Trying to make a long range weapon that blankets an area with explosions, this area should be roughly centered on a target, as opposed to a fixed range.

Right now, I've come up with the following staged weapon:

1. Unguided turret, with blind areas to the sides and back. Invisible shot. Very short count.
   This makes the ship face in the right general direction, while allowing the shot to be aimed properly. Error is introduced in steps 3-4.

2. Very fast, invisible, 0 turn homing weapon that subs upon prox radius trigger (or end of count). Initial prox safety makes sure targets too close wont trigger the prox.
   This does two things. The homing aspect makes the targets turn hostile, and makes sure it will only sub when it reaches the designated target.

3. Subs into 2 shots with 179 theta for 1 frame at 7500 speed (75 pixels distance in random direction) Still invisible.

4. Subs again at 179 theta, 1 frame 7500 speed. The result is that the shots will end up in a random location within 300 pixels of the sub triggered by the target.
   Still invisible, but explodes with a blast radius of 20. Large damage.

5. (Optional) Final sub with 1 frame, 0 speed. Blast radius of 75. Minor damage.
   Steps 4-5 could be averaged. Say medium damage at 50 blast radius. The way it is now makes it so most things in the general area will take some damage, while anything that hits close will inflict greater damage.

The main problem is the number of stages. And that the AI will attempt shots on targets too close.
I tried combining stages 1 and 2 into simply homing, hoping that a low turn radius will get the shot to get close to the target, but it leads to some strange results.
Your necessary firing angle is very narrow relatively close, and very very wide at max range.

Combining stage 1 and 2 as the turret makes the enemies not know they are being shot at, and other targets in the line of fire can trigger the prox.

Anyone got any other ways to pull this off?

What's the problem with the number of stages?
Can't you use 'prefers standoff' to fix the AI shooting too close?

@guy, on Mar 23 2008, 03:39 AM, said in Best way to make an artillery weapon?:

What's the problem with the number of stages?
Can't you use 'prefers standoff' to fix the AI shooting too close?

Prefers standoff doesn't stop other ships from getting close.
Now, nothing is broken exactly. Shots fired at close targets don't detonate, they simply continue to fly off to max range and explode there. But the behavior is a bit strange.

The number of stages aren't a problem, per se, but it still uses 5 stages. I had initially considered different types of artillery, but at 5 stages a pop there's only going to be one kind.
If I can do it in 2 or 3, it opens up more possibilities. Maybe I can continue to tweak a homing shot and see if there is an acceptable result.

Now I'm sure someone is going to suggest manual aiming, and here's why this doesn't work in the current set up.
The main reason for the initial turret, is that aim is critical to produce the right effect.
Conceptually, aim is not critical as you are blanketing an area. Even if your aim was off a bit, chances are that the target is still going to be in the area of effect. But the internal mechanics of the stages mean that if you were off by just a few pixels, the main round wasn't close enough to trigger the latter subs.

Explained another way: At max range, your blanket fire might take up 20-30ş field of vision. So you only need to aim within 20-30ş to hit the target. Right? Wrong. That's not the case with manual aiming, you'd need to get within 2-3ş to make sure the main shots subs producing the blanket effect. That main shot has to get within 30 pixels of the target to produce the blanket.

So I'm wondering if there is a wholly different way to get the effect I'm looking for.

EDIT: Hmmm. Maybe I can eliminate a stage using the 'loses lock if not directly ahead' flag. Forcing the homing weapon to fired within a certain angle tolerance.
EDIT 2: Well, that didn't work. It still homed in after needing to turn 180ş Grrr.
EDIT 3: I think I have the homing weapon turning to an acceptable point. The auto-aiming does a decent enough job of pointing you in the right direction. You have to be very precise if you want to hit something that's on screen, but since this is mainly intended to be a long range weapon that's not so bad.

This post has been edited by Desprez : 23 March 2008 - 12:59 AM