asteroid/ASB mechanic

[Ryu]

As a heads up, I have no modding experience, so I have no clue or skill how or if this is possible, but is it at all possible to mod the way that the asteroid/ASB mechanic works?
For example, is it possible for the asteroids/ASB's to instead be missiles, lasers, etc. with the associated stats and artwork instead of what the mechanics currently come with? It could be either randomly drawn from a pool of various weapons options that that event had available, like having various lasers, missiles, ions trying to hit you one at a time, or it could just be a single weapon such as a single Artemis missile or a single shot from a burst laser throughout the scenario.
The thought behind this question is that it would be useful for events that supposedly take place in large scale battles. I mean, with all those ships shooting at each other and, of course, having some(or all as I'm sure many of us have experienced) of the shots missing their intended target, it makes sense that those shots would continue to travel at least some distance beyond their target and have the potential to accidentally hitting another ship. Since large scale battles can degenerate into large piles of havoc, its not too hard to see how it could happen.
Thank you to anyone who can help give me some insight into if this is possible.

[stylesrj]

I'm not sure if the asteroids or ASB mechanics could be changed (mechanically speaking. Graphically, it's easy enough) but Captain's Edition does things like minefields and artillery using dummy weapons. While not an ideal solution, it's something at least.

[Sleeper Service]

ASB can't be randomized, but the original ASB could be replace with a single different variant. ASB will always scale its projectile as it approaches and the projectile will always penetrate the ship it targets, reappearing in front of it while displaying an explosion graphic. ASB projectiles kind of have to be designed to be viewed from and angled front view, else they just look weird with their hardcoded movement behavior.

[Ryu]

Thank you for responding sleeper service. But is it possible to place different types of ASB's that aren't randomized and are activated by certain events? Like you run into the mantis war camp event and your engaged by a planetary based flak array and then go into a rebel controlled area and activate the standard ASB? And I'm sure that asteroids have that kind of stuff somewhere otherwise they wouldn't have an effect in game, but it could be hard coded or there could be something else that I have no clue about.

[Sleeper Service]

Nope, right now there can only be one type of ASB unless you do some fancy workarounds with dummy weapons. And that has it's limits too.

Feel free to look for the asteroid stuff, but I never found any blueprints associated with them.

[TheFallenAngel359]

How exactly do the "dummy weapon" minefields and such work? I've been looking towards creating a hazard of my own, and this would greatly help.

[Sleeper Service]

The thing with dummy weapons is that you can hide them easily (by placing them off screen), but you can't prevent the player from destroying the enemy weapon system, which will also stop the dummy weapons from being fired. With mines this is easier to hide cause mines move so slow. The player is unlikely to shut down the enemy weapons during the first 30-60 seconds of the fight, this is where mines fire their payloads that then slowly approach the player ship.

Dummy weapons replace the first enemy weapon, this is done by a special event trigger. The ships that appear in minelayer events are special variants of the minelayers that have their first weapon mount placed offscreen, so you won't see the mines spawn. The hazard dummy weapons also consume a lot more ammo (15-60) and the hazard ship variants start with much more ammo as well (60 +their regular ammo). Therefore the minelayers will only fire their hazard mines 1-4 times, in the first minute of the battle. The mines will than still arrive much later on the player screen. This is done for consistency, mine events will always spawn a controlled amount of mines and destroying the enemy weapons system will have no impact on the amounts of mines homing in on the player.

[TheFallenAngel359]

So basically Minefields will only hurt the player? I guess it's a workaround, but it is interesting. Would it be possible Ryu's idea to work, though?