Visible laser sight target dot

[DelphiDie]

Hello,

 

I don´t know if it would be possible to create such a thing in the F:NV Engine, but I wonder if someone skilled in modding would be able to create a visible laser dot for weapons, which have an installed laser sight weapon mod? If possible this should not replace or alter the normal crosshair, because I like playing without it. The idea is, to give a small boost to weapons with a laser sight mod, besides reducing weapon spread. In the best case there should also be support for mods like WMX or WME, which add laser sights to a lot of weapons. If anyone could create this, I´d really appreciate it :)

[devinpatterson]

There is a script called "Ground area mark that follows the crosshair" that is as close as I'v seen for a laser dot, but it's probably too slow. The video of it in action is gone now, but if I remember right there was a slight delay when you'd change your pov before the spot would follow.

 

A lot of people have asked for a laser site, but so far I don't think anyone has come up with anything usable.

[DelphiDie]

Hello Devin,

 

thanks for your reply and explanation. After reading this I guess, that this seems to be rather problematic if not even impossible to add.

 

To be honest, I think the script that you referenced would be far from an ideal solution, since it seems to only follow the crosshair. I guess this would make the "dot" very static, and it would not react in any way, if a weapon animation is ongoing (reloading, unjamming, drawing the weapon and so on).

 

I guess I thought more about some kind of light, which is emitted from the weapon model. In this case every weapon movement and animation would affect where the "dot" itself is projected. Sorry if this sounds very amateurish, I have absolutely no experience with modding myself.

 

Anyway, thanks again for taking your time. It´s not like a this is a killer feature anyway :)

[devinpatterson]

Yeah it's unfortunate, I'd love to have a laser sight too

[TrooperScooperMKII]

The Fire Weapon command spawns a projectile from the given weapon and consumes said ammo if it's in inventory, perhaps using a custom, zero damage ammo or recharger ammo for an unlimited one, then using a toned down beam a la the laser. As a bonus, it could give away your position and/or alert the person you "shot" at.

Something similar could prbably be implemented far more easily (well, maybe not) with grenade launchers/under barrel weapons etc. The issue is mainly for the custom meshes for the weapon attachment and custom reload/fire/grip animations, but it should all IMO be quite trivial compared to most mods out there, once you had the models anyway.

 

Really, I'm surprised no one's tried to do this yet. I mean there's a grenade hotkey, powered power armor, a weapons wheel, cyborg implants, custom power armor with custom AoE blast effects, Night Vision goggles and custom HUDs for helmets and even the ability to turn stealth boys on and off to conserve them (or at least showing an icon telling how much time is left) but no melee button for guns etc or under barrel grenade launchers or bayonets (there's even an unused bayonet mod attachment for the assault rifle in game!) or shotguns. I think it could all be done.

[devinpatterson]

The Fire Weapon command spawns a projectile from the given weapon and consumes said ammo if it's in inventory, perhaps using a custom, zero damage ammo or recharger ammo for an unlimited one, then using a toned down beam a la the laser.

 

Maybe if you bump up the duration on BeamLaserProjectile and make a continuous beam (umm I think) and change the impactDataSet to a dot it might have a laser sight effect. Might want to change the beam nif to a more reasonable length as well.

[Gribbleshnibit8]

Really, I'm surprised no one's tried to do this yet. I mean there's a grenade hotkey, powered power armor, a weapons wheel, cyborg implants, custom power armor with custom AoE blast effects, Night Vision goggles and custom HUDs for helmets and even the ability to turn stealth boys on and off to conserve them (or at least showing an icon telling how much time is left) but no melee button for guns etc or under barrel grenade launchers or bayonets (there's even an unused bayonet mod attachment for the assault rifle in game!) or shotguns. I think it could all be done.

That's because, while technically possible, it's a lot of work to do, the animations to go between the various grips don't exist, and the whole thing would look like total crap, and would get blasted by immersion people as "immersion breaking" and others for "not having good animations". So nobody has bothered with anything for it. One of the grenade hotkey mods does have a melee hotkey that will allow you to use a melee attack somewhat quickly while still keeping a gun out. But again, it looks kind of weird from 1st person, and just plain awkward from 3rd.

 

As far as the topic, of having a laser point follow the crosshair, and the mentioned script. The 'dot' could easily be disabled with a few simple animation checks for reloading, equipping, etc. That part would not be difficult. The lag behind it would be a bit strange, but probably bearable. As far as making a fake weapon to have the 'beam' effect, that's perfectly doable, with a fake weapon with no damage, no sound, etc. An object effect to alert the enemy targeted, perhaps after a certain time, or on other conditions such as if they can 'see' the laser dot (direction facing player).

 

However, again, it's a lot of work for a purely cosmetic effect that

1. doesn't help with aiming
   
2. is non-realistic in the extreme (lasers are not visible except in extremely dusty environments)

 

All that being said, as I mentioned, it is possible, that script is a decent starting point for the whole thing. As for applying it only to weapons with a laser sight mod, that could be achieved by using NVSE functions for checking lists and the mods on a weapon (there is a function for checking the installed, active mods in the nvse_whatsnew.txt file that comes with NVSE).

 

I would set it up by having a quest that runs a script checking if the installed weapon meets the criteria for a laser sight (might just check the mod effect for spread reduction, though that leads to false positives on weapons like shotguns, but could be limited further by doing animation type, because who puts a laser sight on a shotgun?). If the script finds a weapon that has an installed laser sight, it would then check to make sure the current animation is only the weapon holding, aiming, or firing. Assuming that is all good, then it would do what that example linked does, and place the dot at the crosshair.

 

This would work pretty well, because I assume that anyone using a laser sight to aim is NOT partaking in close in combat and doesn't need to aim quickly. The rest of it, with visible beams and the like is possible, but I have found that NPCs do not like being hit with weapons, even if they don't do damage. They will alert and search for the source of the shot for a short time.

 

That's just my thoughts and ideas on this, with no checking for functions or anything, so I might have a bit of it wrong or over simplified.

[Cleggster1596]

There is a mod used in FO3 that that is a flashlight that accurately follows your crosshair, modders might possibly be able to modify the beam cast by the torch to look more like a laser dot? Like shrinking the beam and changing the colour to red? I included that flashlight mod for reference.

http://fallout3.nexusmods.com/mods/15003

[Gribbleshnibit8]

The flashlight mod uses some trickery and a lot of hacky (not bad, just that the engine is not designed for it) work to get that effect.

 

What they're really doing is placing a series of light objects along a defined path in front of the player. What makes them bad, and performance hogging, is that in order to do that properly they need to use some heavy (processor intensive) math functions relatively often. Obviously they've got it streamlined to the point it's not too bad, but if you watch your frame rates before and after activating a flashlight you'll notice they drop some.

 

I'm not saying it's not possible, I know it is. It's just that it would not be practical. The laser dot under crosshair script that was previously linked would work.