Jackhammer ammo

[TBeholder]

...doesn't really decrease. I'd post it into bugs (or write a fix myself), but here's a decision to make:
is beam weapons' ammo supposed to be expended per time (like energy) or per activation? Both variants make sense.

[klauss]

Chemical lasers get expended over time (in reality), so over time makes more sense to me.

[TBeholder]

Chemical lasers get expended over time (in reality), so over time makes more sense to me.

Well, currently it says "coolant" (even better), but such things may be seen as continuously spent tubes, emitter wires and whatnot, or pre-packed "cartridges" that are wasted even if not fully used...

Oops...
vegastrike/src/cmd/mount.cpp, lines 258-260:

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            static bool reduce_beam_ammo = XMLSupport::parse_bool( vs_config->getVariable( "physics", "reduce_beam_ammo", "0" ) );
            if (ammo > 0 && reduce_beam_ammo)
                ammo--;

So i guess we only have to add in physics section

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			<var name="reduce_beam_ammo" value="1"/>

But if you want to change it to continuously expended, i.e. mostly do with ammo whatever happens to the energy, i dug it out for you: the energy is calculated in vegastrike/src/cmd/unit_generic.cpp, lines 1568 etc:

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                    if (i->type->type == weapon_info::BEAM) {
                        if (i->ref.gun)
                            if ( ( !i->ref.gun->Dissolved() ) || i->ref.gun->Ready() )
                                energy -= i->type->EnergyRate*SIMULATION_ATOM;
                    } else if ( isMissile( i->type ) ) {
                        energy -= i->type->EnergyRate;
                    }

However, it looks like there's also needed a check added to the energy check in vegastrike/src/cmd/unit_generic.cpp, lines 1508 for net games and 1520 for local, so that they would stop firing when out of ammo.

P.S.: i always wanted to ask: is it normal that functions like XMLSupport::parse_whatever called e.g. every time a weapon is fired? Could it just read once on init and use simple variables? Does it really parse xml in the main cycle and every other event, or does it actually reads once and it's just a scarily python-ized form of "get (field)"?

[klauss]

If you look carefully, those are:

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static float whatever = XMLSupport::parse_whatever( get whatever );

Which means, since it's static, that it's called only the first time the statement is executed.

[TBeholder]

Which means, since it's static, that it's called only the first time the statement is executed.

Ah, i see. Non statics only in inits and "slow" parts like load_mission and savegame. Just looks scary because there's a lot of these and most hangs on the next line.