Guide: Ammo
This guide is focused on the process of attaching ammo to racks. For more detailed info on the new ACF Menu features, see the Menu Guide.
When it comes to loading ammo, racks are quite similar to guns. However there are some differences between the two which may confuse beginners, hence this guide.
Not all racks can load all missiles - some are designed specifically for a certain missile, while some others accept any missile that will fit onto it. There are three kinds of limitation:
- Pods: pods consist of tubes which the missiles slide into. Naturally, the size of the tube dictates the size of the missile. For example, a 70mm pod can only accept 70mm pod rockets.
- Size limit: some racks have a size limit on what they can mount. There can be a minimum and maximum limit.
- Type limit: in addition to the size limits, some missiles have a whitelist of compatible racks. For example, the TOW missile is only whitelisted for use in TOW tubes.
The ACF Menu tool will check these limits and tell you if any of them have been exceeded. To see which racks can hold certain missiles, you can check the new drop-down list at the bottom of the guns menu. This drop-down list will also let you select which rack you want to spawn.
To begin creating a missile, select it from the ammo-menu drop-down list just like you would for a gun:
When editing the settings, pay particular attention to the amount of propellant you provide to the missile. The amount of propellant you give to the missile dictates the length of time that the rocket burns for. Adding more propellant will make your missile fly further and faster, and stay manouverable for longer.
At the bottom of the ammo configuration menu, there are two new drop-down boxes. These allow you to choose the guidance and fuse that your missile contains. Some missiles have more options than others - see the Class Library for more information on these limitations. Below, I have created a homing missile which will explode at least 300 inches away from its target.
After this, you can link the rack to the ammo-box in the same way as for a gun. Notice that the Fire Interval and Reload Interval change based on the next missile to be fired. Also notice that the Reload Interval is much larger than the Fire Interval:
This is on purpose: trying to reload a missile-rack while moving will take a long time! You can speed up this process by visiting a Refill crate. Refill crates will provide a bonus to the reload speed of the rack:
The size of the bonus is based on the size of the refill-crate and your distance from the crate. You can increase the bonus by increasing the amount of refill-crates that you visit, or by visiting a larger crate:
- When you reload a rack, the missile will appear instantly. However, it will take the full amount of time to become usable.
- Set a key to manually reload your racks to control the amount of time the missile takes to become usable. Press your reload key when you're near to a refill crate, then fly away.
- Carry a small ammo-crate with spare missiles. They take a long time to reload so you won't use many during a battle, and your small box will refill anyway when you visit a refill-crate.
- Create a home-base with large refill-crates to reload your racks at if you manage to escape your enemy's sight. you can create an airstrip with crates running down its length to perform a quick fly-by reload.