Posted: Mon Apr 27, 2015 8:20 pm Post subject:
Airburst help
Subject description: I must be missing something...
So long ago I played with Airburst weapons, back around the time of the great crash in '07, but while I had a weird falling sprinkle effect, I called it fairy dusting, I didn't much like it...
So I've decided to revisit it with all the talk of the animation and FLH tricks to get machine guns leading. I tried like 40 combinations though and I can't seem to get something that works the way I want without killing the launching aircraft. I don't want to use TypeImmune either.
My last bunch of test code seems to have totally lost the clustering effect of the airburst, and now pops out sequentially; the plane then circles back 5 times to achieve it's hardcoded ammo requirements, each time dropping the burst sequentially.
So what I'm after is the plane dropping a slow falling bomb that airbursts at about cliff height, which exhausts the 5-shots without having to circle back, and where the plane has to be at or past the target to not shoot from a distance.
I even had a weird effect with one set of changes that made the bombs behave like scared fish, zooming towards the target, pausing then turning away scooting off into the shround, then coming back to repeat like curious fishies... was hilarious to watch but obviously not useful.
One set of edits I seemed to have the airburst working right up the ass of the plane, but having a series of explosions in the sky was obviously not right. My last test using Vertical + Dropping didn't seem to want to attack the target... I'm probably too close to the problem to see it.
So after a bunch of trying different combos I broke the bombing and got lots of intense staring at the target...
But finally after MORE tweaking, I got back to an earlier state where I wasn't entirely happy with the way the bombs work, only this time it doesn't seem to stop! Just makes pass after pass dropping bombs in a line...
As you can see in the cluster pics, the individual bombs are highlighted falling, but the airburst appears to happen at ground level instead of overhead? This might have to do with the ordinary unguided bomb projectile I chose for the cluster?
I just did a test substituting one of my larger ROT=100 missile projectiles for the cluster and it's behaving more like it should... although I think ROT needs to be much lower to appear to fall.
Cluster doesn't work with Airbrust I know. If you want drop 5 bombs only but not airburst, replacing Airbrust tag with Cluster=2, Cluster=1 never work.
You should first check out what exactly the keys do, before you just randomly slap them together.
Airburst= when set, the projectile will try to fly over the target instead of hitting it directly and explode in midair above the target. Then release AirburstWeapon at this point.
G-E wrote:
although I think ROT needs to be much lower to appear to fall.
ROT= Rate of Turn. It has nothing to do with falling, it's how fast the projectile rotates. ROT=100 is instant rotation, thus the projectiles fly in a straight line towards their target (target is random when using Airburst with Cluster logic)
You can use Acceleration to slow down a bit the speed at which the projectile moves down.
G-E wrote:
Ok last question, how do I get it to only fire once? Cluster=1 doesn't seem to work for that...
Cluster= how many second stage weapons are launched. It has absolutely nothing to do with the amount of shots fired by the plane.
Aircraft overrun attacks are hardcoded to fire 5 shots for each overrun. Each overrun taking 1 ammo. To limit that to 1 shot use a dummy particlesystem on the weapon with a high enough MaxEC value on the particle, to block the following shots (a weapon can not be fired again until the PS has finished playing, thus you can block this way the 2nd to 5th shot)
G-E wrote:
As you can see in the cluster pics, the individual bombs are highlighted falling, but the airburst appears to happen at ground level instead of overhead? This might have to do with the ordinary unguided bomb projectile I chose for the cluster?
Yes, unguided projectile can't fly anymore directly above the target to explode/Airburst there.
G-E wrote:
I can't get the thing to work without Range=3 or greater, it just won't even attack...
Of course, since aircraft flying height is calculated into the range. An aircraft on FlightLevel=2000 needs a longer minimum range than a FlightLevel=100 aircraft.
No clue which amount of FlightLevel height relates to 1 Range.
I would guess something around 500. So every 500 FlightLevel you need 1 more Range.
G-E wrote:
But why do you have Arm=128? That makes no sense to me.
probably copy pasted from another weapon without taking care of it.
Though i think this key is not doing anything in RA2, only in TS it has an effect. Here's a topic about this.
G-E wrote:
So what I'm after is the plane dropping a slow falling bomb that airbursts at about cliff height, which exhausts the 5-shots without having to circle back, and where the plane has to be at or past the target to not shoot from a distance.
