Tutorial:TNT cannons/Nomenclature
A brief clarification regarding terminology:
Various communities have used different naming conventions. The articles about TNT cannons use the terminology from the WarGear community as a basis.
Cannons
A single cannon always has at least one chokepoint where the TNT of each shot go to.
To describe a cannon we take some unique aspects of the cannon and list them in the reverse order they appear below. So possible cannon names might include "SAT" (Shift-Ascend-Tunnler), "3/4US" (Up-Shotgun, that uses 3 Injectors and 4 Projectiles) or just "Sa" (Semi automatic).
TNT
In this article TNT entities and TNT blocks are referred to as TNT.
Depending on its use there are multiple ways to name TNT. "Projectiles" (short projs) are TNT, that damage the enemy (can also refer to other accelerated entities). "Propellants" (short props) accelarate other entities. They usually explode all at the same time. Some specialised propellants are: "Boosters" (that move TNT to the enemies side), "injectors" (that explode outside the cannon and accelerate the projectiles directly into the enemy), "ejectors" (that are used to move the TNT out of the cannon, but not towards the enemy).
Other
"Angle" is used to describe the whole trajectory of the projectiles (and thus all other TNT) after they leave the launch point.
"Pressure" is the velocity to which TNT is accelerated.
Cannons can have different "Modes". Examples for this would be, that they can hit at different positions, or that they can switch between Tunnler and Mortar.
A "Chamber" is a place where TNT is ignited - in the Shotgun above this is where the observers are.
A "Barrel" is the region that TNT use to leave the cannon (and if existing the whole fighting machine). Barrels are a disadvantage because they mean less armor and sometimes it even is enough to damage the barrel to break certain modes of the cannon.
"Prime Motion" refers to the random initial velocity of each TNT.
"Micro Motion" is (almost) invisible motion, that can cause problems.
"Prime Phases" describe the order in which TNT - especially the projectiles - are ignited.
When multiple cannons, shields, and other things are assembled into a fighting machine, the general idea of where what goes is referred to as a "Formation".
One block per tick is equal to 20 blocks per second but it is easier and more accurate to count speed in blocks per tick so this will be used in the article.
A "pixel" is a unit of length equal to 1⁄16th of a block.
"Subpixel displacement" refers to TNT positions off the pixel grid. Usually TNT is placed 0.01 blocks off the pixel grid due to it having a size of 0.98 blocks in each direction, but sometimes the TNT might also be displaced by different amounts.