Not quite a "this weapon sucks ass" complaint but a "this weapon doesn't suck enough ass" one: Lasers having a longer duration doesn't mean anything to the AI (at least vanilla AI), as they either hit the full beam or they miss the full beam, no in-betweens. Maybe introduce some spread to the beam if that's possible? That'd screw with the aim a bit, and at least spread the damage out more compared to the AI effortlessly dumping an entire laser on your cockpit because they got lucky and rolled their hit there.
turns out it is impossible to add any of the really fun stuff to trace weapons (spread, gravity, etc), so now they are just shittier in boring ways (heat, damage, cooldown time). still kept the beam duration increase because it amuses me. thanks again for the good post!
A few thoughts. In response to biosterous as apparently just clicking the "reply" on their post doesn't automatically denote that minor deatil... >_<
Firstly, increased beam duration is still a solid downside even if AI pilots still hit for 100% of the damage as it gives the target more time to shoot back making it more likely that the shooter will in turn be shot down before their victim is popped.
Secondly, have you looked at the underlying code for LBX and pulse weapons for ideas on how to introduce "beam spread?" YAW (probably, maybe YAWC but I doubt it) has a "hold to fire" hyper beam, and that suggests to me that (game logic) tick-to-tick weapon calculations (or a reasonable facsimile) are possible. Even if they aren't if the mechanics/functions for generating the spread in LBX weapons can be adapted to how pulse weapon shots are executed and then you eliminate any delay between those "pulse laser" shots you should have a beam that looks constant and can still "jitter."
That said, outside of fiddling around with Star Valor's Unity engine code for mods I haven't done much like this since Quake 2 so without seeing what the actual "code level" modding for Unreal looks like I'm just suggesting that as possible, not plausible.
have you looked at the underlying code for LBX and pulse weapons for ideas on how to introduce "beam spread?
the issue as that there is absolutely no spread value in all in the vanilla Trace weapons (lasers, MGs, flamers), and adding any would require all sorts of arcane reprogramming of things. here are nearly all the stats that i can change for Trace weapons:
not pictured: a section for ammo (for chem lasers), a collapsed section governing noises for cooldown, and an alternate way to alter the range brackets. my programming knowledge is "enough to usually fix the things that i broke in the first place", so i really don't want to go into any in-depth work for what is, ultimately, a mod that is a joke and a shitpost and just kinda funny
incidentally, here is a look at what it takes to make the RISC Hyper Laser do its thing:
juuuuuuuuust a little beyond the scope of this mod :p
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That's what the world needs. More joyous, devil-may-care creators doing what makes them happy. Downloaded.
i will look at the numbers and see if i can find a good way to make the lasers worse
deatil... >_<
Firstly, increased beam duration is still a solid downside even if AI pilots still hit for 100% of the damage as it gives the target more time to shoot back making it more likely that the shooter will in turn be shot down before their victim is popped.
Secondly, have you looked at the underlying code for LBX and pulse weapons for ideas on how to introduce "beam spread?" YAW (probably, maybe YAWC but I doubt it) has a "hold to fire" hyper beam, and that suggests to me that (game logic) tick-to-tick weapon calculations (or a reasonable facsimile) are possible. Even if they aren't if the mechanics/functions for generating the spread in LBX weapons can be adapted to how pulse weapon shots are executed and then you eliminate any delay between those "pulse laser" shots you should have a beam that looks constant and can still "jitter."
That said, outside of fiddling around with Star Valor's Unity engine code for mods I haven't done much like this since Quake 2 so without seeing what the actual "code level" modding for Unreal looks like I'm just suggesting that as possible, not plausible.
incidentally, here is a look at what it takes to make the RISC Hyper Laser do its thing:
juuuuuuuuust a little beyond the scope of this mod :p