Is there a way to create an outfit that gives a ship two different weapon IDs?

I have conceptualized a method to create special firing graphics for certain weapons, by having a firing ship actually create two projectiles. One projectile would be the actual weapon charge, with its typical "bolt" graphic and stats. The other would be a graphic of the "flash" or muzzle report, as a 0-speed stationary animation that plays out and then disappears, with zero damage - or, you could set higher damage settings to the muzzle flash, for the occasional poor ship who flies in front of your guns at point-blank range! Effectively, provided both weapons are the same type (forward facing, turret, etc.) they should both fire in tandem. The only thing is, I can't think of a way to have the purchase of one outfit apply two weapons to a ship, as well as reliably remove them afterward. I thought of using something involving bits adding the weapon like a reward, but then this must be done for every single weapon with a muzzle flash and it becomes needlessly complicated for such a small eye-candy effect.

If anybody has any ideas, I'd love to hear them.

Well first, I hope you know any weapon using this effect would have to be a primary weapon. If secondary, there isn't a way for players to activate both at the same time, and the AI wouldn't fire the muzzle flash at all since targets would almost always be out of range. So it could work for turrets, guns, and the like, but missiles and rockets (unless made primary) couldn't use this.

Now, as for actually doing it, allow me to explain. First make both weapons and an outfit for each weapon. Then decide which one you actually want to be the visible portion of the whole thing. That outfit will be coded normally. The second outfit will be invisible. This is done by leaving the 'lower case' name fields blank and flagging the outfit to show up in the Ranks/Honors screen. Also make the outfit a tech level that is never seen, change its Random Factor to 0, and flag it to be unsellable. Then use the Gxxx NCB in the visible outfit to grant itself and the invisible outfit upon purchase and Dxxx to remove both when selling.

In case that didn't make sense, I've prepared visual aides.

Here we see a list of Legacy weapons on the left and outfits on the right. I have 2 types of railguns and each uses the same ammo. Each example of the weapon also controls how much ammo the player can carry. For this to work, I require a 'dummy gun' that determines the max ammo and have it mounted alongside the real guns. Both railgun types use the dummy gun's ammo, and the dummy gun holds the ammo.

This is the outfit for one of the railguns. Take a look at the right side of the window, in the When Purchased and When Sold fields. As you can see, buying this outfit gives the player outfit ID 137 (itself) and 140 (the dummy gun). Selling it removes both, as well.

This is the outfit for the dummy gun. By leaving the 'lower case' name fields blank and flagging it to show up in the Ranks/Honors screen, the player will never see it in the Player Info window. The non-used tech level and Random Factor value of 0 make sure it never shows up in outfitters. Being unsellable keeps it from showing up in outfitters that buy anything (like Sirrusa in EVN) if it happens to be on the player's ship.

You might be wondering how to equip this on ships as stock without having it say something like '4 Nichron Cannons, 4 Nichron Muzzle Flashes'. I believe I've explained how to do this in the past, but I'll add it again here just in case.

In the image above, you can see 4 railguns equipped on this ship and 4 railgun 'dummy guns' added on in the outfits field. This makes them invisible in the Shipyard Info screen, as well.

Now that I've explained how to do it, let me also explain why it still might not work. As said before, the AI might not use the muzzle flash even as a primary weapon since it has negligible range. Remember, the AI can pick and choose which primary weapons to fire. They aren't forced to fire all of them like the player is.

But there is hope. If you can make the muzzle flash submunition into an invisible missile (missile weapon with an invisible graphic) the AI should use it. It might take some experimenting to find a combo that makes the AI fire both at the same time, though. And even if you find it, there's always the chance of the flashes not lining up should the firing ship be in motion when it fires.

Good luck with this, Delphi. It sounds like a neat effect, and if you can pull it off it'll make Delphi TC that much more epic.

impressive.
most impressive.

Why bother? You can make separate weäp resources for the muzzle flash and the projectile. Set the muzzle flash as a turret, and the projectile as an unguided projectile. In the muzzle shot's weäp resource, set the ID of the projectile in the Submunition Type field, the Sub theta as 0 (so the projectile goes the same direction the turret pointed), and of course the submunition count as 1. Sounds right in theory, anyway.

@geek, on 03 July 2013 - 08:41 PM, said in [Question] One Outfit, Two Weapons:

Why bother? You can make separate weäp resources for the muzzle flash and the projectile. Set the muzzle flash as a turret, and the projectile as an unguided projectile. In the muzzle shot's weäp resource, set the ID of the projectile in the Submunition Type field, the Sub theta as 0 (so the projectile goes the same direction the turret pointed), and of course the submunition count as 1. Sounds right in theory, anyway.

I tried this for a while, and although the AI was capable of using it, the accuracy was terrible. Consistently, the AI would fire behind my ship's path, with both turrets and fixed guns.

@delphi, on 04 July 2013 - 03:39 PM, said in [Question] One Outfit, Two Weapons:

I tried this for a while, and although the AI was capable of using it, the accuracy was terrible. Consistently, the AI would fire behind my ship's path, with both turrets and fixed guns.

But isn't that what they usually do when targets come towards a firing ship at incredible speeds? It's been like that even in the two previous EV games.

How do the Polaron Multi-torpedoes work? Could you set a secondary weapon to split into a different type of weapon/ammunition near-instantaneously to mimic the desired effect?

That's actually exactly what Geek suggested. And yes, it's how Multi-Torps work.

Oh. Well nevermind then.

I think I've now clearly demonstrated my vast understanding of how the Nova engine works.