For those interested in the Das Tornado weapon, I just came across the documentation on it that General Moltek sent me via JVortex. General Moltek wanted the community to be able to base other weapons off of his weapon.

Weapon link: http://treadmarks.vorklift.com/tm_download.php?id=34&mid=59

TreadMarksTornadoWeapon.txt
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All Information Was Authored and Created by >>TARGET<<
For use with Digital Arts Game TreadMarks .
Email&#58; TargetDasMallows@AOL.COM


TreadMarks Tornado Weapon====================

Projectiles used for two things

1&#41; To create track/no track Shell
2&#41; To place Spewer in a locationSpewers used for three things
1&#41; Placement by Height / Persistent
2&#41; Control of Projectile Launch
3&#41; Control of Spewer LaunchTornado is a multi-step process.
Uses basic series of events to make.Initial Projectile fired from weapon.
-Covers distance to impact point
-Creates the central start pointStartPoint is not an explosion.
-This would only end right here.
-Start Point is the Director like would be making a movie.
- It kick starts the Graphics
- It kick starts the Wind
- It kick starts the LighteningTornado is made up of three main elements.

The Tornado can easily exist as just a visual with no ability to
affect tanks at all &#40;No Wind, No Lightening&#41;.
Or it exist with any combination of the Wind,
Lightening being present or abscent.


1&#41; Visual representation of Swirling wind.
ExplosionSpheres have a rotate property..
and using a Shiny Black .BMP creates the transparent Wind illusion.
Tornado Vortex visually is three spheres rotating on their vertical axis.
Spheres using a GroundOffset value to guarantee that each sphere is above
the ground and that each sphere partially fits into the adjoining spheres.
To form the Cone effect, the top sphere is the largest and the bottom sphere
is the smallest.


2&#41; The mechanics of the Vortex
The Vortex is basically a three dimensional bounding box created by having
repeated explosions spawned at each corner of the cube. If you draw a 3D cube
with line segments on a piece of paper... you will see that you have 8 corners total.
Each corner has a Explosion being created with a given Diameter and Strength.
All Push Explosions have the same diameter and strength.There are also two explosion
spheres located in the bottom and top center planes
of the 3D cube as well.

These act as the floor and ceiling of the Bounding Box.
The corners have two possible effects based on the proximity and relative
position of a Tank. If the Tank is on the inside of the cube.. the Corners
Push the tank to the center. Explosions are Spheres.

Based on the location of a tank sitting on top of a beach ball..
the explosion is going to push a tank along a tangent that
is directly away from the very center of the Sphere.

You can easily notice this effect if you have ever been at the edge of a tall
hill an somone lets off a Nuke in the valley below you. If you are far enough away not
to die immediately, you get thrown up into the air if you are higher up than the center
of the explosion.

Vise versa goes for if you are below the center.. you get pushed down.
The same physics apply to the 8 corners of the Vortex &#40;or Bounding Box&#41;
Any Tank caught inside the boundary of the box is going to to pushed off
the Ground because the 4 corners of the Floor of the box are deep in the
ground. This insures that all tanks are always above the center of the
explosion an thus always thrown up into the air.
The reverse is true for any tank thrown high enough up into the air to hit
the ceiling of the Bounding Box. The Tanks are always below the center
of these 4 Ceiling Explosions and therefore pushed back down.
In this way, you can pretty much assure that all tanks are in the air..

They cant stay on the ground and they cant get thrown into space either.
Provided enough strength is in the explosions.. and they occur rapidly
enough... Tanks will get thrown around pretty much like Billard Balls
on a pool table. Bouncing from one explosion towards the next.. and
then getting knocked back again.The reason for the explosion in the center of the
floor and the top of the ceiling is to insure that Tanks cant fit snuggly into the
dead zones.

