RFC: Fancy classics

[Simon B]

This one is for ark:

... the interior of the dock has been redone with the same "weathered" pattern as the outside of the coriolis. That may be all that is needed.

Possible is to add the winged design to the back wall (or a galcop logo, or both) but the owner is not parting with a simple image for the wings ... I'll have to beg :( unless someone can reverse-engineer the skin to create a dupe? Black on white please?

More radical change is possible - but may be better as part of a "docks" oxp - eg - change to a non-rectangular shape.

What the interested player and designer needs to notice is this:
there are no self-shadows. In the pic, the sun is to the right and behind the stations - so the dock should be pitch black. Instead, it is illuminated as if those were external walls.

The effect is slightly mitigated by the flashers - but not much because the shaders make the lighting anomoly more apparent.

[Lestradae]

Considering previous posts, would someone do me a big favor and catalog oxps which use core and companion ships internally or as like-ships, just with different skins?

I'll have a look and see what I can do ... problem is, my old laptop died and I do no longer have access to all of my data

[Simon B]

If you can remove the HDD, I can walk you through a data recovery.

[Lestradae]

If you can remove the HDD, I can walk you through a data recovery.

Thanks for the offer, but the mainboard is being exchanged by a firm six hundred kilometres from where I live, so no such luck.

But, the most important data has been saved, and I know where to look for the info you want. Will take a week or so, though, and I can't make a lot of promises.



L

[Simon B]

Neolite Galactic Navy

OK: Using the Megaships as behemoths. You've seen the navy viper, and the navy asp is the same livery on an asp mk2. You've seen rattlecutters - though they belong in a different oxp.

Here's two more - for your approval:

Navy Anaconda
Designated "Transport" - this beefed up anaconda is used for logistics deployment, fleet support, and as a destroyer for a bit of frontier gunboat diplomacy. The prototype anaconda cc is there for scale.


Navy Frigate
The frigate is a high endurance ship of the line capable of solo deep-space missions. Armament has been varied from the classic by adding 3 laser cannon forward, and two aft. The model pictured has also been fitted with two turrut-mounted cannon. As well as this, already awe inspiring, armament, the frigate sports eight standard naval turrets. Civilian commanders are advised, respectfully, to get out of the way.

... pictured with a navy anaconda for scale.

[Simon B]

Since I am making ships with multiple lasers, it would be cool to be able to affect the firing timings, so not all muzzles fire simultaneously.

I figured I can just make them different guns -so the first volley is devastating and the rest follow according to the lasers firing rate. (Something that would look interesting for three overlapping weapons).


Anyhoo - the frigate has three fwd military lasers which would be nice to fire in rotation. Though if one were mil, another beam, and the last pulse, would that create a random firing effect after the first salvo? (I don't even know the timings!)

I don't think that anyone actually being shot at will care that some hits are weaker than others... or can I get pulse-laser timing with mil laser strength if I specify the weapon energy?


All this comes up because I have been able to routinely destroy behemoths just by keeping my distance and using injectors to evade the escorts. So I'm beefing them up.

I really want anti-missile systems and the military station anti Q-mine technology (how good are the minesweepers?)... which means eyeing up the ordinance packs.

However, big lasers would help.
It seems I can get the appearance of a single mega-laser by putting them on multiple subentities inside each other. By offsetting slightly I get a fat beam.

I can also try lasers pointing off the main arcs - anybody tried that? If I put a laser 45deg forward, and high, then the ship gets an extra shot in when it's turning.

Am I correct that npcs cannot have turret lasers?

Basically, if the big navy ships are destroyable, then they need to be scary to attack. But but but, what do I have to do to the thargorns to match this? How far can I go before the game balance is stuffed?


It is silly that big ships have only the one escape pod - so they will have lots. Also need wreckage.


I have yet to see how the multi lasers work in the game... I'll have to rig a combat.

At the mo - prototypes carry:

Megaships:
10 turret cannon
10 std plasma cannon turrets
(perhaps it should be 8 and 8? - its not as heavy as it looks because the complexity of the ship restricts firing arcs. There are three cannon either side of the dock and four around the back of the thorax section.)

10 fixed lasers (2x3fwd, 2x2aft)
(+ point-defence lasers on each engine)

Frigates:
2 turret cannon
8 std plasma turrets
5 fixed lasers (3fwd, 2aft)

Anaconda
4 std plasma turrets
3 fixed lasers (2fwd, 1aft)

Medical
1 plasma turret
1 fixed laser


Trying to learn from the anaconda cc prototype and have fewer of the phallic cannon and more of the ball type (argh! that doesn't help!).

I'm also envisioning smaller behemoths to carry long range missiles or robot drones. (Hmmm... drones for frigates: I can set a docking radius for recovery...)

[Simon B]

... a Navy Patrol


... looking at ways to impliment nameplates. Note: we want them to have their own normalmaps so the sames will stand out. This probably means providing a seperate model for the plate and using shaders to swap the textures around. Is there a better way?

