Oolite Bulletins

I am very surprised that there is no gun with high velocity/high density projectiles for Elite, what army calls kinetic energy high penetration weapon.

It will had a very low accuracy at long range but however high range (>25km) and high destructive power. It is a balistic weapon and as so, it takes a small while before the impact. For dog fight at less than 2-3km, it will be an interesting weapon, forcing to anticipate the movements of the opponent. Also a limited number of rounds will be available, something like 1000, basically small pellets of depleted uranium shot at speed of 2000 to 3000 m/s (we are in the future) using a multistage coilgun (thus taking part of the energy).

Consequently, at 2-5 km range, there will be 1-2 sec before the impact, giving a nice chance to the target.

A kinetic weapon has been proposed before. The main problem is that the code really only knows lasers as primary weapons (if you don't count the twin plasma cannons, which are like lasers, but different). This means that a kinetic weapon isn't doable as an OXP. It needs code changes, and (1) we're in a feature freeze, and (2) I don't even know whether the developers would be willing to do it.

By the way: with a little effort (read: a huge effort) you can already use kinetic weapons in Oolite. You just have to find an asteroid and start to gently push it. Each gentle push increases its speed. But don't push too hard, because it could become dust (or you, for that matter). Admittedly, aiming is a little difficult, but if you hit, it'll be worth your while.

Works with cargopods as well, by the way (just be careful not to scoop them instead of pushing them).

Theoretically, it might be able to be done via an oxp...

Use the missile pylons/special trunk equipment key (these seem to my go-to methods for things in my head at the moment) to "fire" it. Use this to add them using add ships, and give them a spawn location and trajectory based upon the player ship's position at the moment of firing. Getting the kill registered to the player might take a bit of fiddling about with, though. Possibly using a combination of the ship.target property, and the shipDestroyedTarget() and/or shipCollided methods?

I don't know if this would work though, nor whether having a large number of such ship scripts running would slow down Oolite.

It could be done the same way as a plasma cannon, surely, firing metallic bits instead of glowing balls?

Is it not possible to do a missile with a straight trajectory and a high velocity ?

tonyhippy wrote:

It could be done the same way as a plasma cannon, surely, firing metallic bits instead of glowing balls?

Well that depends. if you've got any variables then you might be able to alter them. If you have no variables (hard coded numerics, embedded in core code) then some ****er has to code an extraction that doesn't kill the program and make sure they don't clash with any existing variables.

That's not specific to oolite I would mention, just my experience of "newfeature-itus". Talk is cheap! Code is god! Code take time, cut slack must!

Makandal wrote:

Is it not possible to do a missile with a straight trajectory and a high velocity ?

Ok I like this, questions, that's cool. Take a look at the code for pylons that takes a one shot missile mount point and turns it into a 3 mount crapper missile mount point (no offence). Take that anger and turn it into action. Don't just stand there and shout it. Do something about it.

Make something, be part of (make) the game instead of just being a player.

The rewards for creation are infinite.

Makandal wrote:

Is it not possible to do a missile with a straight trajectory and a high velocity ?

Not trivially. For a small, high-speed projectile you’d need to implement custom collision detection code in JavaScript, because the bullets would otherwise skip over the target.

Ahruman wrote:

Makandal wrote:

Is it not possible to do a missile with a straight trajectory and a high velocity ?

Not trivially. For a small, high-speed projectile you’d need to implement custom collision detection code in JavaScript, because the bullets would otherwise skip over the target.

I stand very much corrected.

I'd settle for point-blank range only for when my laser/s are overheated.
(Just make the ammo for it reasonably cheap and plentiful per missile slot...)

Definetly a low tech cheap weapon. But useful for laser overheat.

However, I understand this is a technically difficult solution.

Thargoid wrote: ↑Fri Feb 18, 2011 7:46 pm

It is do-able (it's roughly how the anti-missile system now in Armoury.oxp works) but it's a pain in the rear view.

But it's also next to useless unless you want to have a missile that's several times larger than your ship is. Or else actually hitting anything at more than point-blank range with a non-maneuvering projectile is of very low probability.

I know this, as yes I have experimented with it, and not just with the Goliath...

cbr wrote: ↑Sat Sep 12, 2015 6:44 pm

Playing with the goliath oxp from Thargoid

Making a laser projectile elongated along the z axis, fires like a star wars laser

I've up a wiki page for the Goliath.oxp

cbr, can you tell me anything more about it? Or give details of your tweaks so I can include them on the page?

(Edited after page went up)

Goliath firing gigantic sugar-cubes! Is this an add-on to Smiv's Cup-of-Tea?