: (and the numbers DO make sense there, as these are thought for supercaps defending themdelves in BoE-style missions... not that such missions would yet be supported by the engine, though).
Problem is, I don't yet have a PC that can handle this load with good framerates and without reducing the graphics quality to something pretty horrible :nervous: .

In what you said, even the biggest GTVA bomber really shouldn't be able to carry more then 1 of these, or, in the extreme, 2.
And against a Lucy or similar ships, it still won't do anything, since Helios' nearly don't do any damage to shields... :p
Title: Re: Artillery
Post by: Scooby_Doo on October 19, 2007, 05:16:02 am
Structural damage would certainly be absorbed by the shields, and maybe even some of the kinetic energy (though I'm not sure on that one).

But what just comes to my mind, is that your glorious "antimatter warhead" won't detonate on shields - they aren't matter that it can react with... against them, antimatter won't be any more effective then ordinary-matter mass drivers :mad2: ;7. Which might be one of the reasons the Lucy's shields couldn't be downed in FS 1 :nod: .

Oh, and by the way - try my capship mod (if the download isn't removed already... in that case I'll have to re-upload sometime next week :blah: ) if you want to see Lucy-class shields in action. It's "only" on a Ravana there, but still strong enough by far :D .

I'm sure it would weight many times the luci.
Huh? You're overdoing it a little bit here, aren't you? That bullet might be larger then a fighter, but certainly nowhere near a superdestroyer... it'd have to be of some really superdense material to outweigh those, for example like white dwarfs or neutron stars - and in the FS universe, it's certainly more likely that the Luci itself is made up of such material then something the GTVA put together... :nod:


Thats why I said a Top Antimatter.....a Top quark antimatter   :mad2: ;7.. mine you keeping it alive long enough would be a problem.
Title: Re: Artillery
Post by: Mav on October 19, 2007, 05:25:26 am
Uh, that wouldn't really be antimatter - because you WANT the exact opposite of normal matter for the "usual" antimatter reaction to occur...

Dunno, but as far as I can see, Top antiquarks (or whatever is the right name here is - Top quarks themselves are "ordinary" matter, just very heavy and short-lived) would mostly act like some radioactive radiation, just a lot of it.

And for the question if they could penetrate Shivan capship-shields... I'll have to search for us' nearest science node to let him answer that - mind you, it'll only be some light yea... *ooops*, damnit - that should be a surprise :mad2: ;7
Anyway, still I'd say in the FS setting, the Shivans are much more likely to have such strange stuff... :nod: ;)
Title: Re: Artillery
Post by: Scooby_Doo on October 19, 2007, 05:46:26 am
I suppose you'd have to have 50% top quark matter, and 50% antitop somehow kept seperate.  However come to think of it, just use regular top quark and have yourself a very nasty very massive mass driver.
Title: Re: Artillery
Post by: Mav on October 19, 2007, 07:13:14 am
Yep :)  (though the Lucy woul propably still be shielded too well; believe me, the only serious way for GTVA to take one down is do what they did at the end of FS1...)  - if you can keep it stable, that is. Otherwise, your whole ammo-depot is going to shower you and your ship with heavy radiation.
And I know what I'd use if you'd stabilize it with microscopic (actually, nanoscopic) shields... :drevil:
Title: Re: Artillery
Post by: Herra Tohtori on October 19, 2007, 07:29:45 am
<real-physics-nitpic>
Ehh, no offense, but quarks dont really act this way.  ;7

AFAIK ever since the initial cooldown after the big bang when the quarks were bound into hadrons by strong nuclear interaction (or gluons, if you prefer the particle name for that interaction), they have been bound to other quarks. The result is that quarks don't exist separate any more, because when you try to separate them from each other, you have to insert so much energy to increase the distance between quarks that the tension level actually will turn into more quarks which will be bound together likewise...

</nitpick>

It is possible that creating conditions like immediately after Big Bang (read: a heck of a lot energy density, talking like a galaxy in a tip of a needle or more) could restore energy into quark-gluon plasma, but it's extremely hard or even impossible to turn matter into that stuff.

Further more - hadrons are divided into two subgroups, baryons and mesons. Baryons are groups of three quarks bound by a gluon; mesons are actually quark-antiquark pairs.

Obviously FS2 isn't actually bound to follow real physics, but it could be speculated that meson bombs actually manage to turn mesonic matter into quark-antiquark pairs for a little while by a magic field that disables strong nuclear interaction/disrupts gluons or whatever, after which the free quarks and anti-quarks promptly annihilate each other, which releases a heck of a lot energy... I sppose that's as plausible as it gets when you consider means of making bombs out of mesons (which, for the most part, are actually remarkably short-lived particles anyway and normally decompose into other, more normal particles in a very short time).


 :p
Title: Re: Artillery
Post by: Mav on October 19, 2007, 10:01:42 am
*urgh* :wtf: ... thanks, I mostly know :nod: - maybe I just assumed too much without detailing it... :) :


1)Keep in mind FS is a fictional universe.

