ROT
The rate an object's body and turret turn at, or the rate a homing projectile steers at.
Object rate of turn
- Applies to
- AircraftTypeBuildingTypeInfantryTypeUnitType
- File
rules.ini- Section
[<ObjectType ID>]- Value
- integer
- When omitted
0
The figure is a count of 256ths of a full circle stepped through per game frame, clamped to 127. A turn is timed by dividing its arc by that step, and the widest arc anything turns through is a half circle, so a full about-face takes 128 divided by the figure in frames: the stock ROT=5 of a Titan or a dropship comes to 25 frames, a little under two seconds. Both the body facing and the turret facing are set from the same figure.
A figure of zero — and any negative figure, which the clamp leaves alone — means the facing never turns at all. It snaps to whatever direction it is given the moment it is given, and the object always reads as facing where it wants to face.
Infantry are the exception: an infantry instance has its rate fixed at the maximum of 127 as it is created, whatever its type sets here. Healing damage and a repair over the radio both replace that with the type’s own figure, so an infantry type that leaves the key out stops turning smoothly once it has been healed.
A warhead with a limpet factor reduces a rate of turn in proportion to the speed it drains, but the object it reduces is the one that fired the shot rather than the object it hit, and that firer removes itself from the game on the same step. No object’s rate of turn is ever changed by the reduction: the target keeps the turn rate its own type gives it and loses only speed.
Projectile rate of turn
- Applies to
- BulletType
- File
rules.ini- Section
[<ObjectType ID>]- Value
- integer
- When omitted
0
Any figure above zero makes the projectile a homing one, and that is the switch between the engine’s two flight models. A homing projectile is flown by the missile autopilot, which steers it toward its target and lifts it over terrain in the way; everything else follows the arc it was launched along until it hits something.
The figure is not applied flat. It is swung upward from itself by MissileROTVar over a fifteen-frame cycle, running between the written figure and one plus twice that share of it — never below it — with the projectile’s own identifier mixed into the phase so that missiles fired together do not all weave in unison, and it is raised by half over the last cell of the approach so a target that dodges at the last moment can still be caught.
Homing changes the launch as well. The shot leaves along the firer’s turret facing rather than pointing at the target, and it takes the weapon’s Speed= as written instead of having that speed recomputed from the weapon’s range. Three figures are special-cased for aircraft: at ROT=0 the shot takes the aircraft’s own apparent speed and turret yaw; at ROT=1 the aircraft aims the shot straight at its target and gives it the primary weapon’s speed, and only a projectile at ROT=1 or below is considered suited to a strafing run.