Reflecting projectiles - slowdown, etc.

[Heisanevilgenius]

So I have an enemy that can reflect projectiles and a special weapon the player can use that also reflects. It's possible and quiet easy for a projectile to bounce back and forth between them multiple times, but every time it's reflected, the projectile slows down until it's moving at a ridiculously slow pace. Trying to figure out a way to fix that. One solution I came up with was using A_changevelocity on the projectile's spawn state to make it go full speed. I set the X velocity to full speed while preserving z velocity. It's hacky, and it sort of fixes it? Except that by just changing the X velocity, it doesn't take into account pitch. So that means if the projectile is fired at a steep angle upwards, like straight up, the projectile turns almost at a right angle and ends up moving parallel to the ground.

Any ideas for how to solve this? Is there somewhere I can review the actual reflection mechanic? If reflecting reduces the speed by a specific amount, I could potentially fix it by just compensating for that. For instance, if reflect halves velocity, I could use A_changevelocity to double velocity when it's reflected and cancel that out.

[Player701]

Keeping the original speed is simple, no complex calculations are required. The only problem is that the engine does not provide a hook to run custom code when a projectile gets reflected. You can work around this by watching the projectile's angle each tick, and adjust the speed only if it changes:

Code: Select all

class MyProjectile : Actor
{
    // TODO: Rest of projectile code goes here

    override void Tick()
    {
        double ang = Angle;

        Super.Tick();

        if (Angle != ang)
        {
            Vel = Vel.Unit() * Speed;
        }
    }
}

[Heisanevilgenius]

I've been sticking mostly to Decorate so far but maybe it's about time I switched over to Zscript. Seems like there's just so much more you can do with it. I only stuck with decorate because it's what I'm used to and a little more beginner-friendly. Thank you!