Now, with the explosionScale function out, I got curious: How damaging is a 2.75-in rocket? How powerful is a bomb? And how much havoc would a "standard (aka Guardian/Interceptor/Inferno)" missile cause? And most importantly, how do they compare to a "vanilla (with the explosionScalar function set to 1)" HE cannon round? The result? A rocket is equivalent to a 250mm(!) HE shell, and a missile is equivalent to a 350mm(!) HE shell. A 250lb bomb? 2000(!)mm. A 500lb bomb? 4000mm. So you would assume a bomb with the equivalent explosive power of a small missile would have the explosiveScale of 0.8 * (350/2000) = 0.14? Wrong! It's 0.375. And of course, a bomb with the explosiveScale set to 80 apparently can shred planes some six miles away, and the "Cleaver" cruise missile we all know and love, although have the explosiveScale set to 1.8, apparently causes the same damage as two 500lb bombs detonated together (tested by detonating random bombs on the carrier's deck and seeing how fast the ship shinks), so just how in the world is the blast yield of the bombs calculated? Logarithmic?
- Fun fact: a real-life 2.75" rocket have a payload of around 2kg, which is around the same as the payload of a 100mm HE artillery shell. So based on the findings, should we simply set all
explosionScalarparameters on HE rounds to 2.5?
Random indeed.
@ThomasRoderick Yeah im tring just increase the number of rockets but they dosen't seen to explode correctly or something. Still testing tho
@Kendog84 That's sad, the cannon trick is very simple: Just use a canon to explode the torpedo when you get closer to your target, cannons dont fade out of existence below 20 meters so is the only way to make a functional submarine torpedo
@ThomasRoderick
I intended to do the release by selecting and "firing" the bombs (I used pylon's release mech for jettisoning), but yeah, if I made it release store via pylons & dedicated release mechanism, that would make it more universal. I'll work on a new version, shouldn't be too hard a modification.
@Kendog84
... I thought using the pylons is exactly how you make the pylons universal? No matter what's on those pylons, when you press the fire button something gets dropped/launched. This would be especially true on WWII planes with their electromechanical intervalometers that really doesn't care about what they're dropping.
@ThomasRoderick
Yeah, that's one thing I wasn't able to fix with this version (though I've made some other improvements). It can be done if you integrate the bombs into the system, where the drop is done by the pylon (I used exactly this for my other custom weapon project), but it wasn't an option for this one, since I made the racks with reusability/adaptability in mind (so you can put any bomb on them). I tried changing the order of connection, placement of individual station in relation to each other, etc., but none worked. So you gotta bare with it dropping the side bombs ar t the front first...
Actually, I can use the cannon ammo count trick and make it work for any bomb, not sure if I should incorporate the feature to this version though (it's already been on hold for months)
@Kendog84 I'd say the biggest challenge is to always drop the bombs on the bottom hardpoint first before dropping the others... perhaps a cannon can be used to help sequence the bomb release?
@ThomasRoderick
Yeah, the visual effect of the explosion isn't very napalm like. I was working on a modified version of potato's Napalm which uses no AGs and can instead be dropped like any other bombs, but canned the project because of that + immense lag caused by a few hundred rockets n detachers.
The racks are the Vietnam-post Vietnam era MER/TER type (multiple/triple ejector racks) that can carry up to 6 or 3 bombs. But this one is reusable in that, it's not "built in" to an aircraft. It's also fairly light, and won't flop under low physics. I just gotta finish the description text.
@ThomasRoderick
@Kendog84 Also I just have to say Potato21's "Napalm" looks awfully close to Willy-Pete but not that much to actual napalm, white smoke and all...
@Kendog84
What type of ejector rack? Consider me interested.
@Kendog84
And so are missiles and straight-run torps. I've made a cluster bomb a few years back with that principle... and promptly deleted it after realizing how laggy the build is - daisychained detachers and modified weight result in floppy builds.
