[Guide] Attaching to Moving Entities

Truly amazing what you achieved! Is it possible to attach that flamethrower (from the universal carrier I assume) to the hull mg of the Sherman and T34 with a working killcounter and veterancy? And have you experienced any impact on the performance with some many attached entities?

Thanks! Having a tank with the bren flamethrower on its hull MG that has both the kill counters and veterancy of the tank is possible. If you're content with it having just the flamethrower muzzle fx and not the flame stream.

model =

{

	"..\\..\\..\\common\\vehicles\\crew\\pintle_lmg_seated\\pintle_lmg_seated",

	"..\\..\\..\\Common\\base\\basemotion\\basemotion",

}

• Create an ABP. The above is assuming you're making it in a normal folder location.
  
• Create the entity and have it attach to the hull MG muzzle marker.
  
• Create another entity of the flamethrower and make it have both an attacking action and a delay to make_dead.
  
• Create the weapon based off the hull MG. With on_fire_action have it create the make_dead enitty.
  

This system is similar to the one I've used for some of my own units. The make_dead action is required as on_fire_action doesn't undo spawned entities when the firing is finished.


If you want the flamethrower to have a stream as well unfortunately I don't think it's possible. You could try adding the flamethrower directly to the tank's ABP but the stream will start from the ground level.

In regards to lag, there's a split-second freeze in the game as soon as the unit spawns in. The duration of the freeze corresponds to how many entities the unit has. However, this only happens for the first unit of its type and subsequent units wont cause this. Overall impact on performance is negligible if you only account for the unit itself. The effects generated from its idle animation (tons of animator_actions) as well its attacks are much more performance heavy.

Thanks! Having a tank with the bren flamethrower on its hull MG that has both the kill counters and veterancy of the tank is possible. If you're content with it having just the flamethrower muzzle fx and not the flame stream.

...

Thank you for the detailed reply! I was hoping to have a flame stream, but will try how this looks.

I believe that the stream has similar behavior to tracers in that it requires both origin and destination markers. This unfortunately makes it difficult to work with in this specific application.

One more method that may work would be to spawn a dummy bren flamethrower on the hull MG muzzle when stationary. This will allow the dummy flamethrower to target and attack enemies while allowing the MG to do the actual killing.

Possible issues would be the dummy weapon not firing at the same target and maybe some issues with tracking as well as attached entities do not update their position.

Using Skeleton Attachments

Normally skeleton attachments are used for rigging on infantry models to attach certain bones to the animations. There are some blueprints that can do this for tanks as well. This can be useful for dragging certain parts of the model down. In this way you wont need a custom skin pack to hide these parts.

Add a blueprint below into the ABP.


"..\\..\\..\\common\\vehicles\\tanks\\maingun\\maingun",

The maingun blueprint will drag the turret down on most tanks, usually to the hull level but it depends on the model.



"..\\..\\..\\west_german\\structures\\west_german_command_post_sandbag_02\\west_german_command_post_sandbag_02",

The sandbag blueprint will hide the weapon barrels and tracks on some, notably DLC faction, tanks, for others it will make the tank disappear. Most constructable blueprints will do the same but this one is small enough to be hidden underneath vehicles.

There are possibly more blueprints that affect vehicles in a similar manner but I don't know what the criteria are.

model =

{

	"..\\..\\..\\..\\test\\missing_objects\\missing_objects",

	"..\\..\\..\\common\\vehicles\\tanks\\maingun\\maingun",

}

If you want to add tracks onto something you can use the missing_objects blueprint which is a Stuart missing some parts. The maingun blueprint is added to lower the barrel. The turret functions normally but the tracks don't turn.

	"..\\..\\..\\..\\outsourced\\armies\\german\\vehicles\\panther\\panther",

	"..\\..\\..\\..\\outsourced\\german\\vehicles\\panther\\panther",

There's also some thread only blueprints without wheels, likewise these do not turn.

event at tis point, you still come up with new techique. Nice job.

Previewing Markers in Worldbuilder

When attaching things it becomes necessary to test as many markers as possible. Fortunately we can preview markers (with limitations) in Worldbuilder.

• Create a new NIS file. Refer to this guide if you don't know how to use NIS.
  
• Place down the (parent) entity that you want to preview markers on.
  
• Open the archive viewer and find the .mua file of the entity.
  
• Place down any infantry (child) entity.
  
• Target visual on the parent entity with name: target
  
  
• Start action: passenger_attach
  
  
• Action parameter. The value is the marker you want to preview.
  
  
• The entity will not change its location on the first frame so you'll need to press play.
  
  

The animation order does matter. You want target visual to be at the top. The other two don't matter. The child entity will only use the last target_marker so you can make multiple of them.

You may also use barricades to preview attach_bulldozer actions but barricades are just lumps of dirt which make it difficult to see which direction it faces. Instead just imagine infantry rotated 90 degrees on the X axis.

Unfortunately we aren't able to change the abp files within worldbuilder so you'll be limited to only vanilla blueprints.


Reading Markers

I've managed to decipher some of the meanings within the mua files. It wont always match up but it should be fairly consistent for the transforms will integers.