Bullet trails

[phi108]

Im trying to get some bullet trails to show up when this shotgun is fired. The first attempt was terrible, with this code and the below sprites.

Fire1:
LESG A 0 A_FireCustomMissile("Bullettrail",random(4,-4),0,8,0)
LESG A 0 A_FireCustomMissile("Bullettrail",random(4,-4),0,8,0)
LESG A 0 A_FireCustomMissile("Bullettrail",random(4,-4),0,8,0)
LESG A 0 A_FireCustomMissile("Bullettrail",random(4,-4),0,8,0)
LESG A 1 A_FireCustomMissile("Bullettrail",random(4,-4),0,8,0)
LESG b 1 A_FireBullets (4.6, 2.8, 7, 5, "BulletPuff")

ACTOR Bullettrail
{
Projectile
+RANDOMIZE
Radius 1
Height 1
Speed 175
Damage 0
RenderStyle Add
Alpha 0.75
Scale .2
States
{
Spawn:
BTTR A 20 Bright
Death:
TNT1 A 2 Bright
Stop
}
}


So then I just switched the horrible sprites to blank with TNT1, and added
+ROCKETTRAIL
To the projectile. This looks a lot better, but the trail still lingers awhile, and it would be better if it was just the yellow particles of the trail, not the grey ones, and if the particles weren't affected by gravity.

So might there be some way to fire a stream of particles at the speed 175? Or could there be a way to define a railgun shot that spreads vertically and horizontally? Currently I don't think railguns spread at all.

And is there a way to get FireCustomMissile to spread the missile in the vertical direction? The current way looks weird when the bullets spread vertically.

[MG_Man]

Use ThrustThingZ on the BulletTrail actor for that. Make sure add/set is set to 0 or it'll always ignore the initial Z-speed.

[XutaWoo]

Why do people try to make bullet trails with actually hitscans as the bullets? The trails will never go where the bullets go, that way.

[Ceeb]

Lightning-fast projectiles work better.

[Dulle]

You can do also new bullets and they can be like lightning fast projectiles that had those trails.

[Ryan Cordell]

If you want hitscan rivaling (in speed.), then you should inherit from MageWandMissile.

[MG_Man]

Lightning-fast projectiles don't work very nicely, however. So yes, it's best to inherit from the above.