Big Problem: My dual beam turrets keep missing the target

[Aerolight]

The small dual beam turrets of my superdreadnaught could not hit a group of fighters/bombers, as shown below:
(OUTDATED)


My superdreadnaught's big dual beam turrets also could not hit a slow moving frigate, probe, or a resource harvester. My target keeps being safe in the gap between the two beams, as shown below:
(OUTDATED)




Are there any good solutions for dual beam turrets or dual muzzle turrets in general to successfully hit and destroy the target??????

Here is the general weapon file for my small dual beam turrets:

StartWeaponConfig(NewWeaponType, "AnimatedTurret", "InstantHit", "KprBeam", "Normal", 0, 6000, 0, 0.4, 0, 0, 2, 1, 0, 0.5, 1.1, 0.7, 1, 0, 240, 240, 0.1, "Normal", 1, 0, 1000)
AddWeaponResult(NewWeaponType, "Hit", "DamageHealth", "Target", 3000, 3000, "")
setPenetration(NewWeaponType, 5, 1, {PlanetKillerArmour = 0})
setAccuracy(NewWeaponType, 1, {Fighter = 1,damage = 1}, {Corvette = 1,damage = 1}, {munition = 1,damage = 1}, {Frigate = 1,damage = 1})
setAngles(NewWeaponType, 90, -108, 108, 0, 90)

Here is the general weapon file for my big big dual beam turrets:

StartWeaponConfig(NewWeaponType, "AnimatedTurret", "InstantHit", "Super_BeamSaj", "Normal", 0, 20000, 0, 8, 4, 0, 30, 0, 1, 5, 0, 0, 1, 1, 120, 120, 0.1, "Bypass", 1, 0, 1000000)
AddWeaponResult(NewWeaponType, "Hit", "DamageHealth", "Target", 85000, 85000, "")
AddWeaponResult(NewWeaponType, "Hit", "Push", "Target", -1000, -1000, "")
setPenetration(NewWeaponType, 100, 1)
setAccuracy(NewWeaponType, 1, {Fighter = 0}, {Corvette = 0}, {munition = 0})
setAngles(NewWeaponType, 90, -180, 180, 0, 90)

[MatthCoFreak]

I think the easy answer is : your turrets are too large. The guns fire straight, but the barrel are too far from each other. The center of the turret itself target the enemy ship, so if the enemy ship is small enough to fit between the two beams, it won't be hit.

Well, the good solution would be to use smaller or single-barreled turrets, or to lower the accuracy - not really sure about the latter though.

[TON_Viper]

Maybe add a third invisible beam that fires down the center. You can make it give part of the full damage to simulate the heat absorption a small ship would get being that close those massive beams.

[Aerolight]

Well, in the Hod file of the turret subsystem, in the Hierarchy tab, I have Turret_muzzle and TurretSlave_Muzzle. How would i add a third muzzle, BUT shooting invisible beam??????

[TonyOneBlairoby]

In some ways, your content is very realistic. You turret don't miss target but barrel are perfectly paired and aligned with target.

And i think that it can ba a good point for the big turrets one, to see the fighter player laughting at the guys with his ship covered with hundred of BFG xD . Even if against fighter squadrons, beams could hit secondary target flying around the main one.

But for the little turrets, that's sad :/ .
There couldn't be a solution like that in the hod file?
Where the green dot are barrel muzzle, and the red dot, turret root marker.


That would be like if the turret was kinda like this:

[Aerolight]

Had anyone experienced dealing with this problem before?

[KeyBored]

Show me the wepn file please

First post

Uhhhh, why have you got angles set? You should only have turret rotations set, no firing angles.

[Krnt]

Well, I know that in Homeworld 2 the instant beams like the pulsars are not very accurate because they have an strange offset, but in the case of your small turrets its like their angle in the hod file is not straight forward.

Have you tried setting the slave muzzle to fire at least 0.1 seconds later to make the turret aim with the main muzzle maybe it could help.

[Aerolight]

Well, I know that in Homeworld 2 the instant beams like the pulsars are not very accurate because they have an strange offset, but in the case of your small turrets its like their angle in the hod file is not straight forward.

Have you tried setting the slave muzzle to fire at least 0.1 seconds later to make the turret aim with the main muzzle maybe it could help.

umm, where would you do that, in the wepn file? if so, which part of that wepn file?????

And I believe the wepn file is already posted on the first post of this thread.

[KeyBored]

Your problem is weapon angles! Youve got weapon angles set on a turret

[Aerolight]

Your problem is weapon angles! Youve got weapon angles set on a turret

If i do not put the angles in "SetAngles" in the wepn file, It would be really weird if the turrets rotate to fire their beams through my ship, without any restriction.

[TON_Viper]

Shouldn't the collision box prevent them from doing that? I know at least that a weapon won't fire if there's another ship or object between the weapon and its intended target. Don't know if it considers its own collision box though.

[mololu]

Collision box will not help, a ship can shoot through itself (and is indeed often required to for the game to play out smoothly, see the Vaygr Assault frigate which routinely 'shoots' itself when firing forward at odd angles).

If beams are missing, the problem is in the .hod. Beam weapons REQUIRE the *_rest attribute to be on an exact z-axis in front of the *_position or the weapon will go off target (even a 0.001% angle will make it miss).

