Limited Firing Arcs
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posted on October 29th, 2010, 10:10 pm
Last edited by Dominus_Noctis on October 31st, 2010, 1:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.
posted on October 29th, 2010, 10:16 pm
posted on October 30th, 2010, 1:48 am
Tok`ra wrote:To be honest, I dont see the point of the small phaser array in A2, as its firing arcs cant really be implemented, unless someones found a way to have weapons fire only to a certain direction than foward.
If someone has..... it'd be a nice aft arc weapon.
If you rotate the hardpoint, then the firing arc will proceed from its facing
posted on October 31st, 2010, 1:56 am
posted on October 31st, 2010, 9:38 am
posted on October 31st, 2010, 9:58 am
posted on October 31st, 2010, 10:02 am
posted on October 31st, 2010, 10:45 am
posted on October 31st, 2010, 11:06 am
Last edited by Tok`ra on October 31st, 2010, 11:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
Its doable for the most part.
Just assign each weapon specific hardpoints to simulate this.
Here, I'll do a crappy diagram in MSpaint using a windows clock as an example.
And yes, I know this is crappy, but its 0637 and Ive barley had more than a sip of coffee yet.
Ok, imagine that these were clock facings on a galaxy saucer. ten foward is the 12'o'clock on the picture.
The colored zones are firing arcs of each phaser.
The .odf would look something like this, I'll use GalPhas as the weapon.
// Foward arc pahser
weapon1 = "GalPhas"
weaponHardpoints1 = "hp01" "hp02" "hp03" "hp04" "hp05"
//waist and aft arc phasers
weapon2 = "GalPhas"
weaponHardpoints2 = "06" "07" "08" "09"
//aft phasers
weapon3 = "GalPhas"
weaponHardpoints3 = "10" "11"
Now, you got a ship (assuming the restricted arcs get set, IIRC its the range = x command) with three phasers. They will always visably fire from seperate hardpoints. When firing from broadside, the angle were a galaxy cant fire torps normaly, you'll have a dual phaser strike like that DS9 scene were a galaxy rapes a galor, especily if you use multiple .odf's for the phasers, all using the same base .odf, so they have differnt refire rates and their fire is staggerd.
Of course, the problem is fixing the HP to a direction. If that could be done.... imagine a Galaxy with dozens of hardpoints for the phasers alone, you could do the same as above, but it'd provide seamless transitioning between hardpoints as your ship/target move.
Agreed Myles, BC's arc recharge was annoying, the whole point of the phaser array is they cover a very broad arc with the same capacitor fed by (TMP and later) the warp core, also agreed about the flying in circles,
Legacy was crap, but at least the capacitors were done right, the seperate arcs each having a seperate charge only makes sense for point phasers, anything with an array, each array should have a seperate charge, and be able to fire anywere along its arc.
Personaly I think the way arrays should be handled is a several stage system.
1- power: remaining power for that array. Goes down when you discharge quicker than it can recharge.
2- tempeture: Phasers can overheat/overload if fired too long, shutting the array (or that arc) down while power remains. Should be largley arc based, if you overheat a arc of the array, that arc is down for a bit of time (good for an arc that either isnt used much, or doesnt stay facing much, get out as much as possible, right away).
3- discharge rate/length: How much, how fast. Do you fire short bursts at a high power setting, but requiring a cool down period after a few shots ? Do you fire a sustained beam at a lower power setting to avoid over heating ? Do you fire from multiple arcs at once, allowing heavy damage ? The longer the burst, higher chance to hit an evasive target, or to damage a subsystem, the shorter the burst, the quicker the damage for slightly lower accuracy. A continuous beam would do more damge over time, but for a quick pass a quick high power beam would be best.
4- width: How wide is the beam, the wider it is, the lower the damage, but much higher chance to hit a cloaked or evasive target and at least do some damage, but the array overheats fast this way.
Actualy, it'd be kinda cool to get a bridge commander mod (or a new game, or mod of some other game) that did it like that, but also had you as the commander be able to pick firing/manuvering patterns for effect, which would also match cannon, you almost never in DS9/TNG saw 'fire port phaser' type commands, you saw firing or manuver patterns ordered, which the people at the helm and tactical stations would then feed in, and the computer would follow the pre-programmed pattern.
