Spinning practice target for antiair gunnery

[Mickel Reed]

I made a little thing to practice my aerial gunnery. It's a mockup of a fighter which spins around and around and which flashes red if you shoot it. I showed it to a bunch of people who thought it might be useful. Anyone else feel that way?

I've fixed it so you can tell it what speed to rotate at as well. I got a suggestion for adding a mode where it'll change speed at random too. That's yet to be implemented.

(Trin also found out it works well as a carnival ride.)

Edited September 17, 2010 by Mickel Reed

[Acheron Gloom]

Does it just spin in a circle? Should make it go side to side and up and down as well. I can help with that if you'd like.

[Williamca Zenovka]

Could really use randomized movement, as most groups teach to move in different directions always.

[Mickel Reed]

I made it really simple, it's just a bunch of prims with a collision detect, and that are linked with a root prim that has a targetomega to make it spin. That's it. My programming skill is rather limited when it comes to object movement, physical and not.

I'll be glad to hand it over full perms to anyone who feels like improving on it, or just tinkering.

I also made a skeet shooter that launches dummies randomly, to simulate jetpacking newbs, and a turret that fires training bullets at you to help you learn to dodge. It's a long while since I touched those two projects so I don't know how if they're much use anymore.

I did a lot of solo training in my previous army so little tools like these were pretty useful.

[Aryte]

I wanna see this! :]

[Acheron Gloom]

Should probably make a regular avatar sized object in the center, 2.0 * 0.60 * 0.40, and the rest phantom. That way it accurately depicts an SL aircraft.

IF you throw me one I'll edit it a bit.

[Mickel Reed]

Should probably make a regular avatar sized object in the center, 2.0 * 0.60 * 0.40, and the rest phantom. That way it accurately depicts an SL aircraft.

D'oh! I completely forgot that.

I wonder if that's part of the reason for my lousy gunnery?

There's a couple of good reasons to have the target move in a predictable way (such as a circle) though.

One is that it's really really simple to script (even I could do it) which means there's fewer things that can break. It won't go amok when it's hit by a lag spike, it won't run off someplace, it won't disappear into a building or anything.

The second is that it reduces the amount of variables meaning it's easier to pinpoint what you're doing wrong and learning from it. You don't start your rifle training by shooting clay pigeons with a battle rifle from the back of a speeding jeep, it's just hopeless.

That's not to say we don't want a more free moving target though, I'm just saying we can use both of these things.

[Trinity Heckroth]

it was fun.

[Mickel Reed]

Well, here's what I'll do. First I'll put in a "pilot hitbox" in the plane and make the rest of the plane phantom. I'll keep it so the whole plane flashes red though, it's nice to be able to see clearly if you're hitting or not.

Then I'll hand it out full perms to anyone who wants to use it, or develop it further.

[Trinity Heckroth]

<3 mickel you're amazing

[Mickel Reed]

Aww. Thanks.

Nrom and Acheron both have one now, I'm sure they'll put them to good use.

That reminds me. I haven't actually checked if the latest version works... annnnnd I forgot to document the code. Let's hope my programming teacher doesn't find out, he said he'd go back in time and fail me on the course if I ever did that...

Okay, good news: It works

Bad news: With the hitbox pilot it's now really tricky to hit (just like in an actual fight) and I looked really silly trying to shoot that thing...

Another reason for me to get that Thanatos clearance real sharpish like.

Edited September 19, 2010 by Mickel Reed

[Acheron Gloom]

Alright, I'll work on it a bit.

Edited September 19, 2010 by Acheron Gloom