Some questions for the weapon modders.
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if you ever want: you can put just about any value to the const_effect parameter that is equal to a value of a nickname parameter within an [effect] section. what ever you know to be a trail effect can be your projectile’s constant effect. ofc some fx are too small, such as the artifact glow, some others are too large, such as e.g. the nomad hypergate, but technically all are possible. even engine trail effects. it’s just about whether you’d like your projectiles to emit such effects or not. you could also make it a sound fx or null fx and create an admin gun with irrecognizable projectiles. for not challenging you too much that soon i won’t go further into the possiblities of effect making by coding entirely new ALEs.
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This sounds like the moment I made the battleship gun buyable without adjusting anything else, then suddenly had a gun about 5 times the size of my fighter sticking off a hardpoint, talk about funny.
But after looking through all the INI files I still couldn’t seem to find where missile trails are, if I want to tweak them I’ll have to get into the .cmp right? And that’s more then simple text editing?
On another note one cute toy to share as I was playing with dispersion angle, and it’s actually kinda fun! Not to mention cool looking if you use a graphic like the lavablade projectile. Reminded me a lot of the old school scattergun from the colony wars games.
After that a friend dared me to turn it into a full on shotgun, so I tried to do so by adjusting the power usage so 40 bullets would eat the entire energy gauge. (The spread) Then set the refire to low enough that it would in theory fire the entire 40 bullets in a second. (.025 refire rate) Course by the end I had to tweak it faster, and on a whim i even set it to .000001 in an effort to crash FL But it seems there’s a hardcap somewhere. Even when set that low it still took right around one second to empty the power gauge.
Here’s the settings if anyone wants to play with it. Added in an explosion tab as well to help with the inaccuracy. Currently it’s only accurate at around 350M and down, but if you get close in with it, downright lethal little toy. Though it might still need a little more damage, not sure.
[Explosion]
nickname = shotgun_explosion
effect = li_missile02_impact
lifetime = 0.000000, 0.000000
process = disappear
strength = 100
radius = 12
hull_damage = 75
energy_damage = 0
impulse = 0[Munition]
nickname = shotgun_ammo
explosion_arch = shotgun_explosion
hp_type = hp_gun
requires_ammo = false
hit_pts = 2
detonation_dist = 6
hull_damage = 75.0
energy_damage = 0
weapon_type = W_Laser01
one_shot_sound = fire_laser1
munition_hit_effect = li_plasma_01_impact
const_effect = li_plasma_01_proj
lifetime = 0.800000
force_gun_ori = false
mass = 1
volume = 0.000100[Gun]
nickname = shotgun
ids_name = 263357
ids_info = 264357
DA_archetype = equipment\models\weapons\li_heavy_ion_blaster.cmp
material_library = equipment\models\li_equip.mat
HP_child = HPConnect
hit_pts = 400
explosion_resistance = 1.000000
debris_type = debris_normal
parent_impulse = 20
child_impulse = 80
volume = 0.000000
mass = 10
hp_gun_type = hp_gun_special_1
damage_per_fire = 0
power_usage = 37.5
refire_delay = 0.020
dispersion_angle= 4
muzzle_velocity = 750
use_animation = Sc_fire
toughness = 1.300000
flash_particle_name = li_plasma_01_flash
flash_radius = 15
light_anim = l_gun01_flash
projectile_archetype = shotgun_ammo
separation_explosion = sever_debris
auto_turret = false
turn_rate = 90
lootable = true
LODranges = 0, 20, 40, 80, 100 -
Want to try something even funner than what you have done?
Go in and edit the gun to have four hpfire hardpoints, then you would have a true shotgun. Just you will have to do one of the workarounds that are needed with the multi hpfire weapons.
lonestar out . . .
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But beware that every HpFire will cause an energy drain…
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Quarks wrote:
But beware that every HpFire will cause an energy drain…Thanks for reminding me that, So your guns power usage for six hpfires that is hte max i belive, is engery_usage*6= totaly power used. So If you have 100 and usage your gun will use up 600 engery.
I had a six shot turret like gun, it was anti-fighter defence for a huge carrier ship I was making. But I was unable to get sound for it and i think gave up. Plus I was having issues with my models and stuff. The ship carryed one MASSAVE triple barrer turret, and then six of the other turrets three on the right side, and three on the left. But it just keep crashing out on me and I gave up on the weapons.
