Searchlight?
 

Is there a way to do a mod so when you're shelling a Merchant you can shoot out that darn searchlight? I've sunk a couple Merchants at night and shot right at where the light is. It never goes out until just before the ship sinks. And yeah, they were shooting back, and you can hear their shells hitting the Uboat.

same deal with sh4, i think you need to make the mount destroyable since the object itself isnt.

i wish all the guns and searchlights were destroyable but they arent

not sure what would be involved in fixing it but i imagine every ship would need to be fixed one at a time and no one wants to do the work it would take

Ship equipments got their zon file (data/Library/ShipParts/guns_radars_01.zon), therefore in theory they should get damage, or they were conceived by devs to do so :yep:

I see two possible problems though:

- DMG_Col_ etc. collision models are missing from the GR2 file. I have no idea wether they are required or not for making equipments and guns destructible as they are for main units :06: but i guess so. We should ask TDW if his GR2 editor at its current state can be able to add those models :hmmm:

- Some equipments, including reflectors, have not their box defined in the zon file.

If someone wants to test it, I can add a box around them to see what is going to happen in game. :salute:

From the SHCollisions.act file nothing will be considered for collision unless it has a DMG_col node (barring torpedoes/shells/DC - anything that has a weapon controller on it)

Gap, if you want to set it up as a mod I can give it a try. Thanks.

Okay, thank you TDW :)
Could you look then into guns_radars_01.GR2 and see if your GR2 editor can deal with the missing collision models?

Adding missing zone boxes is a quick and needed fix, that I could do in 5 minutes with Goblin Editor. Nevetheless, as you can see from TDW's post, it would be perfeclty pointless without a collision model to wich zones are applied: adding those models to the GR2 file is the first step.

As usual, at the time being we can only wait for an answer by TDW! :D

Currently the GR2 Editor/Viewer cannot add/remove meshes to/from a GR2 file. I haven't coded that part in yet :) It can't even clone GR2 meshes as I haven't coded that in yet either.

Okay, thank you again TDW,

I am following any further development of your GR2 Editor/Viewer with big interest.

I guess that in this case just cloning the existing meshes should be enough. Let's hope that this feature will be impelemented in one of your next releases :)

the reflector (Searchlight) has a wpn_Searchlight controller on it. Therefore you should be able to add a zone (box) and collision sphere(s) to it so it can be destroyed :yep:

I think I am a bit confused... do you mean that any object having a weapon controller on it doesn't require a DMG_col node for taking damage :06:
just a zone box and collision sphere are enough? :hmmm:

From what I interpret in the SHCollisions.act file yes :yep:

If so, a patch for indestructible searchlights is on the way :up:

You mean destructible I hope. ;)

Yep, I was meaning a patch for addresing indestructible searchlights... :oops: blame it on my broken english. It is ready by the way. I wanted to uplod it tomorrow, but since we are both here I will do it in a few minutes...

Here it is:

http://www.mediafire.com/?3qzxyk71fkjbhe6

It is based on IRAI for compatibility with TDW's mods. Changes done:

guns_radars_01.zon:
-added a SH3ZonesCtrl to reflector_base object, with a box set as WeaponsLight and a collision sphere centered on the reflector (though I am not sure that the latter is actually needed).

This is the core part of the mod.

guns_radars_01.sim:
-changed searchlight's beam color from full white to violet to reflect the spectrum of carbon arc lamps that WWII reflectors were based on;
-changed serchlight range from 200 mt to half a mile (the stock figure seemed a bit too short to me);
-adjusted attenuation parameters to reflect the new range.

Those changes are a bonus by me. You can remove the sim file from the mod if you don't like my settings, or you can give me your suggestions for improving them.

The mod comes with an historical mission based as well on TDW's torpedo tutorial mission. Just surface, get closer to the merchant and start fire for making her to turn on her searchlights. I was able to switch off one of them the hard way :arrgh!:, with one well aimed shot (at close range) :up: