Do tracers do damage?

[Puzzlemaker]

Tracer rounds dont do damage, right?

 

[OCybrManO]

Here's a test of the penetration for one type of tracer round:

http://www.btammolabs.com/tests/7.htm

 

[Puzzlemaker]

Here's a test of the penetration for one type of tracer round:

http://www.btammolabs.com/tests/7.htm

No, I mean... in HL2. The tracer rounds. You have normal rounds which are just tracelines, invisible and instant, and tracer rounds which arn't instant. Do the tracer rounds do damage? They leave bullet holes, but I couldn't find the actual code that does the tracer rounds. It kept on leading me to this class called "te" which does... something? I dont know. I am trying to figure it out, but its leading me in circles, so I thought I would ask here.

 

[OCybrManO]

Sorry, I didn't see that it was in the Coding section. I just use the "New Posts" button.

 

[Puzzlemaker]

Sorry, I didn't see that it was in the Coding section. I just use the "New Posts" button.

Oh, alright. I thought you where being sarcastic, hehehe.

 

[Angry Lawyer]

Yes, they do. They function in exactly the same way as standard bullets (hitting instantaneously, too), but there's a little graphical effect too.

"te" means "Temporary Entity". It's for doing decorative client-side things, like smoke.

-Angry Lawyer

 

[Puzzlemaker]

Yes, they do. They function in exactly the same way as standard bullets (hitting instantaneously, too), but there's a little graphical effect too.

"te" means "Temporary Entity". It's for doing decorative client-side things, like smoke.

-Angry Lawyer

Ahh, that makes a lot of sense. Alright. So those tracers you see flying through the air have already hit the opposite wall and done damage, eh?

Dang. So lets say I wanted to make bullets individual entities like a crossbow bolt that are effected by gravity and could ricochet, ect, would cause a tremendous amount of lag, right?

Hmm. That is mildly annoying, but I can think of another way to do it.

 

[Angry Lawyer]

Yeah, if you wanted to do "real" bullets, you'd have to create them in the exact same way as crossbow bolts.

Random fact - in the "Firebullet" (or whatever the function is called) function, one of the parameters controls the percentage chance of a tracer being thrown.

-Angry Lawyer

 

[Puzzlemaker]

Yeah, if you wanted to do "real" bullets, you'd have to create them in the exact same way as crossbow bolts.

Random fact - in the "Firebullet" (or whatever the function is called) function, one of the parameters controls the percentage chance of a tracer being thrown.

-Angry Lawyer

Well instead of doing that, there is another way; to simulate gravity, have the bullet trace out a line, then another line that was adjusted for gravity. In other words, if someone fires a bullet at a 45 degree angle, the traceline would go 100 meters, then you would draw another traceline at a 43 degree angle, therefore simulating the curvature of the bullet. Continue like this untill it hits something.

It would be less laggy then creating a physics object for every bullet.

Right now, though, I am trying to get bullets to ricochet. However, I dont know the math to do so, so I am trying to look at the crossbow bolt code and the combine ball code to see if I can steal from code from there, but those deal with diffrent types of vectors. Bah.

 

[theGreenBunny]

Well instead of doing that, there is another way; to simulate gravity, have the bullet trace out a line, then another line that was adjusted for gravity. In other words, if someone fires a bullet at a 45 degree angle, the traceline would go 100 meters, then you would draw another traceline at a 43 degree angle, therefore simulating the curvature of the bullet. Continue like this untill it hits something.

There are sizeable conversations on the topic in the hlcoders mailing list. No idea if you're subscribed to that, but it can be a useful source of info. GMail accounts are nice for it, with the efficient search built in and lots of room. For old postings you can check the archive at the link.
I recall your solution as one of the mentioned possibilities, but I don't remember anything on whether the posting (Valve-)coders thought it would work or not.