This one uses a 256x256 texture for normal, with 128x128 for diffuse and specular. But 2/3rds of the texture is unused. It would be a big saving to be able to apply a non-square texture as in the classic behemoths.

[Commander McLane]

Am I correct that npcs cannot have turret lasers?

You would be correct that only NPCs can have turret lasers. The only NPCs that currently have them are called..., errmmm..., Thargoids.

[Thargoid]

Am I correct that npcs cannot have turret lasers?

You would be correct that only NPCs can have turret lasers. The only NPCs that currently have them are called..., errmmm..., Thargoids.

Some of the NPC ships in Aquatics have them, so you could read that statement above either way

[Simon B]

Cool - I thought I saw some npcs with turret lasers but couldn't figure where. (I had thought of putting thargoid turrets central in the ship, since it appears ships can fire through their own hull. Then you can have beams exiting from anywhere.)

BUT: nobody know if the firing frequency of lasers can be customized?

[Commander McLane]

Cool - I thought I saw some npcs with turret lasers but couldn't figure where. (I had thought of putting thargoid turrets central in the ship, since it appears ships can fire through their own hull. Then you can have beams exiting from anywhere.)

Yes, that's the way, and the only way to go. There are no turreted lasers apart from Thargoid lasers. And those fire from in the middle of the ship. Which is why no other ships use them (haven't yet downloaded the latest Aquatics, so that info was new to me), because it looks stupid, I suppose.

By the way: So far also my efforts to place a Thargoid laser on a subentity haven't brought satisfactory results. I tried to give the Thargoid Carrier three turreted lasers instead of one, but either the subentity lasers didn't fire at all, or in random directions independent of the main laser.

BUT: nobody know if the firing frequency of lasers can be customized?

No, it can't. T'is hardcoded like all laser specs.

[Simon B]

Cool - I thought I saw some npcs with turret lasers but couldn't figure where. (I had thought of putting thargoid turrets central in the ship, since it appears ships can fire through their own hull. Then you can have beams exiting from anywhere.)

Yes, that's the way, and the only way to go.

So it is, to your knowledge, not possible to put a laser turret anywhere but at the center of the model?
... It is also not possible to have any laser weapon type other than thargoid_laser?

By the way: So far also my efforts to place a Thargoid laser on a subentity haven't brought satisfactory results. I tried to give the Thargoid Carrier three turreted lasers instead of one, but either the subentity lasers didn't fire at all, or in random directions independent of the main laser.

How does that work? Surely the main laser is a subentity? I'm going to have to go look...

BUT: nobody knows if the firing frequency of lasers can be customized?

No, it can't. T'is hardcoded like all laser specs.

Lets think outside the box here....

Speculating: I can slow down a military laser my designating a pulse laser but setting weapon_energy=50; ??

If I mix laser types, I mix firing frequencies??


I was also speculating that it may be possible to set a ship so that it will not fire unless another ship has already fires - in a script? Then, if I set that ship as a subentity... will that ships script still control it enough for the fire-control rules to be kept?

Technically, I can have lasers cycle-fire by specifying a seperate model for the whole ship for each laser. As each one fires, the ship gets replaced with one that has a different fire position. (I'd rather not do that...)

I've decided that the guns are not big enough to have them recoil when fired. You'll never see it happen. This effect is really only useful on a player ship where the gun is visible to the commander. Then, that would be quite cool.

[<anguished cry>griiiffff!!!!!</cry>
I know you've done this - while I'm mucking about with turrets etc - have you got it to tidy code snippets?

(Not urgent: I have no idea what ship to use it on ... yet. Nice to have it as an option. In fact, it's probably worth designing a ship for exactly this effect.)]

Lastly - can I specify in a requires.plist that another oxp be installed or not present?

[Eric Walch]

By the way: So far also my efforts to place a Thargoid laser on a subentity haven't brought satisfactory results. I tried to give the Thargoid Carrier three turreted lasers instead of one, but either the subentity lasers didn't fire at all, or in random directions independent of the main laser.

The thargon threat cruiser and battleship have thargoid lasers on their subentities. And those subents are define as frangible, so you can shoot them off. I always liked that on those cruisers. Because you can shoot of the lasers they become less strong after some time of battle. (aim at the top part)

[Griff]

The recoiling turrets are in the griff_boa oxp and also on one of the later versions of the spacebar. If i remember correctly it's all done in the vertex shader, you subtract the laserheat uniform from the z co-ordinate of the models verticies. I'll dig the shader out tonight and document the code a bit better, it's all pre-normalmapping though, i'm not sure if i can add the normal map stuff into it without burning out my brain cell

[Thargoid]

The thargoid laser shoots from the centre of the entity it's in iirc, so if it's on a sub-ent then it shoots from the centre of that (not the centre of the whole ship).

In Aquatics I've given the Leviathan platforms quite a number of them, and they certainly don't all shoot from the same point. You get quite a light show in fact, only slightly hindered by the fact that they all have the same target. It would look much nicer if they could have independent targets, as I said earlier.