Weapon Making

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k00kev2
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Weapon Making

Post by k00kev2 »

How feasible is it to have an external program (not the BZII game)
where you can view the overall aesthetics of a weapon?

It'd render the weapon using the .odf files of the weapon you're making,
delay time, shot variance, salvo count, other technical things, as well as
color, sparkle, fringe, and other rendering stuff. Essentially it'd be
creating the weapon in real-time. The program would constantly 'fire' the weapon
in some window, and you have a bunch of variables you're changing as you
watch the weapon being fired.

Just a thought more than anything else.
I'm a fan of the weapon system.
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MrTwosheds
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Re: Weapon Making

Post by MrTwosheds »

Sounds like a lot of work to enable you to do a little work more easily.
The best way to approach effects, I find, is to actually work out what they are going to do from the various numbers in the ODF's and then make them as efficient as possible, so there are only 3 smoke sprites emitted every second rather than 10, for example. And that the weapon does not then cause 20,000 sprites to be (not)drawn just because you are holding down the trigger etc etc.
Really nice results can be obtained by combining a lot of different effects as long as you make sure they are done with efficiency and do not overload the rendering process.
The only way I know to visually test them is in BZ2 itself.
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General BlackDragon
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Re: Weapon Making

Post by General BlackDragon »

*specializes in creating exotic weapons and effects*

*Uses BZ2 engine to view renders*

:)
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k00kev2
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Re: Weapon Making

Post by k00kev2 »

MrTwosheds wrote:Sounds like a lot of work to enable you to do a little work more easily.
The best way to approach effects, I find, is to actually work out what they are going to do from the various numbers in the ODF's and then make them as efficient as possible, so there are only 3 smoke sprites emitted every second rather than 10, for example. And that the weapon does not then cause 20,000 sprites to be (not)drawn just because you are holding down the trigger etc etc.
Really nice results can be obtained by combining a lot of different effects as long as you make sure they are done with efficiency and do not overload the rendering process.
The only way I know to visually test them is in BZ2 itself.
'Aye. I see. I was just curious as to how feasible it could be. Pretty much all my weapon mods are
copies of other weapons, with some change in this or that. I try to think about what it'll look like
as I'm typing in the numbers and whatnot, and so far it's going well.

Also, I have no idea how to make custom targeting reticules. I know it has to have transparency, so a program
like gimp is necessary but that's the only thing I -think I- know.
General BlackDragon wrote:*specializes in creating exotic weapons and effects*

*Uses BZ2 engine to view renders*
lol I know, I know...
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MrTwosheds
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Re: Weapon Making

Post by MrTwosheds »

Also, I have no idea how to make custom targeting reticules
Reticules use a sprite map, such as gmaggun.tga and are indirectly referenced in odf like wpnReticle = "gmaggun.0"
They are not something that can be just dropped into addon and just work. Some other stuff is required to tell the game which bit to show and when. Haven't made one myself, GBD has, I believe. Maybe he will tell us how its done?
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General BlackDragon
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Re: Weapon Making

Post by General BlackDragon »

Sure...

Get the BZ2 Sprite maker here

Open the Data.pak file. In the interface folder, extract sprite.txt and bzone.lst, and put them in the same folder as the sprite.exe.

Open the text file, this is a list of every reticle, its image file, and it's start / end x / z coordinates.

Add new entries at the BOTTOM of the file to prevent bad assets.

Use the sprite.exe to convert your text file into a sprite.stb file. Put this in your mod folders. wala.
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Re: Weapon Making

Post by Shadow Knight »

I could probably do it, but the time saved wouldn't be sufficient to justify it. It only takes a few seconds to load battlezone 2 and equip yourself with it to test, plus most people nowadays are pretty good at visualising what the weapon will look like as they're writing it.
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Re: Weapon Making

Post by k00kev2 »

Not to resurrect a dead thread, but I don't feel like flooding the forums with new ones.
Besides, this is related to weapon making.

I went ahead and messed around with the aesthetic aspect of weapons easy enough. What
I want to do now is find a way to... balance weapons? I was thinking of some kind of
equation where you take into account damage done, weapon distance, and fire rate, and
coming out with a certain value for each weapon - a threat value so to speak, and use
that to keep a weapon from being OP.

Anyone have something they use already? Or am I doing the customary thing of just testing
it game after game? I intend on developing my own, but if there's one floating around then
it'd help streamline weapons a bit.


Of course, this doesn't take into effect which vehicle is using the weapon, but that's another story - I think.
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Re: Weapon Making

Post by Zero Angel »

An equation would either (1) not work, or (2) be extremely difficult. Due to numerous factors.