Just assign each weapon specific hardpoints to simulate this.
Here, I'll do a crappy diagram in MSpaint using a windows clock as an example.
And yes, I know this is crappy, but its 0637 and Ive barley had more than a sip of coffee yet.
Ok, imagine that these were clock facings on a galaxy saucer. ten foward is the 12'o'clock on the picture.
The colored zones are firing arcs of each phaser.
The .odf would look something like this, I'll use GalPhas as the weapon.
// Foward arc pahser
weapon1 = "GalPhas"
weaponHardpoints1 = "hp01" "hp02" "hp03" "hp04" "hp05"
//waist and aft arc phasers
weapon2 = "GalPhas"
weaponHardpoints2 = "06" "07" "08" "09"
//aft phasers
weapon3 = "GalPhas"
weaponHardpoints3 = "10" "11"
Now, you got a ship (assuming the restricted arcs get set, IIRC its the range = x command) with three phasers. They will always visably fire from seperate hardpoints. When firing from broadside, the angle were a galaxy cant fire torps normaly, you'll have a dual phaser strike like that DS9 scene were a galaxy rapes a galor, especily if you use multiple .odf's for the phasers, all using the same base .odf, so they have differnt refire rates and their fire is staggerd.
Of course, the problem is fixing the HP to a direction. If that could be done.... imagine a Galaxy with dozens of hardpoints for the phasers alone, you could do the same as above, but it'd provide seamless transitioning between hardpoints as your ship/target move.
Myles wrote:bc was good, the weapons arcs kinda annoyed me though, waiting for ages to the arc to recharge. i'd rather the phasers had a central power charge like in legacy.
in many mods the recharge rate was increased to get rid of that long period when the ship had no phasers lol. what was funnier was that to take advantage of all the arcs of shields and weapons, u had to fly around in circles.
Agreed Myles, BC's arc recharge was annoying, the whole point of the phaser array is they cover a very broad arc with the same capacitor fed by (TMP and later) the warp core, also agreed about the flying in circles,
Legacy was crap, but at least the capacitors were done right, the seperate arcs each having a seperate charge only makes sense for point phasers, anything with an array, each array should have a seperate charge, and be able to fire anywere along its arc.
Personaly I think the way arrays should be handled is a several stage system.
1- power: remaining power for that array. Goes down when you discharge quicker than it can recharge.
2- tempeture: Phasers can overheat/overload if fired too long, shutting the array (or that arc) down while power remains. Should be largley arc based, if you overheat a arc of the array, that arc is down for a bit of time (good for an arc that either isnt used much, or doesnt stay facing much, get out as much as possible, right away).
3- discharge rate/length: How much, how fast. Do you fire short bursts at a high power setting, but requiring a cool down period after a few shots ? Do you fire a sustained beam at a lower power setting to avoid over heating ? Do you fire from multiple arcs at once, allowing heavy damage ? The longer the burst, higher chance to hit an evasive target, or to damage a subsystem, the shorter the burst, the quicker the damage for slightly lower accuracy. A continuous beam would do more damge over time, but for a quick pass a quick high power beam would be best.
4- width: How wide is the beam, the wider it is, the lower the damage, but much higher chance to hit a cloaked or evasive target and at least do some damage, but the array overheats fast this way.
Actualy, it'd be kinda cool to get a bridge commander mod (or a new game, or mod of some other game) that did it like that, but also had you as the commander be able to pick firing/manuvering patterns for effect, which would also match cannon, you almost never in DS9/TNG saw 'fire port phaser' type commands, you saw firing or manuver patterns ordered, which the people at the helm and tactical stations would then feed in, and the computer would follow the pre-programmed pattern.
posted on October 31st, 2010, 11:17 am
posted on November 1st, 2010, 12:51 am
posted on November 1st, 2010, 1:15 am
posted on November 1st, 2010, 5:03 pm
posted on November 1st, 2010, 5:47 pm
posted on November 1st, 2010, 5:52 pm
Last edited by Tyler on November 1st, 2010, 6:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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