NP 😃👍🏻

@Kerbango Thanks!

@SILVERPANZER Thanks. Not my design though...

@Farewellntchii You do understand that the design of this thing have literally nothing to do with me, right? Here are three of my original designs (hereby defined as "not a platform recycled from an old design with a different name", and let's face it, no amount of renaming changes the fact that a turd is a turd) that have once gained a mediocum of success and would be much more representative of what my construction style looks like.

@ThomasRoderick ok

@RolandTelmsFrossag It's not my design? Sadboye is pretty much a living god for Sci-fi designs, and Avalon is no slouch either. All I did was literally two lines of code on the AA turrets.

@ThomasRoderick Oh my friend. I mean, this design is very good, giving people a sense of science fiction and beauty

@RolandTelmsFrossag What, exactly, is pretty good for this minor fix of someone else's build? You're welcome either way.

@ThomasRoderick that's pretty good

@ZoaMiki Thanks... Although I just did a minor fix...

@ThomasRoderick You're welcome ^_^

@ThomasRoderick well uhm avalon is not only powerd by sadboy we have other people like me

@DrenasPort I thought only Avalon and Sadboye would say thanks to me fixing their tank? You're welcome anyways.

@ThomasRoderick its ok thx for fixing it

@ThomasRoderick why?

I am disappointed about the upvotes. I can 100% Guarantee that people who saw this on page were either in the mindset that you just reposed the thing or they didnt mind to come down here. Ive read the whole comment section and now i kinda feel sad about this. Here I am making so freakingly overpowered boats having no detail or no funky tress but still managing to get over 500 downloads and 20 upvotes. It honestly feels like i stole something from people who are 100x better than me. So good job on this! @ThomasRoderick its pretty awesome that you took the time and effort to make the system work correctly and then also took the time to write the description. this is underrated so ill share it with some people so that they find this and maybe even get help from it

@ThomasRoderick Welcome

1/1

OK! I managed to refine it down today to make it ALMOST automated (ie we just pull the trigger). This is better than I've experienced so far :)
Problem is, the Cockpit is inside the Flak Turret so it might have screwed up some other stuff... (The AA Machineguns are still just as deadly since they're spraying so much lead)
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That being said... [important changes to the code are in bold]
NEW Fuselage Block @ Coords: 0.0000027, 26.43127, -22.29239
-------Rotation: 0, 0, 0
-------Attachment Point: "Bottom" to the "Top" of Part ID 328 (the big fuselage on top of the triple guns)
Cockpit Moved to Coords: 0.0000027, 26.43127,- 22.29239(yes, same spot)
-------Rotation: 0, 0, 0
-------Attachment Point: "Bottom" to the "Center" of New Fuselage at same coords
-------(NOTE: Be sure to disconnect the cockpit from its original point; it will only be connected to this new fuselage part)
UPPER Flak Cannon XML Changes (ID 173):
-------explosionScalar: 3.5
-------fuseInput:

TargetSelected ? TargetDistance / (1250 - rate(TargetDistance)) * 1.01: 60

LOWER Flak Cannon XML Changes (ID 172):
-------explosionScalar: 3.5
-------fuseInput:

TargetSelected ? TargetDistance / (1250 - rate(TargetDistance)) * 1.05 : 60

------- CameraVantage -> viewMode: Chase (seems better, for when new targets are acquired)
Flak ELEVATION Rotator (ID 168):
-------invert: true (should be this already, but just in case)
-------input:

clamp((TargetElevation + rate(TargetElevation)*(((2000 * sin(asin((TargetDistance * 9.81)/(pow(2000, 2)))/2))/9.81) * 2)) + (asin(((TargetDistance + rate(TargetDistance)*(((2000 * sin(asin((TargetDistance * 9.81)/(pow(2000, 2)))/2))/9.81) * 2))* 9.81)/(pow(2000, 2)))/2), -12.5, 45) / 45

Flak TRAVERSE Rotator (ID 165):
(unfortunately its scale is 0,0,0 so need to edit this in the XML, or do as I did and edit its scale back to 1,1,1 so you can access it in game)
-------invert: true (pretty certain it's already this)
-------input:

(TargetHeading - Heading + rate(TargetHeading)*(((1000 * sin(asin((TargetDistance * 9.81)/(pow(1000, 2)))/2))/9.81) * 2))/180
(this could probably use to have those 1000 set to 1250)

