If the Flash Cannons worked.
Are we talking pre or post 1.4 flash cannons? Hahaha
Quote from: Xtreme on November 29, 2009, 11:52:42 AM
Are we talking pre or post 1.4 flash cannons? Hahaha
Flash cannons were a great concept, too bad 1.4 didn't allow them to be real weapons.
Eddy
I would love to know what all the fuss about flash cannons is? I only have the BZ2 one to think about...
IIRC, Nurfing
This is what recycler variants were made for...
wait... nvm.
i vote nurfer flash :)
I would occasionally use 2X 1.4 flash cannons to heat a pot of coffee on Europa.
Quote from: Blunt Force Trauma on November 29, 2009, 07:43:51 PM
I would occasionally use 2X 1.4 flash cannons to heat a pot of coffee on Europa.
Did you have enough ammo to pull that off?
Actually, they left out one word. It's not Flash cannons, it's Flashlight cannons.
Eddy
I personally prefer the term "Tickle beam".
The BZ flash cannon though was hit with a giant nerf mallet. It's a steady beam similar to the plasma stream. It used to do a large amount of damage very fast at short range, but at 1.4 it's ammo consumption was increased and damage decreased by alot. It caused the weapon to be really weak in single player and downright useless in multiplayer.
I think maybe due to being able to load a GT with it. It can be modified so that that can't happen.
My guess is they made it weaker because people would use dual flash cannons in Strat and it would just level a base way too quickly.
So... stepping back maybe it's best they made it weaker.
They missed the mark when that weapon was rebalanced. High damage should mean high ammo usage and low damage should mean low ammo usage. But there's a point where damage is so low it becomes useless and ammo usage is irrelevant . Think of the pilot rifle with unlimited ammo. It's possible to destroy something with it but you'll be found before you get the job done.
Flash cannon damage should be about half way between where it was and where it is now. Then set the ammo usage to be comparable to other weapons like dual mags or dual SPs.
In BZE, I put flash cannons on the GTs and it looks awesome when they fire. They aren't really better than blast though, I lost more bases using flash than blast.
Eddy
I'd vote for alittle more damage, mainly because the range of the flash cannon is extremely short already and could be easily ranged by other weapons like Blasts and SPs.
Although making the flash cannon work for multiplayer would probably be a higher objective I'd say. :P
I never really ran with dual flash cannons. Never really saw the need for it, pre 1.4.
I wonder if/doubt that this sort of re-rebalancing is what Ken's up for in this patch.
"Run away! Run awaaaaaayy!" :-D
Making the Flash Cannon less useless might be okay, but extensive, game-changing re-balance would need to wait for a subsequent update.
On the other hand, it's all just ODF files. If people are willing to come up with values that the community can agree on, I could include it in the package. Getting the community to agree is the hard part. :)
Note to Mod:
We need a topic split. ;) Kerfuffle and Flash Cannons. :D
The fundamental problem with the Flash Cannon is that I didn't take network play into consideration when implementing it. It casts a beam every frame, flooding the network layer with so many ordnance creation events that most of them get dropped, crippling the weapon on the remote side. Fixing it would take some major engineering.
I guess "major" is relative. ;D
Well we had the FC working by switching to the tracer code instead of beam, not exactly the same but close enough.
I myself wondered how much work it'd take to change the way the beam code worked?
Instead of a stream of hits, have the PC send a couple flags stating when the beam is starting to hit a target then a few flags to state when it misses or stops hitting a target. Then it takes the time cooked and formulates the damage afterwards. This would help keep the way the weapon works the same.
I say a couple flags as it would prevent the weapon from either not hitting at all or doing constant damage from the start or stop flags being missed.
I dont know if this helps or not (most likely not)
Does BZ1 have the arc stream weapon (or a concoction of it?). This weapon works brilliantly in multiplayer, if you can somehow remove the 'lock to the ground' part of the code, it may work just like a beam. (or at least appear to, i know the stream doesnt really, and strafing with the thing activated is downright ugly, but it wont get any better).
FS29: if that was possible, it probably would have been implemented :)
Arc Weapons in BZ1 use the blast and beam code - Bolt Buddy works like blast cannons, and the arc mines are like the flash cannon - in fact there was a discussion about this either here or at BZC not so long ago, IIRC.
