side-firing missiles

I am in the initial stages of outlining a plug. I am designing some ships of the line (wall) that use multiple missile launchers that fire only to the side - a broadside. In addition I would like to incorporate bow and stern chasers.

I could not see a way to limit missile launchers to fire only to the side, bow, or stern.

The only way that looks workable is to use turrets with blind spots to front and rear (for broadsides). Their ammo would be missiles, instead of projectiles. The chasers would work in the same general way. Would this work, or is there a better way?

I assume that side firing missiles and bow/stern chasers would have to be labeled differently and selected separately. True?

A couple of other questions:
1. Can one back select secondary weaps, or does it only go one way? I tried Shift-select - doesn't work.

Here's where I show my appalling ingorance. :huh:

2. What exactly is a sprite?

3. What exactly is a spin?

Thanks

Honor Harrington, huh? Good luck!

Actually, no. Although I really like the Honor Harrington novels my inspiration for the ships and that style of fighting is from Patrick O'Brian's novels.

This post has been edited by TonyR : 04 August 2009 - 09:40 PM

QUOTE (TonyR @ Aug 5 2009, 10:08 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The only way that looks workable is to use turrets with blind spots to front and rear (for broadsides). Their ammo would be missiles, instead of projectiles. The chasers would work in the same general way. Would this work, or is there a better way?

This works, and works well. Except that they won't fire if the target is not to the side of the ship...too my knowledge. There is a missle fire effect that has the missles 'roll' out the side of the ship then fly off, and it looks pretty, too, but I don't know if that is the effect you're after.

Actually....Unless I'm wrong, you can just have the missles fire out at 90 degrees to the front of the ship. This side steps the blind spot issue.

QUOTE (TonyR @ Aug 5 2009, 10:08 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I assume that side firing missiles and bow/stern chasers would have to be labeled differently and selected separately. True?

True.

QUOTE (TonyR @ Aug 5 2009, 10:08 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

A couple of other questions:
1. Can one back select secondary weaps, or does it only go one way? I tried Shift-select - doesn't work.

One way only.

QUOTE (Templar98921 @ Aug 5 2009, 05:27 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

One way only.

Well?

Thanks.

I do want the target to the side for a real broadside. This requires the pilot to maneuver to use these missiles and to plan ahead a bit. There will also be beam weapons for those players, who like to fight in close.

What is this roll out effect? Sounds cool.

The last two questions are still unanswered. I have looked for the answers elsewhere. Apparently, these definitions are so basic, that it's assumed all know them.

Thanks again.

You can reverse-target secondary weapons; I think it's either shift+select or option+select by default on Macs, but I can't check it right now because I'm a dirty traitor and running XP off my Intel iMac at the moment. I'm not sure what it would be if you're on Windows, though, but you may be able to check it in the in-game settings.

There are three ways of getting missiles to fire out the side of the ship. There's the blind spot route that you're looking at, you'll need to use submunitions to get the desired effect. The supermunition will be an unguided turret with the blindspots you mentioned, but they will need to submunition into a guided missile since a weapon can't be both a turret and a missile. I'd recommend giving the turret a life of 1 frame (don't forget not to check the "flack" box as well for the turret) unless you want there to be a longer delay before the guidance kicks in.

The second method is the "roll out," which I haven't experemented with much, but if I remember correctly (did it by accident once), you mark the weapon as guided and set its inaccuracy to -90 degrees. Or maybe it's -180 degrees, I don't recall. Anyways, this will make the missiles travel at an angle perpendicular to the direction you're facing, but the missile's graphic will actually be facing the same direction you were when you launched them (so they are moving sideways in relation to their bearing). I believe they will keep going that direction until their guidance kicks in around 1-2 seconds later, at which point they will start moving in the direction they are facing, which is also the direction you were facing when you launched them. whew

The final method I'm much more familiar with, as I use it extensively in my hypothetical TC. In this one, you again use a submunition, but to achieve a different result. You make the supermunition an unguided shot with count of 1, then make it submunition into two of the given missile, with a sub theta of -90 (or is it -180?) This makes the missiles point and move sideways, as opposed to the "roll out" method, which launches them facing forwards but moving sideways. This final one is my favorite, since unless you give the missiles a really high turn rate compared to their speed, you still need to be smart about launching them. The reason for this is that missiles in Nova have an inescapable 1-2 seconds of being a dummy projectile before they actually lock on to their target and begin homing in, which means that if you're not careful, the missiles will blossom out too far and end up flying circles around your target. Also, it looks pretty as hell, and I've always found beauty in destruction to be a very disturbing yet nearly mesmerizing sepctacle.

