quick question is there any way you can set an EV weapon to decoy literally everything?

if so how?

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' Ace Battlepilot

Just give me a Miranu Gunship, give me orders and watch me kill those F'in B_st_rds!!!

Erm... I'd like to give one of my traditional long elaborate answers describing potential problems and workarounds, but in this case I'm unable to. The answer is no, you can't do it. The only projectiles that that can be decoyed/decoyed are missiles with the decoy succeptibility flag set.

-reg

(This message has been edited by Regulus (edited 02-03-2000).)

Well, I'm guessing Ace meant EV:O, and you obviously gave the answer for EV:O. However, might I point out that Ace DID say "EV"? There's no way to do that in EV unless you change all the guided weapons' guidance to type 2, "smart" guidance.

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Right, but the effect is equally limited...

I did, however, just have an amusing notion: What if someone were to have a fighter bay which launched small, almost shield-less ships with an innacuracy of 180° and rapid reload? If provided with enough ammo, it could act as an effective shield, with projectiles hitting a fighter/shield element and instantly removing it, to be replaced by the next in the queue. (things would go to hell if you tried to use it in a situation where they weren't getting rapidly killed off, but you could just opt-c them back in). Of course, the effect would be limited to nonguided weaponry, unless you were to couple it with a similar flare launcher. And it would send domination missions straight to hell. It might be good as an AI device... I wonder if the game can handle switching between fighters and secondary weapons on the fly?

Here's another cool notion for you: Take the concept of SRMs (Self-replicating mines, a concept which I was given rather undeserved credit for in Oreste) one step further: You ship launches a null acceleration, ultra turning speed, largely unshielded fighter with two weapons: one which is a bay containing the same ship, the other which is an extremely powerful single use "one shot" weapon. You launch the first fighter, which will coast out of your ship in the direction it was launched. After selecting your target and hitting "f", it will not be able to move towards it, but it will at least turn to face it. If the manueverability is high enough, it will do this before it launches the next element of the chain. The next "fighter" is launched in the direction of the ship, and each generation makes course adjustments until its close enough to deliver the knockout weapon. Ideally, the final element would be destroyed in the explosion of its target, thus terminating the chain. Drawbacks here are that the chain could continue into infinity if its target happens to be a highly evasive fighter whose explosion isn't powerful enough to terminate the ship, or simply can't be effectivly targeted. Fortunatly, since the other elements of the chain would be target-less, and probably difficult to retarget, their unused one-shots would be inert. The end result is just a pretty way to deliver a neato weapon.

-reg

(This post went on a little longer than I intended... I hope at least a few people read it

(This message has been edited by Regulus (edited 02-04-2000).)

The system you describe would work to an extent, but you'd rapidly run into problems with the maxships limit. Instead, I'm using the idea of semi-autonomous launch-and-recover missiles in my own plug. I don't think this is a new idea - someone mentioned something similar on their webpage I think - but here it is anyway: create a small, bay-launched fighter with a very

Yes, I was aware of the maxship problem (that's why I said domination missions would go straight to hell).

There's a drawback to your system: for some reason, EV doesn't allow ships to get caught in the blast of their own projectiles. Ben Singely and I discussed this back when he was working on the fighter-based static mines in Pale. He found that the explosion would destroy the SURROUNDING mines, but not the one which initiated the blast. Truly quite maddening, yes?

-reg

Hellfire. I wasn't aware of that. Still, on the bright side it does make an old Defender-style smartbomb a possibility - weapon with no graphic, turret mounted, hugely high projectile speed (for accuracy) and a blast radius of 32000-odd pixels

Yours with malice aforethought,

~R~

I borrowed a very good weapon from a plug called EV Z Expander Plus. It circled in a large area around a target. Whatever crossed the line was supposed to be destroyed but it didnt work so i made it a "whos fault is it anyway?" type of weapon you launch it targeting a ship. It stays forever a field around the planet. When the unsuspecting target crosses the boundary, "everything" is destroyed. Rooster, with enough time i could probably perfect that smart missile ship of yours. I'll e-mail you if i finish it before you and then give it to you no credit required.

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' Ace Battlepilot

Just give me a Miranu Gunship, give me orders and watch me kill those F'in B_st_rds!!!

I've got no problem making the actual drone/ship/missile/whatever, it's making sure it gets destroyed when it makes it's attack (and not before). If what Regulus posted is correct, the missile will not be affected by it's own weapon - pity, I'd worked out such a nice rationale for it... :frown: Thanks for the offer though.

Which leads me to my next point: Regulus, did this Ben try this under EV or EVO? I only ask because I'm sure I remember having trouble being caught in my own weapon's blast radius when I tried playing with the space mines in EVO. Of course, it was a long time ago and I could be mistaken.

~R~

Quote

AAARGH! They've changed the way the quotes work!

(This message has been edited by Rooster (edited 02-07-2000).)

Pale was an EV plugin, of course. I don't think EVO was out back then. In any event, being caught in your own weapon's blast radius is well-documented, however, it is apparent based the observed results of static mines in Pale and space bombs in The Frozen Heart that AI ships are not similarly effected.

Never hurts to test it, tho.

-reg

Darn it all to heck! :frown: I was going to add a "ramming" weapon for some ships in a small plug in. It would have a range of one and it would do damage equal to the ship's shield and armor. Of course, this would take a long time, to make custom "ram" weapons for all the ships... only freighters, small fighters, and the like would have them. Basically, an AI ship that uses them creates a big blast, destroying itself and the ship it "rams." But since the explosion doesn't kill the ship that used it, it would be totally unfair.

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Luca Rescigno
"And may not every one of the stars or suns have as great a retinue of planets with moons to wait upon them as has our own Sun?" -Christiaan Huygens