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OpenTS Manual

Warhead

Changed in 0.1.0

The WarheadType a weapon's shot carries, or the one an animation, particle or voxel animation delivers its own damage through.

Animation warhead

Specification — Animation warhead
Applies to
AnimType
File
art.ini
Section
[<ObjectType ID>]
Value
class
When omitted
none

The warhead carries Damage at both points a thrown animation deals it: to each object standing within DamageRadius of a strike, and as the blast where the animation’s life ends. Its armor multipliers and its Spread decide what that damage is worth against a given target, and its Bright flag decides whether the impact throws a flash of light.

An animation with no warhead named deals nothing at either point: the blast is refused before it starts, and the strike reduction returns zero damage. Such an animation still flies, still plays its effects, and still craters or seeds the ground it lands on.

The setting has nothing to do with the damage an ordinary animation applies to the object it is attached to. That path uses the warheads the rules name for it, whatever this setting says.

Particle warhead

Specification — Particle warhead
Applies to
ParticleType
File
rules.ini
Section
[<ObjectType ID>]
Value
class
When omitted
none

Only three of the seven behaviors reach a warhead at all. A Gas particle and a Fire particle carry Damage through it on the MaxDC cycle, so the warhead’s armor multipliers and its Spread decide what each target in the cell actually suffers. A Web particle applies it every frame at zero damage; without one it applies nothing at all. WeakGas, Smoke, Spark and Railgun particles never reach a damage path, so the assignment does nothing on those types.

A Gas or Fire particle with a warhead but no damage applies nothing, because both of those paths test the damage figure before they run. A Web particle is the reverse: its damage figure is never read, and the warhead alone decides what the repeated hit does.

Warhead=none and Warhead=<none> both clear the setting. Any other unrecognized name silently registers a WarheadType of that name with nothing configured in it, rather than being rejected.

Voxel debris warhead

Specification — Voxel debris warhead
Applies to
VoxelAnimType
File
rules.ini
Section
[<ObjectType ID>]
Value
class
When omitted
none

The warhead carries Damage at both points a voxel animation deals it: to each object standing within DamageRadius of a bounce, and as the blast where the piece’s life ends. Its armor multipliers and its Spread decide what that damage is worth against a given target, and its Bright flag decides whether the impact throws a flash of light.

A piece with no warhead named deals nothing at either point: the blast is refused before it starts, and a bounce skips its damage pass. The piece still bounces, plays its effects, and craters or seeds the ground it lands on. Its stored Damage is left unchanged.

Weapon warhead

Specification — Weapon warhead
Applies to
WeaponType
File
rules.ini
Section
[<ObjectType ID>]
Value
class
When omitted
none

The warhead is attached to every shot and decides what the Damage= figure does where it lands: how much of it survives the target’s armor, how far it spreads, which explosion is drawn, and whether it pulses, webs, burns, knocks down walls or clears Tiberium.

rules.ini
[MyCannon] ; example WeaponType
Damage=90
Warhead=AP ; a WarheadType registered in [Warheads]
Projectile=Cannon ; a BulletType, registered by a weapon naming it as its Projectile

The same warhead is what the beam of an IsRailgun=yes weapon and the wave of an IsSonic=yes weapon carry, and what the Do Explosion At trigger action detonates — that action takes a weapon’s damage and warhead and nothing else, so the projectile, the sounds and the firing animation play no part in it.

Its Verses table reaches well past the moment of impact. It is both effectiveness terms of the threat score, the test that decides whether an object bothers answering fire, and — through the heavy entry standing at exactly nothing — what confines a dog or a medic to infantry targets.

A name the game does not already know is registered as a new warhead of that name rather than rejected. Such a warhead does full damage against every armor class, spreads over a single cell and draws no explosion at all, so a misspelling produces a shot that lands invisibly rather than an error.

See also — Damage, DamageRadius, ExpireAnim, MaxDC, FinalDamageState, BehavesLike, Verses, Projectile, Bright, target-selection

History

  1. Changed0.1.0In development

    Skip voxel debris bounce damage without a warhead — voxelanimtype