Missile Coding

[[MDB:effect_types.ini]]

Just filled that page, hope it helps

@pbubble:

Note that any radius higher than the hardcoded maximum draw range or the maximum effect view distance will not be used, defaulting to the hardcoded maximum instead.

Is it about vis_generic, vis_beam, etc in limits breaking list?

That and the draw distance (far plane of view frustum), yes.

Some nice info FF

We need more like this… easily explained line for line… brilliant!

Actually, it’s not. BasicApps only have a single size (they’re square particles), their width.

Only SubEntry matters, always going like this:

SubEntry = time, width, time, width, time, width...

Remember that time always goes from 0 to 1 in these cases. The time is proportional to the Appearance’s Emitter lifespan value, so 0 is 0 and 1 is whatever life the particle has as defined in the Emitter.

There’s no such thing as a “missile_trail_length” parameter. ALE edition isn’t easy: you need to understand how the ALE works in order to edit it. If you don’t want to crack your skull open quite a few times trying to figure out what does what, you’ll never be able to edit ALEs to your likings.

For instance, the missile trails you’re asking for are just stationary particles emitted from a moving source. Hence, if you want to make the trail longer, you need to alter the particles’ lifespan.

However, explosions are moving particles thrown away from an otherwise stationary source. In most cases, the size of the explosion can be altered by either raising the lifespan of the particles (thus creating a larger but slower explosion), or by raising the emitters’ Pressure (thus creating a larger explosion that takes as long to happen).

In both cases, though, you may need to alter other parameters to make the effect look good. An explosion may need larger particles to look good when grown larger; the trails might need more particles to look smoke-like enough if longer. It’s all of that which makes ALEs something that you need to really want to understand, not just blindly hack at.