[TopAce]

I have just experienced something weird with the AAA beams. I wanted to make the AAA beams more effective against shields, so I altered the Shield damage factor from 2.65 to 3. The shield damage the beam did was low, so I went into a bit of exergation by altering the shield damage to 7! My shields did not suffer a single hitpoint damage but it immediatly damaged my hull as if I had removed the no_pierce_shield(or whatever) flag from the weapon, but I didn't.

Are you sure your AAA beam system works correctly? I find this simply odd, because the lower shield damage factor variant inflicted ANY damage to my shields, but the higher factor version didn't.

Suggestions appreciated.

[Overlord]

Then try using lower values instead of higher, maybe this'll fix it.

[TopAce]

I think I already tried it. I am not certain, by the way.

[EDIT] The results I received are quite strange: The 0.5 damage factor was more effective than the 2.0, but the 0.1 was the weakest of all. The damage it did was minor, I could recharge my shields completely in a Horus between savloes.

[EDIT2] I set the subsystem damage scale to 0 and it destroyed all my subsystems on the first shot. It is even stranger that it was as effective at 0.2 damage scale as the previous version with 0.0. Something is hard-coded in the beam damage system.

[EDIT3]I had this setting:

Code: [Select]

Fire Wait: 3  ; 5
$Damage: 60 ; 13
$Armor Factor: 0.33 ; 1
$Shield Factor: 1.00 ; 3.2
$Subsystem Factor: 10.0
Result: It did not inflict much damage at my shields(only very minor) and it did moderate damage at my subsystems, but when I was hit for the second time, my hull went down to 3% in a Thoth and a second.

[StratComm]

Generally zero's will cause unpredictable behavior (divide-by-zero is an op that a computer bonks on) but I think the best way to do that would be to set the armor factor to 1, and adjust the damage, shield and subsystem values to suit.  Armor ratings should be the base level constant in a weapon.  It also reduces the number of variables you're trying to balance, which is always a good thing.  There may be issues that I'm not seeing involving the beams not piercing shields or beam damage in general, but I'm still not sure exactly what is wrong on this weapon to offer further advice.

[Bobboau]

beams do do any damage to shields at all, this was the subject of a rather large argument when I changed this, you need a flag to make beams work against shields, don't remember what it is though

[Kosh]

I was wondering if you guys removed it. Maybe the flag to make it work again should be put into the launcher.

[SadisticSid]

Originally posted by StratComm
Generally zero's will cause unpredictable behavior (divide-by-zero is an op that a computer bonks on) but I think the best way to do that would be to set the armor factor to 1, and adjust the damage, shield and subsystem values to suit.  Armor ratings should be the base level constant in a weapon.  It also reduces the number of variables you're trying to balance, which is always a good thing.  There may be issues that I'm not seeing involving the beams not piercing shields or beam damage in general, but I'm still not sure exactly what is wrong on this weapon to offer further advice.

Except surely in this case it would multiply by zero, which is computationally absolute?

The flag you want is "no pierce shields", not something with underscores in it. I know our Inferno fighterbeams work fine against shields, so perhaps it's something unique to AAA multiple shots-type beams. Try this one out (though you may have to change a few bitmap values to get it working):

Code: [Select]

$Name: @Isdes
+Title: XSTR("GVW-FB Isdes", -1)
+Description:
XSTR(
"Standard Issue
Level 3 Hull Damage
Level 3 Shield Damage", -1)
$end_multi_text
+Tech Title: XSTR("GVW-FB Isdes", -1)
+Tech Anim: techdefault
+Tech Description:
XSTR("At the pinnacle of Vasudan fighter weaponry is the Isdes beam system, a scaled down version of capital ship beam cannons that are used in combat. Although the strength has been reduced and is incapable of piercing shields like AAA warship beams, the Isdes is effective to ranges of up to 1.2km as an instant-hit weapon capable of annihilating enemies very quickly. Unfortunately the beams cannot be maintained for long due to stresses on the emitter matrixes, and consume vast amounts of energy. ", -1)
$end_multi_text
$Model File: none
@Laser Bitmap: Haptekh
@Laser Glow: AmbientRed
@Laser Color: 220, 130, 10
@Laser Color2: 240, 80, 10
@Laser Length: 20.0
@Laser Head Radius: 1.5
@Laser Tail Radius: .833
$Mass: 0.4
$Velocity: 52500.0
$Fire Wait: 0.12
$Damage: 25
$Armor Factor: 1.0
$Shield Factor: 1.0
$Subsystem Factor: 1.0
$Lifetime: 2.0
$Energy Consumed: 14.00
$Cargo Size: 0.0
$Homing: NO
$LaunchSnd: 167
$ImpactSnd: 85
+Weapon Range: 1200
$Flags: ("in tech database" "player allowed" "beam" "no pierce shields" )
$Icon: iconPromR
$Anim: WSHL-12
$Impact Explosion: ehit-orange
$Impact Explosion Radius: 3.8
$BeamInfo:
 +Type: 2
 +Life: 0.15
 +Warmup: 0
 +Warmdown: 0
 +Radius: 3.0
 +PCount: 8
 +PRadius: 0.4
 +PAngle: 60.0
 +PAni: particleexp01
 +Miss Factor: 1.0 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.4
 +BeamSound: 121
 +WarmupSound: 121
 +WarmdownSound: 123
 +Muzzleglow: beamglow6
 +Shots: 1
 +ShrinkFactor: 0.0
 +ShrinkPct: 0.0
 $Section:
 +Width: 0.3
 +Texture: beam-white3
 +RGBA Inner: 255 255 255 255
 +RGBA Outer: 150 150 150 10
 +Flicker: 0.1
 +Zadd: 2.0
 $Section:
 +Width: 0.8
 +Texture: beam-orange2
 +RGBA Inner: 160 160 0 255
 +RGBA Outer: 60 60 0 10
 +Flicker: 0.2
 +Zadd: 1.0
 $Section:
 +Width: 1.8
 +Texture: beam-orange
 +RGBA Inner: 255 0 0 255
 +RGBA Outer: 60 0 0 10
 +Flicker: 0.3
 +Zadd: 0.0

[TopAce]

I changed my values according to the weapon table entry above. I will edit this post as soon as I have results.