2)When he said "Bottom quarks" I assumed he meant hadrons made from three Bottom quarks, or at least something like that.

3)Sure, the leftover quarks are bound - but at colliders you can get some "free" quarks more or less - just that they next-to-immediately decay through various processes  (remember me writing about "short-lived" and "would mostly act like some radioactive radiation"?) - that's (more or less) the main point WHY those large colliders were built...
And also why we know about these heavy quarks - as far as I'm informed, there shouldn't be any left over of them from the big bang, since they long ago should all have been decayed to lighter particles.

4)The fact that they decay is because they have the possibilities to. Now, I just assumed *some* hypothetical shield/field (which certainly isn't the same - something like SF "shields" doesn't seem to have ANY place in current-day physics; but then again, it's fictional and we also don't know the future) that could somehow be utilized to block those decay channels... aw, well.


So - now what to continue with? :confused:
Title: Re: Artillery
Post by: BengalTiger on October 19, 2007, 11:36:54 am
Update, Official this time (since it's posted by me  :D):

The bullets got glows now.

Tech specs on the bullets:
projectile caliber: 1000mm (yes, TEN meters)
projectile length: 20 meters
projectile propulsion: some kind of 10m L/25 caliber railgun I have to model...
projectile weight: circa 930 tons (the bullets have some 5 times larger volume than the GE Dash 9-44CW (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GE_Dash_9-44CW), so they'd be about 5 times heavier.)

So first off is the Anti-Capship round, with Cherenkov radiation from the Meson container visible (or whatever the blueish/purplish glow on the Meson Bomb is), red stripe marks this type. This type will do the most HP's damage, but with a small radius shockwave, since it's meant to pierce the external bulkhead and explode inside the enemy ship.
(http://img127.imageshack.us/img127/7215/arty2gx9.jpg)

Second goes the indirect fire support, yellow stripe and a smaller meson bomb due to the fact a miniature subspace drive has to go somewhere. Less damaging, but longest range, by far. This type will also have a small shockwave to simulate exploding after getting inside the hostile ship.
(http://img127.imageshack.us/img127/9522/arty4cd1.jpg)

Third is the nasty antifighter round, prefragmented with a glowing proximity fuze on it's nose and a green stripe. Notice the lack of the carbide penetrator in front of the stripe. This one will have a weak shockwave of it's own and launch a bunch of smaller munitions (the size of Trebuches ;7, 250m range and a shockwaveing explosion).
(http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/1197/arty3ug5.jpg)

Time to do the tables.
P.S. I've read the theories about meson bombs in the FS Wiki, where they write:
Quote from: FS Wiki
More than likely a great portion of quarks and anti-quarks then find each other and annihilate, creating a lot of radiation, which turns the surrounding matter into blazing hot, rapidly expanding cloud of plasma that has a lot of thermal and kinetic energy. This is the obvious shockwave of the explosion.
Aren't beams some kind of Sci-Fi plasma shot out at near light speed?
If so- these bullets (at least the 2 types with meson devices) will do damage to the Lucy despite it's shields. ;7
P.P.S. By small shockwave I mean 300 to 500 meters.
Title: Re: Artillery
Post by: Mav on October 19, 2007, 12:14:04 pm
Well, I'm not sure why those beams should be shieldpiercing at all - for the aaaf I can understand it at least a bit because of the small diameter, read high focussation... but as for capship-beams, it always seemed somewhat strange to me. But yes, I know - it's canon that those cannons do pierce shields (...sorry about that dumb joke :o ) .

But at least as long as I don't know why it's supposed to happen for capship beams, I can't really argue if it should happen to "meson devices" too.

Anyway, it's your mod, so feel free to realize the behaviour you want for them :) .
Title: Re: Artillery
Post by: TrashMan on October 19, 2007, 01:38:43 pm

Second goes the indirect fire support, yellow stripe and a smaller meson bomb due to the fact a miniature subspace drive has to go somewhere. Less damaging, but longest range, by far. This type will also have a small shockwave to simulate exploding after getting inside the hostile ship.
(http://img127.imageshack.us/img127/9522/arty4cd1.jpg)

If it's fired from a massive railgun, won't it have a obscene range allready?

Also, why put subspace drives inside a shell, wouldn't it be better to put them in a missle?
Title: Re: Artillery
Post by: gevatter Lars on October 19, 2007, 05:26:20 pm
It would be fun to see a ship firing its shell...then it disapears and hits the enemy from a total different direction or you could shoot at people at the other side of the system or on the other side of a planet.....strange idea. :nervous:

When you are going for the "open subspace inside a ship" thing. I doubt that you would need any explosives at all. Just make sure that the shell comes out fast enough and let it rip apart the internal structure of the target. I doubt that any ships internal would be build strong enough to withstand such brute force. Sometimes throwing rocks is the best thing ^_^

I allways thought that any subspace or beam-in-ship weapons where some kind of overkill. You are mostly defenceless against it. Beam a big bomb near the reactor...boom...or a small bomb into the bridge and you will take out of action for some time.
Hell place some small charges all over the ship and you could take over the ship with little resistance.
Title: Re: Artillery
Post by: BengalTiger on October 20, 2007, 06:48:30 am
Little update on the subspace driven shell:

Shell just after warping out, flying at 400 meters per second:
(http://img237.imageshack.us/img237/8236/test0xy4.jpg)

And just after impact (notice the Lilith got pushed to 52 meters per second)
(http://img86.imageshack.us/img86/3375/test1tv8.jpg)

;)

Now I just need a way to make the antifighter round act like flak (exploding when near the enemy and not requiring a direct hit) and still have the model visible, and it'll be almost ready.
Title: Re: Artillery
Post by: BengalTiger on October 20, 2007, 04:12:09 pm
Minor Update:

"remote detonate" flag does the trick.

