possible alternates to beam weapons

[Litcube]

My man TrixX suggested starting a new thread so as not to sully the sanctity of an alternate topic of discussion. This thread is for discussing possible alternates to beam weapons. Namely, taking the beam flag off, while still having a beam like effect in game: High/instant hit percent.

Paul, to answer your question, the beam I made is very similar to the Ion Shard Rail gun. It doesn't look as convincing a beam as I suspect you might be hoping for.

But we can play around with alternates. I guess this is the place to post em'.

[Mizuchi]

I'm not sure if this is in the spirit of what you're intending, Mr. Cube, but I thought I'd offer an opinion anyway:

Those who use CMOD and have played around with Split Capital Ships may have noticed that the Phased Array Laser Cannon has become less of a conventional beam weapon (as we understand them via Laser Towers), and more of a fast point defense laser against fighters and missiles.

Personally, I think this is a better use of beam weapons than the big "anti capital ship" DoT lances of energy overall (within the mechanics of the X3 engine), though others might not agree.

Admittedly, this is less of an "alternative to the beam flag" than a repurposing of what's already available; but someone might be able to take part of what I've written and run with it in a future idea.

Stimulating the discussion and all that.

[Litcube]

Yeah, I'm all for re-purposing the available laser slot. What's the CMOD version of the PALC do, if you don't mind?

[Osiris454]

The only problem with beams that I see at the moment is that they remain locked in space when fired. For a beam weapon to truly be affective it has to have the ability to track moving targets in real time. This is probably an engine issue rather than anything else, but that seems to be the main hurdle for beams.

[TrixX]

Actually Point Defence Beams like the implementation in CMOD for the PALC is where I was heading with some of the beams for XTL.

I still think having big lightsabre's of death is fun though

paul's suggestion in the other thread regarding hitboxes is interesting though, if they could affect targets that pass through the beam it would be a very clever re-purposing of the games mechanics

[Litcube]

I'ma try it. I'ma get back to everyone.

[Nafensoriel]

Dumb question... Can models pass through a ships model or must they terminate when the "hit" occurs? Or.. more to the point.. can you faux a model to only register at the say.. halfway point? Not toyed with weapon bullet models yet just station models.

Just thinking this could give you a beafy "beam" weapon that visually looks like it is punching through the ship. Might try it this weekend time permitting.
------------
I think we should establish what a beam weapon is by canon.. Can't really work on looks until you establish the whys and hows.

So what do we know about X universe beam weapons?
-Quasi realism instead of absurd mechanics. The game heavily leans to "probable" science rather than the usual impossible science. So with this said beams would probably be intended to function much like real lasers. Fast hitting, very accurate, extremely power hungry, high heat(in x terms large cargo for cooling systems)
-Varried mentalities between races. PALC is more a phalanx type weapon while the TriBeam and Fusion beams are more standard fair laser/ion beam methods. Tooltip/canon suggests turn rate would be the limiting factor in every beam weapon except the PALC.

So we can assume..
1]Lifetimes which appear to be short or bullets which have a visual "range" to suggest the actual travel time of a beam of light over many seconds.
2] Sluggish turn rates for capital grade weapons.. worse than PPC most likely.
3] High energy usage.

Heck given the above we can replicate beam weapon mechanics visually with the current game beam system. It's only when we assume that we need to fit a gun in every turret that we break the realism factor. but....
A more bullet like laser could be more interesting if we consider something that really hasn't been brought up before...

Pulse lasers.
Short length, fast speed, and extremely short lifespan and you could easily replicate a visual pulse laser effect that would be very believable.
If you could get it right a cloudish particulate field would give a more ion type feeling and add some flavor.

Actually whatever method you take.. short lifespan is pretty much critical to immersion. Light weapons that last to long look ridiculously fake. CMOD's version of ion cannons is a clear example of this in the "random bar of light in space for 4 seconds" issue. When more than one beam from a single turret is up the cross effect is extremely degrading to visual effects though at the current time(in this case) it's required for balance.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

My man TrixX suggested starting a new thread ...

The intent of the thread I created to discuss the Mechanics of what Egosoft have provided us with and so it can be used as-is, discussion of alternates was already being covered "on topic" in the CMOD thread.

