Storm Column

[Nielk1]

First, edit your post instead of making new ones

Second, I just said that
(Well, the first part)

[Zero Angel]

or, have it fire wavering heat missiles... the shots can miss sometimes then too =]

Thats a good idea. I think I seen something like that on some of TV's special DM's for FE. They would make excellent bolts if done properly.

[TheJamsh]

aye and remember, lightning doestn strike the same place twice

and im terribly sorry neilk1 lol... i use quick reply you see...

[Nielk1]

I'm just irritable...

[OvermindDL1]

It is possible to get a directed lightning strike in RL, just use a directed electron beam and give out a high voltage current in its general direction, lot of power though.

Either way, couldn't you have the thing animated, have the HP's it fires from on the animated part to have them rotating around inside where the cloud would be, have an emitter to generate the cloud, ergo it would always fire from inside the cloud from a pseudo-random spot?  Or can you not animate HP's?

[mrtwosheds]

Cant say iv'e tried animating a weapon hp.
I have just fixed a scavenger whose eyestalk and eyepoint got animated in a bout of thoughtless over enthusiasm.
I got in it and found myself upsidedown and realised that an animated eyestalk on a human drivable unit is a bad idea.
I think it probably can be done, but that it is probably not a good idea.
Interestingly, I notice that when a pilot hops out of an upsidedown eyed unit, the pilot is also upsidedown. 

[Avatar]

As a general rule you should never animate an HP.  Always animate whatever the HP is connected to if corrections are needed (for walking, turning, that sort of thing).

As to randomness for crying out loud, what's wrong with the popper?  You'd get a nice, random set of lightning strikes from various positions inside the cloud...

-Av-

[OvermindDL1]

Well I meant animating an invisible rod kind of things, with the hp attached to that to rotate around it.

[Avatar]

You mean make the turret a child of a rotating object such as a Power Supply...   Like using a GunTower for a Lung...  I suppose it might work...  I've gotten weirder setups to work. 

Still, the popper is a nice, low cost, proven way of doing just what's wanted.  Like I said, Lizard already has exactly that in Fleshstorm's Phaer Ran arsenal.  It'd take a whole minute to change the color and thank him for the inspiration...   

-Av-

[mrtwosheds]

Yes it can be done! I made a scion missile silo a while back, It was flat to the ground with sliding doors that open and up pops the missile launcher, firing as it rises from the hp_  attached to the animated model. there were some problems like the target marker stayed underground at the original position and being unable to target it etc. worked ok otherwise in un-networked mpi . I have no idea how it would behave online, I would guess at it getting visually out of sync if the animated motion persisted.

[TheJamsh]

oo i like!

[mrtwosheds]

So did I, but it was a flawed Idea, you couldn't tell anything to attack it, it was underground.

[Nielk1]

If the hp_com is at surface level then that is what the AI will shoot at.

[Steeveeo]

And for the targetting thing, just make an invisible mesh high enough up to raise the center above ground.

[mrtwosheds]

Yes, but I went on to other things, It would be a really nice idea with dll support so that it only popped up and became active when something was around.
You could camouflage the top and doors to look like ground.