The first part of the scripting that controls the virtual external missile pylons in flight has been completed. The scripting is surprisingly simple. It uses a frame callback to check for changes in the missile load and works good, even multiple shot missiles that reload themselves work. The one problem I was getting in the script to look for changes was if you have a series of missiles that are the same and you fire one. It will think it was the last of the missiles in the series that fired because there is no difference between them and change the last one instead. Added the shipFiredMissile handler to spot those but this won't work for mines. Nevertheless, the missiles/mines in the virtual external pylons don't move around and fill in with a large blank rectangular icon when empty. Only if you have 2 or more identical mines in a row and have the first mine selected does it use the last mine(this is how it appears) instead so I would almost consider this a perfect solution as it is very easy to implement both in the script and on the hud. But it isn't perfect and I'm not satisfied until I have tried 2 other ideas I've thought of.
The first one involves using permanent missile icons between the active pylons as dividers to spot ANY change(foolproof) and as a selection/menu type of button, one for each active pylon(they don't have to look like missile icons and could be any shape, size. or pattern, use your imagination
). This would limit the ship to a maximum of 8 missiles total internal/external and with menu buttons. These menu buttons could be used to activate many things, such as displaying missile information(identification, menus), toggling missile settings(specific missile programming of target preference and missile behaviours), as a missile pylon safety switch, and even jettisoning a virtual external missile/device/pod without using it(plus many more uses I'm sure). These types of menu buttons for each pylon might be nice for controlling weapon systems mounted on external pylons. The real advantage of this type of pylon system is perfect pylon management*. The real disadvantage is having to cycle through 2 icons(one for pylon control and the other for the missile) and having only 8 active missile pylons total. Also either the selection would be built into the pylon system or would require missiles to be designed to use this feature(or both).**
The second idea I had is practically seamless but would require extensive scripting and multiple equipment activated missile displays for each missile to give the illusion of missiles remaining in the same pylon. They would be set on launch automatically and the scripting would move the pylons themselves around to maintain the illusion as needed. This one would have a built in missile loading utility appearring on the equip screen to select which pylon you want to load the next missile on when you buy it and perhaps allow to play the shell game and arrange the missile load as you desire. This last one might be available anyway regardless of which final missile pylon management idea is used.
All 3 have distinct advantages/disadvantages and I would like to explore these thoroughly if possible.
It is early yet to make feature request recommendations but I believe Thargoid has hit the nail on the head with his requests in the past year or 2 that have not been implemented. There should be a shipFiredMine handler to complement the shipFiredMissile handler or better still expand its functionality to include mines. Some sort of a pylonActive handler that gives the current active pylon, the missile/mine on it, and its status(armed/disarmed/targetted/etc) would solve all the current missile pylon management scripting headaches and allow for the future which includes missile pylons/icons with animation and also those that use .png's for graphics and will be required to allow similarily made huds to match/blend together properly. Post 1.76 of course.
That's an update as to what's going on with this. It's nice to have a holiday weekend to tackle unfamiliar scripting.
*perfect pylon management is NOT implied and should not be misconstrued as being perfect.
**as I write this another idea has popped into my head. Imagine a normal hud with 4 regular missile pylons and up to 12 'buttons' scattered around the hud itself next to controls and displays all over the hud and these buttons can be used to control/fine tune displays, like for example, triggering a pop up menu with selections for controlling the behaviour/programming of the compass(custom scripting that the compass button doesn't control) as well as many other possibilities, use your imagination.
