A Guide to WeaponCore - From the Basics to the Advanced

WeaponCore is a complete rewrite of Space Engineers combat system.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1918681825

It is the framework that other weapon mod authors may use to create kind of weapon they can imagine. This guide will helpfully answer some questions about what it can do, what everything means and how to use it.

A small warning

As of 15/09/2021, this guide is OUTDATED.

I will update it in the future when I get time. In the meantime, join the WeaponCore discord and ask for help.

Installation

Getting this brand spankin' new weapon system in your world is easy, just follow these three simple steps:

• Subscribe to and download the base WeaponCore mod.
  
• Pick one or more of the supported WeaponCore mods (some of these can be found on the "Supported Weapons" section or on the main page)
  
• Add the base mod and your chosen weapon mods to the mod list in your save.

Setting up your first WeaponCore ship

So, you’ve just spent two hours making a big cubic monster? Just downloaded that sick fighter ship off the most popular section of the workshop? Do you want to strap some cool stuff to it with some new WeaponCore weapons? Great, read on.

Meet the Empirata-9. A light fighter equipped with shields, two large reactors and some hardpoints for our new weapons.

Our unarmed ship. The black hardpoints are where weapons will go.


For this example, I will be using the “Replace Vanilla Weapons” and “Homing Weaponry” mods. Go ahead and place these weapons wherever you would like on the ship. As with other mods, ensure that you have conveyored up your weapons to the rest of the ship and that any energy or heat based weapons you have installed have enough energy to be fired. These weapons are usually not required to be conveyored to fire, but they will still draw power.

I’m going to place some gatling guns at the front and some homing missiles where the black hardpoints on the wings are.

Armed and ready. Almost.

Grouping Your Weapons

"So, how do I shoot the bad men", you ask? In order to summon the full potential of your weapons, you must first group them. Grouping your weapons is required to edit how they will function, which will be shown in the next section. Go into your terminal screen and group up each weapon.


An example of grouped weapons.

For example, all of your forward gatling guns, group them up with a recognisable name, like “Gatling guns”, missiles as “Missile launchers”, etc. You may also choose to group all of your fixed weapons into “Fixed Weapons”, or even group every weapon into “All Weapons”. Turreted weapons can also be done in this way.

IMPORTANT: Ensure every weapon on your grid is in a group or it may not work properly!

The easiest way to make your weapons fire is similar to the old method of adding the gun from the ‘block weapons’ section to the toolbar. With WeaponCore, you can have multiple weapon types firing at once. This is done by toggling the “Toggle Mouse Shoot” property on for each group. Simply drag each group you wish to manually fire down to the toolbar and select the “Toggle Mouse Shoot” option to on for each weapon. You can toggle it back off again at will. For each weapon that has this property on, when inside your ship and clicking with your left mouse button, those guns will fire.


Adding weapon groups to your ship's toolbar.

After grouping your weapons, sit in your cockpit and give that mouse a good old left clicking. Things should start happening, namely, weapons firing. Right now these missiles are unguided - and that's okay - because you haven't gotten to targeting anything yet. Homing missiles will usually home in to your selected target, done by scrolling your mouse wheel. Take a look at the controls section at the end for more information.


The end result.

Weapon Configuration Toolbar (MMB menu has been retired)

Please note, the old MMB weapon configuration menu has been removed. All of its functionality has been moved to toolbar actions for a specific weapon or group.

And now for the interesting part - the ability to set up a specific task or role for each weapon!
With the weapon configuration menu tool, you are able to edit how each weapon group (or even a singular weapon in a group) behaves. It can allow weapons to target certain subsystems that you specify, choose if weapons will only fire at your given target instead of whatever else it can see, turn all turrets to aim and fire at wherever your targeting reticle is and much like Keen’s weapons, you can set them to fire at friendly, unowned or neutral grids, meteors, biologicals, and even at projectiles (for supported weapons only).

To open this toolbar, move your desired weapon or group to the toolbar and select an action.

Here is a list of each menu item and its description. Default values are bold.

