WYRDYSM GAMES

I've found a small, irritating problem that may have caused numerous pains for newbies.

Driven weapons can suffer from something known as "jamming", which is that the turret will turn towards the target, but the weapon itself will not fire. After much tampering with this stuff, I figured it out.


Many people, now with the onset of SWA, are too lazy to use actual pieces to construct gun barrels, content to just use original weapon sprites. Which isn't a problem if the barrels themselves don't wiggle around independently. So, most of us would set the firing arc to a very low value, like 1 or 0. However, in some cases, the driving weapon > parenting section > parented weapon cannot align itself completely with its target. Outcome? Turret tracks target, but guns do not fire.

Solution:
For realism's sake, keep the weapons' own firing arc no less than 5 degrees. Any less may mean that the weapon cannot point itself to the target. If it still "jams" increase firing arc to 10. If that doesn't help, then this note isn't for you.

_________________
If admirals hate and trash your ships,
If you can't get it right;
Then off you go, but don't call quits;
Just go make custom sprites.

Solare:
http://www.wyrdysm.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4858

Or link weapons...
It's the smart, easy thing to do. It means that the other weapons will fire when the main one does, and as long as your main weapon is tough and/or well protected, to minimize the chance of it getting destroyed before the turret, there's really no problem.

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My Random Very Old Ships, Fleets, and Links to Other Ships and Fleets
My (Not Particularly) New Ships
My New Encounters - C&C Wanted

I think that's the problem I hit. The MAIN weapon won't fire. The driving weapon was a puny blaster with firing disabled. I understand what you mean, and I'll use that in the future for mega turrets, but right now, I believe we're talking about the Link parent weapon. It sometimes jams too, you know.

_________________
If admirals hate and trash your ships,
If you can't get it right;
Then off you go, but don't call quits;
Just go make custom sprites.

Solare:
http://www.wyrdysm.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4858

You make the driving weapon the main weapon (ie. everything else links to it), give it basically the same stats (but with shooting disabled), and give it your whatever degree firing arc.
I suppose this wouldn't work as well if you wanted weapons with different reload times on the same turret, but fiddling with link delays should solve the problem to some extent.
Or am I misunderstanding you?

_________________
My Random Very Old Ships, Fleets, and Links to Other Ships and Fleets
My (Not Particularly) New Ships
My New Encounters - C&C Wanted

If the turret is non-rotating, IE: is a static spinal mounted massive railgun, or a wankbeam, etc., then yeah, you're going to have problems if you set the shooting angle to 0 or 1. You should never ever set the angle to that. Instead, don't set it up as a normal turret. Create a blaster and set the firing angle to maybe 5-10, but don't set it to drive any sections. Rather, simply link it to your main gun. The main gun will never move (or it shouldn't anyway), but it will fire if something is within 5-10 degrees of its center. That should do it for you.


Remember, the firing arc is looking for the center coordinates of its target, so even if the target is really big and part of it is within the firing arc, it will not fire until the *center* of the target is within the firing arc.

An even more reliable way of doing fixed beams is to use a missile launcher type weapon, and use the launch arc to fire.



Then you are, quite simply, doing it wrong. Because that's the way I set up all of my turrets, and apart from initial hiccups and occasional odd firing behaviour on the first - and only the first - shot, they work absolutely fine.