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General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: Marcov on November 20, 2009, 07:51:51 am

Title: Meson Bomb?
Post by: Marcov on November 20, 2009, 07:51:51 am
I think the Meson's quite wierd. I detonated it and it had the damage only slightly stronger than a Helios. Is it really meant to be this powerful?? I mean, the thing is almost as big as a cruiser, and a Helios is even smaller than a fighter.
Title: Re: Meson Bomb?
Post by: Kie99 on November 20, 2009, 09:13:47 am
It's damage is done via scripting in the mission.  It's useless if you just detonate it in FRED without using SEXPs.
Title: Re: Meson Bomb?
Post by: headdie on November 20, 2009, 10:13:39 am
classic use of the special explosion section of the ship properties
Title: Re: Meson Bomb?
Post by: terran_emperor on November 20, 2009, 10:22:34 am
Yes, and once you've fiddled around with the shockwave properties, it is "Guaranteed to blow anything up" ;7 well anything that can blow up
Title: Re: Meson Bomb?
Post by: haloboy100 on November 20, 2009, 12:16:24 pm
Except capital ships, though; they're not affected by shockwave damage, right? I think it's because of the big flag.
Title: Re: Meson Bomb?
Post by: stuart133 on November 20, 2009, 02:55:37 pm
This reminds me of playing around with the flags, and ending up with some very strange results. :D :D
Title: Re: Meson Bomb?
Post by: General Battuta on November 20, 2009, 06:09:21 pm
Except capital ships, though; they're not affected by shockwave damage, right? I think it's because of the big flag.

I'm pretty sure the meson bomb takes out capital ships. Could be wrong, though.
Title: Re: Meson Bomb?
Post by: Droid803 on November 20, 2009, 09:45:48 pm
Shockwaves kill capital ships just fine. Well, even if they didn't die outright, they'd lose significant portions of health.
Title: Re: Meson Bomb?
Post by: TopAce on November 22, 2009, 02:07:55 pm
Shockwaves kill capital ships just fine. Well, even if they didn't die outright, they'd lose significant portions of health.

Or funnier, it survives the explosion, but a piece of debris hits it and destroys it. It happens. :D
Title: Re: Meson Bomb?
Post by: IronBeer on November 22, 2009, 04:29:01 pm
Shockwaves kill capital ships just fine. Well, even if they didn't die outright, they'd lose significant portions of health.

Or funnier, it survives the explosion, but a piece of debris hits it and destroys it. It happens. :D
In one of the JAD missions, the one where you need to destroy the Knossos, I had the GTD Sasquatch (was that the ship?) get destroyed before the meson bomb could be planted properly. The front prow of the ship was blown away from the explosion, crashed into the freighter carrying the meson bomb, trashed the freighter, whose explosion set off the meson bomb. The bomb's shockwave wasted the Knossos, and I won the mission. I don't think you could even script something like that.
Title: Re: Meson Bomb?
Post by: Droid803 on November 22, 2009, 05:49:59 pm
Oh damn that would have been epic to watch and lulz afterwards.
Title: Re: Meson Bomb?
Post by: Kolgena on November 22, 2009, 07:40:49 pm
Wait, debris hit for -huge damage?
Title: Re: Meson Bomb?
Post by: Thaeris on November 22, 2009, 08:42:48 pm
For that matter... do collisions count as huge damage? If that's the case, I think I might have to try something against a particular Shivan corvette in a Nebula that's down to 1% hull...
Title: Re: Meson Bomb?
Post by: Retsof on November 22, 2009, 10:45:42 pm
That's the strange thing, collisions do next to no damage, yet flying debris can punch a hole through a destroyer.
Title: Re: Meson Bomb?
Post by: Dark RevenantX on November 22, 2009, 11:33:24 pm
That's the strange thing, collisions do next to no damage, yet flying debris can punch a hole through a destroyer.
That's usually because the debris *explodes* when it impacts your hull.  :p
Title: Re: Meson Bomb?
Post by: haloboy100 on November 22, 2009, 11:46:11 pm
Could that actually be it? Perhaps the shockwave does huge damage and not the physical collision.
Title: Re: Meson Bomb?
Post by: Thaeris on November 22, 2009, 11:49:33 pm
That might... be sensible...

If I recall correctly, one of the means of destroying the corvette I was alluding to was to use the EMP... which killed it with a shockwave...  :nod:
Title: Re: Meson Bomb?
Post by: Marcov on November 23, 2009, 08:07:26 am
Shockwaves kill capital ships just fine. Well, even if they didn't die outright, they'd lose significant portions of health.

Or funnier, it survives the explosion, but a piece of debris hits it and destroys it. It happens. :D

It's strange, though.

