Shaggy
Vice Admiral
I've been working on a new episodic series for Secret Ops, and I have been here before looking for advice. Right now I'm really working on the storyline and have the initial conceptual drawings.
One of the things I've been wanting to implement is cloaking fighters, so I can use Strakhas on the Kilrathi side and a light reconnaissance fighter for Confed.
I've been trying to figure out a way around the problem of the Vision engine not supporting stealth fighters. I've come up with a couple of ideas, but I'll get to that in a second.
One of the things I'd really like to know is if there is anyone out there who can hack the engine to support cloaks. Because that would be the best solution to the problem.
Anyway, I've got three ideas percolating that I could use some advice on.
The first, and best one so far, is to have missions scripted for the LR fighter alone. The waypoints for recon missions would require you fly through an ion distortion belt, or some other techno babble device that would essentially hide you from the cats as long as you flew with in a specific corridor. The idea is to set several waypoints within the mission area to guide the player through the belt-and to within a few kilometers of the Kilrathi ships and identify the fleet.
Essentially you would autopilot from the carrier to waypoint 1, waypoint 2 would only be about a hundred K off then three the same until say waypoint 16 where yo would auto to waypoint 17 to engage a Cat patrol, or whatever, and then on to waypoint 18 where you land on the carrier again. Anyway the bulk of the waypoints would guide you through the Cat fleet your supposed to run reconnaissance on.
The idea is to define a corridor within the mission area, with some room to maneuver, where the kilrathi units can't 'see' you but if you move outside of that corridor then they will register that you are there. This would leave the Strakhas without a cloak ability. The credit for this idea has to go to my cousin. Thanks Nick!
The last one, or two I guess, is to to script the missions so that the Cats cant see you behind asteroids and then plot the story as such that the recon targets are inside a planetary ring system, and as such as long as you stay in the rocks they can't see you. Or to lay out small nodes on the cloaking models that are defined as asteroids, or some other innocuos thing, that will blind the enemy.
The second part of that would potentially allow for cloaking Strakhas.
I'd like to set it up so you can turn the cloak on and off as you like. Anyway, all ideas are welcome!
One of the things I've been wanting to implement is cloaking fighters, so I can use Strakhas on the Kilrathi side and a light reconnaissance fighter for Confed.
I've been trying to figure out a way around the problem of the Vision engine not supporting stealth fighters. I've come up with a couple of ideas, but I'll get to that in a second.
One of the things I'd really like to know is if there is anyone out there who can hack the engine to support cloaks. Because that would be the best solution to the problem.
Anyway, I've got three ideas percolating that I could use some advice on.
The first, and best one so far, is to have missions scripted for the LR fighter alone. The waypoints for recon missions would require you fly through an ion distortion belt, or some other techno babble device that would essentially hide you from the cats as long as you flew with in a specific corridor. The idea is to set several waypoints within the mission area to guide the player through the belt-and to within a few kilometers of the Kilrathi ships and identify the fleet.
Essentially you would autopilot from the carrier to waypoint 1, waypoint 2 would only be about a hundred K off then three the same until say waypoint 16 where yo would auto to waypoint 17 to engage a Cat patrol, or whatever, and then on to waypoint 18 where you land on the carrier again. Anyway the bulk of the waypoints would guide you through the Cat fleet your supposed to run reconnaissance on.
The idea is to define a corridor within the mission area, with some room to maneuver, where the kilrathi units can't 'see' you but if you move outside of that corridor then they will register that you are there. This would leave the Strakhas without a cloak ability. The credit for this idea has to go to my cousin. Thanks Nick!
The last one, or two I guess, is to to script the missions so that the Cats cant see you behind asteroids and then plot the story as such that the recon targets are inside a planetary ring system, and as such as long as you stay in the rocks they can't see you. Or to lay out small nodes on the cloaking models that are defined as asteroids, or some other innocuos thing, that will blind the enemy.
The second part of that would potentially allow for cloaking Strakhas.
I'd like to set it up so you can turn the cloak on and off as you like. Anyway, all ideas are welcome!