i wonder if this mod is genius QoL or Stupid Gimmick
line is very slim in this case :)

Dude great mod. The fact I can hide the pointers by going to the 1st floor is appreciated.

great mod thanks

Screw the bolts and harpoons: How about just Laser-Turrets ?!?!!

It's like the tower design I used for Crab Tournament, and plan to use for Mighty Canhead raid and sieging Blister Hill/Heft has an 'Eye of Sauron' on it now.
An Eye of Sauron made of green laser beams of death... It's so beautiful...

In a perfect world this would be vanilla, and have an option to disable for turrets not being manned. But it is still so cool... recruit anyone mod + sniper-tower-bots + 10x turret range + this mod... Makes watching the battle tower so fun. Assault base supreme. Like a 'Chronicles of Riddick' style Conquest Icon left at the gates of nations.

This mod looks so freaking sick. I cannot believe it's not more well known.

@Lt.Dan
Thank you for the message.
This mod adds new particles(effects). The new particles are small in data size, and only two particles are generated per turret. I assume this mod should be safe if your computer renders multiple vanilla campfires without trouble.

However, I do not have enough expertise in hardware or game engines to give you a clear answer, so please be cautious. I recommend building a few mounted crossbows in the unpopulated area and testing this mod.

I hope you find this helpful.

woould this work on a potato pc? im afraid this will overheat somehow but based on your info it seems insignificant specs wise

OK, that I did not know. In that case forget I even asked. I get what I get and don't get upset^^.

@iriemk
Your method works for melee weapons. You can find many shape-changing weapon mods in the Workshop.

But not for crossbows. A crossbow can take two forms: a loaded form and an unloaded form. Certainly, attaching a 'beam' model only to the loaded form is possible. However, if the crossbow is loaded, the beam will always be displayed, whether a gunner holds it or slings it over his back. I could not stand watching my gunners run around while dragging bright green sticks. → Image
Speaking of textures, you cannot use half-transparent textures for weapons, armor, and buildings. It is one of the gravest limitations in Kenshi modding, IMO.

Ok, that's what I figured, with what little I understand about 3D models. No turning off on the buildings. But about the infantry shooters - if it's a mesh, then can't we make one for "equipped" with beam texture and one for "sheathed" without tex? If the texture is a thin, transparent beam, it would look like the laser pointers in old Wasteland 2.

@iriemk
Both of your additional questions seem impossible.
You cannot attach any effect (particle) to a weapon or armor. Therefore, if you want a laser sight on your crossbow, it will be a mesh - a part of the crossbow's 3D model.
I tried it once, but the 'beam' I made was just a solid bright green stick. It always protruded from the loaded crossbow, even when the gunner slung the crossbow over his shoulder. That was not what I wanted.
And turrets' effects cannot be turned on or off. Unlike other powered buildings, they have no switch, likely due to their functionality.

@iriemk
It is nice to hear that the VSync worked out :)
I added tips about flickering issues and VSync settings to the mod's description. Thank you again. Your report benefits other users and me!

And one more idea that came to mind - but I suppose it is beyond the engine, otherwise you would've probably done it that way: Is there any way to make the pointers only activate "on use", in other words, when a turret is actually manned by a character?

@MARH: You are the MAN. That worked like a charm. And in the process I figured some other stuff I wanted. Got nice thin, non-flickering solid beams now that only come outta my new custom blacked-out end-game mega turrets, not every other bandit shmock's cra* turret. Loves this mod, thank you so much.

Only one more Luddite question: Any way these can be applied to regular infantry crossbows or is that too much hassle (if possible at all)?

@iriemk
Then, I changed the particle scripts to make particles blink more rapidly:
"emission_rate" to 250 and "time_to_live" to 0.004. → Image
And the flickering was gone, at least in my end.

I may change particle scripts later, but please turn on VSync at the launcher and observe the pointers.
I hope the information will help you.

@iriemk
As for the flickering, I don't have an evidence-based solution for now. However, I suspect the issue might be due to a gap between your frame rate(FPS) and the blinking frequency of the pointer particles.

The pointer effects comprise two particles that blink rapidly, 80 times every second. Usually, I play Kenshi while turning on the VSync setting to cap my FPS at 60, and I had no flickering issues. After receiving your report, I turned off the VSync, my FPS reached 225 max, and I did see flickering.

@iriemk
Thank you for the message.
About training turrets:
The training turrets and regular turrets share some BUILDING_PARTs. If I add pointer effects to the shared BUILDING_PARTs, the effects appear on both turrets. I do not want training turrets to have the pointer effects, so I copied the shared BUILDING_PARTs and used the no-effect copies for training turrets.

@MARH: Dude. Just dumb luck I looked at the images from your Color Changer add-on! Those "appendix" pics about how to tweak the .pu files helped a lot, should put that info in the description here for folks who wanna customize this awesome thing.

I have only one issue, the beams keep flickering, anything I can do about that ?

@MARH: This looks pretty interesting, but I would like to customize this in my own setup. I've been pondering adding another tier of harpoons to my game, and these things look like an appropriate visual upgrade. But I'd like the pointer effect ONLY on my new custom top-tier turrets. So I looked at this in the FCS, saw the effect is tied only to the new hinge parts on regular turrets, so no biggie getting rid of it, only gonna keep it on my custom top-tier ones.
But I couldn't figure out what you did to the training turrets. Are those supposed to have pointers or not?

The variant mod was deleted as scheduled.

@MARH Thank you for making this!

@Kenshi
I am not eager to make and manage variant mods that I do not use myself. But I see your point because I also had considered not adding pointers to mounted crossbows.
I temporarily made the variant mod available so you can download and keep a copy on your PC.
Here is the variant mod that only harpoons have pointer effects. → Mod Link
And I will delete it from the Workshop on 24 November.

Thank you for trying my mod.

Hello MARH. Could you make a version where the effect only applies to harpoon turrets and not the non-electrical mounted crossbows?

@TheIceKnight
Thank you for trying this mod.
> are the lengths of the turrets accurate effective range?
No, they are not.

A pointer's length is equal to the turret's default range. However, the pointers' length does not change by the height bonus. Turrets are usually built on walls or buildings and receive the height bonus, so visible pointers are often shorter than the actual effective range.
Example→ Pointer vs real effective range

Based on this fact, I considered unifying the pointer length for simplicity.
But I decided to make each pointer have different lengths because I want to know the difference in range between Harpoon MKII and Multi Barrel, even roughly.

are the lengths of the turrets accurate effective range?

this idea never enter my mind all these year, nicely done

Color change patch uploaded　→　 Turret Pointer Color Change

@Otto
Thank you for the feedback.
Now I am working on the quiet color version. → Image

I quite like the concept, though I would prefer an option that's only barely visible, as I only sometimes need to zoom in and check what my turrets are doing. The red and orange variants you showed both look pretty good to me.

i can finally see what my damn gunners are aiming at random ass directions lmao

@all
Thank you for the comments! :)

@TherandomFox
This mod is meant for the indicator of turret direction, not laser sights.
So, I focused only on high visibility and chose green as the pointer's color.
Red is also good but less visible than green for my eyes.

I plan to make a color change patch but still cannot choose an alternate color from red, orange, and magenta. → Image

Consider changing the colour from green to red and possibly making them more transparent to mimic real laser sights. Then this mod will be perfect.

Star War really need this

this will go great with Project Kathun