Adding new weapon points

An entity is not restricted into how many different weapons it can have (other than 5 being the most any ship can have).

1. Open the mesh up in notepad if it is in txt format. Weapon points will be labeled 0-4, so if it has at least one of each it can have 5 weapons, if it has points for 0, 1 and 2 it has 3. Technically you can add weapons 4 and 5 in the entity file and it will work, however if the game cannot find a hardpoint for a weapon on the mesh it will make a default point in the center of the mesh, which is usually not what you want.

2. No, the game does not care what sort of weapon if fired from whatever point.

oook, I think I understand. 

so there is no upper limit to how many hardpoints an entity can have? hardpoint: points from which the weapon is fired

dark_ansem the hardpoint count limits (from memory) vanilla/entrenchment/diplomacy sins 10 per weapon/facing  and rebellion 20 points/facing ie the facing is front/left/right/rear so trinity sins is a total of 40 points PER weapon and rebellion is 80 points per weapon.

harpo

AH. 80 point per weapon spling in 20 (front, rear, left, right) right?

for a total of 80x5=400?

That is correct. And I assure you I've had no need to come anywhere near that many weapon hardpoints.

and each hardpoint, accordingly to the weapon properties, can fire for front, left right and rear targets?

Yes. Technically you can angle the points in any direction you want, but for weapon damage purposes they will be grouped into one of those 4 arcs.

Some of my ships that are equivalent to vanilla LRM's have 130-166 guns...

pictures, IskatuMesk

@goa: I also noticed that setting the damage per arc to 0 will make that weapon stop firing from that arc... essentially making it single-directional

Don't have an ingame shot atm, but here's the revised Razzador.

And the Warlord frigate, which is one of the smallest non-fighter Warlord ships.

can you highlight the hardpoints?

Every single gun has at least one. For ships exceeding 20 turrets of one type or of a certain scale facing a direction I take shortcuts.

such as?

The triple-barrel powergun weapons on the Razzador use one hardpoint and fire in a burst.

ah, similar to EAW. 

a code example, please? if you're comfortable with it.

I don't have any code. Sins doesn't support code, only basic ini edits. All of my hardpoints are done in 3ds max, and I am not releasing any of those files.

no, I mean the entity entries which tell the game "fire in a burst", that's what I call code.

why not, if I may ask?

burst firing is attached to the projectile weapon defs. Iskatu is a premier model artist, so his work is closely guarded.

here's some GameInfo for the Kol:

Weapon
    WeaponType "Projectile"
    damageEnums
        AttackType "CAPITALSHIP"
        DamageAffectType "AFFECTS_SHIELDS_AND_HULL"
        DamageApplyType "BACKLOADED"
        DamageType "PHYSICAL"
        WeaponClassType "AUTOCANNON"
    DamagePerBank:FRONT 27.000000
    DamagePerBank:BACK 49.500000
    DamagePerBank:LEFT 49.500000
    DamagePerBank:RIGHT 27.000000
    Range 5000.000000
    PreBuffCooldownTime 4.500000
    CanFireAtFighter FALSE
    SynchronizedTargeting FALSE
    PointStaggerDelay 1.000000
    TravelSpeed 4000.000000
    Duration 0.000000
    fireConstraintType "CanAlwaysFire"
    WeaponEffects
        weaponType "Projectile"
        burstCount 15
        burstDelay 0.060000
        muzzleEffectName "Weapon_TechCapitalAutoCannonHeavy_Muzzle"
        muzzleSoundMinRespawnTime 0.770000
        muzzleSounds
            soundCount 3
            sound "WEAPON_TECHCAPITALAUTOCANNONHEAVY_MUZZLE"
            sound "WEAPON_TECHCAPITALAUTOCANNONHEAVY_MUZZLE_ALT1"
            sound "WEAPON_TECHCAPITALAUTOCANNONHEAVY_MUZZLE_ALT2"
        hitEffectName "Weapon_TechCapitalAutoCannonHeavy_Hit"
        hitHullEffectSounds
            soundCount 1
            sound "WEAPONIMPACT_PHYSICALHEAVY_HITHULL"
        hitShieldsEffectSounds
            soundCount 1
            sound "WEAPONIMPACT_GENERICHEAVY_HITSHIELDS"
        projectileTravelEffectName "Weapon_TechCapitalAutoCannonHeavy_Travel"

I've bolded out the burst snippet...

15 shots per burst, a delay of 0.06 seconds between shots, and a cooldown of 4.5 seconds per burst.

I really suspect that you haven't peered into the gameinfo files much

and each of the bursts inflicts damage?

not too much, you're right. and almost entirely for the Advent and/or modded units.

The burst is just graphical. Almost all of the lines in those weapon texts are just graphical. Damage isn't synced to effects in the slightest.

ahhh, hebce the doubt, well, thanks!

do you know what that "    SynchronizedTargeting FALSE" does?

It determines whether or not all projectiles have a synchronized target. If it's set to false then your weapon can fire on multiple targets (like starbases can) or your weapon will impact different spots on the target (e.g. some of your lasers may hit the front of the target while others will hit the mid or aft section).

That's my understanding of it at least, true means that all weapon particles hit the same specific point, thus eliminating any possible multi targetting. The other thread you were posting in (https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/442694/page/2/#3436831) had much better information than I can provide, or so I would expect.

but I still could not understand if it affects damage or not

It will only affect damage if you set it to TRUE and the ship can engage multiple targets per bank. Most of the time it does not though, because the vast majority of Sins units can only fire on one target per bank.

ah, that is the point that wasn't mentioned before.

an example of units in vanilla sins which can fire on multiple targets per bank?