[MOD] Turret Fix - 75 ships

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

Gazz wrote: This is always false:
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			I
			I ______
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			 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.

fud · Post by **fud** » Thu, 11. Dec 08, 15:02

I'm waiting until Gazz finishes this before I update/coordinate with him for TP/TS docking.

That's also giving Ashley some more time to get her XXL mod going, then I can restart, a 10th time....

devir · Post by **devir** » Thu, 11. Dec 08, 15:28

I got around to merging this mod in with the complex Cleaner and took a swing around some pirate sectors to test out the "fixed" turrets.

All I can say is "HOLY !@#%". The game actually provides a challenge now. Once easy to take down M7's like the Carrack are now deadly opponents ripping my agile Springblossom to bite sized chunks in seconds.

I'm completely amazed that a simple camera alignment can rebalance the game to make it actually challenging

I see X3 TC as a really nice framework, and the modders are the ones actually making X3 into the game it is...

MARS, Complex Cruncher and the turret fix are quite possibly the best mods/fixes/improvements for the game to date.

spacefueladdict · Post by **spacefueladdict** » Thu, 11. Dec 08, 15:41

@ devir

I see X3 TC as a really nice framework, and the modders are the ones actually making X3 into the game it is...

MARS, Complex Cruncher and the turret fix are quite possibly the best mods/fixes/improvements for the game to date.

Here-Here! I second the motion

Gazz · Post by **Gazz** » Fri, 12. Dec 08, 07:53

Bunch added and gave the Tiger a new cockpit, too.

BTW: The Tiger is no longer inferior to the Panther on all accounts. =)

The large OWP should be far harder to outsmart, too. It's a real fortification now.

aquemnun · Post by **aquemnun** » Fri, 12. Dec 08, 09:56

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.

*pictures removed to save space*

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.

Dude that is acctually an awesome looking turret. if you could make something of that design for a capital ship I'm sure it would look awesome. Think the same but have the barrels aligned vertically instead of horizontallyto give an X shaped fire pattern insted of a line shaped one.

also to the creator of this turret fix mod: GREAT WORK!!!!!!! I hope that you will give the Q the deadliness it deserves (IE make use of that rear turret thats sits there and doesn nothing

)

tontonfred · Post by **tontonfred** » Fri, 12. Dec 08, 16:21

Just to make sure how this works : I am using this AND your complex cleaner mod. This means if I want to use both, I cannot use one of them as a mod and need to apply both as fake patches (ie numbered CAT/DATs), right ?

Also, I am flying a Panther as my personal ship. If I understand what you wrote in the description, every time I load a game, I should leave the ship and go OOS in order to fix the turrets ?

Sandalpocalypse · Post by **Sandalpocalypse** » Fri, 12. Dec 08, 16:35

No, once you've 'fixed' it, that's enough.

Whenever ships change sectors, the game reloads certain data from the file rather than from the saved state. That's what you need to have happen.

Caveat: If you reload the old unfixed save, you're also reloading the old unfixed save state, so it's best to save once you've 'fixed' things.

***

The game loads resources in a certain order. First it checks the numbered .CAT/.DAT files in the main directory. If the same file exists in multiple .CAT/.DATs, it uses the version from the highest number CAT. Then it checks the selected MOD to see if it has any of the same files, and uses those files in preference to any of the numbered CATs. The catch is that you can only have one mod selected at a time, so if you want to load any additional .CAT/DAT files you have to put them in as numbers CATs in the main directory (the False Patch method). Other than the order in which they are loaded there isn't any real difference between loading a file as a mod and loading it as a false patch.

If you have two CAT/DAT files with completely different contents, it doesn't matter whether you apply both as false patch or use one as a mod. However, if some of them have different versions of the same file, then it does matter; whichever one is selected as Mod takes precedence, as does whichever archive is numbered higher.

Vicrry06 · Post by **Vicrry06** » Fri, 12. Dec 08, 16:48

Out of curiosity, has the 1.3 patch fixed any turrets or should I look into getting this to work as a false patch?

Cadvan · Post by **Cadvan** » Fri, 12. Dec 08, 18:13

as far as i've seen this work startet after 1.3, so these are all fixes for 1.3

tontonfred · Post by **tontonfred** » Fri, 12. Dec 08, 18:30

@Sandalpocalypse : thanks for the clear and detailed reply. I can rest assured now