not covered in the beam analysis post

I've recently picked up where I left off on my groups TC. If you haven't heard about it... good :).

I had a question since I'm not very familiar with how Nova handles beam weapons aside from what is mentioned in Guy's analysis. I haven't looked at the plugin for months and I was focused on creating governments and ships before this. I am not presently at a computer where I can test this and won't be for a few days.

- What exactly would a negative decay number do?

I would like to find a way to make the beam fade INTO effect, quite the opposite that decay does. Somewhat like the independence day beams.. the core would appear and do not damage (since it is only an effect of the decay) and the corona would slowly appear/grow and then the beam would do damage?

- Is there a way to make beams do more damage the closer to the source the target gets?

and a non beam question:

- Is it possible to create a map (like you would buy or have given to you through a mission) that reveals only one system, regardless of how close you are to it? For EV and EVO it was set by the number of system jumps; is there a way to make it recognize a specific system?

I can answer the third question: use the "Xxxx" operator ("make system ID xxx be explored"). So you make a map, with 0 jumps to explore, and the "OnPurchase" field sets "Xxxx".

Decay is a flag. It is either positive or off.

As for making a beam higher damage at closer range, make it a primary weapon and add a few more primary weapons that are invisible with limited range. They should probably be projectiles with no sprite, just cos of the low maxbeamsonscreen.

As for charging beams, I'm probably stealing my plugs thunder, but given its current status as vapor ware, whatever: There are two methods I developed. One: when weapons fire, and you have a bunch with the 'locks others out while firing' flag, it starts at the lower ids and works its way up. So you make a weak beam that lasts a few frames, then when it starts to cool down (long cooldown), you are able to fire a medium beam that still only fires a few framed before it is forced to cool down, then, only while both of those are busy cooling down, you can fire the biggest one. Note this might not work so well for AI that get to chose their weapon. BUt I havent tested it, nor if the locks others out while fires flag is recognised by the AI. If you give the beams all the same range, and maybe made the first two free while the third cost fuel, it might be enough for the AI to use it properly.

A different method I thought of is only appropriate on ships for whom the charging beam is the only weapon available. Things like the death star that have not much else to speak of, designed to have escorts. Just make folding sprites that look like the charge (like that little glow of charge marching accross the saucer in star trek, or the green beams firing out of the disk for the Star of Death, you know, stuff like that).

Ive not actually got either of these working, mostly because my time is spent on stuff other than gratuitous folding sprites, but based on the behavior of the default scenario (most notably the asteroid miner as a T0), i see no reason the folding should not work, and ive already done tests very similar to the beam test, only with projectile weapons. (IE a few shots of soemthing weak, then a few shots of the medium, then a stream of some third flavor).

(note also that coronas DO do damage. This was where the infinite beam damage came from, certain combinations of refiring beam causes a beam with a corona to keep refiring, while older copies are still decaying, and the decaying coronas each do the full damage of the beam, adding up exponentially.)

Thoughts?

This post has been edited by NebuchadnezzaR : 09 May 2005 - 08:55 AM

Here's another possible method for the beam charge-up:
Give the beam a low damage and high reload with an equal count. Then give the player about 5 of them. They'll fire one after the other and build-up both damage and corona.

(EDIT): Bah, neb beat me on this one:
And to make a beam do more damage as you get closer you could create multiple beams of different lengths. They would have to be primary for this to work. From a distance only the longest beam will hit but as you get closer the shorter ones will hit as well.

This post has been edited by Guy : 09 May 2005 - 09:11 AM

Ah, thats a spiffy idea. Make it stack up on purpose. The only thing i dont like about it is that the engine really does have to draw all five or whatever beams atop one another. Aside from lagging my slower computer a bit, I think beams are so cool im putting them on a few too many of my ships to support such a flagrant waste of screen area. It does get points for elegance and versatility, though.

(actually, both of your solutions use gratuitous stacked beams. It is not required for the invisible extra weapons to be beams, just some small fast moving projectile without a blast radius. Do some testing to make sure it (or they, for multiple stages) will always hit the same thing the beam hits.)

Hmm... I just had an idea... dont normal projectiles have a decay? Does this work for beams, or is it one of those things that is handled specially? (damned me not havign my bible opened).

