Smivs Industries is pleased to announce the launch of Smivs'Shipset v4.0.
My shipset has always been innovative - v2 was the first non-shader set to employ light-maps, and v3 introduced the Player Cobra 3 custom skin kit. So how do you follow things like that?
Well, the whole purpose of a re-texture set is to make the game look better but there is only so far you can go with re-texturing alone. So v4.0 features some revolutionary visual effects which will transform the way you see the game. I hope you like it.
Smivs'Shipset v4.0 is the first Oolite ship set with dynamic textures which change in game to show NPC damage during combat. If you or an NPC shoot-up another ship to the point where its shields fail and it starts throwing sparks, the texture is changed 'on the fly' to one with visible damage - you will actually see laser scoring and holes punched in the hull.
If the ship under attack has an escape capsule and the pilot ejects, the ship will then go derelict. As the reactor shuts down the engine glow fades and the ship starts to tumble gently in space. As it tumbles, it loses all power. The interior and external lights fade out, and finally the ship loses its strobing navigation lights leaving it dead and dark, a lifeless hulk adrift in space at your mercy.
Click on the image for full size version (2300x500px)
Another exciting visual feature of v4.0 is enhanced death effects. Normally, when you kill another ship you get a brief and rather weedy little flash. With Smivs'Shipset v4.0 when a ship is destroyed, it will explode dramatically, and for a split second you may even see large chunks of burning wreckage before they also explode.
The original 'core' models have been retained for authenticity as before, but they now have gun and engine sub-entities. These are fairly un-sophisticated, but I think they fit in nicely with the somewhat basic core models and really make them look a lot better.
The actual textures are largely carried over from v3 but many have been improved with extra detailing, and I have added a second Asp texture. There are now over 40 different ship textures in the set.
Smivs'Shipset v4.0 retains the kit which allows you to make a custom texture for the player Cobra 3. This is a very easy process and will allow you to personalise your own Cobra 3 if you want to. Full instructions are included.
Full details of the OXP with screenshots of all the ship varieties, along with downloads can be found here on 'smivsonline'.
Responding to Capt Murphy's suggestion I have also re-formatted the OXP so there are now 'replace' and 'add' versions depending on whether you just want to replace the default textures or add my ships to the default ships and/or other shipsets.
Unfortunately, due to the increasing complexity of the shipset, I have made the decision to drop the 'Basic' version. This was always the least popular, with barely over 100 downloads for v3, so I hope it won't be missed too much. v4.0 is available with Standard Definition and High Definition textures. The SD is suitable for computers with on-board graphics and the HD is ideal for computers with dedicated graphics cards.
There are credits in the readme, but I must just mention Capt Murphy here. When he heard I was working on v4.0 and intended to produce 'replace' and 'add' versions, he offered to check it out for me and test the new features.
While everything was basically working well, he realised that my scripting was a little overblown and offered to trim it for me. He took my bloatware of over 30 shipscripts and reduced them down to just one elegent unified script. And everything works better as well! Thank you, Capt Murphy.
You will be prompted that you're over-writing an existing file, but that's OK.
Downloading!
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