Flash Cannons

[Blunt Force Trauma]

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?

[Ultraken]

BZE's frame rate cap and time step smoothing may have a lot to do with that.

[Dx]

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.

[Ultraken]

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.

[ssuser]

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.

[General BlackDragon]

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.

[Firestorm29]

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.

[Red Devil]

G66 has the Helion Gun/Cannon which is just like the old flash.

[Ultraken]

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.

[Commando]

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.

[Firestorm29]

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.

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.

[Dx]

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.