[Tempest]

There are two very apparent issues that are somewhat affecting my mod, which deal with multipart turrets.

1. Multipart beam turrets-
Multipart beam turrets are a critical feature, but they are only half-functional. Occasionally, they'll work, but more often then not they'll refuse to fire or try to target bombs. The bomb-targeting issue is already known, but the lack of firing of these weapons makes it difficult to test anything effectively. I'll get single-part beams working fine, but multi-part isn't functional. And a debug build will not complain at all about anything regarding the turrets. They work perfect one mission, but i'll restart that very same mission and they don't.

2. Multipart turrets- don't fire down barrel line
Multipart laser turrets fire at the target's direction regardless of where the barrel is pointing. This is okay if the barrels rotate almost instantly like in FS2, but really, shouldn't the shots be created down the barrel line instead? Won't change fs2 functionality at all, yet will make more sense if someone wants to make turrets rotate more slowly. I don't run into the issue with my beams because they're type 4.

[Wanderer]

1. Hmm... care to tell more about the issue.. Perhaps table entry (i assume you have beam-freed-all)?

2. Use Swarm:1 primaries.

[Tempest]

These issues were resolved. However, I have another question for you coders: Is it possible to have a multipart turret fire from multiple fire-points at the same time? Right now, FS2 seems fixed on firing one at a time. Since they're beams, I'd like more than 1 at once since it's noticable.

[WMCoolmon]

Depending on what you mean, possibly. See "use multiple guns"

[Tempest]

That flag looks like it'd be perfect- that's exactly the effect I want. Yet applying it to each turret seems to have no effect. Do I have to re-place the ship (in FRED) for it to work? I wouldn't think so, but I entered the flag and a debug build didn't say anything about it, so I'm not sure where the issue is. (I'm running goob's latest build)

[Wanderer]

Add as many weapons to the turret as it has firing points. And keep them identical.

Code: [Select]

   $Default PBanks:        ( "Turret" "Turret" "Turret" )

[Tempest]

$Subsystem: turret09, 10.0,10.0
   $Default PBanks:   ( "Lance"  "Lance" "Lance" )
   $Flags: ( "use multiple guns" )

Putting that flag there didn't make much of a difference. It'll still fire out of only one at once.

[Wanderer]

Hmmm... Does the turret have more than 1 firing point? Also what kind of weapon is the 'lance'?

[Tempest]

The turret has multiple firing points. Again, the firing point changes, but it's always one at a time.

