For SCT (Gomtuu effect)

[Tethys]

I came across this little gem on Discord the other day. SCT I was wondering; is this legitimate, or some kind of trick? In all my years I have never seen the Gomtuu with this effect. Could it be a 1v1 case specifically? Wondering if you have any clues... pretty neat trick if it's a trick

https://www.youtube.com/clip/UgkxG45lXx ... Fd52WT-74w

[Spocks-cuddly-tribble]

A haven't seen the Gomtuu effect for some time, so I wouldn't notice subtle deviations.

Gomtuu can retaliate and destroy cloaked ships, if you refer to this point. It's the only monster with this ability.
I don't recall if this special case also changes the animation (if you refer to the spin effect?).

[Tethys]

Yes, spin and the shockwave. This was the first time I have ever seen it in action. Against cloaked ships only? Maybe that's why, because I usually played Feds. I don't recall attacking it as Roms. This makes it the only ship with a non phaser/torpedo weapon, yes?

[Spocks-cuddly-tribble]

Yes, spin and the shockwave.

It's the regular effect when attacking Gomtuu, but has some bugs:

- animation sometimes missing or out of sync (Gomtuu spin after destruction)
- Gomtuu hull damage not stored (e.g. from hits using evade)

This makes it the only ship with a non phaser/torpedo weapon, yes?

Yes, and this unique special attack could be a nice template for an explosion and/or self destruction feature (600 damage reduced by distance IIRC).

Anther special animation is the Calamarain 'ship'. There have been reports of crashes when ramming the Calamarain. Might have someting to do with model radius, centerpoint or dimensions? But the issue is strange. As thunderchero found out, the model radius affects effective hit probability, and regular weapons can hit the Calamarain...

[Tethys]

Yes, and this unique special attack could be a nice template for an explosion and/or self destruction feature (600 damage reduced by distance IIRC).

A very interesting thought which never crossed my mind. It could replace Ram, and be coded so the shield must be down first to damage hulls. I never liked Ram because it was a 1to1 point exchange. The distance factor of the Gomtuu effect, seems to be an exceptional solution, to add strategy to a somewhat unstrategic combat system. Mental note has been created

Anther special animation is the Calamarain 'ship'. There have been reports of crashes when ramming the Calamarain. Might have someting to do with model radius, centerpoint or dimensions? But the issue is strange. As thunderchero found out, the model radius affects effective hit probability, and regular weapons can hit the Calamarain...

THAT sounds intentional. Some kind of intentional check so Ram fails against cloudlike entities? What are we ramming? Assumption: You cannot ram a gaseous object. Yet another bug somewhere deep in the code. Normal weapons can hit the Calamarain most likely by force. I'd imagine this stuff would be buried within some tactical combat subroutine, probably a few calls deep. Might be hard to find, might not have any offset variables to LEA from. Are there any associated values for Calamarain? I could investigate a little.

Off Topic: I've been reworking your Doomsday replacing OB mod a bit for GALM. I accidentally enabled Methane planets. Well, initially it was accidental. I added some entries to habit.bin and planspac.bin for 08 planetary type. I know there would be a lot more work to get them fully workable, and Flocke speculates Methane is reserved for atmospheres, so there could be overflow issues (issues could be avoided by disassociating Methane from every planetary type)? Not sure, but IIRC Methane was also supposed to be a planetary type. I believe you or one of the other codemasters had found some supporting code. Result of the experiment in the spoiler below:

► Show Spoiler

unt_Methane.png (436.99 KiB) Viewed 1114 times

As you are well aware, GALM contains numerous experimental modifications and unfinished features that I am testing heavily, on an almost daily basis. Methane type planets, imo, are worth exploring, at least for the sake of preserving preexisting planet types. For example, Methane is omitted from the list of shiftable planet types. However, it is NOT omitted from having it's own planetary label underneath it's animation. All the other types of atmospheres showed up as "Other" and "U" under the animation. So I do think Methane was designed to be a planet initially, but they already had Gas Giant, so it was omitted. And I do not recall if any planets even use the Methane atmosphere in Vanilla?

[Spocks-cuddly-tribble]

THAT sounds intentional. Some kind of intentional check so Ram fails against cloudlike entities? What are we ramming? Assumption: You cannot ram a gaseous object. Yet another bug somewhere deep in the code. Normal weapons can hit the Calamarain most likely by force. I'd imagine this stuff would be buried within some tactical combat subroutine, probably a few calls deep. Might be hard to find, might not have any offset variables to LEA from. Are there any associated values for Calamarain? I could investigate a little.

Then it would just miss/fail without crash. I recall there is some special code for the Calamarain hob (basically a torpedo without own rotation), but I never analysed it.

Flocke speculates Methane is reserved for atmospheres, so there could be overflow issues (issues could be avoided by disassociating Methane from every planetary type)? Not sure, but IIRC Methane was also supposed to be a planetary type. I believe you or one of the other codemasters had found some supporting code.

It's by default only an atmosphere type and effects terraforming costs, some vanilla planet animations and the habit.bin values for pop growth. Some unfinshed tables in trek.exe mix/confuse planets/atmospheres, but those codes shouldn't make a big difference for a project extending the range of possible planet types. Note even Dafedz' workaround still has issues with some game features like random events and monster attacks (albeit no crashes): viewtopic.php?p=44943#p44943

I do not recall if any planets even use the Methane atmosphere in Vanilla?

You would have to check, but I think vanilla uses them for above listed atmosphere features for some planet combos.
One could rename/change the Methane atmosphere to something else, but after terraforming the atmosphere should be breathable. This might be why the atmosphere types are not displayed/named ingame in vanilla BotF, but just calculated into some feature and subtle variations of planet animations?

[Flocke]

I do not recall if any planets even use the Methane atmosphere in Vanilla?

You would have to check, but I think vanilla uses them for above listed atmosphere features for some planet combos.
One could rename/change the Methane atmosphere to something else, but after terraforming the atmosphere should be breathable. This might be why the atmosphere types are not displayed/named ingame in vanilla BotF, but just calculated into some feature and subtle variations of planet animations?

Vanilla planet.pst indeed lists atmosphere type 8, but only for gas giants:

atmoType8.png (10.07 KiB) Viewed 139 times

For all of the gas giants actually:

type8atmoPlanets.jpg (50.76 KiB) Viewed 139 times

[Tethys]

Vanilla animations have a halo around the planet depending on atmosphere ? But I don't recall terraforming changing that halo/planet animation (it's part of the ani file)