Oh on a sidenote, Has anyone been able to make a single gun barrel model that has a recoil animation when fired?
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Plus I was having issues with my models and stuff. The ship carryed one MASSAVE triple barrer turret, and then six of the other turrets three on the right side, and three on the left. But it just keep crashing out on me and I gave up on the weapons.
The reason for this crashing is that freelancer can only support up to seven HpFire’s on a single model.
Oh on a sidenote, Has anyone been able to make a single gun barrel model that has a recoil animation when fired?
Some of the vanilla models have animations with them, i don’t know if freelancer will actually call on them even if they are referenced with the use_animation = in the gun block. but it is worth a try.
Ozed
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lol No I had one three hp fire mega turret, and six of the shotgun six hpfire turrets on the model. not one Triple turret with 6 hpfire on each barral.
I would get one of the two models to show up, Two get the big mega turret to work I’d have to use normal freelancer weapons, Or not have the mega turret on to get the shoutgun turrets working.
It is kinda like the trouble I was having when I had two custom made ships at one ship dealer. the ship details and ship icon showed a differant ship, but the ship in the hanger of the ship dealer was the same model.
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So a question on a different track today, as I tried to make an info card for my weapons, but it’s just not working for some reason.
Found a tutorial on lancers reactor, seemed to follow every step right, here’s the rundown.
Added my own .DLL into the EXE directory.
Added that DLL into the resources in freelancer.iniUsed fled-ids to get an ids_name (458753) And used the next value for ids_info (458754).
Put weapon name in 458753, hit save. Done.
Put weapon info in 458754, saved it, and have since reloaded the xml code from the javelin, then retyped everything to make sure i didn’t delete a bracket by accident, saved it again.
Used 458755 and 458756 as the name and info for hawk_ammo
Changed ids #'s in weapon_equip to match the new ids name and info.
Weapon name shows up in the store properly, as hawk missile (class 1) But it still has the info text for the javelin. Doubly confusing as the name and info text for the ammo is working just fine.
Thought the mistake was tied to the ids #'s in weapon_good which I hadn’t changed. So I fixed them to 458753 and 458754. And now I’m just getting a blank text box when I look at the missile in the store.
Any idea what’s being done wrong here?
EDIT: Well Partial never mind, I solved the problem by addng an additional IDS name and info for weapon_good using 458757 and 458758. Though I’m still slightly confused here, do I need a custom IDS name and info for a gun in weapon_equip, then another different pair for weapon_good? And if so, why is that?
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Short answer is no you don’t. Look at any of the weapon entries in weapon_equip and weapon_good inis and you will see they all share 2 ids numbers only, one for the name and one for the info. Same numbers are used for the goods entry.
So to sum up, you only need two numbers to do this, if it’s not displaying properly, nine times out of ten it’s a typo.
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Check your dll by opening it with ResHacker.
FLed-ids and FLID Referrer both sometimes:-
a) fail to write the entry because the dll is write-protected but they don’t tell you that they failed to write.b) write it as language entry 1033 - if it already exists in the dll as language neutral (0) then you see the original entry only and it may be blank or the old data. You need to delete the language 0 node and then change the language 1033 node to language 0. ResHack allows you to do this.
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So now that I think I’ve got the IDS issues sorted out (thanks for the tips) Couple graphical questions.
#1 Beamspear looks more suited for projectiles with big heads and more narrow tails. While the values under beambolt seem suited for more elongated (or pencil shaped I guess you could say) projectiles?
#2 Regarding that I’ve come to love the Kusari capship graphic (ku_capgun_01_proj) And wanted to play around with it, tweak the color some and all. But unlike the some of the other capship graphics it doesn’t seem to have an entry in beam_effects.ini. So does anyone know where it would be hiding, or pehaps I should just attempt to recreate it using a custom beambolt?
#3 Does the size of a beam have any impact on it’s accuracy? Say just for a silly and extreme example you made a laser bolt that took up a third of the screen. Impossible to miss with, or does some core or center point of the beam have to hit the target for it to count as a hit?
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Just for a little update I think I solved the IDS problems I was having. Genius me still had FLserver up and running while trying to edit IDS’s. And for some technical reason that kept them from saving properly. Haven’t had any problems since in that regard. But am having a color me confused moment regarding the scatterguns I’ve been making.
