[colecampbell666]

Let's say that I want to have a ship bombarding a planet with beam canons. Yes, I make a Pegasus stealth and invulnerable and really far away in front of the background, but even with that, I still get the fluctuating sensor behavior on the sensor display. Is there anything I can do to remove that effect, or perhaps even force the ships to fire beams at a waypoint? Also, which beams have the infinite length, as opposed to a mere 30km long beam?

[Polpolion]

What an interesting and well thought out question! IIRC there's a SEXP that can completely remove a ship's signature. If that doesn't work, you could have the Pegasus jump in immediately before the beam is fired, and out just after it finishes firing as to minimize the time in system. In all hope, the player's attention should be devoted to the bombardment rather than the radar.

As to the beam length, I honestly don't know. I'd imagine that it'd be the BFRed, BFGreen, and LRBGreen like that, but I could be wrong.

[Dark Hunter]

I managed this in FRED. It requires compounding stealth SEXPs to work properly.

Code: [Select]

Event 1
|
|----when
         |
         |----- <Arguments>
         |----ship-stealthy
                      |----<ship name>

Event 2
|
|------when
           |
           |---Event 1 has elapsed
           |-----friendly-stealth-invisible
                             |-----<same ship as above>

Note that the ship doesn't have to be "Friendly" in order for that second SEXP to work.

This makes the ship 100% invisible to radar.

[colecampbell666]

Thanks. That worked

[blowfish]

To get a beam longer than 30km, you need to modify the tables (or make a new entry)

Weapons.tbl

Code: [Select]

$Name: MyUberBeam
...
$BeamInfo:
    ...
    +Range: 100000
    ...

[colecampbell666]

This is lolarific.

[Polpolion]

I managed this in FRED. It requires compounding stealth SEXPs to work properly.

Code: [Select]

Event 1
|
|----when
         |
         |----- <Arguments>
         |----ship-stealthy
                      |----<ship name>

Event 2
|
|------when
           |
           |---Event 1 has elapsed
           |-----friendly-stealth-invisible
                             |-----<same ship as above>

Note that the ship doesn't have to be "Friendly" in order for that second SEXP to work.

This makes the ship 100% invisible to radar.

Assuming it doesn't work with only one SEXP, why doesn't it? And will it work if you chain the events, rather than checking with the condition?

[colecampbell666]

I think that it should work if you do an event with the <ship-stealthy-invisible> SEXP at the start.\

Now for the next problem, not having the beam hit explosion on the Pegs.

[blowfish]

Make it a navbouy.  They have no collision detection.

[Dark Hunter]

I managed this in FRED. It requires compounding stealth SEXPs to work properly.

Code: [Select]

*snip*

Note that the ship doesn't have to be "Friendly" in order for that second SEXP to work.

This makes the ship 100% invisible to radar.

Assuming it doesn't work with only one SEXP, why doesn't it? And will it work if you chain the events, rather than checking with the condition?

I have no idea. I tried without one or the other and it still made the little radar blip.
So... I'll just go with what works.

[Droid803]

I thought a hostile stealth unit doesn't show up on radar at all (no fuzzy blip, nothing). That's how it's like on my FS2... 
Couldn't you just use a nav buoy, set it hostile, check the "Stealth" tag in its misc options and use fire-beam sexp? (with a table-hacked beam a with ludicrous +range: value).

[karajorma]

Hostiles don't. Friendlies on the other hand do. So you need the second SEXP in order to do this with a friendly ship.

[colecampbell666]

Nope. I can fire a beam from a friendly destroyer etc, and have it hit a friendly fighter.

[Droid803]

Er...then why use a friendly target in the first place? 
If a hostile can shoot at another hostile, then why not just use a stealthed hostile nav buoy as a target?

[Mobius]

Wait one second...what if I want to represent a slashing beam effect? The object will be too far to make the slash effect look good(or better, it will be barely noticed), do I need to modify the table entry to get that effect?

[Droid803]

Slashing a planet?  alright...
You could theoretically place the target closer, and make it totally invisible, and it still shouldn't be noticed.

[blowfish]

Er...then why use a friendly target in the first place? 
If a hostile can shoot at another hostile, then why not just use a stealthed hostile nav buoy as a target?

Nothing shoots at navbouys.  the IFF really doesn't matter in terms of what shoots what, since you will have to use fire-beam sexps anyway.

[Droid803]

I meant with fire-beam, of course...
just beam-lock the firing ship and loop the event with the same loop delay as its normal cooldown (or more since its shooting at extended range)

[blowfish]

My point was that fire-beam doesn't care about IFF.

[Droid803]

Oh. but still, if IFF doesn't matter, then why use friendly? it'd show up in events, it shows up on the radar...it'd be so much simpler to use hostile.