Hi everyone
I've created a large freight train type ship as well as some small 'loader bots' i'm hoping to have ferry cargo pods between the freighter and a prison like station model i've built. here's a pic of the freighter (and the tiny specks are the loader bots, they're just big enough to carry a cargo pod each.)
does anyone know if the docking slit for a carrier/station should be centered at 0,0,0 in the model? I've hacked a quick dockingAI script for the loaders that sort of works for the freighter but doesn't work at all on the station i've built - the loaders just fly into the side of it as if they are heading to the models centre instead of the slit on the Z axis edge.
i've finished the station:-
i'm getting odd results with the 'addShipsAt:' and 'addShipsAtPrecisely:' commands, using 'addShipsAtPrecisely:' makes my station point in the opposite directon to when it's added using 'addShipsAt:'. Maybe i should re-export the model spun around 180 on Z.
Last edited by Griff on Sun Jan 21, 2007 12:33 pm, edited 2 times in total.
the little i know about 3d modelling suggests you are right - when modelling the origin is where the 3 axes are on your orthographic grid, so i assume that's what's referenced in your coordinates. i'd think you could either go back into your modeller and drag the entire model to line up the axes on your docking slot (might affect other things like roatation tho??) or work out the co-ords of your docking slit.
Man o man Griff, stunning work, you are setting standards that others aspire to.
I don't know how you are doing it, I thought there was some sort of limit on the level of detail that could be achieved on ships. Does this mean that potentially there is the ability to creat Battlestars, Generation ships, and space dredgers of the same ilk.
The Grey Haired Commander has spoken!
OK so I'm a PC user - "you know whats scary? Out of billions of sperm I was the fastest"
At the moment the stations docking port is at 0,0,533 in the models space, i'll try your suggestion KW and move the whole thing back on the z axis so that the ports midpoint is 0,0,0. if i leave the x & y untouched it should still rotate correctly in game i hope - otherwise docking is going to be a nightmare.
failing that i suppose i could use the 'addshipatprecisely' command to place the station at some known coordinate, then manually add a path of coordinates to the loaders ai script that if they follow they always line up with the stations docking port.
regarding the detail in the model, oolite does seem to have a bit of trouble registering laser hits on the trail of containers at the back of the ship unless you fire a few shots into the engine part first then it all works ok, but i think this is probably a problem with all the holes i've left in the model to cut down on polygons.
On the subject of your question, this docking slit thing is new for me too so I don't know all the rules but as far as I understand they need to be more-or-less aligned on the front-back ( z ) axis of your ship, and co-ords of 0.0,0.0,0.0 is what I generally do with sub-entities. Necessary? Don't know, but so far I haven't had issues. ( I think )
Benulobiweed.inc
By Appointment to --- : GalCoop : ---
thanks everyone for the help, i've moved the model back along the Z axis so the mouth of the docking bay is at 0,0,0 and the loader bots are now doing a fairly good job at flying into the docking bay and not straight into the side of the hull as they were doing before, now the next step is to get the freighters launching the bots in the first place and to get the bots to dock at the nearest station and not straight back in the freighter they just launched from...
Perhaps just giving the bots you want to fly to the station a tweaked native route1traderAI would do it (maybe change the distress calls to some bot-type hails), as this has a fly to station and dock script in it. Throw in a few launchDefenceShips to get the bots launched. If they didn't have interceptorAI then they'd do whatever their AI told em to do. A similar AI to the main ship, should get them flying along with it.
OXPS : The Assassins Guild, Asteroid Storm, The Bank of the Black Monks, Random Hits, The Galactic Almanac, Renegade Pirates can be downloaded from the Elite Wiki here.
cheers for the tip! the route1trader ai has a whole "go_to_station" section already in it! heh, i only looked at the dockingAI script for inspration and then i quickly decided the bots were taking to long dithering about lineing up with the freighter so i cut out all the careful driving stuff and then posted on here in bafflement when the bots all started crashing into each other and the hulls of the stations.
Edit: Darn, ive hit a snag, moving the model back along Z has fixed docking for the bots but broken it for the player - the docking zone is now placed outside the station! I think i'll try placing the station at fixed co-ordinates next and then writing a short AI for the bots ro move them to a point in front of the station then switch the AI to the dockingAI already in oolite to do the clever stuff.
[img][img]http://i105.photobucket.com/albums/m213 ... 3/tugs.jpg[/img][/img]
unbelievably i've got the cargo unloder bots working, here's two of them about to speedy dock. realised i could set a nav buoy for the station as a subentity of the station and then place it directly in front of the docking slit using co-ords like 0 0 2000 it's shipdata.plist entry and avoid the problems i've been getting with the addshipatprecisely command behaving oddly, the cargo bots AI then targets the buoy as a destination, flies up to it then turns and flies at the station, doing a 'landonplanet' when they get really close, this allows you spawn clouds of bots that all fight it out to dock together at top speed without all the 'after you..no i insist, after you' politeness that the rest of the ships do. edit
oops, this didn't work after all, i had another other script in another .oxp that happened to be adding the buoy that made me thing the subentity idea was working, back to tthe drawing board
Last edited by Griff on Sat Feb 10, 2007 8:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.
man, i was in tears myself, i really, really have a hard time scripting! it's been a couple of months for me trying to get to this point and the oxp still doesn't really do anything usefull! anyway, hopefully this stuff can plug into the Tescoo oxp so we can have delivery ships etc stocking up the shelves and also have a lot of activity around the stations - can't find the thread but somebody had the great idea of a 'customs' point for ships to have their cargo checked.
