Oolite Bulletins

This weapon is a next step after Military Laser: produce half heat and similar damage, but need big heatsinks attached to the gun clearly visible on the ship. Modernizations allow to use less energy and keep up the agility of ship regardless of the additional mass, moreover there is a switchable "Sapper" mode for dogfight with more times higher point-blank damage which is dissipating with range.

The costs of these are asked in shipyards when you buy the "SG" variant of a ship.
For example an Asp SG:


There is a fearsome Heavy Sniper Gun for larger ships like Python BattleCruiser:


The big gun on  Prototype Boa is working as Heavy Sniper Gun if you install Sniper Gun OXP.

Ship builders can use these or any gun subentities to make high-tech "SG" ship variants for competent players.

More ships, info and screenshots in the wiki: [wiki]Sniper Gun[/wiki].

In the next version I plan to introduce a new type of laser weapons.

Sapper Gun is a Sniper Gun used in overdrive mode:
- Deliver 5x damage at point-blank range than at max. range but use 5x energy and make double heat.
- Very strong within 2km: increasing quickly from 2x up to 5x inside 500m.
- There is a slow dissipation over 2km, starting from double damage down to single at 20km.
- Cause some damage when narrowly misses the target, like a wider-than-usual beam.
- Can switch between Sniper and Sapper mode (cold/blue or hot/red beam).
- Anti-Sapper Equipment and Hard Shields can reduce the effect (a 3 years old idea).
- Can not be separated so no lower heat on far mounts with multiple lasers (too hot).
- Can not be used under cloak, unmask instantly when fire (easy to detect a power surge).
- Overheat can damage Sapper and reduce to Sniper Gun.

About the half of scripting work is done so stay turned.

Final list of new features which will arrive in Sniper Gun v1.1:
-Sapper is a faster Sniper Gun for dogfight, 2.5x stronger within 500m but rapidly dissipating with range.
-Sapper still cause some damage when narrowly misses the target and play hit sound.
-Heavy Sapper is a monster with colossal damage but 10x energy usage and fast heatup.
-Anti-Sapper Equipment reduce the damage caused by Sapper weapons below 1.5x.
-Sapper Mode primable equipment can turn on/off Sapper when activated.
-Sapper activation need 2s and play sound to notify the player (made from breakpattern.ogg).
-The mode ('b') key can set auto, preset, target distance, heat or manual Sapper modes.
-Sapper can be damaged if fired in red heat before overheat. Auto and heat modes prevent this.
-NPC SG ships has refined roles and switch automatically between Sapper and Sniper mode.
-All SG ships contain Anti-Sapper and Sapper Mode equipments by default.
-In Xenon HUD custom crosshairs are set and switch when Sniper Gun or Sapper is selected.

Changes in v1.1:
-Sniper Gun is refined to somewhat slower (0.4s) and less damage/second than before.
-Heavy Sniper Gun is 2 times faster than Sniper Gun, resulting double damage/second.
-No side lasers on Cobra3 SG and Python SG as a cost of 3 forward Sniper mounts.
-Python SG got an aft (not heavy) Sniper Gun mount.
-Fixed Asp SG forward laser mount position.

Check the updated Weapon comparsion table in the wiki.

The code is in feature freeze state but need some fixes before release.

Sniper Gun v1.1 is available in the expansion manager. Please update your Laser Cannons and Separated Lasers also for the best effect.

I think the new Sapper mode is pretty interesting now, even the volume of hit sound show the rough size of the caused damage.

Please confirm in a reply if you found the current settings well playable or make suggestions after some test fight, or simply enjoy it.

Quick observation (as I haven't tried this yet) but looking at the screenshots here and on the wiki, some of the guns look big whereas some of them look enormous

Highly subjective territory of course but I'd suggest that the ones on the python and the viper look too big (and maybe on the fer-de-lance too...)

Redspear wrote:

the ones on the python and the viper look too big

You found the two border cases: Viper is the smallest ship marginally over 30t mass which can hold a Sniper Gun - at least easy to distinguish from stock Vipers in hot situations as primary targets and threats.

Python is the smallest ship over the required 250t which capable to hold the 2 times longer Heavy variant of Sniper Gun. This is a big heatsink around a smaller gun where the effectiveness of cooling is proportional with the size so not a surprise that need loong parts.

Would not be logical to make reduced variants for these ships due to a smaller gun should be weaker. So I choosed the way of costly modernized ships where many internal modifications made possible to hold such big guns on smaller-than-ideal ships also.

A gun with standard size make comparable the sizes of various ships, so not "the gun of Viper" is too large but "this gun on a Viper" show how small is the ship (imho).

Although an adjustment is possible if the gun move nearer to the ship, like the aft gun on Asp SG (see the image above in the first post). Sniper Guns are attached to the end of the original gun so currently stay at the maximal possible position but could start from the ship body which result smaller size.

In Sniper Gun v1.2:
-Sapper will switch back to Sniper Gun when less than a full energy bank remain.
-Anti-Sapper equipment detection implemeted at the first hit with Sapper on the target.
-Animated crosshairs when switching between Sniper and Sapper modes.
-With [wiki]Auto Crosshairs[/wiki] a box appear on crosshairs when target is precisely centered.
-In Sapper mode a box appear only when the target is within 500m and centered.
-Sapper switch back to Sniper Gun when alert condition change to green or docked.
-Prototype Boa got Anti-Sapper and Sapper Mode equipments.
-Guns on Fer-de-Lance SG, Krait SG and Viper SG are moved nearer to the ship body.