Toggle block On/Off - just as it says on the tin.
Shoot On/Off - set the weapon (group) to constantly fire.
Toggle Click to Fire - set the weapon (group) to fire when left click is pressed.
Neutrals On/Off - set the weapon (group) to target neutral grids
Friendly On/Off - set the weapon (group) to target friendly grids
Unowned On/Off - set the weapon (group) to target unowned grids
MaxSize Increase/Decrease - increase or decrease the maximum size of a grid the weapon (group) can target
MinSize Increase/Decrease - increase or decrease the minimum size of a grid the weapon (group) can target
Targeting Mode - cycle through automatic targetting of any, moving, mobile or moored targets
Control Mode - cycle through automatic or manual control (manual control aims at the targetting reticle)
Cycle Subsystems - cycle through a list of subsystems a weapon (group) should target if FocusSubsystem is enabled
Projectiles On/Off - set the weapon (group) to target projectiles
Biologicals On/Off - set the weapon (group) to target living targets
Meteors On/Off - set the weapon (group) to target meteors
FocusTargets On/Off - set the weapon (group) to target the selected target rather than other grids of opportunity
FocusSubsystem On/Off - set the weapon (group) to target the subsystem set in "Cycle Subsystems"
Increase/Decrease WC_Range - increase or decrease the range of the weapon (group)

Old, legacy menu:

Menu item	Values	Description
Activated	enabled , disabled	Activates or deactivates the weapon
Subsystems	any , offense, utility, power, production, thrusters, jump drive, steering	Chooses a subsystem block to target if “Focus subsystem” is enabled
Focus subsystem	enabled, disabled	If enabled, weapons in the group will target the subsystem set in “Subsystems”
Focus target	enabled, disabled	If enabled, weapons will only fire at target instead of other grids of opportunity
Manual control	enabled, disabled	If enabled, weapons will only target and fire manually, towards the targeting reticle when mouse 1 is pressed. This new menu option combines the old 'Manual fire' and 'Manual aim'
Target painter	enabled, disabled	If enabled, turreted weapons will automatically fire upon the targetting reticle. This will not work if 'Manual Control' is enabled
Unowned	enabled, disabled	Target blocks owned by nobody
Friendly	enabled, disabled	Target blocks owned by friendlies
Meteors	enabled, disabled	Target meteors
Biological	enabled, disabled	Target characters, wolves or sabroids
Projectiles	enabled, disabled	Target projectiles (usually missiles)
Neutral	enabled, disabled	Target neutrals

On-screen Information

When going about your spacefaring duties, you will notice some new on-screen elements. You will see some information about your target (top center screen), your target indicator (blue and red circle, on your target), and the targeting reticle (usually centre screen). Below shows an image of two ships engaging in combat, with this information shown.

Target Information

When targeting a ship, some information about it will be shown at the top center of the screen. If you have a secondary target selected, another one of these will show to the left of it.



A short description as to the purpose of these icons is as follows.

Classification	The size of the ship you are targeting. Small grid Scout 0 - 2000 blocks Fighter 2000+ blocks Frigate 0 - 2999 blocks Destroyer 3000 - 5999 blocks Cruiser 6000 - 11999 blocks Battleship 12000 - 23999 blocks Capital 24000+ blocks
Threat	Shows your target’s threat level from 1 to 10 based on the target’s optimal DPS vs your ship’s optimal DPS. Shields also add to the threat level. A threat level of 5 is roughly equal to your own ship.
Distance	Shows the distance between you and your target compared to how far your weapons can reach. If the green bar is full to the top, then your weapons cannot reach the target.
Speed	Shows the speed of your target, in percent of the world’s maximum speed limit.
Engagement	Shows a ship that has either red (intercepting you), green (fleeing you) trails, or a ship in a target icon (in engagement).
Shield	Shows the target’s current shield percentage if DarkStar’s Defence Shields are enabled in the world and the target has a shield.

Controls

The following keybinds are controls for some advanced features of the WeaponCore framework. Please note that some controls are only available in a specific view (ie first or third person) only.

Targeting

Side note: When moving the view with alt in first or third person, the targeting reticle will move with the view to stay in the centre of the screen. This can be used to pick targets off to the side.

