[MOD 0.13.x] Artillery Cannon - v1.2.0

[aka13]

Very interested in your progress, seems like a cool mod to play. Let's see how it will turn out!

[HulkingUnicorn]

The artillery looks nice, but I wouldn't want automatically firing artillery. I'd definitely try your mod if they would only fire on map click, coordinates fed via a GUI, or click in the game world with a remote. It might be especially interesting if you had to choose the amount of propellant, elevation, and bearing. I also fancy the idea of a shell made out of poison capsules, or a shell carrying destroyer robots! Finally, I think it would be cool if an array of cannons could fire in a spread pattern, in effect covering an area in shells.

I don't know if you've considered this, but I doubt a minimum firing distance would fix the issue of base wrecking cannons. If biters attack your base inside the valid firing range of a cannon, it could still end up demolishing your defences. This would severely limit possible deployment areas for these artillery pieces. That could be considered a challenge for the player, though. Perhaps the player could highlight some sort of exclusion zone the cannons would be unable to fire into? Or check for the presence of nearby structures before firing (this might be too computationally intensive, depending on the implementation)?

[Buhamut]

The artillery looks nice, but I wouldn't want automatically firing artillery. I'd definitely try your mod if they would only fire on map click, coordinates fed via a GUI, or click in the game world with a remote. It might be especially interesting if you had to choose the amount of propellant, elevation, and bearing. I also fancy the idea of a shell made out of poison capsules, or a shell carrying destroyer robots! Finally, I think it would be cool if an array of cannons could fire in a spread pattern, in effect covering an area in shells.

I don't know if you've considered this, but I doubt a minimum firing distance would fix the issue of base wrecking cannons. If biters attack your base inside the valid firing range of a cannon, it could still end up demolishing your defences. This would severely limit possible deployment areas for these artillery pieces. That could be considered a challenge for the player, though. Perhaps the player could highlight some sort of exclusion zone the cannons would be unable to fire into? Or check for the presence of nearby structures before firing (this might be too computationally intensive, depending on the implementation)?

In my "To Do" section of the main post I had said:

Attempt to allow manual fire control. My original idea had this be the ONLY way to fire it. Where you would get into the turret and have a free cursor to move around to select the target location, but ghost mode reveals the map. Until I can work around that I will not implement ghost mode fire selection.

Elaborating on that, I originally wanted the artillery turret to be a building that your character could enter (Like a car), and move a big red target around (showing the area of possible impact due to inaccuracy). Once you finished setting the target area, it would continue to fire until told to stop. However I found that entering ghost mode to pan around also reveals the map like your character walked there. This effect is way to overpowered and completely unwanted. I might implement a coordinate input system, where you type the X and Y and it fires there, but that would require me to learn how to make a custom GUI so would take considerable time and effort if I were to go that route.

Alternate ammo was thought of already, coincidentally with those same examples (poison and robots). Was working on getting it to not kill your base as first priority though.

At the moment I have hit a pretty massive hurdle with my scripting though. I got all of my targeting code up and running, finding exactly what I wanted to shoot at, adding it to the list, etc. Then I found out that the command I was trying to send it to tell it what to target the thing I worked so hard to hand-pick does not work how I thought and I do not know if Factorio has anything like what I need available. So in short, I can pick/store/sort/process targets, but not tell the artillery to fire at them. As you can imagine, this is a bit of a setback. Not only can I not tell it to fire at a certain target entity, but I cannot tell it fire at a certain spot or area either no matter what kind of targeting I implement (Manual coords, or auto-target).

We will see what happens.

[DOSorDIE]

Maybe only a bad idea for manual fire, but i itry it.

Create a Maker (like a granate) but with a huge radius to throw.
Use a as example a light that is not attackable but visible.
And your artillery fire only at that marked point until u remove the marker.
Make the marker with a countdown (5 min as example) until it explode.
Without a marker the artillery stop fire.

Edit:
Another Idea for minimum range
Do
If ememy < range of arty then
make a invisible Marker on the ground where it is
If Marker > minimum Range then
Fire to Marker
delete Marker
else
delete Marker
Endif
Endif
while

[Buhamut]

Maybe only a bad idea for manual fire, but i itry it.