EDIT: Stupid Markdown codebox not using word-wrap... AND this site lacking the ``` code-block ability! Ugh

2/2

(boy can I ramble, huh?....)
EFFECTIVENESS:
-In my tests --which were all performed at Wright's Spawn point-- I'm now able to, with ONLY the Flak Cannons (no AA machineguns), eliminate moderately-fast moving targets that are NOT performing elaborate acrobatics or have a high rate of climb/descent. Drone, Bomber, a few of my own builds, Astro's AS-15 Dagger, Enemy, were various targets I managed to take out.
-Depending on direction of travel, I had to use a slight bit of main-turret rotation in order to lead or trail the target JUST A TINY AMOUNT so that the shells exploded closer to them; hence, thinking that Traverse "1000" may be fine to change to "1250" (or maybe it needs to go back to 800?).
-RANGE though? In conjunction with my change to Fuse timing, that's now anywhere from <1 mile, to a peak of 3.5mi for slow moving targets (Drone), but an average Max of 2.2mi! :D If the Elevation with VTOL (noted below in Future Plans) were implemented, then this could be increased easily up to 5mi I think.
-Targets coming in to land were the ones that were usually closer before being able to destroy (~1mi, AS-15), but not always, as slower planes landing were destroyed around 2mi.
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Code Changes:
Elevation - Changed the -10 at the end, to -12.5 (determined after trying -20 and -15)
Rotation - Changed the two 800 entries to 1000
.
Additional notes:
I tried a few things with the Elevation which didn't work out. Such as setting all the asin to sin, changing the 2000 to 1250, changing the few * 2 to various * 1.9x values, and combinations of those. Ultimately, they produced drastic changes and needed to be reversed, with finally testing changes to just -10 and having the results I was after; lower values drop the Point of Aim, so -20 is far too low (the obverse to -10's too-high impacts).
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Future Plans:
1) At least for use as a turret on a vehicle/plane that isn't already using the VTOL input, I plan to either...
A) use VTOL as the "multiplier" in my Fuse code, so that you can adjust the fuse timing on the fly
or
B) use VTOL somehow, somewhere, in the Elevation code (maybe as a (-12.5 + VTOL)) so that the aim height can be adjusted for targets based on whether they're further or closer away.
2) I need to add a damn camera to the turret body so that I can switch back and be viewing behind the turret, with the camera pointing at the new target! When mouse click is needed to rotate AND is assigned to fire cannon, it's... a waste of ammo to rotate the camera lol

@ThomasRoderick Yea the assumption I had was as you said, the first set of numbers are the velocity, right? Except the coding in this thing totally contradicts that?? :( The only place that it turns up is in the Fuze timing :\
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Traverse code:
(TargetHeading - Heading + rate(TargetHeading)*(((800 * sin(asin((TargetDistance * 9.81)/(pow(800, 2)))/2))/9.81) * 2))/180
... uses 800.
.
Elevation code:
clamp((TargetElevation + rate(TargetElevation)*(((2000 * sin(asin((TargetDistance * 9.81)/(pow(2000, 2)))/2))/9.81) * 2)) + (asin(((TargetDistance + rate(TargetDistance)*(((2000 * sin(asin((TargetDistance * 9.81)/(pow(2000, 2)))/2))/9.81) * 2))* 9.81)/(pow(2000, 2)))/2),-10,45)/45
... uses 2000
*throws papers in the air*
So what the Eff, Jeff?! lol
Anyways, since I have a moment, I'll throw some of today's thoughts at the code right now and see what it results in!

@Formula350 So the point is that I tried putting the cockpit on the edge of fuselage blocks, nothing weird happened beside the tank now yawing/turning a bit while the gyro-locked turret didn't thus spoiling the aim. But for the coding part... I'm equally bad (if not even worse) at math, but IIRC the first number after pow should be somewhere near 1250 (the muzzle velocity of the guns)? Other than that the coding is equally incomprehensible to me as it is to you.

