InfiniteDice -=Skillful=- Combat Damage & Weapons Mod

[Kenobi McCormick]

In all my strafe tests it has been very difficult to hit without a guide of some kind. I'd be in favour of this but I'm not sure if it will make release 1. So you'll have to go at it hardcore till r2.

I can confirm that it's almost impossible to hit anything smaller than a spaceplane without a gunsight of some sort. I've done it with the firespitter parts and a manually resized GAU-19. I can also confirm that building your plane so it resembles a gunsight and using chase cam remedies that.

gonna be interesting to see what sort of targeting systems you come up with.

I must say, I'm quite intrigued by that tank turret you showed a few days ago. I'm hoping that the ammunition will be up to modern specs. That is high velocity ( ~2km/s at the muzzle), very accurate (if aimed accurately, of course), and very destructive.

I want to see a progression of tank guns starting from low velocity, inaccurate 37mm pillbox busters(Ala Renault FT-17), all the way up to modern cannons found on the Abrams and competitors. I also wouldn't object to a smattering of what WoT players know as derp guns. 105mm Sherman, for example. Or KV-2. Inaccurate, slow to reload, dubious penetration, yet they hit with such a massive explosion that all but the strongest armor cannot resist it.

Im guessing not, since thats about orbital velocity for LKO.....the physics engine is dealing with things moving at that speed all the time, big multipart ships at that. A single part projectile shouldnt be an issue.

KSP's collision detection system is wonky, though, and breaks down at high velocity. I've had issues with it at just a tenth of orbital velocity. Sometimes I get bored and intentionally smash unmanned aircraft into large rockets on the launchpad and sometimes will watch the first third or so of the jet clip through the rocket before the physics engine realizes that a crash is happening. If it's that dodgy at just ~150-200m/s relative velocity I imagine it'd not realize there was a collision at all at 2km/s relative.

I'm assuming, to get around that, InfiniteDice is going to be fixing that in his plugin though.

In all my strafe tests it has been very difficult to hit without a guide of some kind. I'd be in favour of this but I'm not sure if it will make release 1. So you'll have to go at it hardcore till r2.

I can confirm that it's almost impossible to hit anything smaller than a spaceplane without a gunsight of some sort. I've done it with the firespitter parts and a manually resized GAU-19. I can also confirm that building your plane so it resembles a gunsight and using chase cam remedies that.

gonna be interesting to see what sort of targeting systems you come up with.

I must say, I'm quite intrigued by that tank turret you showed a few days ago. I'm hoping that the ammunition will be up to modern specs. That is high velocity ( ~2km/s at the muzzle), very accurate (if aimed accurately, of course), and very destructive.

I want to see a progression of tank guns starting from low velocity, inaccurate 37mm pillbox busters(Ala Renault FT-17), all the way up to modern cannons found on the Abrams and competitors. I also wouldn't object to a smattering of what WoT players know as derp guns. 105mm Sherman, for example. Or KV-2. Inaccurate, slow to reload, dubious penetration, yet they hit with such a massive explosion that all but the strongest armor cannot resist it.

[KhaosCorp]

KSP collision detection system is wonky, though, and breaks down at high velocity. I've had issues with it at just a tenth of orbital velocity. Sometimes I get bored and intentionally smash unmanned aircraft into large rockets on the launchpad and sometimes will watch the first third or so of the jet clip through the rocket before the physics engine realizes that a crash is happening. If it's that dodgy at just ~150-200m/s relative velocity I imagine it'd not realize there was a collision at all at 2km/s relative.

Very true, wonky is maybe even a bit of an understatement. And your example is good demonstration of how it is, but I think your overlooking something. You say 1/3 of the jet clips before there is collision.....but there IS a collision.

I have done craft vs craft collisions out in space at 13km/s+.....and yes, its wonky as all hell, but stuff blows up. Granted, sometimes I thought the craft missed each other, then BOOM a second later.

Granted Im sure thats not gonna be good enough for ID and it will be improved upon.

[InfiniteDice]

Very true, wonky is maybe even a bit of an understatement. And your example is good demonstration of how it is, but I think your overlooking something. You say 1/3 of the jet clips before there is collision.....but there IS a collision.

I have done craft vs craft collisions out in space at 13km/s+.....and yes, its wonky as all hell, but stuff blows up. Granted, sometimes I thought the craft missed each other, then BOOM a second later.

Granted Im sure thats not gonna be good enough for ID and it will be improved upon.

Hi Guys.

For starters, I have already overcome collision issues at high speeds. So I will be tuning the guns relatively close to the real world counterpart... even though it's KSP and there is no humanity for god's sake!

Most guns fall between 750 - 900 m/s, I think the fastest firing gun I have right now would be the phalanx which fires somewhere around 1100 m/s - with nearly 100% of rounds colliding.

I have a timer on all rounds, realistically I have to keep the overhead down with the rate of fire being high but not as high as in real life. I think the timer on the phalanx as well as all smaller rounds is about 4 seconds. Which after velocity falloff due to drag will give the round an outer range of 3 - 3.5 km. Penetration power is reduced as it slows down of course, so effective range (depending on the target) is likely under 2km.

