[SUGGESTION TO DEVS] Weapon modding

[Shuulo]

Hi,
May I kindly ask Devs to consider the following changes to weapons behavior modding? This can also benefit future weapons creation for DLCs etc.

1. I noticed that its impossible to add particle or trail emitters to weapon projectiles, though it worked in XR iirc. i tried to add those to different parts in components.xml but failed. Particles are not being "released" by projectile, but move with it, like being tied to its physics, so a smoke particle emitter just makes a cloud in projectile that moves with it. If this can be changed I would really appreciate it.

2. Beam weapons that have a bit of recharge time between shots still generate heat if the trigger is pulled, though there is no beam as its on recharge, maybe this can be changed somehow to follow the logic of regular weapons?

3. Its impossible to add "chargetime" to beam weapons (where "attach"=1) as with it added beams will never fire, I tried to add a cool effect for heavy capital beam weapon, where it charges first with nice sound and then releases the beam, but i failed miserably due to this possible "bug". It would also be good to have a mandatory chargetime for weapon, eg if trigger is pressed onse and released weapon still takes time to charge and then fires automatically upon full charge, in contrast to when trigger must be held down and then released when charged to fire.

4. It would be very cool if we can set a parameter for a beam to shoot for its whole "lifetime" as currently, when trigger is released, beam just disappears. I know it may be not relevant to vanilla, but I have weapons like in this video (blue beams), and this mechanic makes it not that effective when AI decides to change its target in the middle of firing sequence due this weapon having a long recharge period.

5. Proximity fuse for projectiles - this was asked before and confirmed as not a priority by devs, but with the implementation of flak guns in 3.0 I though it would not hurt to ask again

Would appreciate any input from devs on those.
Thank you for making our favorite game better with each patch!! Love to the team.

[sco1981]

Hi,
May I kindly ask Devs to consider the following changes to weapons behavior modding? This can also benefit future weapons creation for DLCs etc.

1. I noticed that its impossible to add particle or trail emitters to weapon projectiles, though it worked in XR iirc. i tried to add those to different parts in components.xml but failed. Particles are not being "released" by projectile, but move with it, like being tied to its physics, so a smoke particle emitter just makes a cloud in projectile that moves with it. If this can be changed I would really appreciate it.

2. Beam weapons that have a bit of recharge time between shots still generate heat if the trigger is pulled, though there is no beam as its on recharge, maybe this can be changed somehow to follow the logic of regular weapons?

3. Its impossible to add "chargetime" to beam weapons (where "attach"=1) as with it added beams will never fire, I tried to add a cool effect for heavy capital beam weapon, where it charges first with nice sound and then releases the beam, but i failed miserably due to this possible "bug". It would also be good to have a mandatory chargetime for weapon, eg if trigger is pressed onse and released weapon still takes time to charge and then fires automatically upon full charge, in contrast to when trigger must be held down and then released when charged to fire.

4. It would be very cool if we can set a parameter for a beam to shoot for its whole "lifetime" as currently, when trigger is released, beam just disappears. I know it may be not relevant to vanilla, but I have weapons like in this video (blue beams), and this mechanic makes it not that effective when AI decides to change its target in the middle of firing sequence due this weapon having a long recharge period.

5. Proximity fuse for projectiles - this was asked before and confirmed as not a priority by devs, but with the implementation of flak guns in 3.0 I though it would not hurt to ask again

Would appreciate any input from devs on those.
Thank you for making our favorite game better with each patch!! Love to the team.

To your first point, do you mean something like this?

[Shuulo]

No, this are the trails directly in projectile mesh.
What I meant are more like missile trails or smoke trails from X3 FBL launcher, or you can try to deploy countermeasures, you will see they have smoke trails, but these cannot be used in weapon components due to the issue i described, all particles just move at the same place with projectile.

[Misunderstood Wookie]

I think the words he is looking for is component level particle fx , otherwise effects which are not baked into the mesh or textures.

[Shuulo]

I think the words he is looking for is component level particle fx , otherwise effects which are not baked into the mesh or textures.

Exactly, if this would work, you can create a limitless variety of projectiles, just by changing lens effect, trail and particle emitter

[Misunderstood Wookie]

I legit thought you could do this I guess you cannot do this with weapons but it works with other things ?

[Shuulo]

I legit thought you could do this I guess you cannot do this with weapons but it works with other things ?

With what other things? I dunno really why its different for projectiles

[Misunderstood Wookie]

I must of mis understand, doesn't x4 use components for effect's in other areas besides weapons?

[Shuulo]

I must of mis understand, doesn't x4 use components for effect's in other areas besides weapons?

It does, like with countermeasures, its smoking trail effect is added in its component file.
But if you do the same with weapon it will not work, smoke particles will be generated but they will travel with the projectile making small cloud inside it and moving with it, there will be no smoke trail, particles are not left behind projectile.