This thread is for discussing possible alternates to beam weapons. Namely, taking the beam flag off, while still having a beam like effect in game: High/instant hit percent.

c/f Flak weapons with high bullet speed and long bullets/trails basically.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

Dumb question... Can models pass through a ships model or must they terminate when the "hit" occurs? Or.. more to the point.. can you faux a model to only register at the say.. halfway point?

There is only one bullet implementation that supports pass-through/multi-hit and that is PSG/AoE type lasers.

[s9ilent]

Sorry if I'm misinterpreting the purpose of this thread (Ways of leveraging more weapon slots so the player can use lasers with out it becoming hugely imbalanced, i.e. in the scope of beam age)


Idea1
I don't know if this would work but it's just an idea, make beams rather horrible BUT give them the charge up flag, such that when fully charged, their damage is increased considerably. This way you can't instantly destroy swarms of fighters with lasers auto aim + holding down the fire key.
The AI naturally can not leverage the charge up ability of the beam. (Wish they could, posted on l3+ideas for script commands for them to use charge up powers, but alas, still nothing)


Idea2
Make them use ammo to discourage extended use, or use against smallish targets. (Although I suspect this might be counter-intuitive to the purpose of this post)


Idea3
Make them vs shields only (so they are incapable of godly destruction)



Crazy idea4
I don't know if it will work. Make the rapid box of the "regular" laser, really small, such that it can NOT actually hit anything. Next give it the charge up flag, where it's rapid box expands (one of the charge up options). This way it will only hit, after x seconds of charge up.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

Idea1
I don't know if this would work but it's just an idea, make beams rather horrible BUT give them the charge up flag, such that when fully charged, their damage is increased considerably. This way you can't instantly destroy swarms of fighters with lasers auto aim + holding down the fire key.
The AI naturally can not leverage the charge up ability of the beam. (Wish they could, posted on l3+ideas for script commands for them to use charge up powers, but alas, still nothing)

Crazy idea4
I don't know if it will work. Make the rapid box of the "regular" laser, really small, such that it can NOT actually hit anything. Next give it the charge up flag, where it's rapid box expands (one of the charge up options). This way it will only hit, after x seconds of charge up.

I have already tried adding charging to Beam weapons and it does not work, though adding charging to the pseudo-Beam weapons proposed by LitCube might be an idea

Idea2
Make them use ammo to discourage extended use, or use against smallish targets.

An idea, and it may be worth trying out (Crystals for Ammo perhaps). However, I have a feeling that it may not work (EDIT: Confirmed - under player control only 1 unit of ammo is used per press of the fire key/button when applied to beam weapons).

(Although I suspect this might be counter-intuitive to the purpose of this post)

But not necessarily to the wider discussion of my thread. In fact, trying the ammo parameter out on Beam weapons may lead to a greater understanding of their mechanics.

Idea3
Make them vs shields only (so they are incapable of godly destruction)

Not a bad idea, basically a more controllable IonD.

[TrixX]

Roger the point of this thread was to not derail yours, but also to stop the derailing of the CMOD thread.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

Roger the point of this thread was to not derail yours, but also to stop the derailing of the CMOD thread.

Fair enough, although I think a better thead title may be in order. At the moment it is just an attention grabber and not very indicative of purpose.

[paulwheeler]

Sorry I've not been in these discussions much, but I'm up to my eyeballs decorating the bathroom at the moment!

Anyway, I did mess about with the CMOD ISR implementation to see if I could get a convincing beam and it just wasn't happening.

From my understanding of the hitbox (or rapid box and the X3 editor calls it) it can be made as big or as small as you want. I have already reduced the size of the Gamma Kyon box for the next CMOD update and it does make it less effective against small targets. Not only is it less likely to hit at distance, but the ships leave the box much quiker too.

The hit box has little effect on accuracy against big ships simply due to the ship size.

Alot of the fps problems with beams are caused by the repeating impact effects and sounds when the beam fires. As the beam fires the effects are rapidly repeated and they overlap and I think its this overlapping that creates a fps issue. In the CMOD I have removed all impact and effects and sounds and it does seem to have helped with the fps. However, the I left the impact effect on the Gamma Kyon as it looked good. The repeat rate of the impact effects is probably timed in with how the damage is done too.

