(WIP - Planning) Kerbal Ion Cannon Mod (Need coder)

[DIGI_Byte]

Hi there. I'm a long time 3D modeler for many mods and I've fallen in love with this game and its in a desperate need for a decent weapon mod

the current ones are 'ok' but nothing that really... passes as A+

I'm the kind of person who loves tinkering around in Tekkit from minecraft so i've taken a few steps from what i love about that, and designed my own weapon set, an Ion Cannon (yes its not original, burt hear me out)

I've past the idea stage and ready to move onto 3D but I don't know any form of coding and whats possible, so if you'd like to help I'm in great need of a coder

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Modules;

Deep Probe Antenna - Needed for deep space communication, its size is to compensate for the EMP the Ion creates on charge and cooldown

Vents - Medium and Large, increase cool-down of the Fusion chamber to fire again

Fusion Chamber - Requires 25,000 (Medium) or 125,000 (Large) Energy to fire

where the ionization forms with the energy in the Batteries, Not enough energy, doesn't fire, to much, it overheats

Barrel, focuses the Beam and increases lock time and range to a maximum of 5x

large is triple range, and lock time of medium

Discharge Point, due to the way the engine works the barrel shouldn't be the laser origin, so basing it similar to the thruster systems, we will have a tip where the laser comes from

it must be attached directly onto barrel pieces and is treated like a thruster

Targeting Module - Similar to SAS specially designed to aim at the target

NOTE: advantage of Large Ion Cannon could be a large AOE on "collision", allowing multiple targets to be destroyed within the area and longer range but at a cost of excessive charge up time and cool down as well as locking onto the target

since nothing is physical past a short distance, the laser should simply delete the object, this of course would be revised if that physics limit was altered

MISC

Blinking lights that cast light in the area around it

Red / Blue / Yellow / Green

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If you think you can help, or have a working copy, I'll share my 3D skills

but as the moment, this is an idea that i would like to flesh out into something of a tactical/strategic weapon as the current mods are somewhat of a joke

as for the current limitations in game for collisions, making it impossible to 'hit' an object over 2.5km away, my idea to approach this is to simply delete the object beign targeted if possible

Also, if you have your own idea's, criticism or suggestions feel free to post

PS, whats the chances of this being in the game?

Edited May 1, 2013 by DIGI_Byte

[ghost010]

Well if this would be opensource,than that would be great(i have a part thats desperately in need of some beam weapon integration)

I dont know about the Exhaust ,seems rather useless as that would make the need for extra coding.

Id advice to keep the coding as minimal as possible and just code the things that are really necessary.

you still can make an exhaust,just not functional.. at least not in that manner.

as for the 2.5km part and deleting,id advice to stick with the 2.5km as there could be enough targets in that range.

deleting crafts would just take away the fun and might even be to hard to code or to heavy.

Edited April 30, 2013 by ghost010

[Itsdavyjones]

The way you are making the cooling system sound is that you are just dumping coolant straight into the chamber and letting it vaporize into space. Using radiators would work better because it would be a closed system, and therefor no/minimal losses.

[DIGI_Byte]

Very true... the idea for the coolant is to tie it to a resource that wouldn't be used as much as ammo would and to give a reason why the vents would give out a particle effect

but that was a last minute decision and probably should be removed as the lasers, once installed, should be a self sufficient base that uses solar power

I would also like to set this up as an open project

and the final result should actually look like this

also, with that note that first reply, deleting the object isn't as harsh as you think. games are mostly particle effects, animations and code

props to far away wouldn't even be seen when shot and those ones would be deleted

I believe the trick is to simply select the target and delete it while the laser is firing

if the object is within visible range, add an explosion effect > break things apart > them explode

I'll have time today to do some 3D models and I'll build some parts, my only issue is scale but we can worry about that after its built.

[Galacticruler]

Please make it the TS/TD version of the IC though, the C&C3 one takes too long to charge.

[DIGI_Byte]

I would like to, but the idea of KSP and its simulation style wont be avoided, this won't be a simple mod like some others have created

the laser will take about 30 seconds to charge up

that's strategy vs simulation

Currently I'm worrying about the fuel levels and fuel types, it appears it wont be easy to create our own fuel source

maybe convert Energy into Xenon as a place holder

as long as it charges up depending on available energy when activated

Fire's for 1-2 seconds and takes 2-5 minutes to cool down

Edit: We'll use straight up batteries/Energy

required Energy will be 25,000 small, 150,000 for large

Edited May 1, 2013 by DIGI_Byte

[Frement]

This is something I would like to address once I've gotten around the problem of no multiplayer.

[DIGI_Byte]

i'd like to share some screenshots using stock parts of the size and necessary parts for the Ion Cannon

Early Prototype using Xenon Gas as a place holder

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=142479056

Newer version which will just use Batteries Energy

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=142479063

as for coding and all that, there is someone who developed a laser plugin that i was thinking of approaching

will post if anything is made of it

[Greys]

Romfarer, the person you're thinking of, has since been hired by Squad, makers of this game. As such you can understand that he's got more important things on his plate. Please seriously take no offense to that.

As long as you're not going to simulate ships breaking up; which you can't under the current physics model, you also don't particularly need much of what he has already, the benefit of the Sunbeam destructive lazor is that it effects specific parts, makes them overheat and explode themselves as an exploitation of the physics. This allows you to pinpoint blow up random debris or if you're really good pick parts off of a ship with minimum collateral damage. You want a swath of destruction, given this kind of cannon nothing short of an active sufficiently powerful EM shield would prevent the utter destruction of the target.