@Kendog84
About 50ft or 15 meters.
@Kendog84
Yes on both accounts, depending on what you mean. A lynx-type torpedo is a custom-built projectile powered by either a rocket or infinite rotator, and connected to the launching sub with a winch (similar to wire-guided torps IRL) so that the cannon wouldn't be disconnected with the launching vessel.
@ThomasRoderick
Oh--I was mistaken in that case. When does it dispawn?
@Kendog84 Once again,
waterproofdoesn't help you with missile despawning - it just meant it wouldn't automatically become a dud upon contacting with water.@ThomasRoderick
I'll be publishing a low-physics proof bomb ejector racks (with some bombs) later btw, would you mind if I tag you on the post? I think you might like it
@ThomasRoderick
Yeah, I was referring to the lock-on free missile thing, which I think we both used as the basis for the custom rockets (Zuni this one in my case).
You can make the missile work underwater in fact, if you set
waterproofattribute toTrue(it's a hidden variable, and it doesn't exist for bombs. Not sure about rockets).But I didn't know about the cannon trick. I assume this cannon is attached to a custom projectile, and you "fire" it when it's near the target to cause explosion? Or is it connected to your ship via winch and launched by a detacher or something? Interesting technique either way.
Edit 1
Oh also--did you know that rockets on a detacher can be fired remotely (when disconnected from the primary cockpit) by activating the detacher? Didn't discover the trick myself (I learned this from this (Napalm by Potato21)) , but it's got some cool uses.
@Kendog84 @Leviatham
My personal recommendation? if you're making an ASW torp, just use a rocket as the basis. In real life, ship-launched ASW torpedoes carry less than 100lb (45kg) of explosives, while those heavy sub-launched keelbreakers often carry 650lb (250kg) or more... so I guess you can just strap a dozen (deactivated) rockets to the torp and call it a day?
@Kendog84
The cannon trick is something used widely by @Mintlynx, which is a cannon {
Cannon-1} part with {projectileLifetime} or {fuseInput} set to zero, {projectileType} set to explosive, plus a high {explosionScalar} or {diameter} (or both) to cause a massive explosion when the shell is fired (cannon projectiles will disappear underwater too, but not if they detonate before the game engine tells it to despawn). The issue is it's all but granted to be command-detonation and if the toepedo have already impacted the target the cannon might break off from the impact, rendering it a dud.@Kendog84 @Leviatham
I think I know what you're talking about, but I'm also pretty sure the missile will keep its tracking and proximity detonation assuming you're using fire-and-forget missiles like the Inferno {
Missile-Ground-1}, Cleaver {Missile-Ground-2}, or Interceptor {Missle-Long-1}.Either way, here is my tutorial on how to make such missiles, although given the parameter of "submarine torpedoes" I doubt missiles would be that useful given they disappear under water.
@Leviatham
Unfortunately there isn't at the moment. It's either the ExplosionScale of rockets can't be changed, or maybe game doesn't even have the parameter for the parts.
You can make a custom missile that flies straight and doesn't need a target (maybe this is what you mean by the cannon trick?), but it will be less reliable (it will explode upon contact with a plane, but can go through terrain sometimes).
@Kendog84 Is there a way to make rocket explosions more powerful? Im making torpedoes for my submarine and i don't want to make then with the cannon trick
@ThomasRoderick
Huh.. thanks, that's good to know.
I was kinda working on the assumption that what I said was the case (without testing, was just guessing).
And yeah, rocket's explosion doesn't seem to change in any way (people/I build & have to build custom rockets to simulate ones with bigger boom for that--explosion scaler for rocket & pod would be really nice)
@Kendog84 From what I got, no it doesn't. Cannon shells and (older, non-cleaver) missiles are probably coded the same way, and so does the Cleaver and bombs.
explosiveScalaris the sole determining factor of the damaging effect, while the size of the bomb only determines the visual effects. On rockets... I don't think either the visual effects or the damage effects can be changed.