Skip to content
OpenTS Manual

Inaccurate

Scatters the aim point of an arcing shot before its arc is solved.

Specification
Applies to
BulletType
File
rules.ini
Section
[<ObjectType ID>]
Value
boolean
When omitted
no

An inaccurate Arcing=yes projectile is aimed at a point scattered away from its target. Without Arcing, the setting does not move the aim point; its smaller effects are described below.

The scatter distance is drawn between half of [CombatDamage] BallisticScatter and all of it, in a random direction. At the engine default that is half a cell to a whole cell. The distance does not grow with range: a shot at maximum range is scattered no more than a point-blank one. The firer solves its arc for the scattered point, so the shell comes down short, long or wide of the target. If the arc cannot reach the scattered point, that shot is not fired.

A shell that is not Bouncy=yes still bursts on its target when it comes down within a cell and a half of it, or farther for a fast shell, unless it is Airburst=yes. At the engine default the scatter stays inside that reach, so for such a shell the scatter shows in its flight but not in where it bursts. Where the blast lands gives the exact reach.

A Bouncy=yes shell, such as the Firestorm Juggernaut’s, bursts where it comes to rest, so its scatter does show in where it bursts. The exception is a shell that comes down in a cell holding an object that is not friendly; that shell is moved onto its target within the same reach.

rules.ini
[MYARTILLERYSHELL] ; a BulletType, registered by a weapon naming it as its Projectile
Image=120MM
Arcing=yes
Inaccurate=yes

Two smaller effects apply with or without Arcing:

  • The 32-lepton move is skipped. A projectile that goes off within 32 leptons of its target’s center is normally moved onto it, and an inaccurate one is not. Another move onto a target within 42 leptons, or 128 leptons for a target in the air, usually lands the blast on the target anyway. That later move does not apply with an EMEffect=yes warhead or a Splits=yes projectile, so only those two show the skip.
  • A computer player may keep the firer in the middle of its base. When a computer player sends a vehicle, infantry soldier or aircraft to wait in its base, such as one it has just produced, it sends it either to the middle of the base or near an edge. It chooses the middle only when that object has no anti-air, anti-armor or anti-infantry value. An object whose primary weapon fires this projectile has half the anti-armor and anti-infantry value, so a weak weapon can round down to zero.

Firing on the move does not make a shot inaccurate. Only this setting does.

See also — Arcing, BallisticScatter