Now, you're aware of the 2.5Km physics range, which can through Lazor mod be extended to 97.5Km, past this distance the object is referred to as "on rails"; the big problem that you're going to run into with anything more than an effective pinpoint beam is that beyond another specific distance that I don't have on hand at the moment the vehicle is on rails And "Packed", when a vessel is packed, it exists as a single point of information linked to a stored format of the ship's composition and structure. if you're projecting a ray from point A, the barrel of your cannon, to point B, the packed target, no problem. In that situation the beam is purely visual, you've selected a single target and you're dealing with it outside physics. Once you give the beam width and the ability to hit multiple things, now you're going to have to make mechanical concessions.

Will the beam only destroy ships who's packed points exist within the beam? That shouldn't be too hard to calculate but it's possible to have some pretty damn massive ships that would seem to dodge the beam simply because their point was outside the beam, even if a large portion of the ship wasn't. Are you going to try and force unpack ships near the beam to figure this out? that's going to be hard, maybe even impractical. And like I said, these things that are well outside the physics sphere and even outside the unpack distance, there is zero possibility that you will be able to modify the object, if you try to shot a rather large space station 400km away, and hit; you have two choices. It's all gone, or it's all still there, even if the ship you're shooting is substantially larger than the beam.

It shouldn't be particularly hard to delete an object in space once you've identified your target.

Optimistically, this sounds like great fun and I'd love to play around with it, pessimistically I don't think you'll be able to get around these limitations without compromising the feel you want. Unfortunately this is the extend of what I can offer, I'm not a coder myself but these are fairly basic elements to the engine that you'll have to work against.

One thing you might be able to work with is using a hidden projectile object; but that object would have to be made the focused object so that physics travel along with it, but this would make it behave as a moment-damage system instead of a continuous beam damage system and you would have to override it's physics (put it on rails) to make it not deflected by the objects it hits.

[Supergamervictor]

Kane will be very upset about this mod XD It is quite complex to make the mod so you are going to need alot of coding.

Good Luck!

[DIGI_Byte]

@Greys, I whole heartily agree and understand, it was obvious some people would be inclined for something realistic, even tho a simulator game, should not aim to emulate pure realism and such cuts need to be made, not just for limitations but for functionality

and that's where the Ion cannon idea follows, objects that are simply to far away but withing a set 'range' would be deleted, its not about simulation its just about a fancy way of deleting props without feeling guilty about ending flight (that is the most evil button in the world)

I think to break it down it would be as follows;

increase physical range to 95km+ by the sunbeam mod

selecting a target via a control HUD similar to the laser mod (one that reflects beams)

Align cannon towards trajectory via RCS or those gravity/momentum wheels I saw

Only one Ion tip can fire at a time. If multiple exist, they must be selected VIA the control HUD

objects closer then the 95km limit will break up for effect,

the idea can be that the Ion beam picks up speed and anything within its min firing range is punched through and destroyed

the range of course could be altered if its not ideal for orbital bombardment

the more Ion Chargers present and connected to tips, the faster the charge up is

the more cooling vents connected, the faster it cools down

you can simulate heat VIA HUD if nessasary

Ion Charge can travel through parts like Fuel does, however the Ion tip must be connected to at least 1 Barrel, number of barrels control the max firing range

possible firing modes (extra)

low powered beam for orbital bombardment that has increased duration

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What I've been looking at is a Guidance Mod, sunbeam mod and those gravity wheels, if I can take inspiration and learning from those, i maybe able to pull it off

in the mean time, I finally had some time this morning and wiped up some 3D models, needs textures of course and I may do alternative themes if asked for

but let me know how you feel

[Greys]

the images look great, though they will look entirely different once textured; I'd suggest sticking to a very simple theme, basic colors, simple shapes, outlines; and a very light texture overlay to make it less cartoony. Pointing the thing is definitely going to be your biggest functional trouble, if you rely on the specific orientation of the barrel to determine where it fires it's going to be nearly impossible to hit anything at a decent range, things wobble too much no matter what you do.

If you want to mess around with it now, to a limited extent, it's very easy to add resources to the game, you would want to add ion charge and heat, then make your barrel a Generator type part (look at some mod power sources) that consumes ion charge rapidly to produce heat, with some particle effect shooting out the end if you can, may have to make it an engine to do that. Then make your cooling fin into a generator that consumes heat to do something. It won't actually shoot but you can put the thing together in game and see how that feels.

[DIGI_Byte]

did some drawings on my tablet, rough sketches and basic math

Image 1

Image 2

Image 3

Image 4

Image 5

i've worked it out that it would take 4.15 units of heat per hour, or 0.83 heat per min that the vents would dissipate

Cannon cannot fire if its heated, and cannot start the cooling cycle while its charging, so if you hit fire, before cooling, you cannot cool it down, which would result in explosions

Edited May 8, 2013 by DIGI_Byte

[Katalliaan]

Those pictures 403 (insufficient permissions) DIGI.

[DIGI_Byte]

Fixed images, problem was the wrong URL share link

probably hard to read the writing for the accuracy calculations

but the lower the better, the example i used in that image was for 200km with 3 barrels have a 6% chance of miss

with 1 barrel was a 20% chance of miss

the formula works as follows

chance of miss =

(Distance/Number of Barrels)/10)

for the display of 1.000 the number is simply /100

I'm not sure if the numbers are the right way around but you would add the angle difference to the chance of miss

like so,

(Distance/Number of Barrels)/10) + ((Target angle Vector - Ion tip Rotation)/distance)

Edited May 9, 2013 by DIGI_Byte

[DIGI_Byte]

how do you learn to code? I don't think you'd have to use visual studio (I hope)

But there must be some basic GUI Coding and other area's to go into

maybe I should edit an existing mod, it might make it easier to get started.