Capship components

[PopsiclePete]

This is not an official poll or anything, I am not starting it as a Standoff staff member but as just "me the curious".

Would you prefer capships with only one component that constitutes the whole ship à-la WC2 or have multi-components capships à-la WCP for Standoff ?

A single-component capship would have two big advantages: First, staying consistent with WC2 about how to kill them, but more importantly it would allow capship battles ! The probelm with multi-components capships like those in WCP/SO is that the capship AI cannot target individual capship components and instead shoots on the center on it's enemy. If the main hull covering the whole ship was the only component, this would not be a problem at all !

What do you think ?

 

[SabreAce]

Single component cap-ships, definitely. Being able to have actual cap-ship battles while you take down the fighters would be awesome, much better than the system used in WCP. Anything that makes the game more like WC2 is a plus in my book.

 

[Darkmage]

multicomponent capships for the hakagas.. remember in the book fleet action it took more than a few torps to down one.

 

[Aries]

single component capships. i've always found it more fun just to pump torps into the sonnovabitch till it blows rather than having to selectively target each individual component and then watch the torp do no damage if it doesn't hit at just the right angle (happens to me all the time)

 

[Starkey]

Originally posted by Darkmage
multicomponent capships for the hakagas.. remember in the book fleet action it took more than a few torps to down one.

Well, with a single-component Hakaga, you could add some heavily-armoured shield generators, so the fighters would have to take those first in order to make the hull vulnerable to, say, 8-10 torps to take the ship out.

 

[scheherazade]

if you can do both that would be best.

make the generic 'body' take less damage per shot than components.

and have components affect ship functions.

this way you can pound it to death, and you can disable parts, etc.

-scheherazade

 

[BobMcDob]

Yeah, what everyone else said.

 

[Needaham45]

I want capship battles.

Maybe certain ships (Concordia, Hakaga) should be multi component, but for the most part, I say single component.

 

[Delance]

Capship battles are cool.

 

[Wedge009]

So capships would just appear like giant corvettes again? That doesn't sound so good. But if a capship could be made like the ones in WCP GBA...

Originally posted by Darkmage
...it took more than a few torps to down [a Hakaga].

I'm sure you could implement a single-component Hakaga to be more resistant to torpedoes than more 'regular' capships.

Originally posted by scheherazade
make the generic 'body' take less damage per shot than components... and have components affect ship functions.

Like I said, it'd be nice like WCP GBA is reported to be.

 

[Darkmage]

it's MORE than just more torps to kill it... remember in fleet action they blew a Hakaga in HALF and it was still working... it takes shitloads of torps, and even then best way is always antimatter mine.

 

[Wedge009]

I don't think the game engine can implement that much amount of destruction...

 

[Lynx]

You'd just have to make the hitpoints higher in case you want to make a ship tougher. With single components, cap kills wouldn't necessarily be easier, because as the Dauntless in UE showed, ship with many turrets can shoot down torpedoes quite easily. And if Eder has managed to implement flak guns, it will be even more of a challenge.

 

[Dragonslayer]

I have no clue how the engine works for WCP but couldnt you make the hull of the ship (the rest of the thing beyond the engines and the bridge) into a torpedo targetable component. If you could make it necessary to knock out command and propulsion first and then have to destroy the hull that would be interesting. WOuld make capship kills harder though i guess.

 

[Eder]

Hmmm, Interesting poll we have here.

Originally posted by Dragonslayer
I have no clue how the engine works for WCP but couldnt you make the hull of the ship (the rest of the thing beyond the engines and the bridge) into a torpedo targetable component...

That's probably the only thing we could do with Standoff at this point, since all capship models exceed the 1200 poly mark... and WCP's engine can only handle 1200 polygons per component (We can take the hull and make it into a component, or take the bridge and make it into a hull, but any re-splitting of the models is too much work to be worth it).

However, that wouldn't make it possible to hit capships anywhere, since you'd still have to destroy all the vital components, and would still only be allowed to ignore the non-vital ones - so it pretty much misses the point

I mean, we could make the hull the only vital component in a ship, but I don't think that'd make any sense... and if you ended up hitting the bridge or the engines (because, say, they were in the way of the torpedo lock) it would mean as much progress towards destroying the ship as if you had hit nothing at all.

