[CP5670]

there are several medium sized capships from fs1 that have sheild meshes (mostly transports and freighters)

Cool; I never noticed that.

[Nico]

Originally posted by Scuddie
Hello forum!Ummm, ok well I have an idea.  I'm no C++ programmer, but I know this will be fairly easy, and it will give a more authentic version of a Beam weapon.  Look at my crappy and hard-to-understand flowchart.

1.  Pilot depresses trigger.  Go to 2.
2.  Is there enough energy to charge beam?  If yes, go to 3.  Else, go to 4.
3.  Do warmup.  Is trigger depressed again?  If yes, go to 4.  Else if abort button pressed, return energy to weapons subsys and do warmdown, else go to 2.
4.  Fire weapon for duration given (x milliseconds?), do warmdown.
warmup:  Damage + 1, Duration + 1, Radius + 1, play warmupsnd.
warmdown:  Damage = 0, duration = 0, Radius = 0, play warmdnsnd.

In english:  When the pilot presses the trigger, start creating a beam warmup, with particles, beamglow, etc.  When the pilot presses the trigger again, or if energy is depleted, fire the weapon for x number of seconds/milliseconds.  After firing, or if the pilot aborts firing, let the beam warmdown.  If aborted, the energy returns to the subsystem.  Simple, eh?

that's very good I suppose, I'd just prefer to keep the trigger pulled than having to push it twice... it's just not natural in terms of handling. say, you have a beam with 1 sec warm up and 1 ec warm down, and it lasts till you have no energy left. if you keep the trigger pulled for 3 seconds, the first sec, it will charge up, then for two seconds the beam will fire, then auto warmdown. warm down triggered too if you run out of power.

[Scuddie]

Originally posted by venom2506
that's very good I suppose, I'd just prefer to keep the trigger pulled than having to push it twice... it's just not natural in terms of handling. say, you have a beam with 1 sec warm up and 1 ec warm down, and it lasts till you have no energy left. if you keep the trigger pulled for 3 seconds, the first sec, it will charge up, then for two seconds the beam will fire, then auto warmdown. warm down triggered too if you run out of power.

It seems to me like you are thinking of a continuing beam weapon, where the warmup is independant of the firing time/damage of the beam, and the beam is firing while still holding onto the trigger.  That isn't exactly what I meant.  IIRC, the way the beams are handled in the FS2 universe, the beam breadth/time/damage is totally dependant upon how much energy was stored.  The way I explained it is that the pilot holds (or whatever) the trigger only while the beam is being warmed up, and whenever the energy is gone, or the trigger is released, the computer would fire the beam, and take over from there.  In other words, the trigger is for storing energy.  

One more thing, though...  Beam weapons should have a limit as to how much energy they can store.  like in the fs2 campaign, the super-destroyer (cant think of the name) blew it's weapons after overuse.  I think that should be implemented in ships as well.  Maybe a tolerance gauge?

[Zeronet]

Not quite, its heat sinks could handle only so much energy in a certain amount of time.

[Shrike]

Originally posted by Scuddie
It seems to me like you are thinking of a continuing beam weapon, where the warmup is independant of the firing time/damage of the beam, and the beam is firing while still holding onto the trigger.  That isn't exactly what I meant.  IIRC, the way the beams are handled in the FS2 universe, the beam breadth/time/damage is totally dependant upon how much energy was stored.  The way I explained it is that the pilot holds (or whatever) the trigger only while the beam is being warmed up, and whenever the energy is gone, or the trigger is released, the computer would fire the beam, and take over from there.  In other words, the trigger is for storing energy.  

Basically, something like the Nova Cannon from Starlancer.

[Nico]

well, that's only useful against capships, excepted for hotshots...

[Scuddie]

Originally posted by venom2506
well, that's only useful against capships, excepted for hotshots...

Well, I hope so, cause otherwise it would totally screw up the balance of gameplay.  The weapon should only be for bomber+.

