[ChronoReverse]

I haven't been able to find something explaining how missile damage works and hope someone could either point out where it could be found or explain it to me.

A Harpoon does 100 damage (100 armor scale, 80 shield scale) and a pair of them is capable of immediately destroying a Perseus fighter.  But the Perseus has 350 shields and 265 hitpoints.  I can't understand how the scaling is supposed to work given that.

The wiki says

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Hitpoints: The number of hitpoints the craft has. A hit decreases this value, in regard of the damage value * armor factor.
Shields: The number of shield hitpoints the craft has. A hit decreases this value, in regard of the damage value * shield factor. If this is true, then a single Harpoon should easily destroy a Perseus but that's not the case.  On the other hand, if the damage is 100 and 80, even a pair of Harpoons wouldn't be able to break the hull of the Perseus.  I'm not even sure if the damage to the hull is whatever is "left over" from the blast after penetrating the shields.

I appreciate any help and please let me know if this is the wrong place to ask.

[Woolie Wool]

A hit does not do separate damage to hulls and shields. A hit does damage in one lump, and if the shields fail, the damage left over is taken by the hull. So if you had an impact doing 100 damage and a ship with 80 shields on a certain quarter, the shields would take 80 and the hull 20.

Keep in mind that the shield hitpointss are split among the four quadrants. A Perseus has 87.5 shield hitpoints on each side.

[General Battuta]

You're neglecting the damage done by the missile's blast. This is additional damage on top of the missile's own damage value.

At least I think so.

[Woolie Wool]

Good point, I had forgotten that. A missile hit does double the stated damage due to the blast effect. A Perseus can take 362.5 damage on a single point, this is slightly less than the total damage of 400 done by double harpoons.

[Solatar]

This thread seems to be deja vu...Did we have this discussion a few days ago?

[ChronoReverse]

I asked this question in the General FreeSpace Discussion forum in the Myrmidon thread but didn't get a reply.


@General Battuta
Ah, that's the missing piece I'm looking for.  So anything caught in the inner blast radius receives the full damage a second time?  I suppose the outer blast radius just attenuates damage from 100% to 0% as you move outwards.  This explains everything I've been having trouble with.  I appreciate the help.



Actually, since this thread is here anyway, how does lead and lag pursuit work?  Does lag pursuit continuously point the missile directly at its target while lead pursuit continuously points the missile at the calculated collision point for the instantaneous velocities of the missile and its target?

[Solatar]

I asked this question in the General FreeSpace Discussion forum in the Myrmidon thread but didn't get a reply.

Ahh, that was it. I couldn't find the topic. I wasn't trying to "catch you" on reposting or anything, just wanted to make sure I was sane.

As far as I can tell, lag pursuit "follows" the target while lead pursuit attempts to go for a collision course.

[Wanderer]

There are usually three different types of pursuits... Lag, pure and lead pursuits.

Lag means that the nose or the flight vector points behind the target (scaler < 0). Pure means that the nose or flight vector is continuously kept on target (scaler ~ 0) and lead means that it is kept in front of the target (scaler > 0). In FS by default the aspect seekers use lead pursuit while heat seekers use pure pursuit.

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+Target Lead Scaler:Only in nightly builds. Its a float and goes right after the 'seeker strength' entry. Setting it to 1.0 disables the whole setting.

[Aardwolf]

Since what version?

[ChronoReverse]

Thanks for that information.  I used the term "lag pursuit" because that's what I've seen people call what the heat seakers do.  I always thought that it seemed odd to call it lag pursuit.  Your information makes perfect sense to me.

[Wanderer]

r5502

[ChronoReverse]

Incidentally, I heard that the swarm missiles like the Hornets use la^H^Hpure pursuit while corkscrew types like the Tornado uses lead pursuit (just like normal aspect seekers).  Is this the case or do both just use the aspect lead pursuit?

[General Battuta]

What you heard was correct. Swarm missiles do not use lead pursuit.

[Dilmah G]

I really don't see the logic in "Lag Pursuit", it's bloody useless unless you're on his six. Heh, gameplay balance I guess.

[Commander Zane]

Or 12' and he doesn't move, otherwise the missile tries to loop'de'loop to his 6'.
And miss horribly.

There are usually three different types of pursuits... Lag, pure and lead pursuits.

Lag means that the nose or the flight vector points behind the target (scaler < 0). Pure means that the nose or flight vector is continuously kept on target (scaler ~ 0) and lead means that it is kept in front of the target (scaler > 0). In FS by default the aspect seekers use lead pursuit while heat seekers use pure pursuit.

Code: [Select]

+Target Lead Scaler:Only in nightly builds. Its a float and goes right after the 'seeker strength' entry. Setting it to 1.0 disables the whole setting.

So is this like an easier way of determining the missile's guidance system? How do you use this flag?

[Wanderer]

Some explanations... Using big values on either side will cause the missiles to miss their targets. Option for lag pursuit allows for bit more cinematic missiles to be made however it works pretty well when used with smaller values (say -0.2 to -0.4) but this depends on the mod and the rest of the weapon parameters. They wont try to loop around the target. and should target stay still they should home directly towards it. Extreme lead on the other hand may cause missiles to overshoot the target.

So is this like an easier way of determining the missile's guidance system? How do you use this flag?

You did read the text you quoted?

[Commander Zane]

Yes, I was wondering if < 0, ~ 0, and > 0 were used. Unless I know exactly what to do with a flag I'm not going to try it myself because I've caused a crash every time I tried messing with a new feature. What I meant in the first place with the question is if it can be / is used to overwrite the coded seekers from the HEAT and ASPECT variable.

[Wanderer]

Its not used to overwrite existing seeker types. It just redefines on how they will pursuit their target. Existing limitations and benefits of the heat, aspect and javelin type seekers still exist and those wont be affected. As for '<', '~', and '>' it was just used to describe what will happen with different values.

[Commander Zane]

Just looked at the Wiki after some time, "no lifeleft penalty" sounds like something I've been wanting to see, with this missiles won't suddenly explode if you dodge them by making hard turns?

i.e. like Independence War 2 missiles.

[asyikarea51]

missiles won't suddenly explode if you dodge them by making hard turns?

/starts seeing Ace Combat in his head

? QAAM-ish missiles possible in FS already?

Then again a missile like that would be pretty scary... and even more scary if missile lock could be scripted to be nearly instantaneous (or at least, based on the player fighter class and missile type)...

Miss once, vector-thrust around, go for the kill again, miss twice, vector-thrust again, try one last time, if it still misses, then it just runs out of fuel and explodes or something... Boom...