[Solatar]

I've recently put together a few new pre-shivan weapons, and one of them is a revival of my old ML-16 Laser fighter beam and it's Vasudan equivilent. I think they are very balanced, as the only thing different from the original is the time it takes to get to the target (I may lower the damage slightly to compensate).

The problem is, once an Anubis armed with a VLL-9 Laser picks me up, my Valkryie is toast VERY quickly, because there is no chance to evade the shots at all. Whatever the hostile fires, I get hit with. I tried bumping the mis factor up to 1.0 for all skill levels, but to no effect. Is there any way I can make the AI somewhat inaccuracte with these weapons?

For reference:
The VLL-9 is essentially the same bar graphically.

Code: [Select]


$Name: @ML-16 Laser
+Title: XSTR("GTW ML-16 Laser", 3246)
+Description:
XSTR(
"Standard issue
Level 3 Hull Damage
", 3247)
$end_multi_text
+Tech Title: XSTR("ML-16 Laser", 3248)
+Tech Anim: cb_ml16
+Tech Description:
XSTR(
"*snipped so it doesn't widen the forum too much...*", 3249)
$end_multi_text
$Model File: none
@Laser Bitmap: laserglow06
@Laser Glow: 2_laserglow03
@Laser Color: 190, 150, 250
@Laser Color2: 190, 150, 250
@Laser Length: 7.0
@Laser Head Radius: 0.90
@Laser Tail Radius: 0.30
$Mass: 0.2
$Velocity: 10000.0
$Fire Wait: 0.2
$Damage: 5
$Armor Factor: 0.5
$Shield Factor: 0.1
$Subsystem Factor: 0.3
$Lifetime: 0.09
$Energy Consumed: 0.90
$Cargo Size: 0.0
$Homing: NO
$LaunchSnd: 167
$ImpactSnd: 85
+Weapon Range: 900
$Flags: ( "in tech database" "stream" "player allowed" "beam" "beam no whack")
$Icon: icon_ml16
$Anim: ml16
$Impact Explosion: ML-16_Impact  
$Impact Explosion Radius: 3.3
$BeamInfo:
+Type: 2
+Life: 0.1
+Warmup: 0.1
+Warmdown: 0.1
+Radius: 1.0
+PCount: 0
+PRadius: 0
+PAngle: 0.0
+PAni: particleexp01
+Miss Factor: 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0
+BeamSound: -1
+WarmupSound: 167
+WarmdownSound: -1
+Muzzleglow: thrusterglow01
+Shots: 0
+ShrinkFactor: 0.0
+ShrinkPct: 0.0
+Range: 900 ; Maximum range of a beam
+Attenuation: 0.8 ;From 0.0 to 1.0 indicates the point at wich the beam's damage will start to degrade
$Section:
+Width: 0.5
+Texture: beam-white
+RGBA Inner: 255 255 255 255
+RGBA Outer: 150 150 150 10
+Flicker: 1.0
+Zadd: 2.0
$Section:
+Width: 0.75
+Texture: beam-purple2
+RGBA Inner: 160 160 0 255
+RGBA Outer: 60 60 0 10
+Flicker: 1.0
+Zadd: 1.0
$Section:
+Width: 1.0
+Texture: beam-purple
+RGBA Inner: 255 0 0 255
+RGBA Outer: 60 0 0 10
+Flicker: 1.0
+Zadd: 0.0    


Thanks

[Trivial Psychic]

AFAIK, the miss factor only applies to turreted beams.  Since a beam used as a primary always fires down the normal of that firepoint, the miss factor won't apply.  The only thing you can do is dumb down the AI you're using on your enemy fighter.  Other than that, increasing the fire-wait perhaps, or reducing the range are the only things I can think of to reduce the dammage factor.  Now that I take another look at your weapon, I think that its missing the no pierce flag... or were you planning on doing this in the launcher, which would mean that the Lucy's beams wouldn't pierce either?

[Bobboau]

lower atenuation to about 0.2

[Goober5000]

Beam attenuation?  I think you disabled that.

[Bobboau]

nope, I don't think so

[Nuke]

its really up to the moder, theres several things you can do to create balence. the fact that beams are deathly accurate could be that they are power whores