Proper "beam" weapons?

Those aren’t beam weapons, they’re just elongated single shots. In beam_effects.ini, make some code like this:

[BeamSpear]
nickname = put_your_name_here
tip_length = ; Put a large number there
tail_length = ; Put a large number there
head_width = ; Play with this, makes the beam wider
core_width = ; Play with this, makes the beam wider
tip_color = ; RGB color
core_color = ; RGB color
outter_color = ; RGB color
tail_color = ; RGB color
head_brightness = ; Play with this, makes the head stuff more apparent
trail_brightness = ; Likewise, makes the trail more apparent
head_texture = ; Can be star or ball
trail_texture = ; Can be thin or wide
flash_size = ; Increase to make a big flash when you fire the weapon

Then, you make a new effect in effects.ini, like this:

[Effect]
nickname = put_your_name_here
effect_type = EFT_WEAPON_PROJ
vis_beam = put_your_name_here

And you reference your effect in your gun’s munition definition. Make sure to put a relatively long refire delay between shots.

Of course, that’s just one way of doing it. I did mining lasers using ALEs, but that’s of course slightly more complicated

Actually I think the Tip length should be low cause the tip is generated in one step when fireing so if u got a small ship with a beam weapon and u got a effect with a long tip u will have a FX starting at your HpFire and ending far behond your ship.
Had this bug a while ago and it looked weird when your projectile start miles behond your ship.
Hope u got what i mean its not easy to discribe in with my english vocabulary

Greetz
Mind

Well instant beam weapons actually can benefit from that kind of issue. It all depends on what you want.

True!

I was sure I’d posted this but obviously not lol.

Is there any way to create a better beam effect? As most of the ones I have seen dissapear when they first strike something, which isn’t desirable.

I’m after something more like this YouTube clip, sorry massive Stargate fan here lol.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9s5v2Ksb1d8

I’m guessing the only realistic way to is to create very high refire rate and very low damage output to achieve the effect, just I’d rather it not be a spray weapon, i’d rather it just fire one straight beam and it hit without dissapearing

There’s no good way for this no. ALEs would be as close as you can get, but it’d still be mediocre at best and damage would be dealt in bursts, not continuously (also you could probably miss but still see the beam going through the ship as if you’d hit).

Looks like the old insanely high refire and low damage is the best way to go then …

Thanks

Just be careful with that as it’ll make your mod vulnerable to certain cheats and will lag your server to death if the refire rate is too high.

Any particular combination of effects then? maybe ALEs and beamspears etc to create the proper effect? Or at least a good mix of this.

Nah, there’s not a chance that’d look good. You’d end up with the disadvantages of both as far as I can tell. I don’t even see how to proceed to do the kind of beam you’re looking for, with or without ALEs. I only see mediocre solutions…

Looks like its time to encode the tractor beam fx …

i have a good high ROF beam effect. lemme find the vid file so i can show you guys.

the weapon/fx functions as a high ROF gun, the effect stays together at I THINK 20 shots per second, less than that and its starts to fall apart. neways the effect looks like a beam, you can sweep it back and forth without annoying trails and such. the problem is that if you have too many of them, you start to get some pretty bad lag, so if you’re gonna use it, have it as a large weapon or something, or have it drain LOTS of energy so it cant be fired constantly.

This is one of those types of topics that kind of bug me.

Fact: Freelancer does not support beam weapons.
Fact: Most facsimile beam effects have too many drawbacks (lag, shoddy visual effects, uber damage) to be feasible substitutions for something the game was never designed to use in the first place.

Also, attaching the the tractor beam effect to a weapon will either crash the game or cause nothing to happen, I forget which. I only know because I’ve tried it but it was so long ago I’m not quite remembering what happened. Either way, it didn’t work.

Once you learn to live with these tidbits, life gets a whole lot easier.

should have that vid uploaded within a few hours.

@Arvis: could be either way, knowing FL All I know is that the tractor, just like the engines, has a very specific syntax for many of its parameters, which is what allows it to look like a beam (just like how engines can change appearance depending on thrust %).

They just look like standard beams to me. You might want to continue playing with the settings?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4hAMJyjs7w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-Nr4FzXiB4

when the beam leaps off the fire point, thats because Fraps is screwing up the visual, its perfect in game.