The larger rounds/shells have more duration on the timer. due to their extended range. As I mentioned in another post I was able to lay some smack-down on another battleship about 7.2km away. Really with those shells even when at reduced velocity they put down the hurt.

I've added some fire/smoke fx to the ground where Incendiary shells land, and explosive force within a short radius of where HE shells hit the ground. This allows for some inaccurate splash type damage to be dealt. The final step to that will be spawning shrapnel at the explosion site, each particle then deal out damage as a low powered round would, this would be bad for weak targets like aircraft or other small parts that are not armour.

Heat is one thing I've put some control on lately. When something burns it will heat to about 90% of that parts max temp... at that time it will randomly be determined if the part should outright explode or just burn-out and be fixable later. Parts containing fuel will check for an explosion around 60% of it's rated max heat. Engines that overheat will be treated the same way.

Damage will take each part into consideration, wings lose lift, seize at a given position, or lose range of deflection. Engines shut down, turrets can't turn or fire... and so on. I haven't covered off everything but I'll try to cover the primary part types.

Torpedoes are back in! I have them skimming just under the waterline at about 20 - 25 m/s, they have a base range of about 2km, though that can be changed. They don't seek or anything... they track the line you drop them at, they will have an fx trail so they are slightly easier to see from the air.

Good discussion, there is a lot to cover in something as broad as this!

On a side note: I'm picking some weapons/ordinance that I think would be neat to model and implement. I plan on adding an 88mm flak gun as I needed something in that range. My torpedo is modeled and set up to act like a ww2 Japanese type91, I just made a 30mm DEFA internal cannon. The tank turret has a 127mm smooth-bore gun and is loosely modeled after the turret off the Leopard 2 A6? MBT. The real tank has a 120mm... so this is slightly bigger... I was originally making a 5" naval gun, but decided a tank turret would be better.. so I kept the round parameters and made a tank turret model instead.

Release 2 candidates so far are: 88mm Flak artillery, capable of use as regular artillery or AT. Small portable mortar (maybe). Acoustic homing torpedoes (slightly better than nothing!). I'm thinking of heat-seeking air-air missiles like a sidewinder... I'm only pondering it right now, and if so... there will be flares. I'd likely allow the flares to have an automatic discharge setting, or chime a note when the missile is 1 - 2 seconds from your plane to 'remind' you to deploy the flares.

Anyhow... too much to talk about and too little time! Later guys

[likke_A_boss]

A few questions, if I may.

1) Will thaw damage cover mod parts also. You mentioned "part types" which leads me to assume that that will carry over to mods, but mods will sometimes have different part types (eg. Cargo bays, launch escape, flight computers, infernal robotics, fairings, and other specialized parts). So will this damage still effect things like these?

2) Jeez, how big is this file? How much memory will it take up?

3) Why are you so awesome? I feel my inferior modding skills... :rolleyes:

Looks great, keep it up ID!

[InfiniteDice]

A few questions, if I may.

1) Will thaw damage cover mod parts also. You mentioned "part types" which leads me to assume that that will carry over to mods, but mods will sometimes have different part types (eg. Cargo bays, launch escape, flight computers, infernal robotics, fairings, and other specialized parts). So will this damage still effect things like these?

2) Jeez, how big is this file? How much memory will it take up?

3) Why are you so awesome? I feel my inferior modding skills... :rolleyes:

Looks great, keep it up ID!

1) It will be clearly stated on the release thread that the mod will cover any/every part loaded in the game. Damage affects all stock or mod parts. Mod authors can contact me for extra details so they can set part specific damage states.

2) The dll is currently at 84k, Skillful is currently taking 54.6 mb in total. I might be able to get some savings later, so it could be smaller.

3) I'm stubborn - I don't give up easily, if I don't know how to do something I learn how.

Thanks for the interest!

[Kenobi McCormick]

88mm Flak cannon, eh? I'm already seeing a lot of Tiger 1s suddenly pouring out of the SPH...panzer brigade on the Mun, anybody? Hehe.

[likke_A_boss]

I don't think I've ever been so excited for a mod. This is gonna change the way I play the game. Great, now I just had to download your boat parts mod so I can make warships and subs and....... OH BOY! I predict so many memory crashes, and so much fun!

[Wolf123]

The shear amount of extremely high quality stuff is amazing! How is this possible? God... Just amazing:D Keep the good work!

[Fox62]

Truer words hath never been said.

[InfiniteDice]

Bug squashing and flushing out some code... Screenshots of the day:

Edited February 10, 2014 by InfiniteDice

[wasmic]

This will go well with the caterpillar tracks mod.

[The Error]

Can light things on fire?

...c-can we get flamethrowers?

[InfiniteDice]

Can light things on fire?

...c-can we get flamethrowers?

Fires can happen after a part takes a hit... more likely if the hit was from HE, much more likely if from Incend. And another factor is if there is fuel in the part...

