possible alternates to beam weapons

[Killjaeden]

Hm. I'm curious what it looks like.

Its a read beam, almost like the repairlaser, just with more *oomph* and stronger. Firing sound is also cool. And its quick firing (in AI hands).
Big improvement over the lame white vanilla thing.

[Osiris454]

I don't even know if this is possible with the engine, but here's my idea.

Assuming that the hitbox is located at the front of the fired weapon (I'm thinking it's an actual invisible cube), how about moving it to the center of the beam's duration, resizing the box so that it's the length of the beam while having the same width and height of the fired beam. This way the hitbox encapsulates the beam and anyone attempting to pass through it would be the same as if they were shot by it directly.

[Mizuchi]

Hm. I'm curious what it looks like.

Its a red beam, almost like the repairlaser, just with more *oomph* and stronger. Firing sound is also cool. And its quick firing (in AI hands).
Big improvement over the lame white vanilla thing.

Yes, that's exactly it.

It basically operates in a similar manner to the Kha'ak Kyon Emitters, only in shorter bursts.

And it really does make a "pew-pew-pew-pew" sound.
(It also doesn't blind you by engulfing the screen as some forward turrets do.)

So that'd by my train of thought: to make the other beam weapons more like that, albeit with longer delays between shots as you upscale the damage for more powerful weapons.

While I appreciate Roger's point(s), I'm a strict adherer to the KISS principle - my reasoning will always be that if you can't change the core mechanics of it easily, the next best thing would be narrow down the gap between how it functions in the (virtual) hands of the AI, and how it functions under player control, via the path of least resistance (so to speak).

And then other people can build on that and shape it with their own opinions, and thus the discussion evolves.

So the questions I feel need to be:

1) Can the default beam mechanics be tweaked to narrow the gap and replace the charge/DoT with a balanced "if it hits it hits" dynamic?

2) If not, can the beam weapons be replaced by conventional weapons that do the same thing?

3) If not, then how can the mechanics be used to benefit all of mankind?

I also don't think too great an emphesis needs to be placed on how things work behind the scenes, per se, as a lot of the engine mechanics on paper may only be cosmetic in actual real-time gameplay, from the relative perspective of the player.

At least not in this topic, but YMMV and - again - all of this is personal subjecture to mull upon, and little more.

[Litcube]

Totally agree with KISS.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

Ditto on the KISS, but nothing I have stated contrevenes that (technical explainations aside)

1) Can the default beam mechanics be tweaked to narrow the gap and replace the charge/DoT with a balanced "if it hits it hits" dynamic?

The hard-coded beams are insta-hit DoT weapons (nothing is going to change that - at least if you want to keep the AI-Player performance the same). If by narrowing the gap you mean the difference in performance between AI control and Player control then, the answer is simple (Bullet life needs to be the same as the refire interval).

It should be noted that the energy efficiency of vanilla beam weapons to vanilla capital weapons is something like 3:10 (basically vanilla capital weapons use about 30 percent of the energy for the same amount of theoretical damage).

A simple balancing factor for "hard-coded" implementation of beams might be to increase power consumption by say a factor of 10 and thus make them even more energy inefficient.

[Mizuchi]

Ditto on the KISS, but nothing I have stated contrevenes that (technical explainations aside)

Oh, don't get me wrong: I'm not saying that anything you said did. I was just putting that out there as a statement my own guiding principle and as the reasoning beyond anything I write.

Make no mistake, Roger: what you've written in this thread and the other topic(s) is interesting stuff, and I'm certain that it's all beneficial to the greater arc of the discussion(s).

(Likely more so than my rambling.)

[HotSake]

I don't even know if this is possible with the engine, but here's my idea.

Assuming that the hitbox is located at the front of the fired weapon (I'm thinking it's an actual invisible cube), how about moving it to the center of the beam's duration, resizing the box so that it's the length of the beam while having the same width and height of the fired beam. This way the hitbox encapsulates the beam and anyone attempting to pass through it would be the same as if they were shot by it directly.

Someone suggested, in another thread, using a hitbox the size of the entire beam with an extremely low bullet speed and lifetime. I don't believe anyone's tried it, but I can foresee some issues. Theoretically, it would have extremely short range and the AI would never shoot from the correct distance because it doesn't take bullet size into account. Also, if the reference point of the bullet is not at the very rear, then the "beam" will appear to either be centered on the ship or extend in the opposite direction. It may even strike the firing ship if it collides with it - don't know if this is accounted for in the engine.

