2d game : fire at a moving target by predicting intersection of projectile and unit

Question

Okay, this all takes place in a nice and simple 2D world... :)

Suppose I have a static object A at position Apos, and a linearly moving object B at Bpos with bVelocity, and an ammo round with velocity Avelocity...

How would I find out the angle that A has to shoot, to hit B, taking into account B's linear velocity and the speed of A's ammo ?

Right now the aim's at the current position of the object, which means that by the time my projectile gets there the unit has moved on to safer positions :)

Answer 1

I wrote an aiming subroutine for xtank a while back. I'll try to lay out how I did it.

Disclaimer: I may have made one or more silly mistakes anywhere in here; I'm just trying to reconstruct the reasoning with my rusty math skills. However, I'll cut to the chase first, since this is a programming Q&A instead of a math class :-)

How to do it

It boils down to solving a quadratic equation of the form:

a * sqr(x) + b * x + c == 0

Note that by sqr I mean square, as opposed to square root. Use the following values:

a := sqr(target.velocityX) + sqr(target.velocityY) - sqr(projectile_speed)
b := 2 * (target.velocityX * (target.startX - cannon.X)
          + target.velocityY * (target.startY - cannon.Y))
c := sqr(target.startX - cannon.X) + sqr(target.startY - cannon.Y)

Now we can look at the discriminant to determine if we have a possible solution.

disc := sqr(b) - 4 * a * c

If the discriminant is less than 0, forget about hitting your target -- your projectile can never get there in time. Otherwise, look at two candidate solutions:

t1 := (-b + sqrt(disc)) / (2 * a)
t2 := (-b - sqrt(disc)) / (2 * a)

Note that if disc == 0 then t1 and t2 are equal.

If there are no other considerations such as intervening obstacles, simply choose the smaller positive value. (Negative t values would require firing backward in time to use!)

Substitute the chosen t value back into the target's position equations to get the coordinates of the leading point you should be aiming at:

aim.X := t * target.velocityX + target.startX
aim.Y := t * target.velocityY + target.startY

Derivation

At time T, the projectile must be a (Euclidean) distance from the cannon equal to the elapsed time multiplied by the projectile speed. This gives an equation for a circle, parametric in elapsed time.

sqr(projectile.X - cannon.X) + sqr(projectile.Y - cannon.Y)
  == sqr(t * projectile_speed)

Similarly, at time T, the target has moved along its vector by time multiplied by its velocity:

target.X == t * target.velocityX + target.startX
target.Y == t * target.velocityY + target.startY

The projectile can hit the target when its distance from the cannon matches the projectile's distance.

sqr(projectile.X - cannon.X) + sqr(projectile.Y - cannon.Y)
  == sqr(target.X - cannon.X) + sqr(target.Y - cannon.Y)

Wonderful! Substituting the expressions for target.X and target.Y gives

sqr(projectile.X - cannon.X) + sqr(projectile.Y - cannon.Y)
  == sqr((t * target.velocityX + target.startX) - cannon.X)
   + sqr((t * target.velocityY + target.startY) - cannon.Y)

Substituting the other side of the equation gives this:

sqr(t * projectile_speed)
  == sqr((t * target.velocityX + target.startX) - cannon.X)
   + sqr((t * target.velocityY + target.startY) - cannon.Y)

... subtracting sqr(t * projectile_speed) from both sides and flipping it around:

sqr((t * target.velocityX) + (target.startX - cannon.X))
  + sqr((t * target.velocityY) + (target.startY - cannon.Y))
  - sqr(t * projectile_speed)
  == 0

... now resolve the results of squaring the subexpressions ...

sqr(target.velocityX) * sqr(t)
    + 2 * t * target.velocityX * (target.startX - cannon.X)
    + sqr(target.startX - cannon.X)
+ sqr(target.velocityY) * sqr(t)
    + 2 * t * target.velocityY * (target.startY - cannon.Y)
    + sqr(target.startY - cannon.Y)
- sqr(projectile_speed) * sqr(t)
  == 0

... and group similar terms ...

sqr(target.velocityX) * sqr(t)
    + sqr(target.velocityY) * sqr(t)
    - sqr(projectile_speed) * sqr(t)
+ 2 * t * target.velocityX * (target.startX - cannon.X)
    + 2 * t * target.velocityY * (target.startY - cannon.Y)
+ sqr(target.startX - cannon.X)
    + sqr(target.startY - cannon.Y)
  == 0

... then combine them ...

(sqr(target.velocityX) + sqr(target.velocityY) - sqr(projectile_speed)) * sqr(t)
  + 2 * (target.velocityX * (target.startX - cannon.X)
       + target.velocityY * (target.startY - cannon.Y)) * t
  + sqr(target.startX - cannon.X) + sqr(target.startY - cannon.Y)
  == 0

... giving a standard quadratic equation in t. Finding the positive real zeros of this equation gives the (zero, one, or two) possible hit locations, which can be done with the quadratic formula:

a * sqr(x) + b * x + c == 0
x == (-b ± sqrt(sqr(b) - 4 * a * c)) / (2 * a)