I doubt that is possible with rules.ini weapon coding.
a) Airburst logic needs a homing projectile-> homing projectile means it flies towards and above the target->thus no falling bomb
b) in RA2 there is no key like ProjectileRange in TS, to define the height/distance at which Airburst weapons switch to second stage weapons.
c) Having a plane drop a falling bomb exactly on the target is hardly possible. Because a higher Range will make it start firing before it is above the target and you would have to find the smallest possible Range value (considering aircraft FlightLevel), so the aircraft can fire only when very close. Due to inaccurate aircraft flight behaviour this will surely lead to aircraft sometimes not shooting at all, since it's not able to get to the exact firing point above the target.
And when you give Range a +0.5 error margin, so the aircraft fires more reliable (not circling endless above the target), it makes the bomb less accurate since it is then dropped 0.5 cells in front of the target.
d) 1 weapon shot can not take 5 ammo away. Each shot takes 1 ammo. You have to give the Aircraft Ammo=1 if you want it to attack only once. _________________ SHP Artist of Twisted Insurrection: Nod buildings
Ok well I've already got it setup satisfactorily prior to your response, and I've switched the primary projectile to invisible, that solves the graphical annoyance of a homing missile darting around. I have adjusted the speed to time the burst approximately where the aircraft passes.
To be clear the accuracy was not my concern, and Range=3 was necessary at FlightLevel=800, but also at 1200. In all cases 3 worked, but the aircraft does actually fire that many tiles away from the target. There may be a vertical range minimum, but the Range= is horizontal, I tested at 6 and 9 as well.
My Yak had a typo initially regarding Ammo= but I did fix it to 1, and that stopped the infinite shooting.
While I may still tweak the damage, I'm satisfied with the weapon itself; here's my finalized code:
Joined: 22 Nov 2010 Location: Iszkaszentgyorgy, Hungary
Posted: Tue Apr 28, 2015 12:29 pm Post subject:
Footnote to LKO's post: Cluster does not work in RA2, you always end up with 9 shots fired on second stage.
(Ares did a complete different way to customize this, instead of editing the amount of projectiles fired, it allows the modder to customize the radius getting bombed). _________________ "If you didn't get angry and mad and frustrated, that means you don't care about the end result, and are doing something wrong." - Greg Kroah-Hartman
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Past C&C projects: Attacque Supérior (2010-2019); Valiant Shades (2019-2021)
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Contributions: EE Fixpack | Enhanced Edition Trilogy | DSotSC (Trilogy) | UB_IWD | SotSC & a lot more... QUICK_EDIT
Another footnote to LKO's post: FlightLevel is measured in leptons, there are 512 leptons in a cell, therefore at FlightLevel=2000, that plane is actually 48 leptons from being 4 cells away, meaning if your target is an InfantyType, even a Range=3 weapon might not be able to reach but it can reach any VehicleType 3 cells away as vehicles, AFAIK, take up all 512 leptons.
[WeaponType]::Arm= is still used in RA2 by the V3 to allow it to explode slightly before it reaches its destination, and thus works as does LKO's research.
Figured I'd share that before I forget that info _________________ "Don't beg for things; Do it yourself or you'll never get anything." QUICK_EDIT
Well since we're all in a sharing mood, let me add* that Cluster does indeed work on a conventional missile, it spawns several explosions in the flakscatter radius. The only projectile you see is the main missile however, so you'd have to decide if the graphical inconsistency bothers you.
In my case, I use it on my Typhoon's ballistic missile, which arcs up high like a V3, and I have it rotate with the .hva to look cooler
Another footnote to LKO's post: FlightLevel is measured in leptons, there are 512 leptons in a cell, therefore at FlightLevel=2000, that plane is actually 48 leptons from being 4 cells away, meaning if your target is an InfantyType, even a Range=3 weapon might not be able to reach but it can reach any VehicleType 3 cells away as vehicles, AFAIK, take up all 512 leptons.
In the case of the cluster weapon, the homing is done entirely laterally, as it hovers at it's defined altitude (High= or VeryHigh=) it never approaches the the target vertically. In my testing, the homing projectile would launch the same number of cells away as Range= designated.
I also don't believe the leptons are calculated the same scale vertically, because of the perspective I think they scaled it down. I can't give you a formula, but I always noticed it was different when tweaking things.
I've done all my FLH adjustments by eye (a decade of modding will do that) I just know the offset I'm looking at. QUICK_EDIT
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Airburst help
