Are making custom weapons a pain in the butt?

[BNG Da BZ Fool]

I made some custom air units for some air death match maps, but I found most of the existing guns, cannons, rockets, and specials somewhat inadequate for my air units weapons layout. I basically want to create a custom gun and rocket and specials weapons set tailored for use on rather fast jet fighter aerial based dog fighting craft. Basically, I need guns with a 200+ meter range and fast image or thermal locking missiles as unit engagement will be primarily to/from the rear in a typical dog fighting environment. I never really attempted making custom weapons, but have some experience modifying existing unit ODF files.

Is the process the same with modifying weapons odfs? What are the minimum number of files that are needed to create a typical gun odf?

A rocket odf?

A special odf? I noticed just recently that mines are typically used as special weapons. Sadly, when I was searching for actual special weapons the list was rather short, but then purely by accident I realized that any mine would work as well. I don't want to use the fountain mine (excellent weapon), but way too powerful for my custom air units as their health is set very low at 500. This was by design to ensure ship destruction as typical air units are harder to hit then typical BZII ground based units. Also, the aircraft class lacks an actual ai process, so it's well suited for use as a human piloted vehicle ideally suited for death match scenarios.

I have about half a dozen such units constructed so far and if anybody wants to use them you can PM me with an email address as to where to send the files; filefront is on the rag again so I can't upload anymore files. I'll zip them up though and send them to whoever has a desire to use them freely for their own personal use. BNG.

[General BlackDragon]

Look at existing weapons of the similar type that u want to create. Like chaingun and shadower. The files are something like this:

a combat/assault form of each: G file (one with g infront) is the weapon inside the ship, the one referanced as ordname inside that, is the bullet/missile itself. There are 3 explosions referanced inside the bullet/missile for each impact surface.

Look at how the stock files work, and modify them to create your own. you dont HAVE to have a combat/assault form, you can just remove the "altname" from the g file and use only 1 version if you like.

[BNG Da BZ Fool]

My weapons layout has a set of guns (Solar), missiles (Laser Guided), cannon (Charge Pulse), and special (Chain Mine). All are adequate except the Solar guns existing range 150 meters. I want to increase that range to 200 meters.

The assault version GSPLAS_A.ODF file I'm using is the file I want to modify. Could I just save as, rename it GSPLAS_A200.ODF change the AI range to 200, save it and edit the model odf to use this version instead of the original for my Solar gun variant? The weapon appears to fire at a rate of 4 rounds per second. Will doing this method work or do the other assoiciated files need to be modified as well? 

[General BlackDragon]

LOOK at the files, the commands in them are self explanitory.

for modifying fire rate, the "g" file contains that. for modifying range and damage of the projectile, the launched odf from the g file controls that.

Basically, when making weapons, start with the G file, wich looks like this:

Code Select Expand


[WeaponClass]
classLabel = "machinegun"
altName = "gminigun_a"
ordName = "minigun_c"
wpnName = "Minigun"
fireSound = "gmini01.wav"
wpnReticle = "gminigun"
wpnCategory = "GUN"
isAssault = 0
flashName = "gminigun_c.flash"
aiRange = 105

[CannonClass]
shotDelay = 0.1
shotVariance = 0.01

[Flash]
renderBase = "draw_geom"
textureName = "sflash.tga"
textureBlend = "one one modulate"
startColor = "0 127 255 255"
finishColor = "0 0 255 255"
startRadius = 2.0
finishRadius = 0.75
animateTime = 0.1
geomName = "g_sflash.xsi"


These vary according to differnt launch types, some things like multilock's g file looks very different, its based on classlabel.

study and reverse engineer stock things. Once you have experimented and have a firm grasp on what every single line in the odfs do, then you can expand upon that and experiment with things using the understanding you gained.

Its how i learned to mod.

[BNG Da BZ Fool]

I modified the Solar Gun by opening the original GSPLAS_A.ODF and SPLAS_A.ODF and then saving as SPLAS_A200.ODF and GSPLAS_A200.ODF my variant of the weapon now has a 200 meter range and a  higher shot rate. I placed the modified files under a folder called BNG Air DM Assets. Then I just had to modify the model odf entries for hp_gun_1/2. This stuffs a ton of fun to do.

I may do the same with the laser guided missile by increasing the shot speed a bit but the range on it is more then enough already at over 310 meters.