The thing is, the turret uses a line drawn between *_position and *_rest to fire the weapon but a line directly from *_position to aim the weapon.

P.s. whoever said that thing about aiming from the center of the turret is right. But remember, aiming axis != the firing axis.

Angles have nothing to do with this problem. A turreted weapon can have as high an angle as you want, for many weapons you even need them to look realistic or work correctly (i.e. slowly turning turrets) which would otherwise barely be able to target.

Dual beam weapons do indeed work. My Progenitor Dreadnaught has one which works fine, as does the original hiigy BC.
As someone stated, the only problem could be the size of the turrets (which I can't see as the images don't show at work :/)

[KeyBored]

NOOOO, the weapon angles...
change
setAngles(NewWeaponType, 90, -108, 108, 0, 90)

to

setAngles(NewWeaponType, 0, -108, 108, 0, 90)

[TON_Viper]

That's not the only problem.

According to Karos: http://hw2wiki.net/wiki.hw2.info/FunctionsetAngles.html the angle, when used on a turreted weapon, only controls how far off target the weapon can be before it attempts to fire. If it fires for long enough, the turret will move to track the target and hit it. That wouldn't cause the problem as shown in the screenshots.

[Aerolight]

Ok, i changed the firing cone angle to 0. But the problem still remains is the gap between the beams and I wouldn't make the turret smaller since it makes no sense to have a very big warship with very tiny "BFG" gun turret,

[KeyBored]

What?

Well then your hardpointing is off, your rest is not at right angles to you direction...

[Aerolight]

What?

Well then your hardpointing is off, your rest is not at right angles to you direction...

I assure you, all my rest are perpendicular to the direction for each 33+ hardpoints, and they all shoot in a realistic direction. The major issue is the gap between the two beams from the dual muzzle (barrel) turrets in general. Somehow, we need to add a third muzzle for invisible beam or somehow implement damage toggle for being too close to the beam being fired, etc. =D

[ajlsunrise]

how far apart are the muzzles on the guns?

(btw, this should probably be moved to the main section)

[Aerolight]

how far apart are the muzzles on the guns?

(btw, this should probably be moved to the main section)

About 35 units (according to CFhoded) for small turrets, and 145 units for big turrets.

[mololu]

Hmm, is there any really big reason you can't have single beam turrets?

Otherwise you're in for a load of trouble. Making a slaved weapon that fires another weapon is... impossible without some very nifty tweaking which will probably not work.

Sadly, I think you're out of luck on this one as long as you want the big turrets.

Note: Given those values you posted, the small turrets should be able to hit larger ships (have my own turrets with ~30 space between and they can hit anything frigate and larger).

I would expect the large turrets could hit capital ships...

[MatthCoFreak]

Making a slaved weapon that fires another weapon is... impossible without some very nifty tweaking which will probably not work.

I know it's possible to have a turret that fire different weapons, look at the turrets of the Turanic dreadnaught.

[mololu]

I know it works... but it will cause some problems because you can't slave directly. You have to add another weapon onto the turret hardpoint (meaning it's a subnode of the original turret) with a small cone of fire. Chances are that weapon will end up firing at something else than the main weapon though... if this even works, I've never tested the convept.

[KeyBored]

Give me the ship....ill sort it out, dual beam turrets are easy....

[Aerolight]

Give me the ship....ill sort it out, dual beam turrets are easy....

Specifically, the HOD ship file or weapon file or subsystem file????

[TON_Viper]

I'd guess all of the above. He'd need to be able to test it ingame with all files necessary for that to fix it.

[Aerolight]

I'd guess all of the above. He'd need to be able to test it ingame with all files necessary for that to fix it.

Well, the total file package size is 175+ MB (even though this is my very first ship mod, only for this ship). I guess this is what happens when you have 33+ subsystem weapon turrets. What website can I easily upload it to???

[mololu]

Wow! That's one hell of a big file...

Anyways, I'd suggest Filefront or Rapidshare. I think both can handle relatively large files without a paid account.

[Aerolight]

Wow! That's one hell of a big file... Anyways, I'd suggest Filefront or Rapidshare. I think both can handle relatively large files without a paid account.

Here is the link:
(refer to post #34)

[KeyBored]

Thats WAAAAAY to big for me to download. :O

[mololu]

That's still pretty big. My entire mod is 70 MB and there are a lot of files in that.

Is there no way to make it smaller? At least just to solve this issue? I mean, you can just remove them meshes or something from the hod and sent it that way.

[MatthCoFreak]

If you're sending it just for us to try and fix the problem, you can get rid of all the redundant turrets. I think that's what make it so big if I read your correctly.

And for god sake, use rar or 7zip !

[KeyBored]

Im on 5 KBp/s DL speed MAX!!

[Aerolight]

Ok, here:
(link removed) file is outdated.
I have clean it up a bit and compress again with winrar this time.
=D

[Aerolight]

Ok, I made the turrets smaller and the beams wider and I have reduced the distance between the two turret muzzles by 50% through hod scaling of one of the turret meshes (this dual barrel turret consists of multiple meshes). As a result the targeting is fairly better I would say.