[Assassin]

Hey,

In a mission I'm working on, I notice that the main beam cannons on a capital ship seem to be firing into space - not where there are any enemy capships. It is, however, firing in the rough direction of hostile bombers or bombs.

I assume it is part of the AI for it to fire big beams at bombs? I'm just wondering, it may be effective but it looks a little.. ridiculous?

TIA,
Jack

[MAD Maniac]

I've run into this problem before. Smegging Ravana nailed me with both forward beams lol.
Check your weapons table and see if the Anti-cap beams have the "Huge" tag in them, it stops them from shotting at fighters and bombers.

Heres and example of what i mean:
$Flags: ("Big Ship" "huge" "beam") <-- taken from the BGreen entery

Hope this helps. MM

[Assassin]

Thanks for the reply. That would have been the first thing I'd check also, although I'm not using any mods - just the canon version of FS2. I think its firing at bombs, not bombers.

[phreak]

i don't know why it does this.  a way to avoid it is to not use beam-free-all. i want to look in the source for the problem

[Assassin]

Originally posted by PhReAk
i don't know why it does this.  a way to avoid it is to not use beam-free-all. i want to look in the source for the problem

I'm not sure its a problem, its more to do with opinion and perspective.

An incoming bomb is capable of causing a great deal of damage and ending a lot of lives. As such, perhaps its justifiable to use such a powerful beam if it would mean saving hundreds of lives. It looks weird but it is bearable. Adds a certain "cool" factor

[phreak]

its also a nice way to wipe out a few wings in the process.

i found the problem

here's what happens:
a capital ship is about to fire a beam at another capital ship
it then detects an incoming bomb.
it fires at it, instead of the cap ship

[Assassin]

So its probably in the AI of a capital that a bomb is a higher priority than a hostile capital ship.

Fair enough, I suppose.

Thanks,
Jack

[phreak]

correct. its a large pain to get hit with an LRed when you fire off even something like a stiletto. i've taken it out

[Havock]

i suppose it's not funny to say you should have forced your shields forward?

i would like to see those beams bite at synaptic bomb like prjectiles.
the poor capship would likely self destruct out of frustration

[IceFire]

I consider this to be a bug.  It only ever happens when a capital ship is within range of the beam cannon and there is also a bomb within range.  Whenver that occurs, the AI seems to not be aware that "huge" weapons are not supposed to target anything but capital ships and they open fire at the bomb....typically missing it, and not getting a much needed shot in at the enemy.

Might be something worth fixing but not high on the priority list.

[SadisticSid]

I've also noticed it only seems to happen once per mission for each beam cannon... Inferno mission 1 has this problem. Very annoying to use multiple fire-beam sexps for scripted barrages.

Sid.

[TopAce]

I have never experienced this problem before, If I hadn't killed thousand of Ravanas/Demons while testing my campaign, than none.

My strange feeling about these beams is that somehow it is always firing at the angle where the player is. It is certain that you fly directly into it at least once in every ten turns. And then bye bye.

I just want to say I find it occur too many times, than it would have the mathematical chance to.