In the end, it all boils down to ships being too detailed to be fit into a single component, so either way we look at it, one/some components have to be vital and one/some don't.

--Eder

 

[PopsiclePete]

Originally posted by Eder
That's probably the only thing we could do with Standoff at this point, since all capship models exceed the 1200 poly mark... and WCP's engine can only handle 1200 polygons per component

Is it 1200 polys by component or by mesh, or is it that you can't have more that one mesh by component ? I thought that since you could have more than one mesh for a fighter, you could have more than one mesh for a capship component. But i never converted a ship and I suck in modeling so I've never took the time do research the possibilities. The poly count is something I didn't take into account.

I mean, we could make the hull the only vital component in a ship, but I don't think that'd make any sense... and if you ended up hitting the bridge or the engines (because, say, they were in the way of the torpedo lock) it would mean as much progress towards destroying the ship as if you had hit nothing at all.

Are you answering Dragonslayer on that ? You do undertand that I meant one single component that would include the bridge and engines and everything else. Then you could hit the engines or bridge or the main hull and the effect would be the same; the only component would have sustained a hit. When the only component dies, the ship is dead. The effect would be pretty much the same than in WC2.

In the end, it all boils down to ships being too detailed to be fit into a single component, [...]

Can't the poly count limit be increased by widening the memory adress space allocated for that in WCP/SO just like HCl did for the amount of asteroid we could put into a mission with no crash ? Are your capships waaaay beyond the 1200 ploy mark or could it be reduced ?

All of this is speculation, I am not trying to dictate tech choices for Standoff, just want to debate about if it would be feasible and fun to have it that way.

 

[PopsiclePete]

Originally posted by Wedge009
So capships would just appear like giant corvettes again? That doesn't sound so good.

Well, not giant corvettes like in WC1, WC3 and WC4, but more like WC2's capships. Needs torpedoes, but you just don't have to lock on a component, just lock on the whole ship. Then it doesn't matter if you fire in the engines or on the bridge. Capship needs 4 torpedoes ? Fire 4 torps wherever you want on the capship and you'll blow it.

 

[Eder]

Originally posted by PopsiclePete
Is it 1200 polys by component or by mesh, or is it that you can't have more that one mesh by component ? I thought that since you could have more than one mesh for a fighter, you could have more than one mesh for a capship component.

Dunno. IIRC, there's another way to attach stuff to other stuff, apart from components. I'm not sure either, though, but even if this works, it'd probably mean re-compiling all the meshes.

Originally posted by PopsiclePete
Are you answering Dragonslayer on that ?

Yep, I was replying to him... I understood what your idea is, I was replying to his suggestion of having the hull as an extra component.

Originally posted by PopsiclePete
Can't the poly count limit be increased by widening the memory adress space allocated for that in WCP/SO just like HCl did for the amount of asteroid we could put into a mission with no crash ? Are your capships waaaay beyond the 1200 ploy mark or could it be reduced ?

They're waaay beyond that mark, mostly. IIRC, the Waterloo and Concordia have around 2000 polys, the CVEs have around 1600, and the Hakagas have around 2500+. The Bengals are the only ones within the limits, and all further Kilrathi capships will probably be around 2000 as well. Even if HCl can find a way around this poly limit, re-exporting and re-turretizing all the capships which are already done would be a pain in the ass

Perhaps something like making the hull into an extra component, then using a patch that checks to see wheter the combined damage to all components has reached a certain level, so the whole ship blows up? Kind of like a damage counter that acts on groups of components, not on individual components. I dunno, HCl's the real programmer

EDIT: corrected capship polycounts: CVEs have 1434 faces, Hakagas have 2424 faces, Waterloos have 1821 faces, Concordias have 1694 faces, Bengals have 1378 faces, Gilgameshes have 1002 faces.

--Eder

 

[Delance]

Wow, people do like capship Battles. WC2 excel in those with the large capship energy guns.

You people would probably like to play I-War, or the Freelancer mods that allows you to use Capships.

 

[jammyo2k]

You could split the capship in engine and hull. I think I saw someone mention that you can edit the names of components. That would mean 2 different meshes, giving a poly count of 2400 in total. That would sort out all of the capships (apart from the Hakagas and even that would be pretty close) and you would still get the pre WCP feel of blasting a way at it. As the entire surface of the model would then be a component even the dumb capship AI would be able to cope.