[Fire Fury]

 Thanks in advance, I've tried to make beam weapons but I can never get it right. The three I need are:
1. A purple beem with decent range and can heavly damage (but not destroy) a Ravana if four are fired at once
2. A black one that can heavly damage but not destroy Rakshasa in two shots
3. A red one that has a glow that fills a Ganymede and has a beam half that size with a range of 50000Km and that can heavlay damage if not destroy most destroyers.

Again thanks

[Wanderer]

Large beams will cause clipping issues so for example the last one might be a tad difficult to get look good.

[Fire Fury]

I see if thats the case than a regular size beam will do.

P.S. What is a clipping error.

[Flaming_Sword]

I've got a purple version of the LRed I was messing around with if you want that. Damage and stuff you can probably mess with yourself.

[Jake2447]

i just made a huge red beam to see how this idea would work.  at 30,000 m after 10 shotes, it still hadn't hit the sathanas.  i wonder if adjusting accuracy will fix this.

[blowfish]

You need to put a +Range: field under beaminfo and make it something more than 30000 because beams just stop at 30000m by default.  It would look something like this

Code: [Select]

$Beaminfo:
    ...
    +Range: 60000
    ...


[Colonol Dekker]

Hypothetically, would a negative number negate range entirely or affect an infinite value?

[Mobius]

You need to put a +Range: field under beaminfo and make it something more than 30000 because beams just stop at 30000m by default.  It would look something like this

Code: [Select]

$Beaminfo:
    ...
    +Range: 60000
    ...


Are you sure? In a test mission they stopped at something like 24,000 meters.

[blowfish]

Hypothetically, would a negative number negate range entirely or affect an infinite value?

I would be willing to bet it would just default to 30000.  Beams have to have a length you know, you can't have a piece of geometry that goes on forever in one direction.

You need to put a +Range: field under beaminfo and make it something more than 30000 because beams just stop at 30000m by default.  It would look something like this

Code: [Select]

$Beaminfo:
    ...
    +Range: 60000
    ...


Are you sure? In a test mission they stopped at something like 24,000 meters.

Beams start do disscipate before 30000, but I think they end at 30000.  Just create a mission where you are invulnerable and then go out 30000m, change to third person view, zoom out, and have a capship fire a beam at you (using fire-beam).  You will see what I mean.

[Mobius]

The beam just couldn't hit a target located 25 clicks away.

[Jake2447]

Blowfish is right.
here is one that stops at the standard 30,000

Code: [Select]

$Name:                          SBFRed
$Model File:                    none ; laser1-1.pof
@Laser Bitmap:                  laserglow01
@Laser Color: 250, 30, 30
@Laser Length: 0.0
@Laser Head Radius: 0.30
@Laser Tail Radius: 0.30
$Mass:                          100.0
$Velocity:                      2000.0          ;; speed of the weapon (initially) -- may or may not change
$Fire Wait:                     60.0            ;; in seconds
$Damage:                        1900 ;; NOTE: for beam weapons this is kind of a "continuous" damage applied every few

fractions of a second that the beam is on.
$Armor Factor:                  1.0
$Shield Factor:                 1.0
$Subsystem Factor:              1.0
$Lifetime:                      25.0            ;; How long this thing lives
$Energy Consumed:               0.30            ;; 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: 50000 ;; Limit to range at which weapon will actively target object
$Flags:                         ("Big Ship" "huge" "beam")
$Icon:                          icongun05
$Anim:                          LoadGun07
$Impact Explosion:              ExpMissileHit1
$Impact Explosion Radius:       500.0
$BeamInfo:
+Type: 0 ;; 0 - 4 are valid #'s
+Life:   10.0 ;; how long it lasts once the beam is actually firing
+Warmup:   35000 ;; warmup time in ms
+Warmdown: 15000 ;; warmdown time in ms
+Radius:   2000.0 ;; muzzle glow radius in meters
+PCount: 22 ;; particles spewed every interval
+PRadius: 1.9 ;; particle radius
+PAngle: 65.0 ;; angle of the random "cone" where the particles are generated
+PAni: particleexp01 ;; particle ani
+Miss Factor: 2.5 1.875 1.25 0.875 0.5 ;; magic # - higher == miss more (only really applicable to type 0 and

type 3 beams)
+BeamSound: 178 ;; the looping beam-firing sound
+WarmupSound: 184 ;; associated warmup sound
+WarmdownSound: 188 ;; associated warmdown sound
+Muzzleglow: thrusterglow01 ;; muzzle glow bitmap
+Shots: 0 ;; only used for TYPE 3 beams
+ShrinkFactor: 0.1 ;; what percentage of lifetime where beam starts shrinking (0.1 == 10%

life left)

+ShrinkPct: 1.8 ;; what percentage of max width we subtract per second
$Section: ;; one section of the beam (you can have up to 5)
+Width: 650.0 ;; 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: 1500.0 ;; width of the section
+Texture: beam-red2 ;; 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: 1750.0 ;; width of the section
+Texture: beam-red ;; 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
I dont know wher to put the +Range: option, and if its not in the right sopt freespace wont use the beam.
just copy/paste into weapons table in a mod folder
should destroy a hecate in 1 shot, at most 2

[blowfish]

Put it after +ShrinkPct:

EDIT: And just so you know, that's not that much more powerful than a BFRed, which can get a Hecate down to 20% hull in one shot.  Your beam should kill a Hecate in one shot, but simply because it fires for three seconds longer, not because its damage is higher.  And that's quite a fire wait, especially for a Shivan beam.

[Mobius]

I must have screwed up my tests, then...

[Jake2447]

EDIT: And just so you know, that's not that much more powerful than a BFRed, which can get a Hecate down to 20% hull in one shot.  Your beam should kill a Hecate in one shot, but simply because it fires for three seconds longer, not because its damage is higher.  And that's quite a fire wait, especially for a Shivan beam.

yeah i realize that, but at 30,000 meters, i didn't think it should be doing huge damage (its actually less damage/s than BFRed)
damage should be ~100550 per shot
without those weaknesses i figured it be too uber
if he wanted it better, he could change fire rate and damage, besides read his description of the damage he wanted
by the way, thats for the range info

[Wanderer]

#define BEAM_FAR_LENGTH 30000.0f

And that values is used as default in "+Range:" if it hasn't been defined.

[Getter Robo G]

You wont see a "black" beam... Closest I got was a DL release from 5 years ago. I took the original maker's beam and tweaked it. You get either a grey dark/chocolate/deep purple looking thing.

Google Search for release black and gold beams.