Not sure where to put requests like this, but I'd like to see ammo switching for cannons, and specifically the howitzer.
The current howitzer only spits out non-explosive rounds, which seemed backwards to me. I messed with a copy of the cfg for howitzer to make an HE one, using the 105mmHEshell in bulletdefs, and modifying the velocity to get a parabolic shot more akin to how a howitzer shell actually travels.
I haven't even tested the new part and bullet at max range to check the parabola because I came up with the bright idea to transplant some firespitter code, the "oblong multi-tank" fuel switch module, into BDAc to consolidate the normal and HE versions of the howitzer into one part with an in-flight button to toggle which ammo the part fires. Further, I wanted to be able to have two rounds in the same ammobox part and have a slider to indicate ratio between the HE and Bullet ammo types. It was my intent to eventually extend this to turret cannons with smaller and larger variants; 75mm, 88mm, 155mm, Naval guns and so on.
I hit a roadblock when I couldn't find the file in the Firespitter folder that held the module definition for switching fuel. The only thing in the part cfg is a call to use it. In-fact I've never found anything in the BDAc folder for tweaking the weapon manager cfg to allow the slider on "max engage" farther than 10km(The WWII 155mm howitzer had a max range of ~15km). Editing the settings file for max range didn't change the manager UI in-game, in SPH, so I gave up on the larger guns. I reigned myself in when I finally researched that I might need to edit the dll to add a new module to a part, since the dll is the only file I haven't been able to read. I really don't want to code in C--'d rather not braindead my potato pc trying to figure it out--but I do want to see it as a part of the mod and feel like it shouldn't be too hard to include.
Thus, it is my humble request to see these features, my previous ambitions, in the game on some future release by the dev team:
1)Ammo Switching (Real request)
*Ability to toggle between ammo in-flight for relevant cannon weapon parts (preferably working with action groups)
*Two resources on cannon ammo box part: AP rounds, HE rounds
**Resources bound to a maximum amount of units(volume): Max=AP+HE
2)Ammo correction and expansion (Real request)
*Expand bulletdefs: 75mm, 88mm etc.
**High velocity low explosive AP rounds and low velocity high explosive HE rounds (I'm not asking for actual bullet physics against surfaces by requesting AP rounds. tnt is fine, just lower it for AP)
3)Parts expansion (Nitpick)
*New tank turret and/or howitzer model
*Expand cannon parts: 75mmTurret, 75mmHowitzer, 88mmTurret etc.
*Adjustable caliber for cannon guns and turrets
**Caliber is the barrel length, not bullet diameter, for cannons. It affects the initial velocity, ie 50cal on a 75mm would be 50x75mm barrel length.
***This would blow up the amount of bulletdefs. You would need a new bullet for every caliber within a certain caliber range on every round diameter, rather than switching between two already existing bulletdefs as 1) and 2) requests would only require that much. Might even create a dependency on tweakscale for it to work in-game. So I'm not even sure if this would be worth it for the dev team to fix, as a copy of the part.cfg and bulletdef entries by the player could accomplish different variations once the underlying ammo-switch is in place, but it would be awesome to see.
Thank you for reading.