[Nico]

Originally posted by Scuddie
Well, I hope so, cause otherwise it would totally screw up the balance of gameplay.  The weapon should only be for bomber+.

why? depends of the power of the weapon. Works well in Iwar2, so why not in FS2?

[_argv[-1]]

Originally posted by venom2506


why? depends of the power of the weapon. Works well in Iwar2, so why not in FS2?

I was actually hoping to make all laser weapons into beams. That's more realistic. Damage would have to be toned down so it does the same damage/time as the original weapon, and they would have to be non-shield-piercing.

I hate that shield piercing aspect of beams, mostly because I doubt it will be a trivial fix.

[Sesquipedalian]

Originally posted by Scuddie
IIRC, the way the beams are handled in the FS2 universe, the beam breadth/time/damage is totally dependant upon how much energy was stored.  

Nope.  The values for warmup time, firing time, warmdown time, damage, breadth, etc. are all just numbers in a table entry.  There is no "energy" being stored somewhere.

[DTP]

Originally posted by Kazan
scuddie, just for reference we don't use 'goto's.. that's basic *shudder*

No we dont use goto`s, but it is there it is a key-word.
 but it is not like in basic.

10 print"hello world!"
20 goto 10

but rather

goto indentifier;
indentifier:statement

As i understand it it is rarely used, but when it is, it used to break out of from a nested loop or switch-statement instead of a break that only breaks out of  only the innermost enclosing loop or switch statement.

-edit , **** happens

[Scuddie]

It was a flow chart silly .

[WMCoolmon]

Originally posted by DTP
As i understand it it is rearly used...

[Ace]

Dave, when you meant by interface code, things such as how the weapon loadout system are handled in FS would be more or less simple to rebuild?

Because with a few graphics tweaks and interface changes such as that, the FS engine would be perfect for one idea of mine

[DTP]

I'm messing with the Graphics interface, right now. It looks fairly easy. especially text, ingame and so. it looks like it is just a matter of putting in numbers(posistion), and texture names.

[Nico]

Originally posted by _argv[-1]


I was actually hoping to make all laser weapons into beams. That's more realistic. :

hurgh! not for me, thx

[Stunaep]

all weapons to beams = bad usage for AI = really high-end comp. needed = stupid looking battles. = bad gameplay.

Go figure.

[_argv[-1]]

Originally posted by Stunaep
all weapons to beams = bad usage for AI = really high-end comp. needed = stupid looking battles. = bad gameplay.

Go figure.

The AI needs to be fixed, obviously.

Are beams really that slow?

I was thinking narrow little beams, not the huge things on caps. The fighter beams should probably also only have a life of a half second or so, and have no warmup/down like bigger ones. Go play MechWarrior 3 (not 4, whose lasers look like ass) and check out the laser weapons (not pulse lasers, but regular or ER) there to see what I think would be a great fighter beam.

[Fury]

Wouldn't it be easier to create a new type of weapon?
It is something between normal pulse/laser/plasma weapon and anti-fighter beam.

Basically it is very long tailed pulse weapon or a pulse with trail but looks like anti-fighter beam that disappears after certain range. You could even code in transparent values, it becomes more and more transparent until it disappears, damage is also reduced as it becomes more transparent.

Well, beam code is very unsuitable for fighters/bombers, so why don't we do a new fighter beam code from scratch making it only for fighters?

I don't know how well FS2 engine could handle this kind of weapon without major performance loss in bigger battles.

[Shrike]

Originally posted by venom2506
well, that's only useful against capships, excepted for hotshots...

What, like how I used the Nova Cannon in Starlancer?  Bzzt, one shot kills on Basilisks!  Even when the bastards are in the middle of cloaking to get away.

And why would you need to make a 'pseudobeam' for fighters?  Sure having a focal distance to reduce damage at long range for weapons would be neat, but really...... beam and pulse.  What else can you really do?  A 'hybrid' is merely a pulse with a very long trail, which can be done as it is.