I asked this question at ev-nova.net, but this place gets more traffic, so:
Can you have a fighter that blows up when it gets to close to you, kinda sorta like a hellhound missle that steers and shoots?
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"I've just had a brilliant stroke of genius! Oh now I've forgotten it." -Me
A Fighter, in the traditional sence, can not do that. The reason why is because the AI will not allow a ship to use a weapon that will destroy itself.
But, there is a work around for EV/EVO. Basicly, you make a fighter that is like a missle. The Fighter Bay is the launcher, and Fighters can be purchased like missiles. The downfall to this is that the fighters cannot be recalled, and the "fighters" won't shoot at anything. But you could always say that the fighters are designed to quickly get in and deliver a small explosive payload, kamakazie style.
Under EVN, I am not totally sure, but the same principle can be applied, but using the same weapon type as the Hellhound Missle. Downfall is the "fighters" can not be recalled.
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(url="http://"http://homepage.mac.com/captainz")Captain Z's New and Improved Starbase of EV Stuff(/url)
Home of The Cygnus Alliance plug for EV Classic
Possibly. Make the fighter have a weapon that will destroy the fighter when fired.(Heavy damage, short range, blast hurts player) When the fighter tries to blow up the target, the weapon will explode almost immeadiatly and destroy the fighter. My idea, post if you don't think it will.
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Paridise on my right, hell on my left, and the angel of death right behind.
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Originally posted by FuDog:
**Possibly. Make the fighter have a weapon that will destroy the fighter when fired.(Heavy damage, short range, blast hurts player) When the fighter tries to blow up the target, the weapon will explode almost immeadiatly and destroy the fighter. My idea, post if you don't think it will.
**
In theory, this would work. The trick is that the weapon can not be set to Weapon Type -999 (self destruct), because then the AI will not use it. But if the weapon has a very short firing distance, and the weapons blast is enough to destroy both the target and the fighter, then it would work.
Unfortunetly, there is a flaw with this plan as well. Fighters tend to run at the target, firing thier weapons as soon as in range. This may cause the fighters to prematurely explode. In comparison to my the alternative I described, this is much more feasable, and more likely to work.
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(url="http://"http://homepage.mac.com/captainz")Captain Z's New and Improved Starbase of EV Stuff(/url)
Home of The Cygnus Alliance plug for EV Classic
There is a workaround to the flaw you describe - give the weapon a range of 1, or very low.
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"A taco is merely a rigid, deformed tortilla."
- Thomas Castiglione
"There will be MUCH CRUSHING!"
- Pink
Personally, I like the extreme short range weapon more than a missile that looks like a ship. You set "blast hurts player", give the weapon a really short range (1), a small to medium-ish proximity radius (that way the fighter can't miss), and a large blast radius (should be way larger than the prox radius) so that the fighter has a sort of area effect. I did that once so that I could have missiles that wouldn't miss.
Matrix
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Captain: What happen?
Mechanic: Someone set up us the bomb!
Operator: We get signal.
Captain: What!
Wasn't the Kamakaze Drone a missile that looked like a plane? While that worked (and was incredibly annoying), I think that the other solution (of having a weapon whose blast radius would automatically kill the fighter that carries it) is a lot more realistic, and seems to have more appeal to me. With a fighter, you can tell it to defend you, so it'll automatically commit suicide against an enemy ship with no input from you.
Matrix
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Captain: What happen?
Mechanic: Someone set up us the bomb!
Operator: We get signal.
Captain: What!
Hmmm.... I made some kaimaze ships in my plug just fine; I just had the ships have two beams, one that had a huge range and did not damage, that the ship would fire as it got closer (actually, it was a tractor beam), and a second weapon that had a range of like 5 pix (also a beam), that had a huge blast range and tons of shield damage and such. When the kamikaze ships were launched, they first fired the ultra-long range beam (which is also invisible, ie, black), then when they got real close, they fired the killer. The ships look really good as a kamikaze fleet if you have the "exhibit swarming behavior" (I think that's what its called) on. Hope that helps.
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Werd
