Raycast Damage At Close Range Instead Of Projectile Spawning

[Steve_Yorkshire]

As creation of projectiles takes program resources, I always thought that it was somewhat wasteful at close range. If you have a visible bullet projectile model (something stock Torque no longer bothers with) and if it is not ballistic with a delayed arming system (eg: not a grenade), players are not going to get the chance to see it spawn at close range anyway - so why not save a bit CPU effort and check for a 2 metre/unit raycast and just roll for damage if anything is that close. If nothing is found, then create the projectile normally. This also allows for longer projectiles which could clip into the gun when they spawn (eg: you're using an animated texture for a bullet trail on the projectile model).

First up in the weaponImage datablock, create a new flag to check for raycast, this could be an int on how much range to check for, but here I'm going to keep it simple and just use it as a bool.

 

datablock ShapeBaseImageData(YourWeaponImage)
{
//...
rayTest = 1;
//...
};

 

In scripts/server/weapon.cs onFIre() function:

function WeaponImage::onFire(%this, %obj, %slot)
{
   //echo("\c4WeaponImage::onFire( "@%this.getName()@", "@%obj.client.nameBase@", "@%slot@" )");
 
   // Make sure we have valid data
   if (!isObject(%this.projectile))
   {
      error("WeaponImage::onFire() - Invalid projectile datablock");
      return;
   }
 
   %doRay = %this.rayTest;//<---------yorks new
 
   //...
 
      // Add player's velocity
      %muzzleVelocity = VectorAdd(
         VectorScale(%muzzleVector, %this.projectile.muzzleVelocity),
         VectorScale(%objectVelocity, %this.projectile.velInheritFactor));
 
	//yorks new in here! start.
   if(%doRay == 1)
   {
      //use the 2m raycast to check for hits
      %masks = $TypeMasks::ShapeBaseObjectType;//standard projectile collison mask in projectile.cs
      %testDist = VectorAdd(%obj.getMuzzlePoint(%slot), VectorScale(%muzzleVector, 2));
      %hit = containerRayCast(%eyePoint, %testDist, %masks, %obj);
 
      if(%hit != 0)
      {
		  //hit something, find out what and resolve damage
         %target = firstWord(%hit);
 
         //echo("target hit = " @ %target);
 
         %pos = getWords(%hit, 1, 3);
         %rot = getWords(%hit, 4, 6);
 
         if (%target.getType() & ($TypeMasks::ShapeBaseObjectType))
            %target.damage(%obj, %pos, %projectile.directDamage, %projectile.damageType);
 
		//you might also want to spawn explosions or decals here or do another check for static/terrains or something
        %decal = %projectile.decal;
		%explode = %projectile.explosion;
        %blast = new explosion()
        {
            dataBlock = %explode;
            position = %pos;
            rotation = %rot;
        };
        MissionCleanup.add(%blast);
 
        decalManagerAddDecal(%pos, %rot, 0, 1, %decal, false);
 
		return;//no need to spawn a projectile now
	  }
   }
   //nothing found in the way, so spawn the projectile as standard //yorks end.
 
      // Create the projectile object
      %p = new (%this.projectileType)()
      {
         dataBlock = %this.projectile;
         initialVelocity = %muzzleVelocity;
         initialPosition = %obj.getMuzzlePoint(%slot);
         sourceObject = %obj;
         sourceSlot = %slot;
         client = %obj.client;
         sourceClass = %obj.getClassName();
      };
      MissionCleanup.add(%p);
   }
}

[fLUnKnhaXYU]

maybe you could just eliminate all of them for the first 50 -60 meters ? even slower fire rate things . Really makes me think of lots of things for which you might use the ray cast and vectors and ribbons , like ricochets . thanks for sharing the idea .

[Duion]

There should be a checkbox, if the weapon uses real projectiles or raycast, since most weapons probably do not need visible projectiles at all.