Servos & Turrets

[InfectiousFight]

Can someone willing to make a new, non-sucky servo take a look at the code for turret entities in SBEP? They don't seem to have any problem pointing in any direction, they also work when they themselves are rotated in any direction, and there's even a three-parter with a separate pitching section. They're nice and all, but they're a bit...big to really use for things like putting a swivel ranger on a tiny little Wire explorer robot. And only the massive three-parter will really let you use pitch as well, since the other turrets will only work with a Hardpoint-Link entity.
If a servo could be made that worked as well as those turrets do, I'd be as happy as...something...that's...really, really happy.

[Asphid]

In order to implement the SBEP code, you'd have to have a multiple entity Servo. The base and middle part rotate for the yaw, and the middle and mount rotate for the pitch.

[Jat Goodwin]

I'd be as happy as...something...that's...really, really happy.

Happy as a adolescent boy in a Chinese whore house with a wad of 20$s in his hand?

[Echo51]

Prehaps a motor, E2, weld latch? when angle > 5 from target --> weld

[Jimlad]

ok, I read what you're asking and unless I'm wrong it basically translates to, "how do I make a turret?" Is that right?

[InfectiousFight]

No...I can make a turret with wire easily enough, I've been doing it for over a year now. What I'm saying, is that I like how easy the SBEP turrets are to use; I'm noting that it's odd that their turrets are so good, and our servos are so...err...shitty. I'm suggesting somebody make a servo based off of the SBEP turret code, with some extra inputs, even if it has to be spawned from the entity menu and not from an STool (though I don't see why one couldn't be spawned from an STool...)

[Whodunnit]

what does SBEP stand for?

[Jimlad]

ok, I've never really used SBEP before, but I just looked at the code and it seems straightforward enough. From the looks of it, it's nothing you can't currently do with an E2 chip and an entity marker.

I don't think it's the case that the current tools are lacking, in fact it looks like it would be very easy to set up. The only thing stopping you right now is the knowledge of how to do it, and - in my opinion - the goal of wiremod is more along the lines of giving players the tools they need to build their contraptions, rather than just giving them the contraptions outright.

On the other hand, maybe the existing servo is lacking, but I've personally never had an issue with that since there are better ways of doing things. I do think the current servos have a lot of room for improvement. I would be wary, though, of handing over a "turret stool" to players, when they're such popular contraptions to make and are such a basic learning step for beginners. By providing a one-click way of making "perfect turrets", or even ones that are just better than average, you eliminate any motivation for players to try building their own or to improve existing designs. So I think if any big changes to the servo are to be made, you'd need to pay a bit of attention to balancing this out or at least be aware of it.

I think for you, an immediate solution would be to take a look at what you can do with the E2 angle and offsetforce functions, and use those to achieve what you want. Failing this, you could look at the existing SBEP turret code and try to translate that into a contraption. As a last resort, I'd be willing to demonstrate exactly how you can do it. I haven't tried, but I'm certain it won't be as difficult as you make it sound. If you need much help you can try PMing me, although I won't be around until later today.

[Asphid]

No...I can make a turret with wire easily enough, I've been doing it for over a year now. What I'm saying, is that I like how easy the SBEP turrets are to use; I'm noting that it's odd that their turrets are so good, and our servos are so...err...shitty. I'm suggesting somebody make a servo based off of the SBEP turret code, with some extra inputs, even if it has to be spawned from the entity menu and not from an STool (though I don't see why one couldn't be spawned from an STool...)

Whenever you fire from the tool gun, it takes an entity from the lua/entities folder and creates it. Often times, options in the STool Menu will set certain options in the entity (for example, the SBEP Beam Cannons have beam_config_type set by choosing an option from the menu). A constant value chip is an entity, an igniter is an entity. The only difference is that these have ENT.Spawnable set to false, unlike SEnts, which are set true.

Whoever asked: SBEP is SpaceBuild Enhancement Project, found here.

[emspike]

Umm... what about the facer? I've never used it before but shouldn't it work?