Fires can start, and burn out pretty quick, or they can rage for a while and heat the part till it either explodes or burns the part out. Exploded parts are totally gone, burned out ones can be repaired later.

There's no technical reason why we couldn't... I'll add that to the 2nd release candidates.

Edited February 10, 2014 by InfiniteDice

[likke_A_boss]

I'll add that to the 2nd release candidates.

Oh, I got one! What explosives do you have so far? I would really love some large-scale explosive for my bomber..... Like Tallboy big I saw you mention this earlier, but that was the last time I heard of it.

Another one, what about armor? I would love to see some armor of different shapes. sizes, and toughness. Seen this one mentioned before, but nothing committed.

And, how about some dumb-fire missiles? I seen some conversation about them before in this thread, but nothing final. I would love to have some clusters on my attack choppers.

Last one, a mortar would be awesome too.

[Gundrium]

Infinite dice, do you plan on factoring whether a shot ricochets or not? I would think it would be easy, but I'm no expert. Will every shot hit, or will you allow for specific designs to have advantages. Like the Russian WWII tanks whose armor deflected most shots because they 'slid' off?

[InfiniteDice]

Infinite dice, do you plan on factoring whether a shot ricochets or not? I would think it would be easy, but I'm no expert. Will every shot hit, or will you allow for specific designs to have advantages. Like the Russian WWII tanks whose armor deflected most shots because they 'slid' off?

There are a lot of variables for checking penetration, I'm currently not affecting the calculation based on the off-90 angle. So right now two identical armour plates, one at 45deg would currently offer the same level of protection. I could check against angles when the shot hits, I'd have to do multitudes of tests to see how this would affect the current calculations and play-balance. This is something I could likely check into quickly to determine how much time it would take to implement and factor in. Anything that would take too much time would likely need to become a candidate for the second release.

It gets a little complicated as sloped armour is only sloped if the tank is sitting on level ground, equally if a shell impacts the armour coming down from a higher trajectory, it's effectively hitting the armour dead on. So vs. direct fire AT weapons... that have a flat trajectory, and when on level ground, the sloped armour would of course make a difference.

Ricochet is something that could be done, again, it's a matter of finding the right deflection, or it could be randomized for simplicity. Again comes down to time and most importantly the game value.

Sure it has some coolness factor, but if you are shooting at a tank 1km away... the last thing you care about is ricochet. The direct hit is the only thing that will have any real power to damage a hard target, as those are bits and chunks of the original projectile or target, traveling at a much reduced velocity and having no advantage in penetrator shape. Ricochet really only affects soft targets, like personnel or non-armoured components.

We'll see what can be done. Thanks for the input!

[KhaosCorp]

Actually during WW2 it was the German tanks and ATCs that were most known for bouncing shells....the Russian tanks of the period were all about just silly amounts of armor, regardless of angle...the KV series MBTs are great example of this.....

That being said shell bounces were not nearly as typical as WoT has everyone thinking (yet another potentialy great game killed by the pay-to-win format...sad).

[DisarmingBaton5]

This mod looks like it will be fun.

[Kenobi McCormick]

Actually during WW2 it was the German tanks and ATCs that were most known for bouncing shells....the Russian tanks of the period were all about just silly amounts of armor, regardless of angle...the KV series MBTs are great example of this.....

Yeah, but we had our fair share of ping-pong matches too. Shermans, for example. They were designed to defeat PzIIIs and early PzIVs with relatively thin armor, so they were given a low-velocity 75mm infantry support gun. Would do the job they designed the tank to do just fine, but if they found themselves facing down Tigers? Best thing to do was let that radial/V8 in the back deal with the situation as the gun would just **** the tiger crew off.

That being said shell bounces were not nearly as typical as WoT has everyone thinking (yet another potentialy great game killed by the pay-to-win format...sad).

Even removing P2W WoT is still beyond frustrating. Gonna be interesting to see what happens to it when WTGF goes fully public. I know I'll be jumping ship.

[The Error]

So...hm. Already have mental plans for a combination Boat Parts + <Skillful> ship, landing craft or something, carrying tanks and APCs. Maybe a full carrier group, if it doesn't melt my PC. Hmmmmmm........

[Jaydee]

in the future needs more schwerer gustav

[zavdan62]

man you are killing me i just i meant we just want a test of what you got so far like open beta or some thing just so YOU STOP KILLING US IN TIME AND ALL THE FUN YOU HAVE MESSING WITH IT SO GIVE US A TEST just a test that is all;.;

[wasmic]

man you are killing me i just i meant we just want a test of what you got so far like open beta or some thing just so YOU STOP KILLING US IN TIME AND ALL THE FUN YOU HAVE MESSING WITH IT SO GIVE US A TEST just a test that is all;.;

Now, that sounds very demanding. You should just sit back and relax and play some computer, and then, when InfiniteDice thinks this is ready and in top-quality, he'll release it. And then you can play with it.

[Kenobi McCormick]

AFAIK begging for early releases like that is against the rules.

[The Error]

Maybe not against the rules, but is frowned upon.

Also, ID, you mentioned curved armor plates for aircraft, are those in, or planned?