[Bobboau]

ok the old fighter beam code was basicly the uggliest hack in exsistance and only half worked, as a result they never worked quite right, so I give you my new and improved fighter beam code, I actualy did things corectly this time and fighter beams work just as you would think, well type 2 and 4 (fighter and moljoner) the other ones still need a bit of work.

I'm not sure were this fits, it isn't a new feature and it fixes most of the nasty nasty problems fighter beams had, but it was a lot of new code, and I had origonaly planed on doing this after 3.6. fortunately it was a lot easier than I thought it was going to be.

I havn't included any tables, but keep in mind it now actualy looks at a lot of the values it used to ignor (like warmup/down and lifetime (targeting beam has a life of 0 so it will only blink on and off, you _will_ need to make your own))

[Killfrenzy]

*Downloads*

Can I ask, is the cel-shading code still in there? If so how do I activate it?

[Bobboau]

it's still there but it only works in non-htl mode

[Omniscaper]

Downloading now. Is the sound bug fixed? I had sound loop problems when the energy is drained out.

[Bobboau]

yup, been totaly reworked

[Zarax]

Great work Bobbau, now i can make something useful for my vasudan fighters :-)

[phreak]

have you committed this?

[Killfrenzy]

Originally posted by Bobboau
it's still there but it only works in non-htl mode

How do I do that? Is it in the launcher? *Is clueless*

[kasperl]

-nohtl in the custom flags field, IIRC.

[Killfrenzy]

Okay, thanks. I'll try that.

[Bobboau]

I don't think it's been commited, but that's only becase CVS was down.

[SadisticSid]

This is way cool, but can you also make a change in FRED to allow fighterbeams to be selectable as a primary weapon for fighters? Right now one has to manually change this in Notepad. I'm not sure if FS2 allows you to select them in the ship/weapon config screens either...

[Bobboau]

well given that you need to make entierly new weapons table entree(s) to get this to realy work. I don't even know exactly what you want, they should be selectable as any other weapon, but you have to make a new one.

[SadisticSid]

Oh, my mistake, they are selectable in FRED. Just didn't have the right flags and they were in the wrong place in the TBL.

Has this been commited yet?

[Zarax]

Some updates to the Wiki example for we lazy people? :-)

[phreak]

go ahead.  im not stopping you

[Bobboau]

http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/blackwater/fs2_open_Bobboau_3-14-04.zip

new build, small number of minor bug fixes

[SadisticSid]

Some small bugs using that build:

a) Beams power down mid-shot if there's not enough power to use them, but the energy keeps draining from the fighter's weapon energy (into minus figures) during the warmup and warmdown parts

b) Should beams supposed to be draining energy in the warmdown at all?

c) Player beams ignore fire wait, you can seem to fire another salvo after some fixed time, although the AI is fine with this

d) Beams don't obey the "cycle" tag, although funnily enough the particle effect only occurs around one of the model's gunpoints

[Bobboau]

they follow fire wait, they will fire a beam every time weather you have finished the previus shot or not, this enables you to make beams capable of a overload typ thing, fighter beams also have a diferent implementation of cycle, you need to give the beam shots (its a value in the beam info, look at a post I made recently on TBP forums for an example)

I had the beam draining power the entier time they were doing anything though I supose they shouldn't be draining during warm down, that probly explains the reason why AI don't seem to be useing them as much as they used to.

[SadisticSid]

It doesn't, low values work (<5 seconds) but higher ones (10.0 for example) are ignored and you can fire 1 every second. Try it with your Nial beam.

Also the firepoints don't alternate, is this intentional?