Project OBSP Development Thread

[Kozak]

because there is no oxygen in space.

Poor man.

 

[RisingFury]

You wouldn't hear those "firecrackers". There is nothing in space for sound to travel through. A weapon would loose explosive power in space because there is no air or very little air. If you want to to a lot of damage on a vessel in space, you'll either need to make the weapon bigger, or let the dibris do the work. Which is probably will either way.

I know you wouldn't hear any sound in space... and I was talking about explosions within the atmosphere, if they used atmospheric oxygen to burn.


Also, a bigger bomb wouldn't help you much in space. Even a nuclear bomb is effective at only a close range.
The energy would drop at r^3... double the distance, 8 times less destructive power. Also, majority of the energy would be released in X-rays and a bit in gamma rays...

A shape charge, as Ghostrider mentioned, would be far more effective.

 

[the.punk]

Any updates?

 

[escapetomsfate]

Any updates?

More rewrites, none of which has offered any benefit over the original. Do you think I should just push on with the original, regardless of the bugs?

The problem is marking which vessels are weapons, and which are explosions, and doing something with them each timestep. You can simply have a vector of vessels in a weapon class, have a fired weapon class (which is what OBSP currently does) or separate everything into different DLLs. I've had a good attempt at all three, and, as aforementioned, none offer a benefit.

If you want "on-the-dot" updates, check the Assembla page, particularly the changelog page.

 

[RisingFury]

Where are you keeping tack of the fired weapons? In the CombatMFD?

You could have a list of pointers pointing to each weapon... and when it explodes, move the pointer to a list of explosions, before finally destroying the class and removing the pointer.

 

[escapetomsfate]

Where are you keeping tack of the fired weapons? In the CombatMFD?

You could have a list of pointers pointing to each weapon... and when it explodes, move the pointer to a list of explosions, before finally destroying the class and removing the pointer.

That's where the problems begin. How do you get the type of weapon for the vessel pointer, so that you can spawn the right explosion mesh with the right damage information? The only way is to make it independent, as it's own class or it's own DLL. And then more problems start

 

[Hielor]

That's where the problems begin. How do you get the type of weapon for the vessel pointer, so that you can spawn the right explosion mesh with the right damage information? The only way is to make it independent, as it's own class or it's own DLL. And then more problems start

KeyComm

Also, as I've mentioned before, you shouldn't store VESSEL pointers--you should store OBJHANDLEs and then only convert them to VESSEL pointers when needed, after verifying that it's still a valid vessel.

 

[Diaboy]

Sorry again for posting what is probably incoherent nonsense, but again another curiosity. Could this addon potentially be used to find out what space combat would actually be like? Because, if you think about it, we really have no idea, just as before the skies were a combat arena we had no idea what it would be like.

I have no talents in coding or whatever, but would it be possible to model things like power consumption and mass of different weapons and suchlike, and then you could find out what the most effective weapon on each spacecraft was?

 

[escapetomsfate]

Sorry again for posting what is probably incoherent nonsense, but again another curiosity. Could this addon potentially be used to find out what space combat would actually be like? Because, if you think about it, we really have no idea, just as before the skies were a combat arena we had no idea what it would be like.

I have no talents in coding or whatever, but would it be possible to model things like power consumption and mass of different weapons and suchlike, and then you could find out what the most effective weapon on each spacecraft was?

I think we could use it to experiment, yes.

You can make custom weapons using CFG files, no coding required. Look at the documentation for how to do this. In future versions (when I finally find the magical workaround) damage will be implemented as force, using orbDamage.

The link you posted earlier was helpful, btw, thanks.

 

[Diaboy]

I think we could use it to experiment, yes.

You can make custom weapons using CFG files, no coding required. Look at the documentation for how to do this. In future versions (when I finally find the magical workaround) damage will be implemented as force, using orbDamage.

The link you posted earlier was helpful, btw, thanks.

Thanks very much, I will definitely have a look.

Yeah that website is really useful, it has a whole host of stuff there. I can't remember but I think it has a lot of calculations and such, I thought you guys might find that handy! There was also mention of shaped charge nuclear weapons and such, which would be more effective than normal nukes, I would imagine.

 

[Hielor]

The heavier weapons would be more effective against a space craft. However, the weight of the space craft from carrying the weapon might decrease the preformance of the space craft and make it an easy target for smaller and/or more menuverable space crafts. But once in space, the menuverability is deturmined by the thrusters and main engines. To make a weapon homing, you'd need to put some sort of AI interface.

We've already had a long and detailed discussion as to why fighters are impractical in space, in another thread.

And you don't need "AI" to make a homing weapon, just a simple guidance controller.

 

[escapetomsfate]

OBSP 090529

OBSP 090529

New Features
-Complete rewrite of code
-Scenario reading/writing
-A Log File
-Debug Mode
-A new layout in the MFD
-Mass Calculations
-Force on explosion (Thanks to the people on this thread for that)
-Exceptions (so you can use the XR2 with OBSP)
-You can put sounds + particle streams etc in a weapon / explosion DLL.

Not much for a month and a half's work, I know, but the thing to remember is it's no longer buggy thanks to the rewrite.

The explosions can be a little unpredictable, I'm still working on getting them perfect. You can play around with the parameters in the weapon CFG files to get them more realistic.

You'll need orbDamage, and maybe vCollision if you want proper damage from projectiles.

Have a look at the first post of this thread for some useful programs/addons to use with it, or the last page in the docs.

Tell me if there are any bugs, what can be improved, etc. You can look at the log file to see what's going wrong, or turn on "Debug Mode".

I will make an SDK soon so that you can fire weapons directly from a vessel's panel, I just need to get my head around the DLL linkage thing.

 

[escapetomsfate]

ShuttlePB - A combat version!

I finally worked out how to make an SDK. It's not ready yet, it will be soon.

I've made a vessel to test the SDK - ShuttlePB XC (experimental combat). You can download it here.

You will need OBSP 090531, which has compatibility for the SDK.

Press space to fire a missile (slot one).

Press return to fire a shell (slot two).



You can visually see the missiles on the sides, and you can watch them come off when they are fired.

 

[the.punk]

Where is the mfd???
I activated OBSP in modules tab but in orbiter there is no mfd.
I looked in cfg and drawMFD is TRUE.
I am doing something wrong?

 

[escapetomsfate]

Where is the mfd???
I activated OBSP in modules tab but in orbiter there is no mfd.
I looked in cfg and drawMFD is TRUE.
I am doing something wrong?

Hm. I can't recreate that bug. The MFD is named differently from the last release - now it is called "Weapons Manangement".

 

[the.punk]

Yes but there isn't anything that has something to do with OBSP

 

[escapetomsfate]

Yes but there isn't anything that has something to do with OBSP

Try it on a clean install.

 

[the.punk]

No...
No MFD.

 

[escapetomsfate]

The MFD doesn't show up in the release build, so it's probably got something to do with that. When debug and release builds behave differently, that means variables haven't been initialised properly.

I'll try to find the problem.

 

[tblaxland]

You have built OBSP.dll against the debug versions of the C runtime library (it is showing a dependency on MSVCR90D.dll and MSVCP90D.dll). Users without Visual Studio 2008 on their computer will not be have these dll's. Rebuild in "Release" configuration. The other 3 dll's are fine, BTW.