Canonball Explosions /Dirt Clouds?

**pipsqueakspace** · March 11, 2009, 11:29 AM

Don't know if this has been asked, but is anyone else bothered by the canonball explosions when they hit the ground? They seem way too small and they disappear so quickly. In reality, i think there were much larger plumes of smoke, dust, and dirt that shot up into the air. Not to mention the explosive canonballs which were WHITE from the gunpowder, and not those fake looking orange-fireworks like we seem to have in the game.

Is anyone working on tweaking these a bit? Or am I the only one one who can't stand them? :hmmm:

**WILLIEHUNTZ** · March 11, 2009, 11:36 AM

Check this out,You'll like it....

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=235386

**pipsqueakspace** · March 11, 2009, 12:32 PM

Yeah i installed that smoke mod but thats not really what is was going for. I just have a problem with the canonball explosions which are still small even with the smoke mod. They do look better, especially the smoke in the crater, but the explosions and dirt/dust plumes are still on the small side. Also, adding smoke to every single musket fire absolutely destroys the gameplay on my comp, as the FPS goes wayyyyy down.

To give you an idea, in this game the amount of smoke that is created by a canon after the canonball is shot out the barrel is huge and it covers your own forces in a white cloud. YET the ensuing explosion/dirt cloud over the enemy forces is much smaller even with the smoke patch. Obviously, we know that for a fact, it should be the other way around.

Basically what i'm asking is if there's a way to just enhance cannonball impacts without changing every smoke effect in the game... Is it possible? Thanks.

**lesterthenerd** · March 11, 2009, 12:41 PM

id like som1 to mod the game so that theres permanent cannon ball craters.

**pipsqueakspace** · March 11, 2009, 12:43 PM

Permanent craters i think are impossible in a game that does not use alterable-land-effects.

**lesterthenerd** · March 11, 2009, 12:48 PM

well that suxs balls.

**Jihada** · March 11, 2009, 12:51 PM

Cannonballs didn't explode only shells from mortars /howitzers.Cannonballs bounced except on muddy ground like at Waterloo.

**pipsqueakspace** · March 11, 2009, 12:53 PM

Yes, but even the non-exploding canonballs created plumes of dust and dirt that hung around in the air for a while. And the Howitzers and mortars should create large plumes of white smoke from the gunpowder in them.

**HellFell** · March 11, 2009, 01:43 PM

pipsqueakspace, I will try to create such a mod. It shouldn't be too difficult.

**pipsqueakspace** · March 11, 2009, 02:06 PM

It'd be awesome if you could create a mod for that, good luck and thanks

**WILLIEHUNTZ** · March 11, 2009, 06:47 PM

Originally Posted by pipsqueakspace

Yes, but even the non-exploding canonballs created plumes of dust and dirt that hung around in the air for a while. And the Howitzers and mortars should create large plumes of white smoke from the gunpowder in them.

This is smoke from a full stack of British 6lbers laying waste to a Spanish advance,personally I would be happy if 2-4 cannons made this much smoke and dirt,but performance would be crap if the impact was too detailed.

**pipsqueakspace** · March 11, 2009, 09:20 PM

yeah, but since canonballs are so few compared to muskets, i feel that a canonball impact improvement wouldn't hit the FPS of the game as much... at least nowhere near as much as a complete smoke enhancement mod like someone else created.

Anyone know what file the canonball impact effects are stored in?

**nicae** · March 16, 2009, 08:50 PM

Hi! I also feel the artillery explosions are very weak. Have you ever seen artillery explosions in Company of Heroes? Those look nice, and really kick up dirt. I'm aware they aren't 18th Century cannonballs, but they look MUCH more pleasing! Can't we get 50% of this?

Notice the gore on the 3rd and 4th barrages. This is only possible in small scale squad-fighting and isn't Total War, for sure, but it's definetly very nice eye candy!!

**Aykis16** · March 17, 2009, 01:57 AM

I'm very dissappointed that you can't alter the battlefield with cannon shells. It just doesn't feel right. The technology to do that has been available for a long time so I don't know why it wasn't implemented.

**solecist** · March 17, 2009, 11:07 AM

in my own personal mod i bumped up the dust velocity and life time of the cannon impacts, but imo i think this is somewhat unrealistic. these cannon balls had no explosive properties and the effect of them hitting the ground, even at high velocity, probably wasn't that impressive.

edit: here's an OK example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHYWcBILxgk
you can see the cannonball strike the dirt above the target at about 1:30 or so. fairly unimpressive, no?

**pipsqueakspace** · March 17, 2009, 12:56 PM

Originally Posted by solecist

in my own personal mod i bumped up the dust velocity and life time of the cannon impacts

Could you let me know how you did this? What file did you modify?

**solecist** · March 17, 2009, 03:52 PM

landbattles.xml in the effects folder in the main.pack file. open it and search for impact_cannon_earth_lrg2, impact_cannon_earth_med2, and impact_cannon_earth_sml2. there are more effects associated with the cannon impact, but these three are the ones that control that bit of lasting dust you see. from there you can increase their life_range, but note that doing so will make the dust appear to fall into the ground in a strange manner. to counter this you need to remove the effect's gravity or at least lower it slightly.