Warzone 2100 Forums

Dunno if this has been suggested before or if the idea is ridiculous, but would it be possible
to have big anti aircraft GUN firing exploding shells - sort of like the fireworks at the end of the game ?

It could be similar to WW2 Flak guns and the round would explode with a good visible splash effect,
sending exploding metal fragments into the area of the airborne target.

Not an AA machinegun and not an AA homing missile, but heavy artillery with the muzzle pointed
skyward and grenades autofired when enemy aircraft is on the radar.

Perhaps an upgrade with multiple barrels that quickly fires a series of artillery shells
and the shells could be upgraded with uranium or kryptonite... xD .

Different types of fuses could be considered: time-delay or proximity to target
Such an AA cannon could be fixed as well as mobile/mounted on vehicles.

Isn't this just what Cyclone does?

Corporal Punishment wrote:Isn't this just what Cyclone does?

I guess all the AA turrets have a minor splash to them, but I was looking more for the BIG
explosion you see when the fireworks start at the end - a huge cloud of burning shrapnel.

Just thought it would be cool and useful when you get swarmed by big armadas og VTOL's...
Like a cannon fortress firering upwards and with splash radius of 4, 5 or more

Interesting idea, but I don't know is it possible.

exactly....

I really don't know why people like to think about super powerful weapons, they'd be really awful when you are using vtols and try to attack the enemy. The problem is, that given the VTOL flight height, that would (in real life, because I'm pretty sure that, probably Zarel, made a recent fix that inhibits splash damage effects to the bomber aircrafts) affect both air and ground. Because, even if there's an inhibition to splash effects actuating vertically, with a large splash radius, it would make sense that damaged tall objects as well.

But I dunno, I think that the technology tendecies lean more towards homing technologies than big explosions, and that technology tendencies are the main problems when someone suggest an old type of weapon to be introduced. Why would it be developed between today and 2100?

Also, there are ingame technologies named HE and HEAP flak shells, mkI mkII and mkIII. Did you check if there isn't splash damage after those upgrades already?

Good points

I don't see the vertical splash as any problem - just one more challenge in the game.
The shells would detonate at a higher altitude than their splash radius.
Also I wouldn't mind too much if this was a homing weapon, I was just thinking about balance
and gameplay.

I'm just trying to point out the potential in an AA cannon with large splash radius (not unlike the Mass Driver),
but with a lot lower damage.
A weapon useful against tight formations, but pretty useless against the lone VTOL.

Try to imagine the awesome sight of enemy VTOL's flying in to a barrage of 'fireworks' ..... O_O

praefectus wrote: Try to imagine the awesome sight of enemy VTOL's flying in to a barrage of 'fireworks' ..... O_O

Imagine the sight of your VTOLs doing the same. That's my point

Olrox wrote:I really don't know why people like to think about super powerful weapons, they'd be really awful when you are using vtols and try to attack the enemy. The problem is, that given the VTOL flight height, that would (in real life, because I'm pretty sure that, probably Zarel, made a recent fix that inhibits splash damage effects to the bomber aircrafts) affect both air and ground. Because, even if there's an inhibition to splash effects actuating vertically, with a large splash radius, it would make sense that damaged tall objects as well.

Actually, no, the change was only:
- Hit-ground-only weapons can't do splash damage to VTOLs.
- Hit-air-only weapons can't do splash damage to ground units.

Splash damage is currently still spherical (although I'm thinking about changing it to circular/cylindrical, to make the game more determistic, and speed up calculations). A dedicated AA splash weapon, or a V attack that does splash damage can still damage VTOLs.

Heck, right now, a lot of effects that are circular/cylindrical, I've been meaning to make square/cubical, or at least pass it through a square filter, to speed them up. I dunno, can any programmers tell me how the speed of four subtractions and four comparisons compares to two multiplications, an addition, and a comparison? (Keeping in mind that Warzone is written in C, so yes, that could make a difference.)

Olrox wrote:But I dunno, I think that the technology tendecies lean more towards homing technologies than big explosions, and that technology tendencies are the main problems when someone suggest an old type of weapon to be introduced. Why would it be developed between today and 2100?