Create a Maker (like a granate) but with a huge radius to throw.
Use a as example a light that is not attackable but visible.
And your artillery fire only at that marked point until u remove the marker.
Make the marker with a countdown (5 min as example) until it explode.
Without a marker the artillery stop fire.

Edit:
Another Idea for minimum range
Do
If ememy < range of arty then
make a invisible Marker on the ground where it is
If Marker > minimum Range then
Fire to Marker
delete Marker
else
delete Marker
Endif
Endif
while

I already have a good minimum range targeting script written, but I have a new different problem.

I cannot tell my turret where to fire, or what to fire at.

so when you say "And your artillery fire only at that marked point until u remove the marker.", I cannot do that.

I have to find some way of telling the turret a target. Until then all of the targeting scripts I wrote, scripts for min range, scripts to allow manual fire, all of it, do NOTHING.

[HulkingUnicorn]

In my "To Do" section of the main post I had said:

Attempt to allow manual fire control. My original idea had this be the ONLY way to fire it. Where you would get into the turret and have a free cursor to move around to select the target location, but ghost mode reveals the map. Until I can work around that I will not implement ghost mode fire selection.

I noticed that, perhaps I should have phrased myself differently. I suppose I was trying to say that I liked the idea, but that I'd wait for a manual implementation. I wanted to suggest some additional alternatives for target input as well

Elaborating on that, I originally wanted the artillery turret to be a building that your character could enter (Like a car), and move a big red target around (showing the area of possible impact due to inaccuracy). Once you finished setting the target area, it would continue to fire until told to stop. However I found that entering ghost mode to pan around also reveals the map like your character walked there. This effect is way to overpowered and completely unwanted. I might implement a coordinate input system, where you type the X and Y and it fires there, but that would require me to learn how to make a custom GUI so would take considerable time and effort if I were to go that route.

Perhaps you could limit the ghost maneuvering to areas covered by radar, or within some range of the artillery piece? Perhaps you could launch a spy drone (might need one of those armor batteries) with a limited range so it couldn't travel far enough from the player as to be too powerful (camera would follow the drone, and could be attacked by biters (perhaps only if you get really close)).
You could avoid the GUI route if you made a remote (like the discharge armor part). It could link/unlink to each cannon you click, and fire linked cannons if you click on the ground somewhere.

Alternate ammo was thought of already, coincidentally with those same examples (poison and robots). Was working on getting it to not kill your base as first priority though.

Sounds good.

At the moment I have hit a pretty massive hurdle with my scripting though. I got all of my targeting code up and running, finding exactly what I wanted to shoot at, adding it to the list, etc. Then I found out that the command I was trying to send it to tell it what to target the thing I worked so hard to hand-pick does not work how I thought and I do not know if Factorio has anything like what I need available. So in short, I can pick/store/sort/process targets, but not tell the artillery to fire at them. As you can imagine, this is a bit of a setback. Not only can I not tell it to fire at a certain target entity, but I cannot tell it fire at a certain spot or area either no matter what kind of targeting I implement (Manual coords, or auto-target).

We will see what happens.

I suppose you could request an interface for ordering units/buildings to fire at another target/location, if it doesn't exist. If the command/method you tried seems like it should allow that, perhaps you should post a bug report.

For the moment, however, I suppose you could try to implement it manually. As in, spawn a particle/entity, have it move towards the target (would probably have to be teleported each tick), then replace it with a shell/grenade that explodes at the target position. That way you could make it arc as well.

[Buhamut]

Working on a complete re-write of the mod. I will handle all orientation and firing sequences in script, granting me complete control over accuracy, firing rate, what/where to target, etc. Should be able to get full auto and manual control working.

Wish me luck.

[HulkingUnicorn]

Wish me luck.

Good luck!

[Leveller]

Looking forward to this mod to come out in a proper way. VERY nice.

[Barfussmann]

good luck

[DOSorDIE]

Good Luck!