In [wiki]Sniper Gun[/wiki] v1.3:
-Constrictor SG added, need TL14 and 20MCr.
-Python BattleCruiser added, 3+3 separated Heavy Sniper Guns in fw and aft mounts, speed 160, pitch 0.6.
-Python HSG got +2 aft normal Sniper Guns (3 in total), speed lowered to 180, pitch to 0.7.
-HSG2 model added, used in Python BattleCruiser. Hold the same weapon than HSG so visually differ only.
-Model of Heavy Sniper Gun is modified for shorter length (visual change only).
-Fixed a TypeError: other.script is undefined.

ClymAngus wrote:

Norby wrote:

A "BattleCruiser":

That's an interesting place to put a gun/engine.

Yes, the central aft gun is placed between the engines. Aiming is easier if a laser is exactly centered, but in this ship it is a must due to the rules of [wiki]separated lasers[/wiki].

I wanted this ship with 3-3 separated heavy sniper guns both in forward and aft views, where weapon_positions (the starting points of laser beams) within the same view must be at least 100m far from each other in 3D. In this case can use "Triple" lasers which will not produce multiple heat so 3 times more effective in long bursts.

My other goal was the smallest horizontal distance between guns which is possible in this hull. Python is the smallest core ship over 250t so the smallest target which yet can hold heavy sniper guns so promise the best firepower/size ratio if the fire positions are optimized up to the edge of the rules.

Less horizontal distance mean less miss against small targets with the non-central lasers so it is an important parameter. It can be less than 100m due to the central gun is far ahead in the longitudinal (z) axis than others. The side ones still must be at least 100m from each other so normally it need at least 50m horizontal distance from the central line of the ship. But this hull is not as wide (and I do not want freely floating guns outside of wings ) so I used a trick: the left gun fire from the front end of the barrel as expected but the right weapon position is shifted back to the end of the right aft gun. If you have sharp eyes then you can see a dark blue shadow in the screenshot above over the right aft gun, as a proof of the right laser beam start from the aft position.

This way allow to reach 100m in the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle between the left front and right aft guns while keep the horizontal distance as low as 32m from center. In the previous design (Python HSG) it is 37m so Python BattleCruiser is even better in this parameter also.

My next problem was positioning the aft guns where the mentioned trick was not enough to reach the 100m distance due to the central aft gun is not enough far back. The only solution I found within this hull is to reuse the fire positions of the front guns for the aft lasers also. Visually it looks acceptable due to the central laser is hidden while go through the body, the right start exactly where it should be and the left gun get the same shadow than in the previous case. Just it mean that the central aft gun must be exactly centered as the forward gun.

This is why the aft gun is between the engines. Fortunately it is not a single central engine so the gun is not in the exhaust plume.

Norby, this is excellent weapons OXP!

After my first test play with this OXP, when ships is NPC, i think, for the broad including in the game play may be:

- reduce a weight of roles slightly in the shipdata to 10 times lower(exept the Constrictor SG). For my set of addons often a lot of ships with sniper guns.

- setup the size of sniper guns via: I am set this factor. The ships SG has look more gracefully for me.

- delete the SG and HSG labels from ship name (low priority suggestion).

Thank you! I think the mentioned suggestions depends on personal taste so how about if you release an addon which contain these in a shipdata-overrides file? In this way players can choose the style, moreover you can add following changes easily.

Accepted this OXP?: https://app.box.com/s/ehdoo6v8bgtjqg8d929xxonqplb2ocx1

Comments/feedback/bug reports welcome.

Initial public release: Sniper Gun Rebalancer OXP. It is available in the expansion manager.

Changelog:

v1.3.11

- Reduced a weight of roles NPC-ships in the shipdata to 5 times lower(20% from basic).
- Setup the lower size of sniper guns: "model_scale_factor = 0.75".
- Corrected weapons position for SGs.
- The names of ships will not contain the words 'SG'.
- Added a snipergun-ship, snipergun-heavy-ship and interceptor-sg, interceptor-heavy-sg roles.
- Added a ships with sniper gun from other ship OXPs as external dependency:

• gsagostinho's Texture Packs(5 ships);

• Griff's Retextures(4 ship - Cobra Mark III, Griff Viper, Griff Viper Interceptor);

• Staer9's Shipset(1 ship - Iguana);

• wildShips's Shipset(3 ships - Chatu, Duma(SG), Duma Fleet Hauler(HSG));

• Laser Cannons(7 ships).

- Added a density for Griff's Viper Alternative Model for minimal ship mass req.
- Fixed a ship mass by "model_scale_factor = 0.65" for Duma and set a "max_cargo = 125" for Duma Fleet Hauler.
- Adjusted a pitch and roll for Duma Fleet Hauler due to the mass of Heavy Sniper Guns.
- Simulated the EEU and NEU for police ships.
- Set condition_script for some uber-ships(has 'dog' word) and police-patrol.
- Updated a view positions for some ships.

This pack include the calculation table for optimal assigning roles and role weights for ships.