The weapons all have an explosion tab added in above munition and gun, along with a detonation distance value (despite being modeled off the info and stats from a liberty plasma cannon) And I know the explosion part is working, I can fire at tightly packed npc’s as they spawn for a mission, and I’ll damage all three.
Problem is I wanted to make a mini mine launcher / flak cannon, crank the det distance up way past what normal missiles or mines have, along with a bigger blast radius to boot. But it doesn’t seem to be working visually or otherwise. I tried some above normal values like 100 radius and 50 DD then went silly and even raised them up to around 10000 then even 500000 just to see what would happen.
As for what didn’t happened, I get the feeling either i ran into another hardcap of some kind i’m unaware of, or just missing something in the weapon itself. Here’s what it looks like currently too
–--------[Explosion]
nickname = scattergun_explosion
effect = li_missile02_impact
lifetime = 0.000000, 0.000000
process = disappear
strength = 100
radius = 10
hull_damage = 125
energy_damage = 0
impulse = 0[Munition]
nickname = scattergun_ammo
explosion_arch = scattergun_explosion
hp_type = hp_gun
requires_ammo = false
hit_pts = 20000
detonation_dist = 6
hull_damage = 125.0
energy_damage = 0
weapon_type = W_Laser01
one_shot_sound = fire_plasma1
munition_hit_effect = li_plasma_01_impact
const_effect = li_plasma_01_proj
lifetime = 0.800000
force_gun_ori = false
mass = 1
volume = 0.000100[Gun]
nickname = scattergun
ids_name = 458779
ids_info = 458780
DA_archetype = equipment\models\weapons\li_heavy_ion_blaster.cmp
material_library = equipment\models\li_equip.mat
HP_child = HPConnect
hit_pts = 400
explosion_resistance = 1.000000
debris_type = debris_normal
parent_impulse = 20
child_impulse = 80
volume = 0.000000
mass = 10
hp_gun_type = hp_gun_special_1
damage_per_fire = 0
power_usage = 5.090000
refire_delay = 0.060000
dispersion_angle= 4
muzzle_velocity = 750
use_animation = Sc_fire
toughness = 1.300000
flash_particle_name = li_plasma_01_flash
flash_radius = 15
light_anim = l_gun01_flash
projectile_archetype = scattergun_ammo
separation_explosion = sever_debris
auto_turret = false
turn_rate = 90
lootable = true
LODranges = 0, 20, 40, 80, 100 -
Do the projectiles explode when they hit something? Is it just the explosion distance that does not work then?
Have you tried setting this up as a missile (with a seeker = dumb)?
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Yes, if the bullet actually scores a hit I get the explosion effect as you would with a missile. Nice normal radius too like it’s still set around 16 or so.
May try setting in seeker = dumb, but not sure how well it’ll work, seems like every time I try to make a laser into a missile by adding homing and such into the gun, or a missile using laser graphics for the projectile effect things get wonky. Still worth a go though, i’ll see how it works.
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Forgot I still had the blast radius set at 10000
fires gun once
watches entire area around Planet LA go hostileYeeeeah adding seeker = dumb gave it missile like properties without a doubt, now if I tweak the blast or det dist it behaves at those ranges.
But on the downside this has caused one other lil problem, FL is treating the gun like a missile launcher. So holding down right mouse won’t chain fire it anymore like with lasers. The only way I can get a fire rate that makes it effective is to click right mouse like mad, or hold down the fire missile button, which is a no go when other missiles are equipped on the fighter.
Tried the fire weapon group buttons too but no luck there, any suggestions on how to get around this problem?
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LOL force_gun_ori as Force Gun Orifice hehe how about ‘Force Gun Orientation’ since it deals forcing the orientation into a single direction
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Dragonkat im working on same thing. Will let you know if i come up with anything…
- Gypsy
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I happen to like Orifice - the Liberty Cruiser has an Orifice!
Bleaagghhh!!
Get back to finish the sur builder, you loungeabout!
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Hahaha. Hush ST. When its done it will be soooo helpful, so let him get on with it at his pace… Which i hope is really fast haha.
Also Dragonkat. I suggest looking at SilverFires weapons. You might get a better understanding of what you want from his work.
