CEONSS

The "Perses" Mobile Assault Station (named after the ancient Greek Titan god of destruction) is a super vehicle, sized similarly to the Leviathan. The difference is that is actually requires gunners to become a real threat, because they operate two tank turrets and two UT3-style artillery turrets. The driver has control over a rocket launcher with four different types of rockets. Unlike other super vehicles of the "Leviathan class", the Perses cannot deploy and the driver is stuck with the rocket launcher.
Unlike in the UT2004 and UT3 SPMA implementations, bots will not be able to "cheat" with the camera. The camera must have a line of sight to the target, so bots and humans alike will have to reposition it when a non-stationary target manages to hide behind a rock or building. Aiming from the camera is very much like in UT3, which also means the artillery turrets can be used like a giant Flak Cannon against careless aircraft pilots who hover near the Perses. Then again, the driver could quickly pick off such flyers using the Homing Missiles fire mode.
Because the driver only has the rocket launcher and can't deploy to switch to some kind of powerful main weapon, he/she has three main roles different from those of a Leviathan/Kraken/Tiamat driver:

• Maneuver the Perses into position for the turrets.
• Defend against flyers using Homing Missiles.
• Support the turrets against ground targets using the appropriate rocket types.

Available rocket types are:

• Mercury Missile - Highest fire rate, extremely fast, but small splash radius.
• Homing Missile - High fire rate, auto-homing (picks other nearby target if original target is lost).
• Frag Missile - Medium fire rate and speed, detonates into a burst of shrapnel that bounces off walls a few times. This one probably is most effective for spamming clearing indoor areas.
• Napalm Rocket - Lower fire rate, detonates into multiple burning napalm globs that stick to and damage whatever they hit. Good against stationary and large slow targets or for suppressive fire due to the napalm staying around for a while.

You may have seen these video clips already. The first one is a relatively early test on the Omnipotents loadout map, still only with Mercury Missiles and old artillery target indicator:
[video][/video]

Next is the first successful test of the artillery AI support:
[video][/video]

Two fully-manned Perses MAS throwing everything they have at each other:
[video][/video]

The driver's HUD with the rocket selection bar: The artillery turret's target reticle and trajectory indicator (which both turn red when targeting an unreachable area): ...and finally: the download

Well took you some time, teasing us and all. let me test it

That looks AWESOME

Update to beta 2 and stuff. (I messed up something in the artillery targeting network code, causing clients to have a hard time aiming on a dedicated server.)

New version is up. Artillery submunition no longer explodes when it is damaged. Also I've improved the Homing Missiles, which didn't really work too well against moving targets.
I'd really like to get someone else's opinion on the balance of the four rocket types and their efficiency against various kinds of targets.

I'll test it soon !

I'm sceptical about mercury missile and frag missile.
I would say that the more efficients are homing, to kill your opponents without have to aim them; and the napalm to destroy the nodes (furthermore this one seems more efficient than the mercury).
However, i've tested it in RedPlanet with bots, so i didn't have some indoor areas to spam, or clean, like you want

Could we have data about damage of these 4 weapons?

Edit: ah, and i've forgotten, i love the sound played with the SPMA projectiles

I think it's awesome. It would be good to see this on some multiplayer maps too.

Kentaro wrote:Could we have data about damage of these 4 weapons?

Sure, here goes. I'm using a custom base class for most projectiles. The two most significant changes from standard projectiles are:

• There may be a difference between impact damage and splash damage. All four rocket types add 4 points of impact damage per 1,000 UU/s impact speed difference.
• Splash damage checks for overlap with the radius, instead of only being applied to actors whose center is inside the radius. This effectively gets rid of the hard cut-off that happens when the actor center is just outside the radius and the actor won't receive damage from standard projectiles anymore. This is most apparent if you compare Rocket Launcher rockets and Perses rockets fired next to a larger vehicle. If the vehicle's center is just outside the splash radius, the vehicle won't take damage from the RL rocket, but it will e.g. from a Mercury Missile.

Ok, let me start with the easier rocket types. The rockets apply the same amount of damage to players and vehicles.

