[MOD] Turret Fix - 75 ships

OOZ662 · Post by **OOZ662** » Wed, 10. Dec 08, 08:13

Argh, FAIL!

I apparently have only noticed bugged turrets in the past, as I've always seen them pointing perpendicular to the hull. Thinking about it now, I remember that the correct ones are parallel. I feel retarded now.

*slumps back into cave, coddling MSPaint with shifty eyes*

Gazz · Post by **Gazz** » Wed, 10. Dec 08, 12:30

OOZ662 wrote:Argh, FAIL! :lol: I apparently have only noticed bugged turrets in the past, as I've always seen them pointing perpendicular to the hull. Thinking about it now, I remember that the correct ones are parallel.

With TC that is not even surprising. I think the Panther was the only ship I found where the top/bottom turrets were placed correctly.

Going by a vague report in the MARS thread, Panther may yet be "bugged".
Not as in "lasers cant shoot at all" but it looks like the camera is mounted so far from the turrets that short range lasers like PBE can never actually hit the target because the turrets are out of range while the camera says "in range, fire free".

That's another issue I fixed for several of these ships without expressly mentioning it. Osaka side turrets for instance.
While I'm at it, may as well do it right.

tene · Post by **tene** » Wed, 10. Dec 08, 13:20

Can turret miss because of camera misplacement?

Boreas hit rate at long distances it awful - it can fire for several minutes at target from different directions and never hit it. Yesterday tested it on akuma - circled around it for 5 minutes - only several shots was on target.

xiriod · Post by **xiriod** » Wed, 10. Dec 08, 14:38

Gazz wrote:Going by a vague report in the MARS thread, Panther may yet be "bugged".
Not as in "lasers cant shoot at all" but it looks like the camera is mounted so far from the turrets that short range lasers like PBE can never actually hit the target because the turrets are out of range while the camera says "in range, fire free".

That's another issue I fixed for several of these ships without expressly mentioning it. Osaka side turrets for instance. While I'm at it, may as well do it right.

I am glad you fix this issue with the Panther, I am about to use mine very soon

Looking forward to hearing how bad it really was

Also, did you check the Tiger for this too? It seemed to fire it's PBE's at me while I was 1.3-1.4km away, and missed of course.

Gazz · Post by **Gazz** » Wed, 10. Dec 08, 15:01

tene wrote:Can turret miss because of camera misplacement?

In some cases and with short range lasers - yes.

Yesterday tested it on akuma - circled around it for 5 minutes - only several shots was on target.

In that case, try the MARS script. It does bad things to fighters circling something like an Akuma.

nemesis1982 · Post by **nemesis1982** » Wed, 10. Dec 08, 16:00

Could you add the Panther. A number of it's turrets have become unusable in my game...

Don't know if it's because of camera placement though. I can't get into the turret.

Gazz · Post by **Gazz** » Wed, 10. Dec 08, 17:19

xiriod wrote:Also, did you check the Tiger for this too? It seemed to fire it's PBE's at me while I was 1.3-1.4km away, and missed of course.

The tiger was one of the first ships on the list and at first I only did superficial changes like only the angles.

At some point I thought "to hell with the ES design" and just moved around everything so the ships would work.
Some like the Calamari just had basic design flaws that had nothing to do with the sloppy modeling.

It works but no idea if it's working perfectly.

nemesis1982 wrote:Could you add the Panther. A number of it's turrets have become unusable in my game...
Don't know if it's because of camera placement though. I can't get into the turret.

That sounds more like you modded TShips and messed up.
My mod does not change anything with the Panther.

xiriod · Post by **xiriod** » Wed, 10. Dec 08, 19:30

Did you have a look at the Dragon btw? That top turret seems like it is somewhere other than on top really. I know the Dragon probably is a low priority ship but it can be used quite effectively in the hands of a skilled pilot because of its speed and sleek profile

I am not sure if the Heavy Dragon has the same issue though.

I wish Egosoft gives you a signed copy of the game or something for your work in this. You truly make this game more enjoyable, there is no doubt about that!

Gazz · Post by **Gazz** » Wed, 10. Dec 08, 19:53

That's a perfectly fine rear turret.
Since it only mounts small lasers now that's actually better than a top turret.
Ideally the entry in TShips should be changed to say rear turret.

xiriod · Post by **xiriod** » Wed, 10. Dec 08, 20:16

Gazz wrote:That's a perfectly fine rear turret.
Since it only mounts small lasers now that's actually better than a top turret.
Ideally the entry in TShips should be changed to say rear turret.

Yes, either or. I knew it felt like a rear turret, and not a top one. That's why I asked you. This is actually fine for a Dragon, as they are fast it is nice that you can strafe with your rear turret as you go. But yes, the info should have been changed. Thanks though!

kamikazepenguin · Post by **kamikazepenguin** » Wed, 10. Dec 08, 20:44

Gazz wrote: This is always false:
Code: Select all
			I
			I
			I ______
         I/      \
         /        \
			----------
				 II
			 XXXXXXXX

This. This right here is what the Odin looks like. Ugh.
The Woden, though, I like the way they did the turrets on that- the 30 degree angle? Doesn't look bad.

Cadvan · Post by **Cadvan** » Wed, 10. Dec 08, 20:50

in german forum we have allready testet
all usc ships
all atf ships
and told gazz the errors we found.

maybe we should all together test them through so we have at the end all ships testet and funktional.

missing on list are still (execpt allready repaired)
terran: agi and aldrin
and all others races

if i'm wrong and a race is complete testet too please tell me so, as i try to keep track

Gazz · Post by **Gazz** » Wed, 10. Dec 08, 20:56

kamikazepenguin wrote:The Woden, though, I like the way they did the turrets on that- the 30 degree angle? Doesn't look bad.

