Salvo Weapons in EVN

Trigger-Happy Slig

Okay, heres the deal. I have a weapon thats supposed to be a salvo grenade turret. Ive made sure all the ids sync up so that it uses its ammo correctly. I also have the fire simultaneously flag set. But when I fire it, it acts as if the flag wasnt set at all (normal back and forth, no salvo action here.) Everything else works fine; It uses its ammo fine, it purrs like a kitten, it does my laundry. But the one feature, the only reason I created the thing (the salvo part of salvo grenade turret) completely eludes me.

So I quit Nova and open the plug back up in NovaTools to fiddle around to see if I can get it to work right. I set the launcher to have infinite ammo. Fire Nova back up. And to my amazement it works perfectly...

....except for the fact that it now has an infinite supply of grenades. (Hey, it could happen. You know, white holes and all that.)

I then try mucking about with the burst reload feature, to see if I can somehow, get multiple launchers to fire simultaneously & use ammo at the same time. And I get it to the point that I am still getting two shots for the price of one (or three for the price of one, or four, or five, depending on how many launchers you buy)

I then tamper with a missile launcher, and try to make multiple launchers fire simultaneously. No luck there (in fact, this has killed my hope for SAD Module type weapons in Nova)

So then I came here. Searched around to no avail. And finally decided it was safe to post here and ask you guys for help (thanks in advance by the way)

Im not sure if this is a bug, or if Im just not doing something right. Or maybe Nova, for some absurdly strange reason, doesnt let you have your salvo cake and eat it too.

Or maybe the answer is staring me in the face, and the only reason Im having trouble figuring out whats wrong is because I havent slept in 25 hours.

------------------
I have no opinion
This sig brought to you by three starving Vietnamese immigrants
(url="http://"http://www.savefarscape.com")Save Farscape!(/url)

nighthawk

what did you do with the burst reload? i've never had any trouble with multiple launchers firing simultaneously and using ammo. an older generation of my honor harrington plug had all the weapons set so that they fired simultaneously, and the missiles worked fine (except that it was kinda scary to lose 30 missiles when you accidentally hit the fire button). so yeah, i'd say weirdness in the burst reload probably. or something else i'm not thinking of right now. but i'd suggest setting burst count to 0 or -1 to make sure they're not screwing with each other's functionality

------------------
you want to know if i'm moral enough to join the army, burn women, kids, houses, and villages, after being a litterbug?

Trigger-Happy Slig

Quote

Originally posted by nighthawk:
**..but i'd suggest setting burst count to 0 or -1 to make sure they're not screwing with each other's functionality

**

I wasn't using the burst reload at first. I tried using it as a crutch only after I discovered the salvo flag wasn't doing it's thang.

------------------
I have no opinion
This sig brought to you by three starving Vietnamese immigrants
(url="http://"http://www.savefarscape.com")Save Farscape!(/url)

mrxak

This is a weird one. Are you sure all you changed was the "unlimited ammo" thing?

Trigger-Happy Slig

Quote

Originally posted by mrxak:
**This is a weird one. Are you sure all you changed was the "unlimited ammo" thing?

**

yep :mad:

------------------
I have no opinion
This sig brought to you by three starving Vietnamese immigrants
(url="http://"http://www.savefarscape.com")Save Farscape!(/url)

Trigger-Happy Slig

Quote

Originally posted by nighthawk:
**...an older generation of my honor harrington plug had all the weapons set so that they fired simultaneously, and the missiles worked fine (except that it was kinda scary to lose 30 missiles when you accidentally hit the fire button).

**

What version(s) of the Nova engine have you used with this plug?

------------------
Moof!
(url="http://"http://www.savefarscape.com")Save Farscape!(/url)

(This message has been edited by Trigger-Happy Slig (edited 04-25-2003).)

Weepul 884

Yes, which version of EVN are you using? That used to be a bug (secondary-fire ammo-using weapons set to fire simultaneously did not fire simultaneously) and I sent in a report, but I don't know if they've fixed it yet.

Actually, I might just go and test it... look for a post edit later.

(edit)
Nope, in 1.0.4, secondary weapons that are set to simul-fire and use ammo do not fire simultaneously. They work fine if set to not use ammo or to use energy as ammo. I'd say that's a bug.