[Italianmoose0]

Huzzah, I think I timed my return to a little bit of X3TC modding right. I have a problem, a phaser problem. I have the noise, but I think it may possibly be in the wrong place, as the sound of the firing loops when it's set as a beam, so I get desynchronised (goodness knows if that's spelt right) sounds-the laser fires, and the 'pew' noise is way out. This is a pain, especially as when I turn the beam flag off, the noise goes off when the thing fires. Is it possible to have the long beam model mentioned previously, but a very fast bullet speed, hopefully creating the look of a burst of light coming from the guns, which moves away quickly, or something, which would be theoretically much more like a laser, compared to the 'at all places simultaneously' beams we have now? Please ask if this doesn't make any sense, I'm a bit of a rambler ;P

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

Huzzah, I think I timed my return to a little bit of X3TC modding right. I have a problem, a phaser problem. I have the noise, but I think it may possibly be in the wrong place, as the sound of the firing loops when it's set as a beam, so I get desynchronised (goodness knows if that's spelt right) sounds-the laser fires, and the 'pew' noise is way out. This is a pain, especially as when I turn the beam flag off, the noise goes off when the thing fires. Is it possible to have the long beam model mentioned previously, but a very fast bullet speed, hopefully creating the look of a burst of light coming from the guns, which moves away quickly, or something, which would be theoretically much more like a laser, compared to the 'at all places simultaneously' beams we have now? Please ask if this doesn't make any sense, I'm a bit of a rambler ;P

Egosoft Beam type weapons are DoT weapons with very specific hard-coded behaviour, no amount of modding can change that.

The best you can hope for is getting something that looks beam like using standard projectiles (possibly with long bullet trail effects).

[Killjaeden]

how do you want to replace a beam weapon with another weapons?

It wouldnt be beam anymore (obviously). If its a high rate of fire laser then the AI also has a "dissadvantage" over the player, because it can't use the full potential. Applies to almost all weapons actually.

Also - you dont really want strong, instahit weapons. Because the player loses his ability to dodge. Which might sound fair on paper. However, if the AI would be equal to the player in terms of killing ability then the player basically loses all the time. AI can pull out new ships out of its arse and throw them at the player (in packs), the player has to use the reload button.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

how do you want to replace a beam weapon with another weapons?

It wouldnt be beam anymore (obviously). If its a high rate of fire laser then the AI also has a "dissadvantage" over the player, because it can't use the full potential. Applies to almost all weapons actually.

I think the point is that some people want the beam look but with different mechanics to what Egosoft have provided us with.

Also - you dont really want strong, instahit weapons. Because the player loses his ability to dodge. Which might sound fair on paper. However, if the AI would be equal to the player in terms of killing ability then the player basically loses all the time. AI can pull out new ships out of its arse and throw them at the player (in packs), the player has to use the reload button.

The simple solution there is to use something like EES to limit what weapons the AI spawns with. BTW as of the next release of EES, MD OBS generated ships will use EES to equip them.

[Italianmoose0]

Yeah, that's what I was thinking with a bullet model, a good long one if possible. Oh, and I hate the bloody Ka'ak, their capitals are a pain... long(ish)-range shield-removing instahit... (pardon mini-rant) A long trail effect would be good methinks... If the bullet was moving fast enough, hopefully one wouldn't notice the fact it was a bullet and just 'assume' it was a beam of some description, especially if the tail looks the same as the bullet... plus you'd hopefully get the fade-out when the shots reach max-range. If the ranges were longer we could easily get away with using a bullet as a laser, but those ranges would have to be in the thousands of klicks or so, however closer in it may be possible. Does anyone have a stretched-out bullet model or whatever that I could borrow to check it out?

[paulwheeler]

X3s particle generator engine can't handle fast moving emitters. The trail gets corrupted and you have to reduce the trail density to fix them. The faster the bullet emitting the trail travels the harder it will be keep the trail working.

[killerog]

X3s particle generator engine is very bad and broken at doing a lot of things, you can trust me on that

You would never be able to make it fast/long and high density with out X3 dieing in front of your eyes.

[Mizuchi]

Out of interest, am I right in thinking that the actual "beam" part of beam weapons is a texture?

[killerog]

Its a 3d model with a texture on it, has about 6 planes in a star like arrangement if looked at from the front (could be less or more than 6 cant remember).

[Osiris454]

Its a 3d model with a texture on it, has about 6 planes in a star like arrangement if looked at from the front (could be less or more than 6 cant remember).

The easiest way is to watch a laser tower fire. The star pattern can be seen exiting the barrel.

[killerog]

Or just view it in 3ds Max Just cant remember the number of sides, been a while since I last looked. (When I had ago at fixing beams)

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

To say that beams need fixing is to my mind incorrect/inacurrate, they do work and they do the job of being an insta-hit Damage over Time weapon. What would be more appropriate is to say that the beam weapons do not work as some people wish they would. Personally, I am neutral on the matter.

As far as I can work out there is a textured model which gets repeated along the length of the beam. The nature of the model is the same as most bullets I have seen (6 planes in a star formation as mentioned already in this post).

[TrixX]

Actually most beams are 8 planes, and are stretched to target, they are not repeated.

As paul mentioned they cause lag through repeated sound calls for firing and on hit effects as well as repeated on hit textures.

They were intended to use up energy upon use however due to a bug they can be fired with 0% energy by the player from any gun the player occupies (forward battery or turret cockpits). This does not seem to be intentional behaviour.

Not to mention that in the original vanilla configuration they are not insta-hit Damage Over Time weapons. They are insta-hit insta-damage weapons. Thus making them very very unbalanced to the rest of the weaponry present.