1) Tiering. Harder to acquire (e.g. lategame) weapons are supposed to be more powerful than earlier ones.
2) Roles. A weapon can be overly powerful on paper, but if it only fulfills certain roles and has too many hard counters or has a critical flaw, then it may be considered either balanced or weak. Likewise if a weapon is weak or mediocre on paper then it may have a role that it does a particularly good job at -- VSR's EMP lockdown and stream for example, or Blink (stock and VSR).
2) Many, many, MANY possible variables of the weapons.

In addition to the things you listed above, these kinds of things must also be taken into account.

ShotSpeed (higher DPS weapons with low shotspeed are more justified)
ShotRadius (if exists -- can increase usability of a weapon which contributes to balance)
Explosion damage AND radius
Explosion kick (veloc and omega)

and this is only taking into bullet type objects, and not missiles (seeking), mortars or any other given classlabel's special properties which affect its usability and extra roles.

For example: Sonic blast has a high DPS, and high kickOmega but nobody uses it as a primary cannon because of its low shotspeed, barely scratches H armor (the only things it can 'hit'). On the contrary it's only slightly better than default scion plasma as a combat weapon even though it's a high-tier weapon (with heavy tech requirements). Same thing with something like (ISDF) plasma cannon or ion cannon -- adding 5 or 10 more range to ion cannon (which has only 100m range and is slow, which makes it a poor pursuit weapon) bumps it into a 'potentially okay-ish midgame gun' range -- and VSR didn't do anything to ISDF Plasma (combat) but make it have a slightly faster shotspeed, putting it into a 'this gun is usable' status which makes it a dedicated anti-vehicle weapon that it's supposed to be.

It may be technically possible to write an equation which can pump out balanced weapons, it would just be extremely difficult.
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Re: Weapon Making

Post by Ded10c »

I created such a formula for Borderlands weapons a few years back and it worked relatively well until you took into account special effects on the weapons - effectively point 2 of the list above. This might look like a great idea on paper, but there's no substitute for getting in-game and throwing some shots around.
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Re: Weapon Making

Post by Red Devil »

the fastest way to achieve balance is to just pit the same races against each other, et voila!
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Re: Weapon Making

Post by GSH »

I think the borderlands approach works only because all weapons are randomized. Players dynamically do the picking of what works best for them, and PvE is much less sensitive to perfect balance. PvP needs the high degrees of balance.

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Re: Weapon Making

Post by Red Spot »

Red Devil wrote:the fastest way to achieve balance is to just pit the same races against each other, et voila!
To some degree only. For instance when you put an AT-sabre vs an SP-sabre you will find that the SP-sabre wins the fight, but PvP I wouldnt say that too quickly. SP can be dodged more easilly than AT, plus it costs at least 10 extra scrap.

In effect what GSH just said about Borderlands/PvP vs PvE, works the same for BZ2.
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Re: Weapon Making

Post by Red Devil »

PvP, using the same races, everyone starts with the same tools and the players' skills come into play, which adds another balance factor altogether, apart from the weapons and units.

when i have pitted two ai teams against each other (in test g66), scion vs. isdf, isdf always wins. and when i pit two isdf ai teams against each other, isdf always wins. :D

i reckon i could put together a test dll where it would build an equal number of each type of unit and tell them to attack, but you can do that just as easily in the editor by placing those units near each other (only ranges specified in the odf work in the editor). faster, too.

aside: if you choose a level 50 character in BL2 and select normal mode, then enter a low level map, like bloodshot stronghold, it's one-shot kills and easy loot. cheap ammo refills, too. 8-)
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k00kev2
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Re: Weapon Making

Post by k00kev2 »

I understand that there's tons of variables to take into account, and that to get
perfect - or even accurate - 'threat level' would be near impossible. I'm just looking for
something that'll help lay some type of foundation - faulty or not - really for initial creation.
Of course, when one creates a weapon, it is changed constantly through testing and editing,
and there is nothing that can replace good ol' fighting pits in-game.

I've read a few pretty good points that I hadn't taken into account - such as the shot speed
and any splash effects. Of course, you can have the most over-powered weapon in any game -
if you have no idea how to use it correctly, then it will be horrible - and vice-versa, a horribly
made weapon could be used with skill and can become good.

And then, yes, you can take into account missiles, image and thermal, as well as effects of weapons,
like emp-lockdown and the repelling effect of sonic.

Getting the end result will ultimately need extensive testing, I'm just looking for different variables to
take into account, and a method in which to categorize them in order of importance. And this is really only
for AI vehicle weapons. When you introduce the static position, and infinite ammo, of a tower, or the skill
level of a non-ai player, that's another game entirely.
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