A_FireCustomMissile aim parameter?

Post by **Nash** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 9:42 pm

What does it actually do? The wiki doesn't explain it.

Matt · Post by **Matt** » Sat Dec 30, 2006 11:18 pm

Found this post looking for this exact question... turns out it's in Randy's announcement of 2.1.5:

A_FireCustomMissile has a new parameter: Previously it always aimed straight ahead and altered the projectile's angle according to the resulting direction. If the 6th parameter is 1 now it will aim at the specified angle directly.

Post by **Graf Zahl** » Sun Dec 31, 2006 2:57 am

Here's a short explanation.

By default the function aims at a monster straight ahead and offsets the projectile afterward. If you fire 5 projectiles in this mode they will be evenly spaced.
If you use the new mode it will offset the spawn angle first and then aim at that angle. If you want to see the new mode in action summon a morph ovum in Heretic and shoot it into a crowd of flying gargoyles.

HotWax · Post by **HotWax** » Tue Jan 02, 2007 2:50 pm

So essentially it performs the offset and then looks for a target at that angle, allowing 5 projectiles to each seek out their own target? Neat.

Anakin S. · Post by **Anakin S.** » Wed Jan 03, 2007 11:27 pm

Graf Zahl wrote:Here's a short explanation.

By default the function aims at a monster straight ahead and offsets the projectile afterward. If you fire 5 projectiles in this mode they will be evenly spaced.
If you use the new mode it will offset the spawn angle first and then aim at that angle. If you want to see the new mode in action summon a morph ovum in Heretic and shoot it into a crowd of flying gargoyles.

The problem with the morph ovum and porkalator is that while only one projectile is needed to morph a monster, often a few projectiles target the same monster, which is counterproductive. Is there a way to fix this?

HotWax · Post by **HotWax** » Thu Jan 04, 2007 9:18 am

Fire it in a more crowded room.

Post by **Graf Zahl** » Thu Jan 04, 2007 9:39 am

If it was broken it had to be fixed. But this is the way it has been coded so it will stay that way.

Anakin S. · Post by **Anakin S.** » Fri Jan 05, 2007 2:25 pm

HotWax wrote:Fire it in a more crowded room.

But of course, when I did that while playing zdoom Hexen a while ago, it fired a few projectiles at less than five monsters and others were not affected. I forgot the details, but I thought I could get out of a firefight with several melee monsters around me and some dark bishops flying around overhead, but a few of the morph projectiles were wasted on monsters that were already morphed.

EDIT: I just tried it now and it seems to work fine, so nvm.