One time I tried to do a capital ship duel mission wherein you play as a Sath vs. an enemy Sath. I SEXPE'd the command to fire your four beams. My enemy was destroyed, and I probably got like 15% hull integrity left, but a f*cking piece of debris from my enemy hit me and I died. 15% hull integrity of A SATHANAS!!! That's like 150,000 hp! Proving that a juggernaut's debris can do 150,000+ damage. Debris hits are the most awesome weapon on Freespace, after all  :cool:
Title: Re: Meson Bomb?
Post by: stuart133 on November 23, 2009, 03:11:22 pm
150,000 hp from a single piece of debris?? The GTVA should have been building debris launchers instead of the Collie for those 15 years. :D
Title: Re: Meson Bomb?
Post by: Droid803 on November 23, 2009, 09:00:03 pm
The Collie is actually a wonderful debris launcher.
Due to it's odd center positioning, much of it pitches forward, making it quite a deadly debris launcher.
Title: Re: Meson Bomb?
Post by: IronBeer on November 24, 2009, 12:56:14 am
I think what makes debris dangerous is the mostly the high speeds they achieve. It may not be obvious at first glance, but have you ever reticle-targeted a hunk of debris? The speeds they can reach are nothing short of crazy- and it's not a little fighter slamming into something, it's anywhere from 10 to 20% of a very large capital ship.

And to think I used to wonder why capitals would continue beaming an exploding ship at zero hull integrity- it's to try and neutralize any chunks!
Title: Re: Meson Bomb?
Post by: stuart133 on November 24, 2009, 01:31:25 pm
The best weapon for launching debris at huge speed is the flux cannon on the Lucy. If that thing hits a fighter the debris is sent so fast. A clever bit of scripting could make you launch that into a huge capital ship, and lead to its death. :D :D
Title: Re: Meson Bomb?
Post by: terran_emperor on November 24, 2009, 01:36:54 pm
 :lol: I've done something like that. I used cheats to arm myself with the shivan superlasers and made my targets invincible. Then when i shoot a fighter it goes spining off at high speed. Also doing the same in retail to arm myself with the Beam weapons had the same effect.

In retail, when you gave yourself beam weapons, and fired, you didnt get actual beams (that was an SCP feature). Instead you shot tiny [BFRed] bullets that hit your target and sent them spinning out of control before exploding
Title: Re: Meson Bomb?
Post by: haloboy100 on November 24, 2009, 01:49:46 pm
That's because, as I recall, the projectiles accounted for one pulse of the beam, rather than firing the beam itself.
Title: Re: Meson Bomb?
Post by: stuart133 on November 24, 2009, 02:15:32 pm
That's because, as I recall, the projectiles accounted for one pulse of the beam, rather than firing the beam itself.

Woah, that is a lot of damage in one tiny shot, I may have to go and have some fun with this now. :)
Title: Re: Meson Bomb?
Post by: haloboy100 on December 02, 2009, 02:28:21 pm
By "pulse" I mean a single peice of the beam the game uses to determine the length. I think how beams work in FS2 is that they fire a continuous stream of hitscan (that is, instant-hitting) projectiles in a straight line to gradually do a large amount of damage over time (that time being the lifespan of the beam). The projectiles you fire through the cheat weapons are single pieces of the relevant beam.

This, however, is just what I think. I'm not sure if beams work any differently, but if they worked this way that would explain the large particle affect much suiting of a full sized beam comming out of such a tiny projectile.
Title: Re: Meson Bomb?
Post by: General Battuta on December 02, 2009, 02:32:20 pm
Easy enough to ask, right?
Title: Re: Meson Bomb?
Post by: Commander Zane on December 02, 2009, 03:02:50 pm
I mean, the thing is almost as big as a cruiser, and a Helios is even smaller than a fighter.
Actually they're bigger than most if not all fighters. :P
Title: Re: Meson Bomb?
Post by: stuart133 on December 02, 2009, 03:48:31 pm
I mean, the thing is almost as big as a cruiser, and a Helios is even smaller than a fighter.
Actually they're bigger than most if not all fighters. :P

They are, wow that would look really odd if they had an external missile model. A bomb attached to a ship smaller that it. :D
Title: Re: Meson Bomb?
Post by: headdie on December 02, 2009, 04:20:55 pm
I mean, the thing is almost as big as a cruiser, and a Helios is even smaller than a fighter.
Actually they're bigger than most if not all fighters. :P

They are, wow that would look really odd if they had an external missile model. A bomb attached to a ship smaller that it. :D