The flash cannon problem is going to take some doing to get around. Most people are by now used to other strategies, so it might be best to leave this as a relatively low priority item for now.
Might be better to include that tweak now, otherwise, it might turn out to be the guy who stands up in the rowboat after everyone's settled.
Quote from: TheJamsh on November 30, 2009, 05:12:16 PM
FS29: if that was possible, it probably would have been implemented :)
I'm not too sure about that. There's more than one way to implement a fix with programming and maybe what they came up with was too much work to make it worth trying? I mean they changed the weapon's stats so there was probably a problem known with the weapon.
Though a question about a rumor I heard once, was the nerf to the flash cannon in 1.4 to make it how it was intended to work in Single Player normally? The rumor goes that the weapon was made really strong to allow it to work in multiplayer as it was intended operate and when it was found the weapon wasn't used much online they nerfed it so it would worked as intended in single player since it wasn't used much online.
I can't recall many HEAT.net BZers making use of the Flash Cannon.
Quote from: TheJamsh on November 30, 2009, 05:12:16 PM
I dont know if this helps or not (most likely not)
Does BZ1 have the arc stream weapon (or a concoction of it?). This weapon works brilliantly in multiplayer, if you can somehow remove the 'lock to the ground' part of the code, it may work just like a beam. (or at least appear to, i know the stream doesnt really, and strafing with the thing activated is downright ugly, but it wont get any better).
FS29: if that was possible, it probably would have been implemented :)
I proposed the same idea for the 1.3 patch long ago, so that I could recreate the BZ1 beamclass, but GSH shot it down.
Firestorm, even in single player the Flash Cannon is now worthless - very short range, too much ammo use, and not enough damage. That is one of the reasons why I made new flash cannons for Hell's Fire Valley, for example. Even as a turret weapon with the turret parked next to a supply it just doesn't cut it. If you want Flash Cannons as weapons in an IA map you have to tweak the odf for them to be any good.
Rebalancing things is outside the scope of my initial efforts, but getting the Flash Cannon working reasonably well in single player would be a good starting point for a later followup.
Quote from: ssuser on December 01, 2009, 09:05:27 AM
Firestorm, even in single player the Flash Cannon is now worthless - very short range, too much ammo use, and not enough damage. That is one of the reasons why I made new flash cannons for Hell's Fire Valley, for example. Even as a turret weapon with the turret parked next to a supply it just doesn't cut it. If you want Flash Cannons as weapons in an IA map you have to tweak the odf for them to be any good.
Is this map availible on BZScrap? I'd like to see what your modded flash cannon was like.
The reason I'm focusing so hard on trying to figure out how to get the multiplayer version to work is mainly because the single player version just needs maybe an .odf tweak to get the numbers at a decent sweet spot, where as the multiplayer version may not be such a simple fix.
But here's the real humdinger: How to we know when we actually hit that sweet spot?
Quote from: Firestorm29 on December 02, 2009, 09:25:00 PM
But here's the real humdinger: How to we know when we actually hit that sweet spot?
Oh, you'll know. You'll just know.
I'm not into the code side like a lot of you guys are, but the FC seems to be working fine in BZE. It doesn't seem to drag the game down, at least in DM. What is the problem in using that, but just turning it down a bit?
BZE's frame rate cap and time step smoothing may have a lot to do with that.
It doesn't use the beam code, it uses the tracer code which is similar to beam but works online.
Also the rate the sprites was running on the flash explosion had to be reduced.
One of these days I'll look into the difference.
In general, the Flash Cannon was a good idea that didn't work as well in practice as we hoped. :)
BZ2's fixed simulation rate forced me to change the Flash Cannon into a kind of pulsed energy-beam machine gun. That might not be a bad idea for BZ1, since the intrinsic frame rate dependency is what makes it so problematic. I would need to make the beam effect more persistent, but that would help the Blast Cannon and Bolt Buddy effects as a bonus.
Firestorm, the Map Hell's Fire Valley was part of the Shrieking Eagles level pack - you can still grab this from the Battlezone federation, I think. The custom flash cannon in that map as loaded in the enemy gun towers was a bit over the top for normal use as it has a range of 220-230 meters and did very large amounts of damage.
