So, here is a suggestion after a long break from Freelancer in general. Would it be possible to create Shotgun effect weapons? What they would basically be would be weapons with a larger hit area, but the damage done by these weapons would efficiently be reduced by how larger the spreaded projectile is, to represent the smaller number of lasers which have hit the other vessel. So, if a gun would fire ''6'' lazers (which actually would be a single projectile that is 6 times larger than the original), the damages would be divided by 6, no matter what range you'd hit your target with them (to compensate for it being easier to aim). Thoughts?
It'd be totally unbalanced when fighting transports, gunships and capitols. Because all 5, 6, 7 or 8 lasers would be hitting the target, as opposed to just 1 or 2 when pvping other fighters.
' Wrote:It'd be totally unbalanced when fighting transports, gunships and capitols. Because all 5, 6, 7 or 8 lasers would be hitting the target, as opposed to just 1 or 2 when pvping other fighters.
What if you made the energy requirements so high that they would only be useful for fighting really agile fighters that you rarely get a clear shot at. *cough cough* Black Dragon vs Collector *cough*
If it's possible to do this, we could fix the balance between large crappy VHF's vs the top end agile VHF's.
Quote:Would it be possible to create Shotgun effect weapons? [...] lasers[...]
As I have done some Freelancer modding myself some time ago, I am quite sure it's not possible as a single weapon.
A possible "solution" is to add way more hardpoints to a "shotgun-capable" vessel (or buying the one with the most hardpoints to the front) and once in combat, the player has to click the "fire all weapons at once" button (which IS available to you, just look it up in your keyboard options thingie or whatever it is called right now) ...
Besides, the laser shotgun weapon you're talking about is somewhat more than a light torch, you HAVE to focus a stream of photons/electrons into a beam to cause serious damage to an object. Otherwise, you only have a nice lasershow to impress your combatants ^^
It is possible to make a gun fire multiple shots at a time. There are unused gun models capeable of firing two and five shots simultaneously.
As for making a spread, I am not certain that would be possible. Freelancer's aiming system tends to point lasers twowards the target when you aim at the crosshair, even if you could get them to fire out on an angle it is likely that each of those shots would still home in on the targer. But I haven't tested it, only a theory.
Simplest way to do it would be to make it an explosive (like a missile) that does not track. However I'm not sure if this would work either, because from experience, firing 5 missiles from a single gun at the same time results in either an instant explosion or the rockets sitting still in space.
It is possible to make it launch multiple projectiles - as Ashes said.
It is also possible to make these projectiles spread (there is an unused value named dispersion_angle) (also lasers don't "home" in flight)
The usual bug when shooting multiple projectiles is that the weapon does not produce a sound when shot - even that can be overcome, by assigning the sound to the projectile itself and not as shooting sound. (The sound needs to be padded with silence to a length longer than the projectile lifetime, so the sound doesn't loop)
I have made such a weapon once, fully working (and tested).
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