The lance is a long-ranged capital ship beam.
$Name:                                  @Lance
+Title:                                 XSTR("IPC-6 Lance", 3306)
+Description:
XSTR(
"Plasma weapon
Moderate Hull/Shield Damage
High energy use", 3307)
$end_multi_text
+Tech Description:
XSTR(
"", 3308)
$end_multi_text
$Model File:               none
; The following fields (preceded by @) are only required for laser
; rendering, which requires that "Model File:" be none.
; These are the same values that used to be hard-coded:
@Laser Bitmap:               newglo6
@Laser Color:               190, 150, 250
@Laser Length:               10.0
@Laser Head Radius:            14.90
@Laser Tail Radius:            10.30
$Mass:                          0.2
$Velocity:                      9500.0         ;; speed of the weapon (initially) -- may or may not change
$Fire Wait:                     5.5            ;; in seconds
$Damage:                        100
$Armor Factor:               0.9
$Shield Factor:               0.7
$Subsystem Factor:            0.3
$Lifetime:                      10.0            ;; How long this thing lives
$Energy Consumed:            2.20         ;; Energy used when fired
$Cargo Size:               0.0            ;; Amount of space taken up in weapon cargo
$Homing:                        NO
$LaunchSnd:                     125             ;; The sound it makes when fired
$ImpactSnd:                     88             ;; The sound it makes when it hits something
+Weapon Range:               100000         ;; Limit to range at which weapon will actively target object
$Flags:                         ("beam"  "no pierce shields" "Big Ship" "huge")
$Icon:                                 iconKayser
$Anim:                                 Kayser
$Impact Explosion:              ExpMissileHit1
$Impact Explosion Radius:       35.0
$BeamInfo:                              ;; for beam_lite beams - we don't have any associated warmup or warmdown
   +Type:                  4            ;; 0 - 4 are valid #'s
   +Life:                    2.50            ;; how long it lasts once the beam is actually firing
   +Warmup:                 500            ;; warmup time in ms
   +Warmdown:               500            ;; warmdown time in ms
   +Radius:                 10.0            ;; muzzle glow radius in meters
   +PCount:               20            ;; particles spewed every interval
   +PRadius:               10            ;; particle radius
   +PAngle:               3.0            ;; angle of the random "cone" where the particles are generated
   +PAni:                  particleexp01   ;; particle ani
   +Miss Factor:            0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0         ;; magic # - higher == miss more (1 for each skill level)
   +BeamSound:               177            ;; the looping beam-firing sound
   +WarmupSound:            183            ;; associated warmup sound
   +WarmdownSound:            187            ;; associated warmdown sound
   +Muzzleglow:            beamglow8   ;; muzzle glow bitmap   
   +Shots:                  1            ;; only used for TYPE 3 beams
   +ShrinkFactor:            0.0         ;; what percentage of lifetime where beam starts shrinking (0.1 == 10% life left)
   +ShrinkPct:               0.0         ;; what percentage of max width we subtract per second
   +Range:   184000
   $Section:                        ;; one section of the beam (you can have up to 5)
      +Width:               10.5            ;; width of the section
      +Texture:            beam-white      ;; texture for this section
      +RGBA Inner:         255 255 255 255   ;; rgba values (only for non-textured beam compiles)
      +RGBA Outer:         150 150 150 10   ;; rgba values (only for non-textured beam compiles)
      +Flicker:            0.1            ;; how much it flickers (0.0 to 1.0)
      +Zadd:               2.0            ;; hehe
   $Section:                        ;; one section of the beam
      +Width:               14.75         ;; width of the section
      +Texture:            beam-dblue2      ;; texture for this section
      +RGBA Inner:         160 160 0 255   ;; rgba values (only for non-textured beam compiles)
      +RGBA Outer:         60 60 0 10      ;; rgba values (only for non-textured beam compiles)
      +Flicker:            0.1            ;; how much it flickers (0.0 to 1.0)
      +Zadd:               1.0            ;; hehe
   $Section:                        ;; one section of the beam
      +Width:               20.0            ;; width of the section
      +Texture:            beam-dblue      ;; texture for this section
      +RGBA Inner:         255 0 0 255      ;; rgba values (only for non-textured beam compiles)
      +RGBA Outer:         60 0 0 10      ;; rgba values (only for non-textured beam compiles)
      +Flicker:            0.1            ;; how much it flickers (0.0 to 1.0)
      +Zadd:               0.0            ;; hehe

[Wanderer]

Hmm.. I tried it and couldnt get it running either.. that option could have been broken once again...

EDIT2....

That is it works on the latest Xt build (stable branch) that i tested and Goobers new build...
Didnt seem work on the last HEAD branch build i got - That is i couldn't see turret firing several shots.

And i tested it with THTs.. not with beams..

With BGreens.. All three fire but there is 'only' one beamglow per turret. So it sorta jumps from one firing point to another

[Tempest]

All three guns are firing- but they sometimes fire from the same bank. And they'll spring around to different firing points. However, in all cases only one firepoint is used at any given time. This behavior has been regardless of the latest goober build or with the flag on or off. It seems to me like it'd be SIMPLER to code it to use all of the firing points, like in a player craft. It shouldn't be that hard to be firing simultaneous shots from the same turret...and it's noticeable when it doesn't with beams. That's what the flag does, right? (This described behavior is also present in turrets that have different guns in firepoints, and if a friendly coder could get the feature to work why not allow for different guns?

[Wanderer]

Well it does work with turrets having different guns.. Problem is that as they fire independently the firing points of the weapons keep alternating. So it tends to look really, really weird.

[Tempest]

Can we get a fix for this? It's irritating to have a feature present but not working...