The looking good part amounts to 90 % of the turret issues.

Look at the large orbital WP. The turret mounting plates show that they were beautifully arranged to form a perfect star.
Wonderful picture.
Utter crap in game.
X3 turrets don't work like that.

This mod is probably the most game-balance changing mod of all but I cleverly managed to sell it as a bugfix...

exogenesis · Post by **exogenesis** » Wed, 10. Dec 08, 21:20

This is very interesting....damn good job with the fixes (so far).

I'm trying to get my head around all this, i.e. how the turret's motion is limited by placement (or mis-placement) &/or turret camera placement.

With your Xenon K fix, from badly rotated down turrets (turret bodies inside the ship!) to odd looking 90 degree mounting,
I can see & understand the 'firing cone' is far better i.e. firing cone is downward.
(If one considers the turret motion to be un-limited by the ship body / cockpit camera position).

But a nice looking down turret mounting angle (180 deg scene-file rotation) doesn't have a 'down-looking' firing cone any more than the original orientation.
(-all this is assuming a maximum of +/-90 deg turret body rotation & +/- 70 deg barrel tilt - which obviously must be being limited by some in-game process?)

[ external image ]

Are you saying ES didn't design the turrets to look correctly mounted, as well as at the same time having a firing cone covering the intended 'direction' ?

Gazz · Post by **Gazz** » Wed, 10. Dec 08, 21:34

The actual firing arc is the area where camera and turret arc overlap.
The camera has to see what the turret can shoot. The turret has to be able to aim at that target.

Now put a downward looking camera into that picture and you cut off all the turret arcs above the ship.

There is no bigturret model that has the mounting plate behind the lasers so there (usually) is no pretty way to align up/down turrets.

Properly correcting all the models is way beyond the scope of this mod so I hack the scene files and call it good.
Judging by all the reports, it is more than adequate.

exogenesis · Post by **exogenesis** » Wed, 10. Dec 08, 23:49

So what's really needed for up & down turret sets is a proper specific up & down turret model with the plate behind the barrels.

Or perhaps follow Jakesnake's fix by modifying the turret model axes & using GUNPARTF_ROTATEGAMMA | GUNPARTF_ROTATEBETA
instead of GUNPARTF_ROTATEALPHA | GUNPARTF_ROTATEBETA flags in dummies.txt ?
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php? ... 32#2006732

DeadlyDa · Post by **DeadlyDa** » Thu, 11. Dec 08, 03:49

As part of some testing I'm doing on "unique" ship configurations, I built an M6-sized 4-laser turret.

I just noticed this discussion, and can say with some certainty that your thoughts concerning the design of the turret/laser configuration are correct.

Here is an M3P that will be in the last version of my X3R mod(s). It only has 4 front weapon mounts and a single laser turret in the rear...but mounts the M6 4-laser turret on the bottom. It is very effective at clearing out anything in the lower hemisphere.

I don't have any in-game shots of the 4-laser turret firing, but I have observed it in combat and can assure you it works...even if it does look butt-ugly on a fighter.
[ external image ]
[ external image ]
[ external image ]
[ external image ]

The laser model is fully animated, and it's quite amusing to drop down into it and sit behind the 4 lasers as you track/fire on targets.

However real beauty of this particular laser model is that I can simply rotate the base pillar 90 degrees, and have a standard Egosoft 4-laser firing pattern.

Gazz · Post by **Gazz** » Thu, 11. Dec 08, 05:50

exogenesis wrote:So what's really needed for up & down turret sets is a proper specific up & down turret model with the plate behind the barrels.

Well, that would be the best looking way to fix it but would probably require actually changing all models instead of just the scene files.

That would require a modeler to fix aka not me.

spacefueladdict · Post by **spacefueladdict** » Thu, 11. Dec 08, 13:15

Hi gazz, fantastic work you're doing here, i'm sure that a promotion must be awarded for this.

just another 2 to add to the ever increasing list.

1: the Heavy dragon. the top turret, has four gun mounts, all fire while the turret is pointing forward and up, but when they point either left or right then only two of them on the corresponding sides fire.

2: The Heavy Centaur. i believe that egosoft have fogotten to add a turret in, if you look on at the front of the ship, at the bottom of the front hull you will see a complete turret there, it does not register in any of the turret menus.

TSM · Post by **TSM** » Thu, 11. Dec 08, 14:32

DeadlyDa wrote:As part of some testing I'm doing on "unique" ship configurations, I built an M6-sized 4-laser turret.

I just noticed this discussion, and can say with some certainty that your thoughts concerning the design of the turret/laser configuration are correct.

Here is an M3P that will be in the last version of my X3R mod(s). It only has 4 front weapon mounts and a single laser turret in the rear...but mounts the M6 4-laser turret on the bottom. It is very effective at clearing out anything in the lower hemisphere.

I don't have any in-game shots of the 4-laser turret firing, but I have observed it in combat and can assure you it works...even if it does look butt-ugly on a fighter.
[ external image ]
[ external image ]
[ external image ]
[ external image ]

The laser model is fully animated, and it's quite amusing to drop down into it and sit behind the 4 lasers as you track/fire on targets.

However real beauty of this particular laser model is that I can simply rotate the base pillar 90 degrees, and have a standard Egosoft 4-laser firing pattern.

DeadlyDa Nice to see you still about and that ship looks quality

, hope to see you modding for TC.