I know it decays by frame... well, you could still just make a weapon with the same range as the beam, and have it decay to zero exactly at the end of the beam, and make the beam damageless (or maybe a little damage, just so, so long as the visible part hits the ship, they will be hurt). This would not need tiers, and would provide a smooth gradient of damage inversely proportional to distance. Im not sure there isnt a way to do this more straighforwardly from inside the beams weap itself, but who knows? -wants to go off to test tonight-

This post has been edited by NebuchadnezzaR : 09 May 2005 - 09:25 AM

Perhaps not making them beams at all would work?
Correct me if I'm wrong but the rail guns from Nova were projectiles with an effect that left a trail?

If that is true then by use of submunitions different ranges could do more damage. It wouldn't exactly be the linear buildup I was looking for but it would be better than nothing and it also wouldn't go through the target but I don't want it to. I would just have to make the projectiles invisible and smooth out the effect for it to look like a beam weapon.

Matrix, on May 9 2005, 11:03 AM, said:

Perhaps not making them beams at all would work?
Correct me if I'm wrong but the rail guns from Nova were projectiles with an effect that left a trail?

If that is true then by use of submunitions different ranges could do more damage. It wouldn't exactly be the linear buildup I was looking for but it would be better than nothing and it also wouldn't go through the target but I don't want it to. I would just have to make the projectiles invisible and smooth out the effect for it to look like a beam weapon.
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If you're referring to the particle trails (colored pixels left in the trail of a weapon that fade out after a little while), then yes, particle beams are fun:
ParticleBeam.jpg (8.97K)
Number of downloads: 81 ParticleBeam3.jpg (7.86K)
Number of downloads: 68

There are a couple of minor appearance problems, however.

1. They get rather broken up if you fire them while accelerating.
2. They simply look bad when you turn, with "beam" fragments shooting off in several directions.

Oh, and these things look cool when added to a normal beam:
ParticleCorona.jpg (21.07K)
Number of downloads: 90
Unfortunately, that's a laboratory-only trick, as due to the way the game handles beam aiming*, it is nearly impossible to align the two weapons properly.

*A beam weapon will always fire in the direction that the firing ship's SPRITE is facing. This means, for example, that if the ship's sprite has four frames, the beam will only fire in the directions 0, 90, 180 and 270.
To make things more exciting, Matt Burch decided that a weapon's recoil should always come from the center of the area swept out by the current orientation of the ship. This means that for our four-framed ship, the recoil from its weapons will always come from 45, 135, 225, or 315°.
I don't consider this a bug, as it is what causes a Raven or Arachnid's CPL to come from the "Death Star" firing point. It's also useful in other circumstances...

Edwards

This post has been edited by Edwards : 09 May 2005 - 02:04 PM

True. It has been a long time since I've played Nova and I think my memory on what exactly rail guns looked like might be skewed. I think the quickest way I could accomplish this would be to make this beam be one that can't be purchased.

Instead it is an outfit given as a reward, but really it is 3 or 4 weapons all assigned to the primary spot. 4 beams with different lengths and the same damage value. 3 of which are invisible. Therefore if you're directly in front of the ship you receive 4 times the damage, further is 3 times, further is 2, and furthest is 1 respectively.

This would be really easy to make the enemy use.

NebuchadnezzaR, on May 9 2005, 02:20 PM, said:

Hmm... I just had an idea... dont normal projectiles have a decay? Does this work for beams, or is it one of those things that is handled specially? (damned me not havign my bible opened).

I know it decays by frame... well, you could still just make a weapon with the same range as the beam, and have it decay to zero exactly at the end of the beam, and make the beam damageless (or maybe a little damage, just so, so long as the visible part hits the ship, they will be hurt). This would not need tiers, and would provide a smooth gradient of damage inversely proportional to distance. Im not sure there isnt a way to do this more straighforwardly from inside the beams weap itself, but who knows? -wants to go off to test tonight-
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Decay in beams is used to make the beam fade out. I don't think there's any way to make the damage of a beam decay. A decaying projectile would be great except that it would only work well if it was really fast (speed = beam length, count = 1) which would prevent it from decaying reasonably.