Homing Missile
Fire interval: 0.4s
Initial speed: 2,000 UU/s
Maximum speed: 3,500 UU/s
Acceleration: 5,000 UU/s²
Life span: 6s
Splash damage: 90 over 220 UU radius
Maximum impact damage against stationary target: 104 (90 + 0.004 * 3,500)
Example damage against "fleeing flyer" (2,500 UU/s in same direction as rocket): 94 (90 + 0.004 * (3,500 - 2,500))
Example damage against "suicidal flyer" (2,500 UU/s towards the incoming rocket): 134 (90 + 0.004 * (3,500 + 2,500))

Frag Missile
Fire interval: 0.5s
Initial speed: 1,500 UU/s
Maximum speed: 2,500 UU/s (same as Leviathan rockets)
Acceleration: 1,000 UU/s²
Life span: 14s
Splash damage: 50 over 220 UU radius
Spawns 15 shrapnel chunks. Chunks bounce up to 3 times and lose 15% of their current speed each time they bounce. Impact damage scales linearly with impact speed relative to the initial speed, which corresponds to 10 points of damage (maybe I should set that higher) against players or 8 points of damage against vehicles or objectives.

Napalm Rocket
Fire interval: 0.6s
Initial speed: 1,500 UU/s
Maximum speed: 3,500 UU/s
Acceleration: 2,000 UU/s²
Life span: 10s
Splash damage: 50 over 220 UU radius
Spawns 10 napalm globs that stick to surfaces. (They drop from ceilings after a bit, though.) Four to five times per second they apply 7 points of damage to all touching objects. Vehicles and objectives scale that to 1, which means they only take 4 or 5 points of damage per second from a single glob. Globs last 5 to 7 seconds, which means a single glob can apply 20 to 35 points of damage to a vehicle or node. Players are unlikely to survive a direct hit. Vehicles and objectives can take up to 50 + 10 * 35 = 400 points of damage from a single hit, if globs immediately stuck to them and always did maximum damage. Realistically, at least three hits will be required to kill a Goliath.

Mercury Missile
Hmm, this one is a bit tricky. Its impact damage heavily depends on its speed. (Or actually the velocity relative to the impacted target's velocity.)
Fire interval: 0.3s
Initial speed: 5,000 UU/s
Maximum speed: 30,000 UU/s
Acceleration: 10,000 UU/s²
Life span: 6s
Splash damage: 40 over 150 UU radius
Impact damage: 40 + 0.004 * speed difference
Penetration damage (at speed difference > 7,000UU/s against unprotected players): 50 + 0.002 * (speed difference + 7000)

At point-blank range, a Mercury Missile already does 60 damage. Penetration speed is reached after just 0.2s, but the rocket already traveled 1,200 UU at that point and would do 68 impact damage or 78 penetration damage. During its first 2.5 seconds of flight, the rocket adds 4 points of impact damage or 2 points of penetration damage every 0.1 seconds. If you are unlucky enough to catch a stray Mercury Missile at maximum speed, it will do 160 impact damage or 124 penetration damage. The Mercury Missile will have traveled at least 43,750 UU, then. For comparison: The Torlan cores are 34kUU apart, the Dria cores 68.5kUU; the Dawn or Island Hop cores are about 41kUU apart. These maps have much lower fog distances, though.
Effective ranges of 15 to 20 kUU are probably more realistic, which corresponds to around 1.5s travel time and already 120 points of impact damage or 104 points of penetration damage. 15kUU is the distance between the Minigun turrets across the center of MasterBath. The fog distances on most maps are in the range 10kUU to 20kUU.

Fun fact: Mercury Missiles have a theoretical range of 178,750 UU. The longest possible straight horizontal flight path on Dria is only about 84kUU. Mercury Missiles travel that distance in less than 4 seconds, while most flyers need more than half a minute.

Kentaro wrote:Edit: ah, and i've forgotten, i love the sound played with the SPMA projectiles

UT3-style, just like the aiming logic.

[P]etya wrote:I think it's awesome. It would be good to see this on some multiplayer maps too.

I think the first map with the Perses is Turbo K's version of Diamond Sword. You can find it at the center node.

Here's an up-to-date video for beta 4, which can be downloaded in the first post:
[video][/video]

Several values I mentioned in the previous post are no longer correct. The most important one probably are the Homing Missile fire interval and explosion damage, which are now at 0.7 seconds and 75 points, respectively. Other changes include a higher starting speed, slightly higher fire interval and slightly lower damage for the Mercury Missile and a higher speed and damage for the Frag Missile.