[Destiny]

I'd be up to it if it doesn't cause FPS stoning the moment it flies into my face. I imagine to be something like extremely dense chaff, dense enough to not disperse instantly at 3000m/s into space in a second and yet able to obscure vision. Maybe an electrical current is conducted within the super-dense chaff causes the EMP effect.

[Leuthesius]

Here's a thought that I'm pretty sure the engine would support.

Beam weapons on bombers. The anti-fighter beam weapons, anyways.
The bomb pumped lasers I think ARE possible with the engine if you simply have a bomb as a static object that moves, and when it hits detonation range it fires a very short and powerful Heavy Beam along with harbinger bomb scale explosive.

Also I want to make note--I know NOTHING of the engine and how it works. Just thinking along outsider lines on how I would do it if I knew what I were doing.

[General Battuta]

Yeah, bomber mounted beams can work (and have worked), they're are pretty fun. Should play with the bomb-pumped laser...

[-Norbert-]

I think Inferno had a heavy shivan bomber with AAA turrets.
As far as I know TBP were the first to feature main-gun fighters beams in any meaningfull way (Minbari Nial, Brakiri Faloski and Vorlon Lightning all have beams).
Dawn of Sol also featured a fighter mounted beam in the 2nd to last mission.
Wings of Dawn also had two fighters wtih beams (Hertak Reaver and the Prometheus frame - if you want to call that monster a fighter).

So there are plenty of examples of beams on fighters and bomber already released.

[Drogoth]

Yeah, bomber mounted beams can work (and have worked), they're are pretty fun. Should play with the bomb-pumped laser...

I really hope it works, it was my fave idea haha

[666maslo666]

Shotgun-like weapon? Something like Federation flaks in WiH, but for fighters, and using lazors. Sacrifices long range for short range efectiveness.

Also regarding the limits, why not having current limit for objects as default, and increase that limit only if its filled and fps is still sufficient? Best of both worlds.

[General Battuta]

Shotgun-like weapon? Something like Federation flaks in WiH, but for fighters, and using lazors. Sacrifices long range for short range efectiveness.

Check out the Sidhe in War in Heaven (you can access it with cheats or via FRED).

[Marcov]

Would be nice if a fighter had an AAAf beam as a "special attack"; meaning you can only fire it in like 20 seconds.

But seriously, has anyone ever tried making an organism as a "ship"? Space Kraken/Leviathan? Or is it simply too complicated (might require complex animation technique)?

[The E]

Shotgun-like weapon? Something like Federation flaks in WiH, but for fighters, and using lazors. Sacrifices long range for short range efectiveness.

Also regarding the limits, why not having current limit for objects as default, and increase that limit only if its filled and fps is still sufficient? Best of both worlds.

WARNING: MASSIVE INFODUMP TO FOLLOW.

This is not possible.
Objects[], the array that holds all references for all objects currently in a mission, is a static beast. It is allocated, in its entirety, when the mission starts. Once allocated, it cannot change size.

Now, there are objects called Vectors, which work like an array in some aspects but which are able to dynamically change size. However, turning Objects[] into one is impossible, since the game is built on the assumption that references to objects in Objects[] are valid for more than a single frame, which simply isn't the case with a Vector structure. Every time a vector changes size, internal references become invalid, or at best unreliable.

Making Objects[] dynamic, in short, is something we cannot do without a massive refactoring of every single instance where a member of the Objects[] array is referenced. Which is not something we want to be doing.

[-Norbert-]

But seriously, has anyone ever tried making an organism as a "ship"? Space Kraken/Leviathan? Or is it simply too complicated (might require complex animation technique)?

The closest thing to that I know of are the Cordi Bombers in Wings of Dawn. While they are, for all intents and purposes, still "normal" fighters, they do have a rather organic look and tentacles that move, when you activate the afterburner.

[Marcov]

One idea I have now is to have a massive asteroid, at least 20 kilometers in diameter, with a hollow structure, and we want important minerals out of it. Problem is, you never know what's lurking within there, so there might be a horrible Kraken inside you need to fight...plus it's pretty dark, so the only lighting you see is from laser fire, revealing a portion of the Kraken's body/tentacles.

[NGTM-1R]

I still think we're making insufficient use of submunition weapons in capships. It'd be possible to create huge walls of fire with single turrets under the current system, just nobody does.

[-Norbert-]

Probably because they don't want to be shred into little pieces the moment they get within firing range....

[X3N0-Life-Form]

I still think we're making insufficient use of submunition weapons in capships. It'd be possible to create huge walls of fire with single turrets under the current system, just nobody does.

tried that to add firepower to FS1 era warships and some shivan ships

results were mixed :
    -using Piranha on its missile batteries made it a lot more dangerous against fighters
    -not that effective on cains with a lighter version of the Piranha, the cruiser still dies very quickly
    -I had balance issues on the Molochs, because they have 4 or 5 missile batteries
    -not very good on Ravanas, but at least it was kinda annoying when attacking the front beam canons

I also used multi-shots lasers to have a more effective blob-like turret (using $shots: X & &FOF: Y) ; it was decent against warships, and it would either rape fighters BP-pulse weapons-style, or be utterly useless. It looked kinda pretty though ...

[Marcov]

I always thought the Mainhalls of the Aquitaine and Psamtik were merely the "bridge" of the ship, but not after I discovered it was just enormous, given how small a platform carrying an even smaller fighter is, and it even seems in the distance (in Psamtik's case). For the Aquitaine, I also thought it was the bridge, until I found out that an entire collection of fightercraft were displayed on the "hangar" left of the "control room". Damn, those "bridges" are pretty huge!

[NGTM-1R]

results were mixed :
    -using Piranha on its missile batteries made it a lot more dangerous against fighters
    -not that effective on cains with a lighter version of the Piranha, the cruiser still dies very quickly
    -I had balance issues on the Molochs, because they have 4 or 5 missile batteries
    -not very good on Ravanas, but at least it was kinda annoying when attacking the front beam canons

Not really what I meant. I've long had an idea floating around for a custom "screen" weapon which would create huge shockwave walls for attacking bombers to fly through, but I'm not entirely sure how it would be executed, particularly since I'd sort of like to shape the the submunition pattern and I don't know that can be.

[Marcov]

I always thought we should make shockwaves to represent EMP blasts...it'd be nice if we made those "shockwaves" look like expanding, transparent spheres like this one;

[Destiny]

You play too much ZH/Shockwave, ha. WoD's Dragonslave missile has a sphere like this, although it looks the same from all directions. Would be pretty cool doing it the way you suggested.

[Marcov]

You play too much ZH/Shockwave, ha. WoD's Dragonslave missile has a sphere like this, although it looks the same from all directions. Would be pretty cool doing it the way you suggested.

Actually, considering the size of the bubble, I think this is from the original Command and Conquer: Generals, not Zero Hour (and definitely not Shockwave).

Zero Hour's EMP was smaller, but flashed luminously after the disappearance of the bubble. These bubbles also are the result of the exploding warheads from the EMP Patriot point defense launchers.

Anyway, why is it that fictional depictions of EMP shockwaves always result in "energy bubbles" like that?

[ssmit132]

Probably rule of cool.