[StargateSpankyHam]

While testing and editing the .tbl entry for the SCa Shiamak, one version of the ship included an exorbitantly massive array of anti-fighter missiles. Strangely, when I hop into a Ulysses, it only fires lasers and flak at me...even when its initial orders are to attack alpha 1, and the AI class is set to 'general'.

After a little bit of testing, I found out that none of my Shivan warships fire missiles at fighters. They'll gladly spew bombs at friendly capships, but when using things like the Wraith (Shivan version of the Harpoon), they won't open fire on my Ulysses. I made sure to change the $Default PBanks to $Default SBanks on the turrets...but they still won't work.

[Qent]

What difficulty is it on?

[StargateSpankyHam]

After a bit of testing, I found out that adding the 'flak' flag to missiles has the intended result: it makes the AI spam lots and lots of homing missile death at anything hostile. Also, it makes the missile model go away, so all I ended up with was goofy looking trails.

So, I just took an existing missile, turned the speed down a bit, increased the lifetime, decreased the turn rate, changed the trail and added particle spew, and I've got a balanced, cool-looking, Shivan homing flak.

[Droid803]

O_O homing flak.

[Nuke]

that works?!?!

i know particle spew works with homing weapons but flak? flak essentially says, "this blows up when it gets to some distance (the distance of target calculated at some update interval)". so i dont know how that would work with homing weapons. did anyone ever implement proximity detonation yet? you might be better off using $Detonation Radius.

[Angelus]

After a bit of testing, I found out that adding the 'flak' flag to missiles has the intended result: it makes the AI spam lots and lots of homing missile death at anything hostile. Also, it makes the missile model go away, so all I ended up with was goofy looking trails.

So, I just took an existing missile, turned the speed down a bit, increased the lifetime, decreased the turn rate, changed the trail and added particle spew, and I've got a balanced, cool-looking, Shivan homing flak.

post the table entry, please.

[Qent]

After a bit of testing, I found out that adding the 'flak' flag to missiles has the intended result: it makes the AI spam lots and lots of homing missile death at anything hostile. Also, it makes the missile model go away, so all I ended up with was goofy looking trails.

So, I just took an existing missile, turned the speed down a bit, increased the lifetime, decreased the turn rate, changed the trail and added particle spew, and I've got a balanced, cool-looking, Shivan homing flak.

post the table entry, please.

It sounds like the final weapon is a real secondary without the "Flak" flag.

I'm still curious as to why it didn't fire at all originally. Did you find that out?

[Timerlane]

Yeah, IME, when you attack a Shivan cruiser solo(give ignore commands, or tell wingmen to guard a distant ship), it doesn't bother firing its missile turrets. When I ask AI wingmen to join in, suddenly it's cluster-spray time.

[Qent]

I've only seen that with "Spawn" missiles. Was that it?

[Timerlane]

Hmm, yeah. I play a singleplayer-converted FS2 Shivan Gauntlet mission a lot when testing new toys 'borrowed' for my own personal mod, so I'm mostly going off the Lilith there. I did play through the Warship Gauntlet in the recent FSPort release, and I believe the Typhon did fire its FighterKillers at me as I bombed it.

I imagine such a situation is fairly rare in most campaigns, as you generally won't have a cruiser sitting off in a corner doing nothing(i.e. not interacting with other AI ships).

[General Battuta]

Put a Fury AI class on it, watch it shoot all its turrets. Or mod your max_turret_player_ownage up to 999 where it belongs.

[Qent]

Mmm I dunno, I suspect it needs needed (before the overhaul) smart spawn.

[General Battuta]

I dunno, the original missile setup shouldn't...

[Qent]

Oh, hmm. I was interpreting Timerlane's interpretation a bit. So I'm probably out on a very long and skinny limb here.

[Scourge of Ages]

I was thinking the same thing about "smart spawn", because that's what happened to one of my new weapons. But it didn't really make sense considering the scenario he was describing.

[General Battuta]

I think it's an AI issue where the retail AI only allows capships to fire a small number of turrets at once at the player.

[Timerlane]

Well, as I mentioned, new toys(turret sniping with Uriel/Archer/Gattlers ), and I don't believe it ever fires the Shivan Clusters until my wingmen come around, meaning I usually don't call them over until I kill the missile turrets on both sides, which usually happens after all the blobs(or at least the ones that can cover the top of the Lilith), and the tail beam are dead. I fly right next to the thing, sometimes well within 1k, and nothing comes out of the Lilith's cluster launchers unless I have wingmen around. If I'm alone by that point, I don't even have to acknowledge their existence.

I also used to play a lot with the BP 3.6.12 FP Fury AI, and I don't think it was any different(though if it matters(I suspect it might), I only used the ai.tbl and ai-profile.tbm extracted from the VP).

[General Battuta]

Right, cluster spawn weapons I think require more than one attacker, but the original post wasn't using cluster spawns, was it?

[Timerlane]

Ah, I just noticed "Shivan version of the Harpoon". Missed that last night.

[General Battuta]

Looking back, though, I'm not sure the AI explanation makes sense. It may have been a tabling error?