[Qent]

I want to make a swarm missile that fires 7 missiles in a 30-degree cone so that each missile acquires its own target independently of the other missiles and the firing ship. The problem is that by default, all the missiles (even when heatseekers) robotech their way to my current target. What I want is to fire a swarm at a wing of fighters and have each missile pick a fighter and so take out the whole wing. First I tried decreasing the missile's view cone so that  it barely covers the FOF. That works as intended, but it makes it easier to evade. I am afraid that if I make it a cluster weapon then it will foil the AI, and I would rather not use 3.6.11 features. So is there something clever that I could do to make this work?

Edit: Typo.

[Spoon]

Perhaps the easiest way is to create a missile which instantly explodes when launched and then creates a whole load of childs/clusters.

[Dragon]

Take a look at Pilum FF missile from WCS, what you want is essentialy this weapon with swarm setting.

[Qent]

Thanks for the Pilum FF. I think the only problem is that it uses a "Spawn" flag to achieve that effect. I have not yet played around with WCS much (since I just downloaded it ), but it looks like they made a special Pilum FF (which is just a regular heatseeker) for the AI to use. The missile that I am making is meant as a gift for the Shivans, so it has to work with the AI. So far it looks like shrinking the view cone is the best solution.

[Dragon]

For making evasion harder I suggest you to increase it's seeker strenght and decrease turn time.
It should make breaking lock a bit more difficult.

[Aardwolf]

What about making it a fast-firing missile with a low turn time and small ammo space per-missile?

[Commander Zane]

For making evasion harder I suggest you to increase it's seeker strenght and decrease turn time.
It should make breaking lock a bit more difficult.

Is there a way to make them close to undodgeable ala' Wing Commander's Spiculum IR missile?

[Starman01]

Thanks for the Pilum FF. I think the only problem is that it uses a "Spawn" flag to achieve that effect. I have not yet played around with WCS much (since I just downloaded it ), but it looks like they made a special Pilum FF (which is just a regular heatseeker) for the AI to use.

Nope, not really. There is one for player available too. I created that missile using a little hack. The primary missile that can be fitted is invisible ingame and explodes invisible right after launch. It then launches a child that automatically target the "nearest" enemy .

This is actually fun (my favourite WC-Missile). You can flee from an enemy, and shooting the missile without any target lock. It then turns back and hit the pursuing enemy right in the face (as long there isn't any enemy even more closer)

The AI-Variant just have higher reload times so that the AI isn't overwhelming you with missile like the FS-AI usually does.

Maybe be modifying the entry you can create the missile you want, just raise the number of spawns

[Nuke]

im not 100% sure bt i think multitargeting can be scripted. you would have to

come up with a list of handles to ships
have controls to add and remove targets from this list
when swarm missiles are created, change their targets to ships on that list

[Qent]

I got pretty much what I wanted by increasing the seeker strength, decreasing the turn time, and also giving the missiles a proximity fuse. Ideally I would use something based on the Pilum, but the AI won't use spawning weapons the way I want it to. I know nothing of scripting, but that sounds like a rather difficult solution for just one missile. Maybe if I planned to base an entire mod around Shivan anti-wing missiles....

[Getter Robo G]

Starman01, that's awesome!

  But how can you make it "visible"? Your missile template sounds interesting but how about if you wanted to see when allies and enemies were firing it instead of just the impact results?

I might be confused how this works: IS the child "invisible" too, or just the briefly existing parent?

 

[Alan Bolte]

I'm pretty sure he meant that the explosion was invisible, not sure about the parent. That way it looks like you're just launching a missile, not launching a missile that explodes and creates a child missile.

[JGZinv]

Nuke -

have controls to add and remove targets from this list

Easiest way I can think of without having to add in a menu Nuke... make it so whatever
is in the field of view of your cockpit is automatically added to the targeted list.
This way you can "sweep" you view and paint several enemies at once.
Just designate some kind of key press for deactivation/deselect all.

[Starman01]

Starman01, that's awesome!

  But how can you make it "visible"? Your missile template sounds interesting but how about if you wanted to see when allies and enemies were firing it instead of just the impact results?

I might be confused how this works: IS the child "invisible" too, or just the briefly existing parent?

 

The missile that is "loaded" in the ship is invisible and has an invisible explosion (and of course no explosionsound either). But the child that is spawned after the explosion is completly visible and reacts like a normal missile, and can even be outrunned with countermeasures and vectorchange (if you're good enough) On impact the child has a normal explosion and sound

[Nuke]

Nuke -

have controls to add and remove targets from this list

Easiest way I can think of without having to add in a menu Nuke... make it so whatever
is in the field of view of your cockpit is automatically added to the targeted list.
This way you can "sweep" you view and paint several enemies at once.
Just designate some kind of key press for deactivation/deselect all.

come to think of it that would probibly workbetter and be easyer to use. you can do a frustum cull. loop through ships and find the hostile ones within a defined frustum, then sort those from closest to farthest. i did that with mr radar but its the same code pretty much.

none the lest you build a list of targets, and assign those targets to missiles as theyre created.

[Qent]

How do you assign to each missile the target that is closest to its centerline? So instead of getting the closest target, the missiles get distributed across all targets in view (if that makes sense). I suppose you would need a combination of distance and angle from the centerline so that missiles only receive targets that are in range.

Oh and thanks everybody for all your help.

[Nuke]

well you just measure the magnitude of the ships y and x coord devided by z i guess. chances of havng 4-8 targets in the same frustum and have them all in range at once are pretty slim, id prioritize by distance first. you could weight the values and then sum up the difference, and prioritize based on that though.

[Angelus]

There's a way without scripting, not the best solution but it works.

All you have to do is check the primitive sensors box in FREDs Ship Editor.
The Missiles i've used are based on the Rockeye, and it works like a charm.
Would be cool to have either a script or a weapons flag that allows the same without dumbing down
the ships targeting abilities, though.

I also would like to know why is there a differnce in behaviour, i thought missiles fired without lock behave like dumbfires in case of flaged as ASPECT, and no change in behaviour when flaged as HEAT ( target only one ship ).



EDIT: Seems to work for the AI too ( primitive sensors have to be checked for them as well ).


Here are some screen shots, ( total missile pawnage   ):

[T-Man]

Nice one Angelus; looks good so far . I've been wanting to put a weapon just like this into the latter part of a campaign i'm making (i was hoping for a multi-aspect lock one but i recall someone telling me that's impossible in the past), so i'd be very interested in any progress you make on it. Best of luck with it!

[JGZinv]

Heh better yet... stick it on something like the Galactica.
Multiple banks firing off several salvos.