Equipment Damage via Target Selection Menu or INI Damage Spe

Thu Nov 11, 2004 1:59 am by Spasian One

I was just curious about something... the game makes it possible to select the equipment of enemy (and friendly) ships while in the Target menu. Could this possibly signify that that piece of equipment is targeted, and that you will shoot at it? This theory comes from what you could do in Mech Warrior games. You could select certain portions of a mech to attack, and therefore disable that mech in an appropriate way. i.e. Destroy the legs of a mech, and it falls over and cannot move.

I was just wondering if that is possible in the game, or if it's possible to specify where damage is induced via the weapons_equip.ini.

Perhaps a line that looks like this?

hull_damage = 10, HpShield01
or
hull_damage = 10, HpWeapon01
or
hull_damage = 10, HpTorpedo01

or maybe even

equip_damage = 10, HpShield01

However, there are some problems with this, as the only items that would be universally targetable are things that every ship has, for example engines, thrusters, weapons, countermeasures, and mines. Since not all ships have hardpoints for shields (battleships), or torpedos (light fighters).

I do have another idea, though. In the Target menu you could select a piece of a ship (with much difficulty) and a line in the weapons_equip.ini file would specify whether or not a particular weapon can target like that. Like this:

target_equip = true

[shrug Just an idea...

Thu Nov 11, 2004 8:34 am by Argh

OK, here's what I think is how that works:

1. You can definately target sub-objects on a model.

2. Your weapons will not be auto-aimed at that part (that'd be a little too easy, dontcha think?) and there is no way (that I know of) to make auto-aiming work. I've read some articles about it and performed some experiments, so I don't think you can do this.

3. You CAN make parts on ships... that if destroyed, destroy the ship itself. IOW, you can give ships "weak spots" where if you target them and shoot them, the ship goes "boom", even though it hasn't lost its hitpoints. But this is not easy, and for a custom ship, it'd involve a multi-mesh with destroyable parts. I have not yet advanced to that level of skill in ship-making yet (it's in the "frickin' difficult" category). But it can be done.

Thu Nov 11, 2004 9:06 am by Furious

Actually, targeting a piece of equipment just moves the targetting point from the ships center of mass to the targeted item. If the ship sits still and you line up properly you will hit the equipment and perhaps destroy it. This works wonders for stripping the turrets off of capships, and is especially useful with missiles as they will home on that target.

If things are moving around a lot it might be hard to hit that target.

Thu Nov 11, 2004 10:21 am by Spasian One

Well, that's disappointing... then again... maybe there is a way to makeshift something that will work. Ok, how does this sound:

Super fast, super tracking, non-[Explosion weapon that only does damage at zero range from target (i.e. doesnt do anything unless it hits exactly where you aim). There is still the difficulty in selecting the equipment, but yeah....

Edit: had some other thoughts

What if you were to set the "Radius =" entry that is usually under [Explosion to -1. What would that do?

Also, I have had a lot of difficulty figuring out what a few things do exactly, I can sorta see results, but sometimes things end up... unexpected:

[Munition
seeker_fov_deg =
max_angular_velocity =

What are the best/max values for these two? And what on earth does the first one mean?

Edited by - Spasian One on 11/11/2004 10:28:09 AM

Thu Nov 11, 2004 10:42 am by J Dawg

@spasian= Seeker_fov is the warheads seeker feild of view, measured in degrees. Set it to any value 0<x<360 (not inculding 360 as the game treats it as zero). Angular velocity is the turning rate of the weapon. Accelaration in the part for the motor is the speed. Some fun can also be had using the motor delay parameter, which lets your super-manuverable weapon just sit in space for a determined amount of time. Useful in a dogfight: You see a battle coming, use thruster and engine kill to run away, and fire all your torpedos (changing the torp refire rate to .2 or so). After the time delay (10-30 seconds is fun- during which time the projectile is still tracking the target), the motor ignites and the missiles fly back in the opposite direction and destroy the target. This is also useful for attacking a friendly target as it can give you the needed time to punch those cruise engines and escape.

Thu Nov 11, 2004 11:02 am by Argh

Hey, what you're talking about there might just work, for a self-targeting weapon system... the only problem that I can see is that I think you still need to have a target in your POV before you can get missiles to lock. Try it out... I'd be very interested in the results, if it works.

Thu Nov 11, 2004 4:11 pm by J Dawg

Actually, as long as your have your target selected, they can be anywhere (as long as they're not directly behind you), and the missiles will track. What matters is the Missile's field of view, not your own. If you said the explosion radius to be very small, say half a meter or so, you would garuntee that only a direct hit (while hard to get) would destroy your intended target. I was considering turning some of my ideas here into a heavy weapons pack (making torpedos and disruptors have odd or obscenely overgrown stats for entertainment and unique mission profiles) but i need to find someone to place them into FLMM format as I am completely inept at such things as XML coding.

Thu Nov 11, 2004 5:30 pm by Spasian One

Well, I guess that answers my question. Here's another one for you guys:

Is it possible to make weapons that completely penetrate shields? Let's say I have a ship that finds me to be too difficult of a target, and starts to run. I hit them with a cruise disruptor, and target their engines via the target menu (is targeting engines even possible?), I then fire a bunch of 3 damage pulse or maybe even "bullet" weapons that destroy the engines... know how this would work?

Thu Nov 11, 2004 8:29 pm by J Dawg

I don't think destroying engines is possible, but you could up the energy damage specs on the cruise disruptor to say.... 15000 to ensure it would destroy any shield in game (with the exception of the uber-shield. ). There was something in the inforcard for the Paralyzer missile that said it would drain ships energy (like weapon energy) upon impact, maybe take a look at that. What I want to see happen is a weapon that impacts and explodes with energy damage, waits a second or so, and then explodes again with hull damage ( I think this is accomplished in Rebalance somewhere with the cruise missiles) after the shields have failed.

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