1/2

@ThomasRoderick Yea I had a system going because I wanted to get through my tests quick, and so I wasn't doing anything unnecessary heh
I'd spawn in, then press R to switch to A2A targeting, and press F twice (usually) to switch to Flak Turret. Then press Tab to select a target provided one wasn't already. (Sometimes I'd go through that sequence so quick nothing would've spawned in yet)
.
I will gladly test again to make sure, as indeed my SP had been running for hours by that point and who knows if there was some other anomaly happening. As there were certainly times when NO aircraft were spawning for me, and I'd have to click on Restart.
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But yea, what I did first, after you mentioned cockpit's location, was I relocated it to directly in the middle of the Flak turret, between the two barrels Y position.
Then, first, I just pressed R to let it reconnect. On that test, it was 180deg off, so I thought I did something wrong. Manually reconnected and tried again, same scenario. Then it clicked, that I needed to Invert the Rotator for the traverse.
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Ok so step back for a moment. This is before I'd realized what's happening, but this to me seems like the first clue: If the part you're connecting to, its rotation, were to have no impact on anything... why would I have needed to toggle Invert on that rotator? (Not just an in-hindsight-question, but a legitimate question, in case I'm overlooking or missing something... @Sadboye12 you have extensive knowledge/experience, is there a reason you had inverted that rotator in the first place?)
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After inverting, it was now pointing the right direction, but...... was still not properly aiming AT the target that was selected. So I went back into the designer and was setting up a new manual selection.
NOTE: Since I had my cockpit buried inside a fuselage part, I was therefore selecting that part's Center attachment point, because I didn't want the game thinking that the cockpit was on an edge and that causing for some odd calculation mishap.
It's when the connect-to-part's point selection came up that I noticed the fuselage I was selecting the Center point on, its arrows was not pointing Up like usual. That's when it hit me that "Oh? Is fact the part is rotated also impacting things??"
So I opened Fine Tuner and sure enough, that part was 90, 90, 0. (could've been something slightly different, but X was 90)
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Searching around the neighboring parts, the only one that was 0, 0, 0 was the back tapere

2/2

Unfortunately, the aim was still too high, but the Fuze timing now was much better. *(NOTE: The verdict of the Fuze was that for craft heading AT me, the 1370 [top cannon] code was dead on but the 1250 was detonating early; if traveling horizontally the detonated too late and too early, respectively, where probably 1310 is needed,)
This high-aim was what I would end up being plagued with it seemed. The lead on the aircraft (traverse) was now roughly where it needed to be, but the elevation was off, which I'm not exactly sure what I need to adjust in the Elevation code to address that. Feels like the Gravity is off, yet touching that any makes it WAY off so that's not it. Those 2000 numbers don't seem to do anything when using 2000 or 1000, and the '2' in the pow(2000, 2) seems to have the same massive detrimental impact that adjusting the gravity does (just in a different way).

TL;DR -

What I've found is that moving the cockpit to the center of the Flak turret, between each cannon barrel's Y coord, is indeed best.
That mounting the Cockpit directly to a part that is rotated, impacts how SP references how its spawned in and therefore its calculations. (I did not test with the cockpit rotated in the opposite direction of the part it's connected to, though)
The Fuze timing is pretty good, but maybe could use a Randomizer to select a value between 1250 and 1370. Would lerp or pingpong be possible?
And that at the end of the day, its always shooting too high, by quite a bit, causing a miss. Roughly an amount equal to .... 20-30meters? (I'm an Imperial, so yea, but it's >5 plane height's worth).
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Lastly, as I quickly glanced at Snowflake's page, the only conclusion I can now come to on what might solve it, is using sin instead of asin? (I'm guessing, I have no math abilities, but plan to try this in a bit, after I get back from doing some stuff!)
Problem is, I see it uses BOTH, and so, maybe removal of the asin? *epic shrug* :\
[/massive wall of text]

@Formula350 For some reason I didn't manage to replicate the effect of "If the part that the cockpit is attached to is rotated".
You sure the hull itself didn't move/rotate after loading (which I did notice) and that the your craft/cockpit is pointing exactly at 000 degrees, with no bank and/or pitch angles?

@ThomasRoderick Yes you told me, which is what motivated me to do more testing. It was that, which all the below were based on, as I went back and started testing over from scratch (ie, this upload of yours).
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If the Cockpit is rotated, things are off.
If the part that the cockpit is attached to is rotated, things are off.
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And I feel like if they didn't insist on re-rotating things, and would keep what we apply for angles, this wouldn't be a problem lol
(which by that I mean, whatever causes, for instance, if I input something akin to 0, 0, 180 and then when I go click back on that part, it's rotation is now suddenly 90, 90. 0 [or of that sorts] *sobs* whatever's behind that, I hate it, but I think might be at fault here too).