Dead Zones are areas where a Tank is far enough away from all explosions
that it gets rocked around a little but not enough to really get lifted
off the ground. Having an explosion in the ground insures they get air
[/code:1:772c9e698a]

TornadoLightening.txt
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All Information Was Authored and Created by >>TARGET<<
For use with Digital Arts Game TreadMarks .
Email&#58; TargetDasMallows@AOL.COM


Tornado Lightening Strikes==================
The Lightening Strikes provide the real meat and bones death blow part
of the Tornado.The Pushing Explosions do no dmg.
The only thing that can do dmg are the Lightening STrikes.Lightening takes
random course changes based upon 4 possible directions.
All directions are downward since each strike originally starts high up
in the Tornado.A spewer exists to determine the direction of each leg
of the strike.It can only fire one shot.

But has a random selection of 4 different downward directions.
Once a choice is made, a directional spewer is created and then a projectile
is fired in that direction for the next leg of the lightening strike.4 spewers
exist to actually fire off the next leg. Each spewer can only fire
in a limited vector. Consider each of the 4 one point on the Compass..
North,East,South, and West.Each of these 4 directional spewers can only fire
one shot. Then they disappear. The Lightening Strike can live for a maximum
of only three legs.

If the projectile &#40;HitScan&#41; contacts a tank then it chains a Wonk hit to
simulate archs of ball lightening. If the strike misses and ends or hits
the ground then the strike explodes to do splash damage.The Lightening also
creates a splash push to help assist in the chaotic
nature of the Tornado. SInce the strike path is taking three random direction
changes, the experience of the Tornado is going to be random.

The combined splashes of lightening might aid in pushing the tank out or
keeping the tank in.But the Lightening strikes are guided to a limited extent
to help seekout a tank.
This is done at firing time but with a high projectile speed,
there is no chance to curve the strike.

So the end result is a strike that tries to feel out the presence
of a tank but might randomly turn away ... only to come back on another
leg to finish the job.
[/code:1:772c9e698a]

TornadoEntityChain.txt
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All Information Was Authored and Created by >>TARGET<<
For use with Digital Arts Game TreadMarks .
Email&#58; TargetDasMallows@AOL.COM


Tornado Entity Chain===============

Tornado - Weapon
TeleBeam - proj
TeleBeamSpewer
TeleBeamIn -proj
GreenSparks / FlarePurple
TeleSpewer
TeleNuke -proj
dasTornadoNuke -explo
NukeBoom -sound
TornadoNuke1 -exsph
TornadoNuke2 -exsph
TornadoNuke3 -exsph
dasTornadoSpewer
* Max Count 10
* offset 80
RandomSpewer
*Max Count 1
IISpewer90,0,180,270
Shell0 -proj
hit&#58; spew/wonk
nohit&#58; FinalRandomSpewer
+FinalRandomSpewer
*MaxSpewCount 2
IIFinalSpewer90,0,180,270
*MaxCount 2
FinalShell0 -proj
hit&#58; spewer/wonk
nohit&#58; Final2RandomSpewer
+Final2RandomSpewer
*MaxSpewCount 1
IIFinal2Spewer90,0,180,270
*MaxSpewCount 1
Final2Shell0 -proj
hit&#58; spewer/wonk
nohit&#58; Final3RandomSpewer
+Final3RandomSpewer
*MaxSpewCount 1
IIFinal3Spewer90,0,180,270
*MaxSpewCount 1
Final3Shell0 -proj
hit&#58; spewer/wonk
nohit&#58; explosph/fireenvsmall
ShockWaveSpewerVortexStart
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TornadoCleanUp_To_Do_List.txt
[code:1:772c9e698a]
All Information Was Authored and Created by >>TARGET<<
For use with Digital Arts Game TreadMarks .
Email&#58; TargetDasMallows@AOL.COM


Tornado CLean Up To-Do List
2&#41; Remove Laser SoundENT from allfour Shell0 &#40;proj&#41; files.
3&#41; Add Transitory to the four Shell0 &#40;Proj&#41; files.
4&#41; Remove the Kick of 40 from thedasTornadoTeleBeam &#40;airball&#41;Dont want to risk pushing away.
5&#41; Remove from dasTornadoTeleNuke the following&#58;
1 Kick of 30
2 SplashPush of 10
3 SmokeTrail&#40;BlahBlah&#41;&#41;
4 Reference to dasTornado.bmp ?? textures/dasTornado.bmp
5 Mesh for AirStrikeModule

6&#41; Remove AirStrike mesh fromdasTornadoTeleSpewer &#40;Spew&#41;
7&#41; Remove Texture from the dasTornadoTeleSpewer &#40;Spew&#41;
[/code:1:772c9e698a]

Enjoy!
--RC

AH! So that's why it's acting funny.