One Question ... can I use your Arty Graphics for own use?
That would be great and i will not use it if you have a problem with that.
Our Rapid Fire Arty need a better graphics.
Thanks

[SpeedyBrain]

Seems we had the same idea
Check out my Artillery https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... 14&t=12447
My cannon works fine, but yours has the fancier graphic

[Leveller]

Working on a complete re-write of the mod. I will handle all orientation and firing sequences in script, granting me complete control over accuracy, firing rate, what/where to target, etc. Should be able to get full auto and manual control working.

Wish me luck.

Any news?

[laige]

Very nice mod. Like you said in your ToDo List Minimum range is the only thing missing.

[Buhamut]

To be fair to everyone who likes this mod, I really should have posted something like this up earlier.

I have not been able to make any progress on getting the arty to be completely under manual control and still keep the graphics working as they are. A gun turret object is the only in game object that will allow a rotation and prep animation, but it will also auto target the nearest enemy without any script being able to control it.

So I either throw away the graphics, or sacrifice the min range (keep it as it is).

I might take another stab at it some other day, but for now it most likely will not be updated anytime soon unless an update comes out allowing scripts to override turret targets, or something to call whatever graphics we want.

[Rockstar04]

I personally dont care if I can aim it on my own, as long as it dosent blow itself, or the things right around itself up.

I used it for a while in its current state and its very nice, but as soon as it fired on my own walls and let the biters right through I had to uninstall it.

[vedrit]

I personally dont care if I can aim it on my own, as long as it dosent blow itself, or the things right around itself up.

I used it for a while in its current state and its very nice, but as soon as it fired on my own walls and let the biters right through I had to uninstall it.

+1
I personally would rather have a SPG if I want to manually control an artillery piece. Make the placed one automated with minimum range.

Also, there's another mod out there that is trying to tackle the same things as this mod, but claims to have a minimum range for the artillery. Maybe coordinate/investigate?

[SpeedyBrain]

I personally dont care if I can aim it on my own, as long as it dosent blow itself, or the things right around itself up.

I used it for a while in its current state and its very nice, but as soon as it fired on my own walls and let the biters right through I had to uninstall it.

+1
I personally would rather have a SPG if I want to manually control an artillery piece. Make the placed one automated with minimum range.

Also, there's another mod out there that is trying to tackle the same things as this mod, but claims to have a minimum range for the artillery. Maybe coordinate/investigate?

It's called supreme warfare
Yes it does have minimum Range! And also some kind of manual targeting artillery.

[Buhamut]

By manual control, i meant ME being able to control the targeting through scripts.

Supreme Warfare has scripted targeting controls to allow min range, but the graphics only allow 4 directions of rotation (Last I checked), he may be able to increase that to full smooth rotation, but no other animations are allowed, such as the turret lifting up and back down again.

If I use a turret entity type (For both sets of animations, as it is now) it will automatically target the nearest enemy, and even if I didn't allow it to shoot anything and manually created a bullet, it would still rotate to face whatever target it choose, even if I want it to face in a completely different direction.

If I just made a static missile launcher or something that didn't need any rotation, it would be easy to make. As it stands you can only create something that already exists in game, new things are very hard to create.

I hope that cleared up some of the confusion surrounding the issues I am facing.

[SpeedyBrain]

By manual control, i meant ME being able to control the targeting through scripts.

Supreme Warfare has scripted targeting controls to allow min range, but the graphics only allow 4 directions of rotation (Last I checked), he may be able to increase that to full smooth rotation, but no other animations are allowed, such as the turret lifting up and back down again.

If I use a turret entity type (For both sets of animations, as it is now) it will automatically target the nearest enemy, and even if I didn't allow it to shoot anything and manually created a bullet, it would still rotate to face whatever target it choose, even if I want it to face in a completely different direction.

If I just made a static missile launcher or something that didn't need any rotation, it would be easy to make. As it stands you can only create something that already exists in game, new things are very hard to create.

I hope that cleared up some of the confusion surrounding the issues I am facing.

You are right there will be no extra animations for SupremeWarfare. Because the modding api doesn't allow you to control animations. There are ways to do it but for me they are to perfomance heavy