Someone aught to do that just for the grin of it
Title: Re: Meson Bomb?
Post by: Aardwolf on December 02, 2009, 06:42:53 pm
Pssst! Myrmidon with Helios!
Title: Re: Meson Bomb?
Post by: Thaeris on December 02, 2009, 07:55:25 pm
Finally, we have an explanation for the Myrmidon's massive volume:

"The Myrm comes equipped with an internal subspace generator which magically spews out a friggin' huge warhead. Unfortunately, this subspace generator is incompatible with the GTM Harpoon. As the Helios is rarely used, however, this feature is nearly useless..."
Title: Re: Meson Bomb?
Post by: Commander Zane on December 02, 2009, 07:57:45 pm
Now that I like. :lol:
Title: Re: Meson Bomb?
Post by: headdie on December 03, 2009, 06:08:49 am
Pssst! Myrmidon with Helios!

I ment with the bomb hanging off an external rack TBP starfury style, just brings an image to me of a fighter strapped to a bomb twice its size
Title: Re: Meson Bomb?
Post by: Vip on December 03, 2009, 08:45:17 am
Pssst! Myrmidon with Helios!

I ment with the bomb hanging off an external rack TBP starfury style, just brings an image to me of a fighter strapped to a bomb twice its size

In such a situation, is the fighter carrying the bomb or is the bomb carrying the fighter ? :P
Title: Re: Meson Bomb?
Post by: stuart133 on December 03, 2009, 11:48:27 am
Finally, we have an explanation for the Myrmidon's massive volume:

"The Myrm comes equipped with an internal subspace generator which magically spews out a friggin' huge warhead. Unfortunately, this subspace generator is incompatible with the GTM Harpoon. As the Helios is rarely used, however, this feature is nearly useless..."

Have you posted that in the Nodimrym thread yet, I think there is an argument going on about that there.
Title: Re: Meson Bomb?
Post by: Commander Zane on December 03, 2009, 11:51:29 am
No but I just quoted it there. :P
Title: Re: Meson Bomb?
Post by: terran_emperor on December 03, 2009, 01:36:19 pm
where does that come from?
Title: Re: Meson Bomb?
Post by: Commander Zane on December 03, 2009, 03:34:28 pm
:confused:
Title: Re: Meson Bomb?
Post by: stuart133 on December 03, 2009, 03:51:59 pm
Actually thinking about it how long is the Boanageres, it's not that long, so its huge bomb hold is also a bit off, perhaps.
Title: Re: Meson Bomb?
Post by: Commander Zane on December 03, 2009, 04:06:20 pm
Everything is a bit off. :P
Title: Re: Meson Bomb?
Post by: stuart133 on December 03, 2009, 04:19:05 pm
Yeah, some nice FS fluff that makes no sense, ah well :v: made one of the best games ever, so I think I can forgive them for that.
Title: Re: Meson Bomb?
Post by: el_magnifico on December 05, 2009, 11:00:33 pm
Now that you are talking about it, I’ve got a shivan hypothesis relating to those minor inconsistences you are mentioning. Some people believe the shivans are destroyers or preservers. Others think they are plainly xenophobic. But perhaps they are just a very logical species. I think the shivans can’t stand the fact that we just don’t make sense.

When the shivans arrive to investigate and put an end to our irrational conflict, after fourteen years of war, we (Terrans and Vasudans) form an alliance and suddenly, we don’t care about our differences anymore. We don’t even mention that war anymore. That doesn’t makes any sense.

Then the HoL begins to aid the Shivans. And they do it with the mighty Aten class cruisers! The shivans got the indestructible ship, the Vasudans got the worst cruiser in game, and yet the HoL thinks the great destroyers need their help. Now THAT doesn’t makes any sense.

What about the Vasudans replacing the Amun with the Osiris? Or Terrans replacing the Avenger with the Subach and the Orion with the Hecate? And the Fenris, that cruiser alone makes no sense! Jesus, what about Vasudans replacing parlamentarism with a totalitarian monarchy!?

This brings me to the decision makers. Sometimes, it seems like they are drunk or just plain stupid. They complain if you fail to protect the Thebes in Bearbaiting. Funny thing is, they just lost the Phoenicia out of pure stupidity, and they really don’t care about that.
In the Sicillian Defense, command expects you to protect a corvette against a destroyer, a corvette, and two cruisers.
And there are dozens of examples like those.
All of this just doesn’t makes any sense.

I’m speculating here, but maybe, when Bosch tried to communicate with the Shivans, a spark of hope begun to grow in their little shivan souls. Maybe they thought they could “civilize” us. But we know that encounter didn’t fared well.
Maybe Bosch asked for a sugar free coffee and two donuts. Maybe he showed a Helios-compatible Myrmidon, or worse, GTVA next years planned budget. It must have been some ridiculous piece of Terran or Vasudan culture. And then, the Shivans just went insane. They started beating their shivan heads against the walls in the Iceni, and when the crew panicked at this seemingly irrational behaviour (how ironic) and started to shot, a battle took place.

It doesn’t matters anyway. The Shivans were just too confused by useless things like printed manuals or software patents. They gathered the fleet, ran to Capella, divided in teams, and started playing a game called “Who can blow up Capella first?”. Finally, when a winner was declared, the rest of the competitors jumped out, and went far away in the galaxy, where they could recover from the shock caused to their minds by the cultural clash.
The winners stayed in Capella to celebrate. In their honor, Petrarch pronounced the last senseless words in the game: “According to observers, Alpha 1 remained behind, so that others may reach the Vega node...”
Title: Re: Meson Bomb?
Post by: MatthTheGeek on December 06, 2009, 03:28:52 am
o0

8D

Epic

I like it.
Title: Re: Meson Bomb?
Post by: The E on December 06, 2009, 03:31:45 am
I know that expecting a thread to stay on-topic for long is futile, but what did that have to do with meson bombs? Or the posts preceding it?
Title: Re: Meson Bomb?
Post by: MatthTheGeek on December 06, 2009, 03:42:01 am
I think he was referring to :
Yeah, some nice FS fluff that makes no sense
Title: Re: Meson Bomb?
Post by: Commander Zane on December 06, 2009, 04:38:44 am
It certainly makes for some good JAD material. :P
Title: Re: Meson Bomb?
Post by: stuart133 on December 06, 2009, 08:26:50 am
Yeah well, we can just assume that :v: were thinking: "Well we've made a great game, with an immersive universe, I don't see any reasons to get rid of any inconsistancies, most players won't notice anyway."

And I really can't blame them for that. :)
Title: Re: Meson Bomb?
Post by: Yuuz on December 07, 2009, 02:12:33 am
el_magnifico There is a book called Blindsight which is exactly what you discribe. A huge black spiky alien ship appears on the edge of human space and we send a crew of our brighted most diverse people to investigate. It makes multiple geniusus to even SEE one of their retarded children- )who can mind read and phase in and out inbetween human eye shutters so they appear invisible)
We find otu this super ship was at the end of its growth cycle and would shorty destroy the human race- because it acted just like a virus. Humans dump out radio signals, ads, movies, fight, war, and are generally pretty stupid and crazy. I could imagine the Shivians doing the exact same thing.


Off topic I know ;)
Title: Re: Meson Bomb?
Post by: Retsof on December 07, 2009, 12:31:01 pm
*snip*
*Still off topic*  I read that book ... it was good but freaky.
Title: Re: Meson Bomb?
Post by: stuart133 on December 08, 2009, 01:41:38 pm
Getting back to the Meson bomb, I found out what a Meson was today: It is were a quark and an antiquark join together. Based on this I would have to guess that the Meson bomb is a primarily anti-matter based bomb.

Title: Re: Meson Bomb?
Post by: Droid803 on December 08, 2009, 02:15:20 pm
Uhm no. Mesons aren't antimatter...
Unless they are antimesons. But they're never stated to be antimesons.
Title: Re: Meson Bomb?
Post by: General Battuta on December 08, 2009, 02:30:03 pm
No, actually, mesons are composed of a quark and antiquark, so they can't really be said to be antimatter or matter.
Title: Re: Meson Bomb?
Post by: Droid803 on December 08, 2009, 02:33:17 pm
If you make the quark an antiquark and the antiquark a quark you get the...opposite of the meson.
It's still just a meson but it might annihilate with the other one? I don't know.
Title: Re: Meson Bomb?
Post by: General Battuta on December 08, 2009, 02:34:56 pm
There are antimesons, sure. My earlier statement might have been a bit hasty, thinking about it. To clarify, neutral mesons are their own antiparticle.
Title: Re: Meson Bomb?
Post by: stuart133 on December 08, 2009, 03:03:42 pm
I wasn't trying to imply that Mesons are the source for the explosion, more that a meson is an antiquark and a quark, just as an antimatter bomb would be matter and antimatter, so maaaaybe :v: were just using Meson because it sounds more exotic/original than antimatter.
Title: Re: Meson Bomb?
Post by: General Battuta on December 08, 2009, 03:04:28 pm
It's not implausible. And good on 'em for getting the Hideki Institute right! Shows some research.
Title: Re: Meson Bomb?
Post by: Killer Whale on December 11, 2009, 10:57:50 pm
*snip*
Insert into freespace wiki as a capella theory please  :lol: