Special Weapon overhauls

[Atlantis]

posted on January 23rd, 2008, 2:38 pm

Last edited by Atlantis on January 23rd, 2008, 2:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Evenin' all,

Ok just a couple of ideas, to see what the team thinks...

Well seeing the success of the ReplaceWeapon class, I am now wondering about whether it would be possible to give the other special weapon classlabels a rework? Mostly to give them more options, more functions, etc.

Example 1: The Point Defence Laser
At the moment it fires beams[sup](1)[/sup] at ALL[sup](2)[/sup] (with no limit) torpedoes[sup](3)[/sup], with a 100% success rate[sup](4)[/sup], completely removing the incoming fire[sup](5)[/sup]. Could we not put in odf lines to specify:
1 - Ability to change what kind of weapon does it itself use? Beam, Pulse, or Torpedo?
2 - Maximum fire rate - 1 per second, 2 per second?
3 - What can it fire at? Beams, Pulses, Torpedoes, or combinations therein?
4 - Can it miss? Maybe give it a HitChance...
5 - Does it completely remove the incoming weapon, or just reduce its damage? Once damage reaches 0, maybe THEN remove it entirely. Or make it just reduce the incoming weapon's chance to hit.

Example 2: The Flux Wave, the Myotronic Inhibitor, Polaron Torpedo, the Positron Jammer, the Shield Disruptor
All of these weapons have something in common; they disable one system on the target ship. Could we not group these together into one class label with more options, like:
a) What kind of ordnance is used - Beam, Pulse, Torpedo, Mine, Wave, etc
b) Which system is hit - Shields, Crew, Weapons, Sensors, Engines - also to give it a "Random" option for the Polaron Torpedo
There's probably many more options, I just can't think of any at the moment, originally only the PDLaser was my only thought, lol.

Also I'm interested in a kind of hitchance modifying ability, to lower the chance of weapons hitting you (ECM), or to increase the hitchance of your own weapons (ECCM/ELINT)?

So what do you think?

posted on January 23rd, 2008, 10:56 pm

thanks, these are both good ideas i am not sure if these are possible, but i will find that out..

posted on January 23rd, 2008, 11:19 pm

Our faith will keep us warm. 

posted on January 24th, 2008, 2:09 am

nice Ideas also think of some of the borg diamond weapons and more options for them like nanites comp overide shield remodulation and everybodys favorite uridum burst

posted on January 24th, 2008, 3:52 am

I would like the shield remodulation to be selftargeting and not crash the game when 1. the AI tries to use it and it crashes. and 2. When i have special weapon autonomy set to Red and my cube engages it automatically the game crashes. When special weapons are set t green and i engage the weapon manually it works like a charm. I want my cubes to not have shields yet be able to "Adapt" and the theory works for the most part.

posted on January 24th, 2008, 10:50 am

Hehe, well s lot of my ideas come from Babylon 5, or at least the B5Wars board game, and I'm trying to get more abilities from this game into A2.

So a PDLaser, which fires pulses at incoming pulse weaponry, with a chance of missing, and when it does hit it significantly reduces the incoming fire's damage... would make a great Interceptor weapon for the EA. ;-)

As for the Shield Remodulation thing, I have no idea. But have you thought about just making a really powerful Regeneration weapon? That might work better for your purposes, seeing as the other thing crashes...

posted on January 24th, 2008, 11:09 am

Yep that must be a mistake somewhere in your odfs, cause self targeting shield remodulation is possible - its already used in Fleet Operations for the Dominion Siege Cruisers Phase Shield special ability

[Lt.Cmdr Worf]

posted on January 24th, 2008, 1:03 pm

Last edited by Lt.Cmdr Worf on January 24th, 2008, 1:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.

is the weapon in FO3PR? if i post my odfs can you tell me what is wrong? is TargetSelf a classlabel in A2? Or is it something that you added?

here are my odfs for my selfremod shields...

jBorgAdapt.odf

*******************************************

//Name of the ODF file for the ordinance for this weapon
ordName = "jBorgAdapto"

//Display name for this weapon
wpnName = "Borg Adaptibility"

// tooltips
tooltip = "Borg Adaptibility"
verboseTooltip = "Once the Borg have been attacked, they have the ability to analyze the modulation
and frequency of the weapons attacking them. They can then adapt to those weapons and render
them useless for a brief time."

//Location of the button in the speed panel
buttonSlot = 3

// Priority of button in the speed panel, this is only
// used if it is non-zero.
buttonPriority = 10

//Type of border to use for this button.
//0 = No border.
//1 = Offensive border.
//2 = Defensive border.
buttonBorder = 0

// Mark this as a special weapon.
special = 1

//Time Delay between shots
shotDelay = 15.0

// Range within which the weapon will fire.
range = 600.0f

//Sound which is played when the weapon fires
fireSound = "swkdethf.wav"

//Programming Stuff DO NOT CHANGE
classLabel = "toggleweapon"

//Should not be used
wpnReticle = "gblast"

//UNKNOWN
wpnPriority = 0

//UNKNOWN
wpnCategory = "TOWE"

// HIT_EVERYONE = 0,
// HIT_ALLIES = 1,
// HIT_ENEMIES = 2
hitCondition = 1

hotkeyLabel = "HOTKEY_F5"


jBorgAdapto.odf


*************************************************

//Programming Stuff DO NOT CHANGE
classLabel = "remodulation"

//Amount of time the ordinance will exists without hitting something
lifeSpan = 1.0

//Length of the shield hit animation.
shieldDuration = 1.0

//How fast the shot moves
shotSpeed = 1e6

//The sprite which is used for this ordinance
Sprite = "blphaser"

//Phaser specific: this modifies the color of the phaser
shotColor = 227

//Phaser specific: this is the thickness of the beam
Radius = 0.1

// Time to play through the animation for the sprite in seconds
spriteDuration = 1.0

// life span of the shield effect
specialValue = 60.0

// Cost of shield remodulation
specialEnergyCost = 400

// The sound of the ordinance hitting the Target
hitSound = "swbsremx.wav"

// No need to create a shield hit
ignoreShield = 1

**************************************************

posted on January 24th, 2008, 1:58 pm

oh yea, right. targetself is FO only, its been a long time since i modded the good old armada2 

you could try adding "needTarget = 0", perhaps that helps, but self-targeting is a bit tricky in vanilla armada2

posted on January 24th, 2008, 11:19 pm

well you could add that classlabel into the Patch Project next. you added a new classlabel with "replaceweapon" how about adding "TargetSelf" and then showing me how to mod it into a self targeting weapon. imagine the possibilities for that. you could make a self targeting special weapon energy recharger, shield recharger, klingon deathchant, and so forth. But the biggest thing I want for the PP next is the custom resolutions. I'm tired of playing A2 all stretched out!!! LOL FIX IT DOCA!! FIX IT!!!

posted on January 25th, 2008, 12:13 am

oh yea, right. targetself is FO only, its been a long time since i modded the good old armada2 

you could try adding "needTarget = 0", perhaps that helps, but self-targeting is a bit tricky in vanilla armada2

now I dont know what you think or what he means but it sounds like you mean "target self" as in you can use it on the ship with the weapon. but I think he means have it pick targets by it self. so automatically. just wanted to clear that up

posted on January 25th, 2008, 9:48 am

nope targetself is a classlabel in FO which chooses the weapon owner as the target of the effect, so it targets itself

posted on January 25th, 2008, 11:42 am

self targeting is possible outside of Fleetops but great news, if the AI uses it (or you put special weapon autonomy on) it will crash to desktop, so I'm all for you fellow dropping it in PP

posted on January 26th, 2008, 4:59 am

Yes precisely what Achilles said since he designed the weapon to begin with.. and it would be also cool for it to use a blank SOD so that you won't even know that the effect is on..the player will be fighting the cube and then the weapons will stop damaging it and you'll have to withdraw and regroup and wait until the effect wears off before you are able to reengage the cube