Well, I'm currently still experimenting with the stats of an air-to-air weapon.

Currently:

Cyclone AA Flak: like ground-based cyclone, except twice as much damage.
Avenger AAM: like ground-based Avenger, except twice as fast reload
Stormbringer AA Laser: like ground-based Stormy, except twice as fast reload

I probably need better names, too.

Olrox wrote:Also, there are ingame technologies named HE and HEAP flak shells, mkI mkII and mkIII. Did you check if there isn't splash damage after those upgrades already?

Those do nothing but increase damage (sure, they increase splash damage, but it's a multiplier). I mean, the effect written on their respective Guide pages tells it all:

http://guide.wz2100.net/r/aaheapflak

I like the idea of making efficient Air-to-Air weaponry better. But perhaps then we would better have a VTOL CS tower (or VTOL defense tower or whatever), for assigned vtols to fight incoming vtols.
Just because I've already had really bad experiences on using VTOLs to fight VTOLs. Specially while trying to target enemy units because, you know, they're fast.
But whatever, I should've searched and read the fix's changelog before saying something about it, sorry

About the splash damage changes, I think that the problems that would result from "squareifying" them would be minor, if the performance increase is worthy, I really think that's a good change as well.

Zarel wrote:[...] I dunno, can any programmers tell me how the speed of four subtractions and four comparisons compares to two multiplications, an addition, and a comparison? (Keeping in mind that Warzone is written in C, so yes, that could make a difference.)

fixed or floating precision?

i'm checking with a more knowledgeable friend who can probably tell me the exact number of cycles that would take under every circumstance, but if they're int/long the first will be faster... much faster.

Olrox wrote:I like the idea of making efficient Air-to-Air weaponry better. But perhaps then we would better have a VTOL CS tower (or VTOL defense tower or whatever), for assigned vtols to fight incoming vtols.
Just because I've already had really bad experiences on using VTOLs to fight VTOLs. Specially while trying to target enemy units because, you know, they're fast.
But whatever, I should've searched and read the fix's changelog before saying something about it, sorry

Yeah, you're not supposed to click on the enemy VTOLs. You're supposed to alt-click the ground, which will launch "Patrol" and cause the VTOL to shoot everything in range (for the case of AA VTOLs, that would be the enemy VTOLs and nothing else). You can also use "Patrol" or "Circle" for the Orders menu, but that takes a long time.

Olrox wrote:About the splash damage changes, I think that the problems that would result from "squareifying" them would be minor, if the performance increase is worthy, I really think that's a good change as well.

Well, if it's two-pass, there would be no difference whatsoever, besides speed.

BulletMagnet wrote:fixed or floating precision?

i'm checking with a more knowledgeable friend who can probably tell me the exact number of cycles that would take under every circumstance, but if they're int/long the first will be faster... much faster.

Give two answers, one fixed, one float. I'm pretty sure Warzone still uses fixed for the code in question, but we might switch to float at some point.

The question isn't whether or not the first will be faster, but explicitly how much faster?

Olrox wrote:I like the idea of making efficient Air-to-Air weaponry better.

Only efficient against formations - I'm NOT suggesting a Super Weapon....
Like a shotgun - the fragments would hit many targets, but not do much damage, unless more
AA shells are fired simultaneously.
The other AA turrets also need to fire more than once to destroy their target...

Often the end games are all about overwhelming the opponent base with VTOLs, which there
is not much efficent defence against....

ok then, if you can provide me with a complete description of the mechanism you have in mind I can make a model next week, so we can see if someone gets interested on testing it.

Zarel wrote:Heck, right now, a lot of effects that are circular/cylindrical, I've been meaning to make square/cubical, or at least pass it through a square filter, to speed them up. I dunno, can any programmers tell me how the speed of four subtractions and four comparisons compares to two multiplications, an addition, and a comparison? (Keeping in mind that Warzone is written in C, so yes, that could make a difference.)

That is the totally wrong level of abstraction to do optimization. There is no practical difference (as long as you do not introduce lots of divisions, square root, etc.) that will even begin compare to the performance loss of memory lookups and cache misses.