• New Horizons on Maelstrom
    Maelstrom New Horizons


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Realistic Guns?

The crewmemers we can´t do (right now), because there is an animation for flying debris (after a critical hit), but none of crewmembers being blown overboard.
 
Ahhh.... free time... <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/beer2.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":beer" border="0" alt="beer2.gif" />

I might have time to work on this again soon. I just turned in my term research paper and finals end in a week and a half. My intention was to get the angle-based damage working correctly for chasers, but I got kind of lost at the bitmask idea. I'll fool around a bit with ricochets, though, when I get some time.

I heard that my mod was (successfully?) integrated into the newest version of the game with a toggle, so a BIG thanks to NathanKell for that one. I honestly didn't think you guys would be so excited about this.

What did you think about my smoke tweaks, anyway? Too much, too system-intensive, good, ugly...
 
Uh, please work on ricochets first. <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink.gif" />
Because: When the temp forum went down yesterday I didn't have a chance to post, but I've got the cannon qty and angle thing done. Just needs a little bugfixing.
The problem is I found that we can't overwrite aiballs.type because it's the good name ("balls") which the engine then later converts to index via aiballs.Balls.(goodname).GoodIndex.
So we can't overwrite that. :\

However, the nice thing is that AIBalls.Dir is saved, SFAIK. So you can just check it when you want to find out a ball's angle (that's how I wrote it, at any rate, and rewrote the dmg angle code to use it).

I also went and checked for (in AddBall, when we check numfired vs can qty) ship's cannon qty < desired qty as well, and it will create the extra balls if that's the case, so now we can give ships _more_ guns (not just less) via script.

The problem is rewriting the cannon interface to allow buying and selling of individual cannons for individual arcs.

KNB: Don't thank me, it's _your_ great code! <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/par-ty.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":cheers" border="0" alt="par-ty.gif" />

Grimm: Actually, the particles created by the blast are listed in an INI, and you can add a loman entry to it. It's not been in the build yet because of my squemish sentiments. <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/unsure.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":?" border="0" alt="unsure.gif" />
 
<!--QuoteBegin-NathanKell+Apr 19 2005, 08:36 PM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(NathanKell @ Apr 19 2005, 08:36 PM)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->you can add a loman entry to it. It's not been in the build yet because of my squemish sentiments.  <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/unsure.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":?" border="0" alt="unsure.gif" /><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
And of course I can be expected here to step in and second that. <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/yes.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":yes" border="0" alt="yes.gif" />
Like your new sig :wink

Oh, and Cat, so sweet the smileys are back! <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/william.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":will" border="0" alt="william.gif" />
 
Finally finished the destroyable cannons mod.

Inez: <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" /> Heh. Like I said, it's time for a positive one. <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" /> Too bad I couldn't fit the whole song, but that's a bit much. <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/happy.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="^_^" border="0" alt="happy.gif" />

Yours is better though. :fb <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/par-ty.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":cheers" border="0" alt="par-ty.gif" /> (Deed rather than word & all that... <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/happy.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="^_^" border="0" alt="happy.gif" />)
 
<!--QuoteBegin-Inez Dias+Apr 19 2005, 01:33 PM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Inez Dias @ Apr 19 2005, 01:33 PM)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Oh, and Cat, so sweet the smileys are back! <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/william.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":will" border="0" alt="william.gif" /><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Thanks... They're not ALL back, and I've got soem work to do on them, but it's a start. <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/dunno.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":shrug" border="0" alt="dunno.gif" /> :fb
 
Now that bombs are disabled for ships (right?), is the damage done by balls more effective? I know it usually took <i>forever</i> to sink an enemy. Has that been changed?
 
Ehhhh... uh...

Not as such.

Engagements between ships of the same class take just about as long as before. Engagements between ships of different classes will most likely be much shorter than before. <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink.gif" /> A frigate will kill a sloop in only a few broadsides. If a sloop could kill a frigate, it would take forever. A pair of sloops or frigates can kill each other in 20-30 minutes or so.

....or that's what I was kind of going for, at least. I'm sure it needs balancing, but it's not supposed to be easy to take down a larger ship. I boosted the cannon damage (9pdrs are now baseline, and everything bigger does exponentially more damage), but I increased the load times as well. Guns also do very little damage outside of 800 yards, but the old guns couldn't shoot past 500 yards, so there's not a whole lot of a change there.

The range dropoff is probably a bit too severe, but it was hard to tweak the formula. I didn't derive any real KE formula from the drag on a sphere; I just made a formula that looked "about right." If anyone knows what a good approximation of the drag formula is, doesn't care about transonic drag, and likes to solve second-order differential equations, they might want to look into fixing this.
 
I don't fit any of the above, but you might get some info on NavWeaps's tech page ( <a href="http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/index_tech.htm" target="_blank">http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/index_tech.htm</a> )--those articles used to be up on Warships1, for those who've heard of that site.
There's IIRC an article on calculating shell drag, but it's geared towards 20th century shells (cone+cyl shape) not balls.
 
You mentioned smoke, Bozo... Is that why I keep getting all these random black puffs of smoke all over my ship in battle? I'm not sure if I have your cannonstats or not; I do if it was included either in Pieter's latest pack or whatever it was NK put out that I had so much trouble installing.
 
Dunno. If it's black smoke _on firing_ it's him.
If it's black smoke on _hits_ it's me; I got rid of the red hits and replaced them (via the USE_PARTICLES toggle) with full-on Ship_Serious_Booms (like you'd get on crits), and the crit with Ship_Detonate.
Didn't seem rigth from balls and grape to _explode_, nor you not see little pieces of ship go flying.
But it's probably hard on the GPU.

In the latest (not up yet) version, USE_PARTICLES is three-way; 0 is stock, 1 is black smoke rather than red explodey fire on hit (and SeriousBoom on _cannon destroy_ so you can see it), 2 is stuff flying but less smoke, and 3 is the full-on-replace that you have now.
 
<!--QuoteBegin-NathanKell+Apr 22 2005, 08:50 AM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(NathanKell @ Apr 22 2005, 08:50 AM)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->I don't fit any of the above, but you might get some info on NavWeaps's tech page ( <a href="http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/index_tech.htm" target="_blank">http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/index_tech.htm</a> )--those articles used to be up on Warships1, for those who've heard of that site.
There's IIRC an article on calculating shell drag, but it's geared towards 20th century shells (cone+cyl shape) not balls.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That the formula is written for modern shells doesn't matter a lick, actually. The formula's valid as long as you use the right coefficient of drag for a sphere. The coefficient of drag of a sphere varies wildly depending on speed, but we might be able to ignore that and just say C_d = 0.5 or so.

With that formula, you can determine the drag on the sphere at every point in time. It seems plausible that you could also determine how much work would be done on the sphere if it traveled any distance d, but I have absolutely *no* idea how to do the math.

What I wrote in the code -- a power relation with completely made-up coefficients -- might not be accurate, but it at least makes some sense.


As for smoke, I put big black puffs in the huge white puffs in order to get a kind of shifting gray type of effect. It didn't work too well, but it worked well enough that I left it in.
 
<!--QuoteBegin-alan_smithee+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(alan_smithee)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->You mentioned smoke, Bozo... Is that why I keep getting all these random black puffs of smoke all over my ship in battle?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->Doesn't that happen when your ship's set on fire by CCC's Captain's Challenge mods?
 
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