Keybind	View specific?	Action
Alt	first person	Hold to show targeting reticle
Ctrl	third person	Press to toggle targeting reticle
Ctrl + Mouse wheel up/down	third person	Move reticle up/down
Mouse 1 (reticle over target)		Select highlighted target
Shift + Mouse 1 (reticle over target)		Select secondary target
Mouse wheel up/down		Cycle targets
Shift		Cycle primary/secondary targets
Alt + Shift		Clear targets
Middle mouse button		Open weapon configuration menu

Supported Weapons

Add as many of these to your world's mod list as you want. More weapons made by the community will be coming out as the framework receives more development!

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2070931906

Tips and Tidbits

• If you do not have a target selected, WeaponCore will use its internal wizardry to detect which enemy grid nearby poses the nearest threat to your grid and automatically fire turreted weapons upon it. A grid is likely to be selected in this way by a high visible threat level (shown when manually targeted), if it is moving to intercept or if it is close by.
  
  
• WeaponCore will usually not target very low threat grids (like floating generators or bits of drifting machinery) leaving stuff available for salvage! That juicy looking unguarded large reactor doomed to space you have your eye on to grind up will no longer be blasted to oblivion by your broadside cannons.
  
  
• If a turreted weapon does not have a target, after a short delay it will rotate back to its idle position - the orientation when it was first built or placed.
  
  
• If you add all your weapons to a group, put them on a toolbar and select "Toggle mouse shoot", you can make all of your weapons forward fire, just like fixed guns.
  
  
• Looking to make your own turret model? Take a look at AutoMcD's guide:
  https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1998506274

Side notes

There will be further guides soon as to how to config your own modded weapon to work in game.

Have a bug? Something not working as expected? Report it here!
https://github.com/sstixrud/WeaponCore/issues

Documentation is always a work in progress. Maintained by Wortho. Please feel free to leave a post on this guide if you have any questions or if you think the documentation is missing something.

Please do not reproduce this guide or translate it without my permission. 2020

[cyberjacques]

Ever since using Weapon Core I can't seem to get my weapons to stop trying to shoot things through voxels. All my turreted weapons will waste ammo attempting to shoot through an asteroid or a mountain at a target they do not have line of sight to. Is there a way to make that stop?

[Abisius Xarvenius Carbensius]

@WHITE
you dont need an entire toolbar to operate a single turret, just a single slot on the toolbar and maybee a second one if you didnt setup it to be only used for manual firing. though you will then shoot the turrer from third person, still depending on how the weapon was made it can stil have the control button inside its control menu if you are seated.

no one forces you to use it, so if you find it unfun you can always stop using it.

[WHITE]

This mod is so unfun to use, how about controlling the turrets and having a button to shoot instead of having to have an entire toolbar to operate a single turret?

[Andserk]

@abisius that's actually a good test. i'll do that and weed out the mod that's doing it. I appreciate the help!

[Abisius Xarvenius Carbensius]

@Andserk
i did take the red ship world to quickly have some target and put in just wc and its requirements, ther i did not have the informations you did mark in your screenshot.
outgoing from that i would say you probably have some sort of radar mod running and you would need to go to that mods guide or comments for some help.

[Andserk]

@Abisius im sorry, I was not very clear. I didnt mean the target information that appears on the top, but rather the information that appears on the "box" that locks onto targets, (name, distance, relative speed, etc) heres a screenshot https://imgur.com/a/vULfkjX on the left theres that trading station with its box, and on the right theres a crowding of boxes and info

[Abisius Xarvenius Carbensius]

@WitMak38
hmm, they should only shoot on engines if you set the to thrust.

please rund a check for file corruption and modconflict, if that doesnt help please report back with logs and an exampleworld on the wc discord.

[WitMak38]

@Abisius In this mode it shoots at the engines, I don’t understand why.

[Abisius Xarvenius Carbensius]

@WitMak38
yeah it would be offense, my error there and i dont know why i had it as weapons in my brain.

[WitMak38]

@Abisius, I made a screenshot of the targeting options
https://i.imgur.com/7EWpKB0.png