Standard Weapons - BrettRyland/BDArmory GitHub Wiki

Standard weapons refers to all non-missile weapons that can be mounted to a craft, either via fixed mountings or a turret, and includes Guns, Rockets, and Laser weapons. To use these parts while in flight requires the presence of a Weapon Manager part on the craft.

Fixed Weapons

These are weapons that lack any sort of traverse, and must be aimed by bringing the entire craft to bear on a a target. Examples include the Browning An/M3 and GAU-8. Fixed weapons can be found in the 'Guns' and 'Rocket Pods' sub-tab of the BDArmory parts tab in the SPH/VAB. Fixed Lasers at present can be found in the 'Guns' tab.

Turreted Weapons

These are weapons that that possess any amount of traverse, be it a mounting armature to permit modest change in orientation or a full turret permitting full 360 degree rotation. Examples include the M102 Howitzer and the Oerlikon Millennium Turret. These can be found in the 'Gun turrets', 'Laser turrets', and Rocket turrets' sub-tabs of the BDArmory parts tab in the SPH/VAB. Turret weapons will possess Max Pitch, Min Pitch, and Yaw Range sliders at the top of their right-click Part Action Window, that allows limiting one or more aspects of their traverse.

Ammunition

All standard weapons require supplies of ammunition. Ammo boxes can be found in the 'Ammo' sub-tab of the BDArmory parts tab in the VAB/SPH.Some weapons, like the M102 Howitzer or Abrams Turret, come with an integrated supply of ammunition that comes with the part, but to be able to fire them once that supply is consumed, or if using a weapon without an included supply, requires the placement of one or more Ammo Boxes of the required caliber on your craft. All standard weapons should include a line in their part description indicating what type of ammo they require. Do note that there is an exception to the above: Rocket Pods - in this case the Hydra70, Hydra70 Turret, and S-8KOM Rocket Pod - come with supplies of ammunition, but cannot be supplied from external ammo boxes. Once they've used their ammo, they cannot be fire again, unless Infinite Ammo is enabled. The FFAR Reloadable Rocket Pod, however, can be reloaded from external ammo boxes.

Configuration

Standard weapons come with a number of toggles and settings that can be used to adjust how these weapons will act when used.

Selection Priority This allows the user to set priority of the weapon. Setting weapon priority higher than 0 will override the AI's default weapon selection algorithm, and instead have the AI choose the weapon with the highest Priority value.
Firing Burst Length By default, when the AI fires the weapon, it will hold down the trigger for a length of time set in the Weapon Manager. If the [Firing Burst Length Override] button near the bottom of the PAW is toggled, the Firing Burst Length (Count) slider will appear. If set to greater than 0, the AI will hold down the trigger until this many rounds have been fired, before waiting until the next firing interval to fire another burst.
Firing Angle If the [Firing Angle Override] button near the bottom of the PAW is toggled, this will cause the Firing Angle slider to appear. This allows setting a weapon-specific Firing Angle that will override the global value used in the Weapon Manager. For more information on the Firing Angle, see the Weapon Manager page.
Ammo Type The Ammo Type slider will be present if the weapon has been configured to have more than one type of round it can fire. Changing the slider value will change the currently loaded ammo type the weapon will use, displayed in the [Ammo: xxx] label under the slider.
Engage Range Min and Engage Range Max allow setting the minimum and maximum ranges the weapon will fire, when under AI control.
Engage Air, Engage Missile, Engage Surface, Engage SLW These 4 toggles set if the AI will consider trying to use the weapon against the currently selected target. If no weapons on a craft are set to toggle a certain target type, the AI will not consider it a potential target, and will ignore it in favor of something that can be targeted by the weapon(s) on the craft.
Ammo Config: Simple If the KSP 'Advanced Tweakables' setting is enabled and the part is a gun, this button will appear. Clicking it will toggle the Ammo Type slider (if present) and replace it with a [Configure Ammo Loadout] button, that will allow advanced control over selected ammo and permit the creation of custom ammo belts containing multiple types of ammo via the Configure Ammo Loadout GUI.
The Configure Ammo Loadout GUI displays the ammotypes available to the weapon. Clicking on a ammoType button will add it to the belt. The [Reset] button will clear the belt, and [Save] will save the belt and set the weapon to use the custom belt. Clicking [Save] with an empty belt, or not configuring one while in Advanced Ammo Config mode will have the weapon default to the primary ammo type. Setting a belt with only a single round type will function identically to setting that round type in Simple Ammo Config mode via the slider.
Toggle Barrage This button toggles if the weapon fired in Barrage Mode - if more than one of the weapon is present on the craft, they will fire sequentially - or in Salvo Mode - if more than one of the weapon is present on the craft, they will fire simultaneously.
Set Weapon Group UI This button opens up a small GUI subwindow that allows the user to rename the weapon. By default, selecting a weapon will select all weapons of that name. Naming multiple different weapons the same name will place those weapons into a weapon group, which will enable selecting all weapons in the group in the same manner.