Random Chaos, what will happen with a negative splashpush, such as changing the splashpush from 10 to -10 :?: What about changing the kick to a negative number :?:

Kick only effects a tank directly hit. Spashpush effects any tank not directly hit.

Negative values attract. I've thought of making a graviton beam that alternates between push and pull, but haven't done it yet.

--RC

Random Chaos, what will happen with a negative splashpush, such as changing the splashpush from 10 to -10 :?: What about changing the kick to a negative number :?:'

It's all explained in the EEK. Why don't you download it and then ask questions? :wink:

I use the same trick in my Gavitic cannon mod.

I used a completely different method for my SAM mod. That one uses an invisible 10m cubic box that immediatly appears centered on the victim tank. The game engine then causes the players tank to smack against the inside walls of the box, temporarily immobilizing the tank (well, you actually rattle around the inside a bit). Since I spawn it after a short delay, I allow a chance for the victim to slip out if they're moving fast enough. This allows for the "missed" logic of the weapon to start since it detonates against the ground (explohitent) as opposed to hiting the player.


BTW, negative splash is a little odd. It slows a player down, but only if its values are large. I played with that when I created my arcwelder mod.

I once created a weapon with negative kick, it did absolutely nothing!!!
Negative splash I haven't tried, maybee I will... :D

Why not give the Tornado a negative splashpush, then :idea: It will make it pull in the surrounding tanks as a real tornado would. It would create more frags. I will use it in thunderstorm. :D :D :D

I have EEK, but I am too impatient to read it. :lol:

I have another idea, thanks to you guys. I will create a weapon that pulls everyone to the center and explodes, killing everyone nearby. :idea: :D :D 8) 8)

Dang, is it just me?
Negative splashpush and kick don't work :(

How large must a splash wave be to hit the whole map, I need to know my limitations. The gravity bomb doesn't even need gravity to hit everybody, it already does. :lol: :lol: :lol:

Negative splash doesn't work on mine either. :( :?

I have splash push on -100000000 on the projectiles used for the weapon, and the tank won't even budge. :? :? :? :? :? :? :? :? :? :?

hmmm...well, maybe it doesn't :) - I haven't modded much for a few years.

Negative splashpush doesn't work...I remember one weapon that made four explosions aound the place where it hit which sorta pulled the tanks toward the center, but even that had limitations in effectiveness. I used it's idea to make a flying tank which I need to post sometime...anybody know where I could upload it or send it too? it's been a while since I've fiddled with TM

I have a weapon I created that does the same thing, or it's suppose to anyway. It's called the GravitationalCharger. It is a gravity bomb, and while it is charging, it's suppose to pull in surrounding tanks (or push them out, depends on where the tank is). It works in three stages. The stages (not while charging) will push you out far enough that it takes about five minutes to get back to the action. :D :D :D

You can go to filegone.com to upload the flying tank. That's where I go. :D :D :D

8) 8)

Isaactoo, I host mods at my site. I'm not fast in getting them posted, but I will eventually get them up. Just email it to me.

I used it's idea to make a flying tank which I need to post sometime...anybody know where I could upload it or send it too? it's been a while since I've fiddled with TM

So I know what you said but why did you say it in tiny print? I'd like to seeee! :D

I used it's idea to make a flying tank which I need to post sometime...anybody know where I could upload it or send it too? it's been a while since I've fiddled with TM

i can also host any mods that you make...
my email is michael [at] hallsted [dot] com

toodles,
harmless
:)

Nice hat 2ndself. :D :D

Thx, drew it myself! :lol:

Thanks for all the offers to send this to host it...It's uploaded, However it doesn't follow ENTegrety's standard of everything beginning with the mod's name. I'll try to fix this when I have a little more time, probably later this week.