Vertical firing lock-on missiles on logic

[DraconisDomini]

I have seen at least one ship that someone had built which had lock-on missiles that fired vertically/not in initially in the direction of the target, but since they were locked-on they turned to face it, which looks cool, so I wanted to try something similar.

I have built a ship that has a bank of vertical missile tubes that I set up to fire on a sequential logic timer to get a nice effect of the bank firing off in sequence rather than sequentially (and spread out its power usage), but they just fly straight up, even if I have the ship locked-on with a different weapon system. If I disconnect the logic and fire it manually then they work, but I either have to cycle through all of the tubes manually (kind of difficult as they won't all fit on the weapon bar), or fire the whole bank simultaneously.

I am presuming that this is a general problem with logic fired missiles not locking-on rather than just because I am vertical firing them, so is there any way to get my idea of having a sequentially firing bank of tubes to work rather than having to go with manual firing the whole bank simultaneously? I could try and turn the bank into a turret, but then the tubes would probably either all fire simultaneously, or just at random, also I wouldn't really want it to try and turn to face the target as that would a) defeat the whole point, and b) cause awful clipping issues in the interior of my ship, unless can entities docked to standard docking ports rather than turret ones fire and draw power from the mothership?

 

[CyberTao]

unless can entities docked to standard docking ports rather than turret ones fire and draw power from the mothership?

You can do that, I do. But they are basically the same as turrets in how they fire, they just don't turn, meaning they only fire in the direction that the core is facing (can still get Vertical firing, but not in the way you want it).

I can't really think of a way to get it to fire the way you want it to, sorry. There are docking changes coming in the next big update I believe, so hopefully at least that clipping issue will be fixed. Hopefully.

 

[Drakkart]

you are mixing up heatseekers with lockons. i mean both head for the enemy but till lockons require a lock on process they can't be triggered by logic. i suggest either put them in a turret and make the turret fire out vertically or use heatseekers instead

 

[DraconisDomini]

You can do that, I do. But they are basically the same as turrets in how they fire, they just don't turn, meaning they only fire in the direction that the core is facing (can still get Vertical firing, but not in the way you want it).

Hmm, but so if the turret core were facing forward and the tubes/computers were facing vertically it might work? or would the restriction that the turret couldn't move mean that it has difficulty locking-on to anything? I might give that a go and see how it works out, it will require a certain amount of restructuring, but at least the bank is rectangular.

you are mixing up heatseekers with lockons. i mean both head for the enemy but till lockons require a lock on process they can't be triggered by logic. i suggest either put them in a turret and make the turret fire out vertically or use heatseekers instead

I had wondered if being locked-on with a different weapon system would transfer over to the logic fired lock-on missiles, apparently it doesn't. I thought about heatseekers, but I find the friendly fire aspect of them really irritating, plus if there were twenty per tube it would be insane...

 

[CyberTao]

Hmm, but so if the turret core were facing forward and the tubes/computers were facing vertically it might work? or would the restriction that the turret couldn't move mean that it has difficulty locking-on to anything? I might give that a go and see how it works out, it will require a certain amount of restructuring, but at least the bank is rectangular.

The direction the ship is facing when docked is the direction it can fire/lock in. If the missiles fired out of the top of the docked ship, it will still fire out of the top while docked. Fixed docking styled turrets are a tad more complicated, and more picky with targets I find, so beware of that.

 

[Lecic]

plus if there were twenty per tube it would be insane...

If you want logic-launched missiles to lock on, you'd need to use heatseekers. If you want to be able to use this in fleet combat, well, you'll need to manually fire them instead. You'll loose your cool looking firing sequence, but at least it'll work.

Also, on the 20 per tube- you can just link a second missile computer and get the heatseeking without the huge numbers. Most people use that technique to get a lock on missile without sacrificing reload time (if they want more rapid lock ons instead of higher damage and range ones) but it also works with getting single-fire heatseekers.

 

[DraconisDomini]

Also, on the 20 per tube- you can just link a second missile computer and get the heatseeking without the huge numbers. Most people use that technique to get a lock on missile without sacrificing reload time (if they want more rapid lock ons instead of higher damage and range ones) but it also works with getting single-fire heatseekers.

That had not occurred to me before, thanks for that.

I tried turning the missile bank into an immobile turret and tested it out against some waves of Isanths and it works fairly well, the AI does generally fire all of the missiles at once, but there is probably no way around that. On the plus side, though I've lost the cool firing sequence, having the sink the bank into the hull somewhat gave me the idea to put in a retractable blast door that covers them up, which also looks pretty good.

 

[SkaireKrough]

If I disconnect the logic and fire it manually then they work, but I either have to cycle through all of the tubes manually (kind of difficult as they won't all fit on the weapon bar), or fire the whole bank simultaneously.

If your ship doesn't have the power to fire the complete bank of missiles when you manually fire them, it will launch just those that it has power for. Once your ship has recharged its power caps you can fire a few more, and keep repeating the process until all missiles have fired. Each firing is on its own timer. The A.I. however will only fire the first few then wait until the reload timer is expired before trying to fire again.

I use this to fire one or 2 missiles at a time from a large bank of missiles all controlled by one computer, it allows sequential firing without having to switch weapons and wait for the lock-on. I adjusted the number of power caps to be just under what was required to fire 2 missiles so that my bank of 12 fires only one missile every key press. Takes about 2.5 seconds to recharge then I can fire again. If I spread the launches out to 5 seconds I can keep a stead stream of missiles heading toward my target. When you set up systems like this make sure you are taking other power using systems into consideration otherwise you may find them getting turned off when launching missiles.

One major draw-back on non-forward launching seeking missiles is that there is no way to effectively dumb-fire them, i.e. without lock-on active.

 

[medullaman]

I am not sure if this is apparent to everyone but I thought it was relevant to this conversation so here it goes...
Computers for weapons and support systems like salvagers are technically not connected to the core when they are connected to logic. If you ever hooked a salvager up to logic you will notice you are not able to put it in your hot bar anymore, in fact, it is no longer in the weapons panel. (pressing T) This is because it can not be connected to the core of your ship and a logic block at the same time. This also has the effect of making it impossible for the missile in OP's example to receive the needed data from the ship's computer (fancy RP way of saying core) in order to get a lock on any targets the ship is looking at. This is why my designs now have logic rooms so that it is easy to unlink computers in the event I want to retake manual control over a logic enabled system.

 

[DraconisDomini]

If your ship doesn't have the power to fire the complete bank of missiles when you manually fire them, it will launch just those that it has power for. Once your ship has recharged its power caps you can fire a few more, and keep repeating the process until all missiles have fired. Each firing is on its own timer.

That's an interesting point. In the case of this ship it wouldn't really work (it's a cruiser and has multiple other weapon systems and turrets), but I'll bear it in mind for smaller ships.

I am not sure if this is apparent to everyone but I thought it was relevant to this conversation so here it goes...

That was not apparent to me, no, so thank you, that is useful to know, and it does indeed make sense that if that is the case the logic fired missiles would not lock-on.