Changing GPPC to beams

[Genoce]

When i bought X3, i was looking for something like Homeworld 2.

What i found, i loved, i have to admit

But theres one thing i miss...

The ion cannons from the capital ships

I was wondering if someone could give me a hand turning the GPPC into a beam weapon.

I chose the GPPC because its not on the front mount of the Titan, but the sides. Which is probably the closet im going to come to the HW 2 destroyer

Can someone give me a hand doing this?

My past modding experience involes solely changing the amount of energy i get out to Shield shunt

[Thera]

In Theory, you could just edit the Tships using x3editor and add Gamma kyon Emitters to the Titan, and either script yourself some, or collect them if your lucky.

What I was thinking though would be to make it more like the wraith weapons in SGA, and increase the speed of the PPC's but also increase the speed of the balls of white destruction. this would mean when you fire, it sends out a fast burst. Theoritically though changing both to very fast would draw that much fire so quickly it would look like a beam weapon, though the kyon solution would be easiest.

[Genoce]

Hmmm...

I've seen beam weapons on Xtended mod

I was thinking something more along the lines of the laser tower weapon

but bigger, and maybe a different colour

[Tenlar Scarflame]

I actually managed this by changing the PSG's into beam weapons. I switched the animation with the lasertower animation, messed with some stats (amped up the damage and beam duration, vastly increased energy drain and recharge time), and came up with a long-range capital bombardment weapon, ineffectual against small targets (made the hit box tiny so it's basically impossible to hit things smaller than M6) but devastating against frigates and other more lightly-shielded capitals. Much like the Ion Frigate in Homeworld. ^^

That and, the PSG was just starting to get on my nerves. But that was my solution.

EDIT

Thought I might point out, this means that every now and then you'll encounter a fighter that mounts some nasty anti-capital punch. Since lots of fighters can mount BPSG's. It was actually quite alarming the first time I ran into some random pirate that was suddenly handing my Reaver its own ass on a plate

[Genoce]

could you possible tell me how to do that Tenlar Scarflame?

That suits just well for me actually, cept im just going to have to figure out how to put some PSG on certain capital ships...hmm

[Lancefighter]

actually, changing PSG's into beams sounds like an awesome idea. No more annoying AoE weapons shooting down my poor buster... and then I might actually use them because they dont eat my fps for breakfast.



Note - If you want, in the jobs.pck, you can change ships to disallow them to carry PSG type weapons...

I might just do this.

edit

if i might ask, what exactly did you do? (could i get a copy of the tbullets/tlasers files?)

[Tenlar Scarflame]

I'd be happy to show exactly what I did to tbullets/tlasers... you'll have to wait til tomorrow though, I don't have my X3 machine right now.

I largely used the lasertower weapon as a reference, just vastly increased the damage and made the refire rate very low. As the caliber of the weapon increases, the duration of the beam increases as well (2 seconds for APSG, up to 6 seconds to GPSG) They actually don't work the way I intended if you're personally sitting in the turret firing them, as the beam will continue as long as you keep the trigger pulled, but no more energy will be drawn from the energy bank. I just have to trust myself not to cheat there.

The balance I was seeking was an alternative capital weapon that has a significantly decreased damage per second output when compared to the PPC (a little more than half), but much longer range (the GPSG can now reach about 9-10 km) and incredibly powerful individual volleys (a pack of four GPSG's can strip about an eighth of a K's shields in a single volley- it just takes 30 seconds to reload). The GPPC then becomes the shorter-range killing-blow weapon.

[Lancefighter]

mmm that actually makes sence, some type of artillery beam...
I can wait till tomorrow, it will be a bit before I can actually play around with it anyhow... damn school :\

[Kainx17]

sounds wicked

its to bad cap ships cant mount a couple big beam cannons on the front jumping from turret to turret is kinda irritating I would much rather get to line up the main cannons and fire

[Genoce]

Couldent you mod a ship to have a front array?

I'm really thinking of doing this, it pisses me off that paranids are the only one with artillery, and even then its in XTM

[LokRar]

someone on the XTM forums is apparently working on something similar.

http://www.thexuniverse.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7440

Its a bit old though, so I have no idea if he/she has any work done on it.

Sick picture though...

[Tenlar Scarflame]

Yup, basically the same idea there. I'm back on my X3 machine so I'll upload here in a sec...

[Tenlar Scarflame]

Okay, here's the biggest changes I made- I decided not to upload the actual file, as the version of tbullets/tlasers I was working with was the XTM version, which includes their sounds and impact effects, which not everyone has.

Okay, to start off, take the PSG bullet entries and uncheck "Areal" for all of them, and check "beam." After that-


APSG (SS_BULLET_WIDE_ALPHA) changes in tbullets:

Code: Select all

Body file:          10385
...
Hull damage:        7000
Shield damage:      73500
Energy used:        833
Lifetime:           2.0 s (2000)
...
Range:              8 km
...
Rapid Box Width:    0.065
Rapid Box Height:   0.065
...

BPSG (SS_BULLET_WIDE_BETA) changes in tbullets:

Code: Select all

Body file:          10385
...
Hull damage:        8800
Shield damage:      85000
Energy used:        1500
Lifetime:           4.0 s (4000)
...
Range:              10.3 km
...
Rapid Box Width:    0.065
Rapid Box Height:   0.065
...

GPSG (SS_BULLET_WIDE_GAMMA) changes in tbullets:

Code: Select all

Body file:          10385
...
Hull damage:        21200
Shield damage:      399200
Energy used:        3333
Lifetime:           6.0 s (6000)
...
Range:              12.6 km
...
Rapid Box Width:    0.065
Rapid Box Height:   0.065
...

There was only one big change for each file in tlasers, and that was the refire rate- 6 rounds per minute for the APSG, 5 for the BPSG, and 3 for the GPSG.

You can also change things such as the impact effect (looks good with XTM's PPC impact), sounds, weapon volume, and the like.

EDIT- disclaimer, I'm not entirely sure what this does to the PSG in OOS combat. If you notice Pirate Busters armed with PSG's single-handedly taking down destroyers OOS, please say so.

[Lancefighter]

thanks mate, much love for this

[TAShively]

Can you pm me with a download please? I don't want to take the risk of screwing my game up, because I'm not very good at editing the t files.

[Tenlar Scarflame]

TAShively, do you have XTM? I'm afraid the t files I have would probably crash a non-XTM game, as they use XTM's sounds and bullet impacts. If you do have XTM, though, they'd most likely work on your X3. ^^ I could PM them...

If you got a wild hair to do it yourself though, it's not a terribly complex edit. And if you do manage to screw something up, you can always simply delete the new cat/dat with your changes in it, and the game will revert back to the old PSG's.

Thanks for everyone's interest in my humble edit, I'm just glad I could finally be of some miniscule service on this forum