Below is a modified flash.odf I like to use on my own for playing IA maps:
[OrdnanceClass]
classLabel = "beam"
shotGeometry = NULL
xplGround = "xlasgnd"
xplVehicle = "xlascar"
xplBuilding = "xlasbld"
ammoCost = 70
lifeSpan = 110e-6
shotSpeed = 1e6
damageBallistic = 450
damageConcussion = 50
damageFlame = 0
damageImpact = 50
[BeamClass]
segmentRadius = 0.4
segmentLength = 5.0
segmentVariance = 0.0
segmentTexture = "beam_r.0"
This hits hard and does a good amount of damage in single player. Range is reasonable at 110 meters, you can stuff turrets with these and park them in protected locations, they still need plenty of ammo pods, though.
Quote from: Ultraken on December 03, 2009, 10:46:11 AM
One of these days I'll look into the difference.
In general, the Flash Cannon was a good idea that didn't work as well in practice as we hoped. :)
BZ2's fixed simulation rate forced me to change the Flash Cannon into a kind of pulsed energy-beam machine gun. That might not be a bad idea for BZ1, since the intrinsic frame rate dependency is what makes it so problematic. I would need to make the beam effect more persistent, but that would help the Blast Cannon and Bolt Buddy effects as a bonus.
As i said earlier, The ARC STREAM in BZ2 is essentially the same as a flash cannon in BZ1, except that it bends to the ground. I tried making it go straight, but at the end, it just made a 90 degree turn into the ground. If you added an option for it to not have to end in ground, then it would be just like Flash.
Quote from: Ultraken on December 03, 2009, 10:46:11 AM
One of these days I'll look into the difference.
In general, the Flash Cannon was a good idea that didn't work as well in practice as we hoped. :)
BZ2's fixed simulation rate forced me to change the Flash Cannon into a kind of pulsed energy-beam machine gun. That might not be a bad idea for BZ1, since the intrinsic frame rate dependency is what makes it so problematic. I would need to make the beam effect more persistent, but that would help the Blast Cannon and Bolt Buddy effects as a bonus.
Is this in 1.3? I remember seeing a Flash Cannon in the map that has all those bridge sections hanging in mid air. If you didn't move it looked alot like a beam, but when you moved around, it turned into a bunch of broken cylinders.
G66 has the Helion Gun/Cannon which is just like the old flash.
Quote from: Firestorm29 on December 03, 2009, 06:40:31 PM
Is this in 1.3? I remember seeing a Flash Cannon in the map that has all those bridge sections hanging in mid air. If you didn't move it looked alot like a beam, but when you moved around, it turned into a bunch of broken cylinders.
It always worked like that, firing a pulse every tenth of a second. The visual effect persisted for a while to make it look more like a coherent beam.
Were continuous weapons not added in because strain to the engine? The aiming laser code, works just fine without straining the engine which is why I'm surprised no weapon class had the same code behind it or similar code.
Quote from: Commando on December 04, 2009, 12:24:19 AM
Were continuous weapons not added in because strain to the engine? The aiming laser code, works just fine without straining the engine which is why I'm surprised no weapon class had the same code behind it or similar code.
Quote from: Commando on December 04, 2009, 12:24:19 AM
Were continuous weapons not added in because strain to the engine? The aiming laser code, works just fine without straining the engine which is why I'm surprised no weapon class had the same code behind it or similar code.
Are you referring to the being that appears in BZ2 when in 3rd person? That's alittle different because that is only on your screen, and it's not actually interacting with anything.
The Flash Cannon problem is that it sends a huge amounts of beams to hit a target. In multiplayer, alot of these beams get lost due to the same forces that cause lag or video streams to become choppy. So the target in multiplayer in BZ1 is only actually receiving a small fraction of these beams on their side to do damage. That's why if you play BZ1 and watch someone fire the flash cannon, it flickers or is transparent where in single player it is a very solid beam you can't see through.
I don't think these weapons cause any real strain or else it never would have made it into BZ 1.0, much less BZ2.
Beam is trying to send way too much data by the looks of it while Tracer uses Bullet::Simulate(dt); and only has a slight flicker on the remote pc. Sometimes the beam doesn't render depending on the direction it's being fired. There is sometimes problems with the beam coming out the back of the tank or splitting.