The Ambitious Newbie - Madcat Weapons System D:

Haaaay guuuuyz D: I've been self teaching myself over the past two days and I seem to be encountering some problems I can't quite figure out. Also would like to note that none of these weapons will be push/damage ever so you guys aren't helping a griefer make a new toy. They are just for looks.

Preface: Skip this and go to Problems Encountered if you just want to help and not hear me blab on about the project.

What is a Madcat?

A Madcat is a Mech from the series of 'Battletech' games and later the Mechwarrior, Mechcommander, and Mechassault series. It is also known as a 'Timberwolf.'

http://imagesocket.com/images/madcat76a.gif

Mechwarrior 3 Intro Video featuring Madcat and all of it's weapons:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nm76b8tzzWI&search=mechwarrior%203

The Madcat doesn't have ERPPCs here, instead it has ERLL, there is an ERPPC on the Thor, however. It's the blue spiny energy thing of death. The Vulture fires LRM20s, and well, the madcat fires machineguns. All weapons covered! :p Don't worry you aren't supposed to know what all those names are unless you like Mechwarrior

I already built the mech, I'll post it once I get home from work.

Description:

Trying to make a weapons system for a madcat mech, it needs to all be one linked object and needs to fire projectiles out of where it's guns really are rather than where mouse look is. The system is controlled by HUD, each of the three sets of weapons need to be toggle-able so that they are 'on' or 'off' meaning mouse click will or will not cause that set of weapons to fire.

The three weapon sets:
4 Machine Guns - trying to make muzzle flash for these, don't really care much for making bullets for it, who needs tracer fire when you're in a battlemech anyway? :V
2 ERPPC - Energy weapons.
2 LRM15s - Long Range Missile Racks, each fires 15 single prim missiles from each of it's silos

What I have so far:

I have a HUD controlled system that I can set on the ground that triggers each weapon set to fire when I click one of the HUD buttons, but I've only gotten one set (two guns, based off of the popgun) to fire thus far, the other two sets just make sounds.

Problems encountered: Yay difficulties

* When on the ground, the system fires all projectiles exactly the way I want them to, straight out of the guns they came from. When attached, the system fires them straight out of my lower back at 30degrees and -30 degrees... :| I know there's a position variable on RezObject but what causes the bullet to move to where Mouselook is anyway? Can I stop it from doing that?

* When replacing the bullet with one that is > 1 prim, it fires the bullet and it flips 0,0,0 rot and goes out maybe 1 meter and stops. The only difference between the bullets is one is 1 prim and one is 10 prims (higher count but it fires slow so lag shouldn't be a concern :<), and one is Temp/Physical while one is just Physical. I forgot to take off temp on the new bullet to test if that was a problem, just remembered that it was temp.

If you can help me with these problems it would be much appreciated, not having much luck with the Wiki atm...

I also have a third question :o I had a friend that was making a weapons system for me at first, he was nearly done with it when he disappeared while I was on vacation. Before he left he gave me a nice HUD that would 'target' players, while in mouse look you could hold down left click and if you held the mouse over another player some SetText on the HUD piece would say the player's name and how far away they are. Letting go of mouse look while over a player would 'lock on' to them and keep them selected and continue reporting their distance. He said that he might be able to use this 'target' as a target for all projectiles being fired to go to.

I have no idea how he even did the first part, just mentioning functions that he could've used so I can look them up in the wiki would help.

Also: I'll show my scripts once I get home, too :F Sorry heh

Pictures:
MadcatAV
Weapons Sys and HUD

Simple HUD touch -> llSay:

default
{
    state_entry()
    {
        llSetText("ERPPC",<1,1,1>,1.0);
    }
    
    touch_start(integer total_number)
    {
    llSay(1818, "ERPPC");
    }
    
    on_rez(integer start_param)
    {
        llResetScript();
    } 
}

Gun (ERPPC Listen):

float gBulletSpeed = 75.0;
vector gAimOffsetConstant = <0.0, 0.0, 0.84>;
integer gBulletDamage=0;

default
{  
    state_entry()
    {
        llListen(1818,"",NULL_KEY,"ERPPC");
    }
        
    listen(integer channel, string name, key id, string message)
    {
        if (message == "ERPPC")
        {
            llTriggerSound("ERPPC Fire", 1.0);
            rotation rot = llGetRot();
            vector aim = llRot2Fwd(rot);
            llRezObject("bullet", llGetPos()+<0,-.15,0>, aim * gBulletSpeed, rot, gBulletDamage);
        }
    }
}

Bullet:

integer fade = FALSE;
float alpha = 1.0;
float gTimeToDie = 20.0;
splat()
{      
        llSetStatus(STATUS_PHANTOM, TRUE);
        vector pos = llGetPos();  
        llMoveToTarget(pos, 0.3);          //  Move to where we hit smoothly
        llSetAlpha(0, ALL_SIDES);
        llTriggerSound("ERPPC Hit", 1.0);
        fade = TRUE;
        llSetTimerEvent(3);    
}

default
{
    state_entry()
    {
        llSetPrimitiveParams([PRIM_TEMP_ON_REZ, TRUE]); // unreliable
        llSetStatus(STATUS_PHYSICS | STATUS_DIE_AT_EDGE, TRUE);
        //llSetBuoyancy(1.0); // uncomment for slow bullets
    }
      
    on_rez(integer start_param)
    {
        if (!start_param) return;
        
        llSetDamage((float)start_param);
        llCollisionSound("ERPPC Hit", 1.0); // cancel default sound
        llSetTimerEvent(gTimeToDie);
    }
    
    land_collision_start(vector pos)
    {
        splat();                            //  When we hit the ground, go splat!
    }
    
    collision_start(integer total_number)
    {
        splat();                            //  When we hit something, go spat!
    }
    
    timer()
    {
        llDie();
    }
}

Pieces of code borrowed from Popgun and ExampleGun :x