The only way to get around the continuous firing beam bug when fired manually is do what I have done in the SRM and only allow beams in turrets.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

The only way to get around the continuous firing beam bug when fired manually is do what I have done in the SRM and only allow beams in turrets.

I would argue that this is not a bug as such (see my discussion on beam game mechanics for details)

WRT the alternate implementation, how about trying something along the lines of your CMOD Gauss Cannon... from a screen shot I saw it looked beam like.

[Mizuchi]

Yeah, I'm all for re-purposing the available laser slot. What's the CMOD version of the PALC do, if you don't mind?

I'm a little late in the thread with my reply, but here are the stats from Tbullets:

Hull Damage: 600
Shield Damage: 1800
Energy Used: 35
Launch Delay: 0
Lifetime: 0.2 s
Speed: 13000 m/s
Range: 2600 m
Impact Effect: -1

So basically they're a close-range quick anti-fighter laser that chip away at shields and hull in fractional-bursts, rather than (charged?) lancing beams of light that deal damage over time.

In a nutshell, they go "Pew-pew-pew-pew" and cause mischief.

There's no after-effect of the beam: it just fires and then dies again, without any lasting glow.

The effect is similar to the PBE, I suppose; but at the same time it's different enough to not just be a cosmetic effect.

I wonder: maybe the thing to do with anti-capital ship beam weapons would be something similar?

If you (the general "you") extend the range and speed to keep the damage up, keep the lifetime so short that it's not a DoT weapon that depends on remaining on-target, and then change the delay between the times it can be fire to balance it all out, that could be a possibility?

Like classic beam weapons from Freespace, I guess. They take time to recharge between shots?

That way the AI should ("should") be able to use them without the effectiveness of the beam depending on it being a) Charged, and b) Keeping the beam on-target (which, obviously, the AI can't do very well.)

All theory, of course.

[Litcube]

Hm. I'm curious what it looks like. Are there screen-shots of the lasers posted somewhere around here? I didn't see any in the CMOD forum.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

I wonder: maybe the thing to do with anti-capital ship beam weapons would be something similar?

If you (the general "you") extend the range and speed to keep the damage up, keep the lifetime so short that it's not a DoT weapon that depends on remaining on-target, and then change the delay between the times it can be fire to balance it all out, that could be a possibility?

Like classic beam weapons from Freespace, I guess. They take time to recharge between shots?

That way the AI should ("should") be able to use them without the effectiveness of the beam depending on it being a) Charged, and b) Keeping the beam on-target (which, obviously, the AI can't do very well.)

All theory, of course.

If you note the current results of my thread on beam mechanics the problem is that Beams are at their core hard-coded to be a DoT weapon.

If the Bullet-Duration is less than the firing interval you will end up with the beams different perceptions. In AI hands the damage will be dealt quicker and at intervals. In player hands the damage will be dealt slower but consistently while the trigger is held and for a short time after the trigger is released (based on bullet life).

If the bullet duration is greater than the firing interval you will probably end up with the beams being more effective in AI hands than player hands and potentially have greater FPS performance issues due to drawing of multiple beams rendered on top of each other.

The only effective balancing factors (for hard-coded beams) while maintaining equal balance/perceptions in both player and AI hands is rate of damage v. energy cost and rate of fire which will limit how many different targets can be fired at over a given period of time (quoted per minute typically).

For alternate implementations the balancing issues are the same as for any projectile based weapons as the "Beam effect" will be purely visual.

[jlehtone]

My man TrixX suggested starting a new thread so as not to sully the sanctity of an alternate topic of discussion. This thread is for discussing possible alternates to beam weapons.

May I humbly suggest that you would consider a more descriptive thread title? At least when compared to the other thread title, "new beams" does not tell much. Besides, word "new" gets old too quickly.

[HotSake]

I'm fully aware of the potential FPS and friendly fire issues, but if you desire a beam to pass through the target and strike ships behind it, it has to be a PSG-style AOE weapon, correct? If its rapid box expands slowly enough that it effectively has a 1 degree or less affected area, would it appear to be a penetrating beam? This may be the only solution if your primary concern is that the beam continue past the target.