Merchant Guns question

[Stew U-582]

Can anyone help me out with this.

I am using TM v6. I have noticed it is very hard to destroy the guns mounted
on merchant ships , near impossible. The only success I have had was attacking an AA gun mounted on a merchant ship at point blank. It took about 20 direct hits from my deck gun before it blew up. So far I have been unable to destroy any of ther larger guns on merchant ships.
Can anybody shed some light on wich files I would need to mod to reduce the hit points of the guns mounted on merchant ships. Are they part of the ships zon file for each ship or is there one file for each type of guns.

Any Ideas

stu

[chopped50ford]

I would be curious to know this too. The emplacements, including ours should be susceptable to damage to inoperability, or completetly wiped out.

[tater]

The sub guns are pretty hard to take out, and the crew is invulnerable. No ideas (this is in stock, too, from what I have tested).

tater

[leovampire]

there are hit point and armor settings for the gun's in the game and if they are distructable or not.

[jdkbph]

I wondered about this as well. They do seem indestructable. But even more, the gun crews are very... staunch. I had the entire forecastle of a tanker in flames the other day, and the gun, located smack in the middle of the conflagration, was still firing, fast and accurate.

If there is a way to modify this, it would prolly be best to set the "hit points" very low, such that any hit within the damage radius of the weapon would kill it. The reasoning here is that, for the purposes of a single battle, a soft kill is as good as physical destruction. These are typically merchant seamen, or possibly seconded troops of lesser quality, manning these guns. It shouldn't take much to disrupt them to the point of being totally ineffective. I'm sure someone could dig up a notable exception or two, but for the most part I think this is a valid assumption.

JD

[leovampire]

fire's do not effect anything around it just eye candy they can be set do do damage but if you did do it then people would say the ships sink to easily now so there is no happy medium with that.

But explosions can and do destroy ships and other ships even a sub so you have to be carfull how much of a global ability you give them.

Redwine found out one day he was too close to a War ship when it exploaded and he almost sunk and he was under water.

[jdkbph]

fire's do not effect anything around it just eye candy
Kinda figured as much. Which is why I suggested setting the hit points (if there is such a thing) for the guns on merchies to something very low... such that even a few 20mm rounds could take it out.

No, a few 20mms prolly wouldn't be able to destroy a shielded 75mm gun mount in real life. But this would simulate a poorly trained and low morale gun crew (they're serving aboard a target, after all :)) running for cover as the incoming rounds start banging off the deck and bulkheads around them.

And if that "unbalances" the game to the point where surfaced gun actions against armed merchies seems like a good idea, the fragility of the player's sub should be increased to the point where even a single hit from a 3+ inch gun should carry with it a high probability of serious damage.

$0.02

JD

[leovampire]

the gun's mounted on the medium merchant ships and it sucks LOL!!!

But I can destroy them and have done it with changes I made to the zone's file. Even made the guys walking on the deck behind it go flying in the air. I just set up ammo as a cargo for the gun and that did that.

[LukeFF]

But I can destroy them and have done it with changes I made to the zone's file. Even made the guys walking on the deck behind it go flying in the air. I just set up ammo as a cargo for the gun and that did that.

Care to list what changes you made? ;)

[leovampire]

[ASWweapon]
Category=ASW Weapons
Multiplier=1.000000
Flotability=0.000000
HitPoints=10
Destructible=Yes
Effect1=#Small_splinter_explosion_no_halo, 25
Effect2=#Fire_small, 25
Armor Level=5
Critic Flotation=0.300000
Critical=No
FloodingTime=59.999996
CargoType=Ammo
Crash Depth=25

[WeaponsLight]
Category=Light Weapons
Multiplier=1.000000
Flotability=0.000000
HitPoints=50
Destructible=Yes
Effect1=#Splinter_explosion_no_halo, 25
Effect2=#Fire_small, 25
Armor Level=50
Critic Flotation=0.300000
Critical=No
FloodingTime=360
CargoType=Ammo
Crash Depth=25

those are the only 2 that you should be able to destroy with your deck gun the medium weapons I added personaly but I do not have them destructable in my game and the heavy also should not be destructable so I didn't list them.

[chopped50ford]

and this will affect the merchant guns?

Thanks for the info :)

[Hobnail]

Using TM 1.6 I've not had the same problem in taking out gun mounts including the 5" casement mounts on the rear of the mediums.

I use AP rounds and I've seen it take as many as 3 direct hits and as few as one (that had me grinning like a :arrgh!: as it was the only heavy cannon in the small convoy after I sank its escort).

I've not felt the need to adjust anything.

[LukeFF]

fire's do not effect anything around it just eye candy they can be set do do damage but if you did do it then people would say the ships sink to easily now so there is no happy medium with that.

What value(s) need to be modified if one wants to see what effect fire has on damage?

[Stew U-582]

Thanks for all your replys guys.
I think leovampire has awnsered my questions and im in the stage of testing.

will report progress.

Stu

[Roger Dodger]

the gun's mounted on the medium merchant ships and it sucks LOL!!!

But I can destroy them and have done it with changes I made to the zone's file. Even made the guys walking on the deck behind it go flying in the air. I just set up ammo as a cargo for the gun and that did that.

I saw the changes (later post), but to which zone files are you referring, and how do I edit them? My .zon files come out in machine language and can't be edited with notepad.

[leovampire]

it is in the Main data folder right with the scene.dat file and all the other sub files.

Roger Dodger

As to the fire effect's it is handled in the Particles and materials files to answer your question. LukeFF

[Roger Dodger]

it is in the Main data folder right with the scene.dat file and all the other sub files.

Roger Dodger

As to the fire effect's it is handled in the Particles and materials files to answer your question. LukeFF

Gotcha. Thanx muchly, I'll give it a try.

[LukeFF]

As to the fire effect's it is handled in the Particles and materials files to answer your question. LukeFF

What files should I be looking at?

[leovampire]

the particles file for damage effect's and durations and size and so forth is your best bet. Just one thing could have 10 seperate node's to it when opend up then in a node maybe 50 differn't setting's between near and far and bitmap Particles and Object particles creation weight velocity and the list just goes on.

I had to learn all this and figure it all out by compairing one type of effect to another and take my chances to see how it all worked.

So have fun and remember to always save an untouched file for a back up then good luck playing with it all.

I am not working in that area of the game files at the moment and have some stuff I have to get done for the mod and test so until all of this is done I can't walk you through it right now.

I learned by compairing and trial and error and if I didn't understand something in terms used then tryed to find a reference to it on the internet.

[tater]

BTW, the back and forth in and out of the game to test various effects that leo mentioned so casually is a frightening amount of time consumed. Open file, make changes. Save file, load mod. Load game, load mission, test, quit. Unload mod, open file, etc, ad nauseum.

The amount of time leo has put into his stuff is truely amazing. Unless you have done it (and I've done almost none by comparison) it's hard to have a feel for how much work he's had to do---and the waiting to load stuff really isn't fun, at best it's work, lol.

<S> Leo.

tater