Problem:

When I add the "spawn name, amount" flag, the bullet flies in the direction the turret was facing in the beginning of the mission (i.e. the normal).
Is it my tbl-ing error or do I need to do something more to make the direction it's shot at change with the rotating turret?
Title: Re: Artillery
Post by: Wanderer on October 21, 2007, 02:17:49 am
No... Its a crude hack made by [v] to get retail FreeSpace defensive spawning weapons to work. AFAIK no way to fix it until either that gets changed by SCP or you use scripts to detonate the weapon.
Title: Re: Artillery
Post by: BengalTiger on October 21, 2007, 04:18:01 am
OK...
guess the antifighter bullet will either end up with a big shockwave to simulate the shrapnell flying around or simply get cancelled.

Release date: 2-4 days.
Title: Re: Artillery
Post by: colecampbell666 on October 21, 2007, 11:36:18 am
This is looking better and better. :D
Title: Re: Artillery
Post by: BengalTiger on October 21, 2007, 02:11:16 pm
Behold Ye, The Ultimate Flak Shell:

(http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/1197/arty3ug5.jpg)


During the test:

impact:
(http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/6889/flak1iu1.jpg)

moments later:
(http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/8435/flak2gm5.jpg)

The shell can shoot down a Seraphim in one indirect hit (the "remote detonate" flag makes the bullet go boom when it's some 10-20 meters away from the target, making it waaay more efective).
If there are other Seraphims really close to the explosion, then more get shot down (on my tests, I counted max 3 by 1 shell when it exploded in a wing of 4).
This bullet, like my already done (and almost fully tested) anti capship and fire support round shoots once every 15 seconds and has a speed of 400 m/s.

Release on Tuesday if I don't find any bugs.
Title: Re: Artillery
Post by: Titan on October 22, 2007, 06:57:30 am
total sweetness
Title: Re: Artillery
Post by: diceman111 on October 22, 2007, 09:04:45 am
I wouldent want to be near the ship that fires these shells when that one is destroyed since it would have a large stock of small meson bombs aboard
Title: Re: Artillery
Post by: BengalTiger on October 22, 2007, 10:14:39 am
Good point. Be sure to make the dying ship armed with these have a special explosion when making missions.

To do:
-unify launch and flyby sounds and some other really small things,
-pack it all up in a .rar file
-get it hosted.
Title: Re: Artillery
Post by: Mustang19 on October 22, 2007, 10:43:22 am
For hosting you can just use Hades Combine, you know? If it's a big file and they ask you if the community finds it worth the bandwith, just show them this thread.
Title: Re: Artillery
Post by: Cobra on October 22, 2007, 11:46:51 am
We can never have enough bombs on the site. :heh:
Title: Re: Artillery
Post by: BengalTiger on October 23, 2007, 10:04:07 am
For hosting you can just use Hades Combine, you know? If it's a big file and they ask you if the community finds it worth the bandwith, just show them this thread.

Thanks again, everyone for the support. :yes:
Almost done.
Title: Re: Artillery
Post by: S-99 on October 23, 2007, 07:21:11 pm
I like that mega-flak shell :yes:
That was one nice big flak explosion.
Title: Re: Artillery
Post by: BengalTiger on October 24, 2007, 10:59:10 am
http://hades-combine.com/web/Forum/viewtopic.php?p=1317#1317

It's all in Hades's hands now.  ;)
Title: Re: Artillery
Post by: colecampbell666 on October 24, 2007, 01:20:00 pm
In case you thought this, HC is not owned by the HLP member "Hades".
Title: Re: Artillery
Post by: BengalTiger on October 24, 2007, 02:09:23 pm
Alright ladies and gentlemen,

The Beast is Released. (http://hades-combine.com/web/index.php?ind=downloads&op=entry_view&iden=352)
Title: Re: Artillery
Post by: Cobra on October 24, 2007, 02:14:47 pm
In case you thought this, HC is not owned by the HLP member "Hades".

Duh. You don't see any news posts by hades, do you? :P
Title: Re: Artillery
Post by: BengalTiger on October 26, 2007, 11:56:03 am
2 days after the release, any comments (such as balance, graphics, suggestions or bugs)?

Here's the link again, in case someone didn't notice 2 posts ago. (http://hades-combine.com/web/index.php?ind=downloads&op=entry_view&iden=352) :P