Also, the other bug I found and reported also has not been fixed. The way having burst-fire weapons works is that having x number of the weapon fires a burst of x times as many projectiles as one weapon would. In other words, having 4 of a burst-fire weapon fires 4 times as many shots per burst. However, when the "use ammo at end of burst" option is enabled, it still only uses 1 ammo for an entire burst - no matter how many weapons you have. That means you get to fire 4 times as many projectiles for the amount of ammo you have if you have 4 of the weapon.

I'll admit, I didn't exactly write the bug report emails as clearly as I could (no idea why, I just sort of switched into "verbose" mode) but that was before (or around) 1.0.2, I think. Perhaps I (and some other people, to lend weight) should re-submit them.
(/edit)

------------------

(This message has been edited by Weepul 884 (edited 04-25-2003).)

Trigger-Happy Slig

Quote

Originally posted by Weepul 884:
**Yes, which version of EVN are you using?
**

1.0.4.

Quote

Originally posted by Weepul 884:
**Nope, in 1.0.4, secondary weapons that are set to simul-fire and use ammo do not fire simultaneously. They work fine if set to not use ammo or to use energy as ammo. I'd say that's a bug.
**

My suspicions were true then. Thanks for looking into it.

That also brings up something else that was bothering me. Ive made some weapons in the past that were supposed to drain x amount of fuel at the end of a burst. But instead when fired, they go about their mary way continuously draining fuel like they were bulimic or something.

------------------
Moof!
(url="http://"http://www.savefarscape.com")Save Farscape!(/url)

Weepul 884

Originally posted by Trigger-Happy Slig:

That also brings up something else that was bothering me. Ive made some weapons in the past
that were supposed to drain x amount of fuel at the end of a burst. But instead when fired, they
go about their mary way continuously draining fuel like they were bulimic or something.

I just tested this, and what's actually happening is a little odd, but makes sense. If a burst-fire weapon is set to use fuel as ammunition, and is set to use the ammo at the end of the burst, what actually happens is that it divides that amount by the number of shots in a burst, and uses that much for each shot. So, if you set a weapon to have a 10-shot burst and use 100 units of fuel per burst, and set it to use ammo at the end of a burst, it actually drains 10 units of fuel for each shot. It's not actually removing the fuel after the burst, but each burst in total will use the amount of fuel you set.

Note that here, if you had 4 burst-fire weapons using fuel, it actually does use 4 times as much ammo for a 4x as long burst, as it should. As I said before, it doesn't work that way for ammo, which I think is a bug.

(edit) I just sent in my bug report, including the simul-fire bug and the burst-fire-ammo bug. (/edit)
(edit 2) Actually, the simul-fire bug exists regardless of whether the weapon is primary or secondary. (/edit 2)

------------------

(This message has been edited by Weepul 884 (edited 04-26-2003).)

mrxak

Quote

Originally posted by Weepul 884:
**Perhaps I (and some other people, to lend weight) should re-submit them.
(/edit)

**

I have alerted the beta list to this thread.

mburch

Okay, I have just spent the evening going through the weapon code. There was indeed a problem with fire-simultaneous weapons that were set to use ammo, which has since been fixed. I also went ahead and improved the functioning of burst reload code substantially. Look for this in a future update.

mcb

------------------
"If it's not on fire, it's a software problem."

(This message has been edited by mburch (edited 04-26-2003).)

Trigger-Happy Slig

(quote)Originally posted by mburch:
**Okay, I have just spent the evening going through the weapon code. There was indeed a problem with fire-simultaneous weapons that were set to use ammo, which has since been fixed. I also went ahead and improved the functioning of burst reload code substantially. Look for this in a future update.

------------------
Moof!
(url="http://"http://www.savefarscape.com")Save Farscape!(/url)
**

nighthawk

yay, now i just need a decent internet connnection so i can download a newer version than 1.0.0 (well, i could download it here at work, but i really don't want to go to the trouble of buring it on a cd. maybe i will when this latest update is released)

------------------
you want to know if i'm moral enough to join the army, burn women, kids, houses, and villages, after being a litterbug?

Azdara

It's kinda nice to know that when you're talking about bugs, the guy who wrote the game is looking over your shoulder and fixing the problem...

Nice one Matt, 'preciate it.

~A~

------------------
"How can I make it go faster?" -Me-

Ambrosia Garden Archive

Navigation

Account

Navigation

Account

Salvo Weapons in EVN