One final thing to take note of: every one of these tricks will cause a different exit behavior. With the first, all the missiles will exit the ship on the same side (the side facing the target ship). With the second, they will alternate sides (I think), unless you have multiple platforms and make them fire simultaniously. With the final, they will always fire from both sides simultaniously, since each supermunition turns into two that travel in opposite directions. Also note that with the last one, you should either halve the damage of each missile or double the weight of the supermunition (since each one ammunition turns into two missiles).

OK, sprites vs. spins.

A sprite is a grid of images, each tilted X degrees clockwise of the one before it. Sprites are most commonly used to generate rleDs, which is essentially a movie of a ship or weapon. (Yes I know that you can use sprites and animations for other things too, like a hypergate opening, but I'm keeping it simple for now).

A Spin file takes a sprite or rleD and gives it more attributes, plus it allows the sprite/rleD to be linked to a spob (space object) or weapon animation. Ship animations are far more complex, and therefore use Shans instead of Spins.

That's a very, very rough overview; if you want more information, you can find it in the Bible or probably in one of the various help stickies on this forum. I'm sure someone else will be able to give you a clearer explanation.

Anyways, hope that helps! Best of luck!

Very helpful. Thank you.

FWIW

QUOTE

(TonyR @ Aug 5 2009, 10:08 AM)
A couple of other questions:
1. Can one back select secondary weaps, or does it only go one way? I tried Shift-select - doesn't work.

Option + select will reverse secondary weapon selection.

On the "Roll-Out" method: it needs to be -90 inaccuracy, and the exit point needs to have a non-zero x-coordinate.. The weapon's shot will appear on the same side of the ship as the exit point, and move away from the ship in that direction.

This means, if you make a certain ship have one of its exit points (say, "Gun") all on Port side, and one of its exit points (say, "Turret") all on Starboard side, then you can make a Portside Missile that uses the "Gun" exit location, and a Starboardside Missile that uses the "Turret" exit location. That way, if both are secondary weapons, you can select one at a time for the direction you want to fire.

Note: The AI will not do well with side-firing weapons.

I thought I had posted in here already? Oh well, I'll just have to post my experiences with broadside weapons from CTC-C again.

You see, the player could handle broadside weapons fine, but the AI would face the player and proceed to shoot fiery death out of its sides. It was promptly killed by the player, and AI ships with broadside weapons would never get anywhere before running out of ammo. So I removed the mention of the weapons from all player and AI ships and reduced the appearance rate of their outfits to 0%. They're still in CTC-C, but you need plug-ins in order to use them.

Now, keep in mind that these are projectiles weapons. I haven't experimented with side-firing/angle-firing missiles at all, come to think of it. I have toyed with the idea of making rear firing missiles, but I can't help but think they'd be too powerful in the hands of the right player.

First, thank you all for your input.

QUOTE

On the "Roll-Out" method: it needs to be -90 inaccuracy, and the exit point needs to have a non-zero x-coordinate.. The weapon's shot will appear on the same side of the ship as the exit point, and move away from the ship in that direction.

This means, if you make a certain ship have one of its exit points (say, "Gun") all on Port side, and one of its exit points (say, "Turret") all on Starboard side, then you can make a Portside Missile that uses the "Gun" exit location, and a Starboardside Missile that uses the "Turret" exit location. That way, if both are secondary weapons, you can select one at a time for the direction you want to fire.

I checked the bible. It does mention exit points:
"ExitType The type of weapon exit point to use for this weapon:
-1 Ignored - weapon will fire from the centre of the ship.
0 GunPosX/Y.
1 TurretPosX/Y.
2 GuidedPosX/Y.
3 BeamPosX/Y."

Now, I am a mere babe-in-the-woods on this stuff, and, so, I have no clue what this means. How does one set Port and Starboard side exits? I couldn't find any more info on this in the bible. Is there some way of finding this stuff out, without pestering you guys?

Disregard the last. I remembered Zacha Pedro's annotated resources, which I had copied earlier, and found the info in the shan resource. I don't fully understand it, yet. But I will, after reading it a few times(I hope) :huh:

As far as AI ships I would check the flag that prevents AI use of the weap.

This post has been edited by TonyR : 05 August 2009 - 08:09 PM