I'll never be done with questions. Never!

Shaggy

Shaggy

Vice Admiral
And I may have a split personality, but so long as John Lithgow doesn't show up I'll be fine.
Anyway to business.
Has there been, or can you, create SO missions that require you to use a jump point. So like you could jump through with a group of fighters and secure the otherside of a jump point for the carrier.
When I create the engines for a fighter with a vertical pivot do I need to create more than one mesh, in a single file, or do I use a single mesh for each side?
Has anybody thought about converting Priv2, or even Priv1, ships to SO?
I'm just shooting off questions as they occur to me.
 
Originally posted by Shaggy
Has there been, or can you, create SO missions that require you to use a jump point. So like you could jump through with a group of fighters and secure the otherside of a jump point for the carrier.
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There hasn't. Jumping out in WCP/SO is just a fancy way of deactivating a ship. You could of course show the ship jumping out and then show it jumping back in, but the space background would still look the same... you definitely wouldn't get that "we're not in Kansas anymore" feeling that jumping should induce :p.
Of course, you could have a ship jump out, end the mission, and start the next one with the ship jumping into a different system. This works fine, but the problem is that the stats don't get carried over - if you take damage in the first part of the mission, it will magically disappear during the jump.

When I create the engines for a fighter with a vertical pivot do I need to create more than one mesh, in a single file, or do I use a single mesh for each side?
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I guess that would depend on what you want to achieve. The Vampire had both engines as separate files, because they moved independently of each other. Presumably, putting them both in the same file would work, but the two engines would then always move simultaneously.
 
Re: Re: I'll never be done with questions. Never!

Originally posted by Quarto
I guess that would depend on what you want to achieve. The Vampire had both engines as separate files, because they moved independently of each other. Presumably, putting them both in the same file would work, but the two engines would then always move simultaneously.
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I'm planning a couple of fighters with vertical pivot engines. My Confed fighter might have three to four engines, if I use the VPEs on my bomber. I have a Kilrathi fighter that will only have the two engines, in the wing roots towards the stern. So if I have one file with a single mesh in it can I use that for both engines. Or do I need two actual files to draw from when converting the fighter?
I also thought about setting up one fighter with a couple of big torpedoes strapped to it. I wanted to set it so that after the fighter fires its torps they are no longer attached to ship, sort of like the way the Wasp dumps its booster after it's expended but with a viable weapon that is a threat to the ship.
 
Re: Re: Re: I'll never be done with questions. Never!

Originally posted by Shaggy
I'm planning a couple of fighters with vertical pivot engines. My Confed fighter might have three to four engines, if I use the VPEs on my bomber. I have a Kilrathi fighter that will only have the two engines, in the wing roots towards the stern. So if I have one file with a single mesh in it can I use that for both engines. Or do I need two actual files to draw from when converting the fighter?
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As I said, it depends on what you want to achieve. If you want the two engines to move identically and simultaneously, they should be a part of the same file before conversion. If you want them to move independently of each other, they must be separate mesh files before conversion.

I also thought about setting up one fighter with a couple of big torpedoes strapped to it. I wanted to set it so that after the fighter fires its torps they are no longer attached to ship, sort of like the way the Wasp dumps its booster after it's expended but with a viable weapon that is a threat to the ship.
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I believe I've already explained why that's impossible :p.
 
Re: Re: Re: Re: I'll never be done with questions. Never!

Thanks.
I know all these questions must be annoying as hell, but I can't start converting models until I get rid of WinXP. So I'm trying to get as much done outside of the SO editing programs. And I'm trying to come with some unique ideas and scenarios when I start in on the mod full bore.
Has anyone tried creating kamikaze fighters?
 
Because XP is a pile of stagnant steaming crap! The only games I can get to work reliably in it are Descent 3, with some occasional sound glitches. And Command and Conquer Renegade, which my computer is too slow to run smoothly. But Renegade has no glitches at all.
I've never been able to get Secret Ops, or Prophecy, to work properly under XP. I've tried every tweak and setting I can find to get it to work and it still won't work!
Without a working copy of SO I can't test or check any fighter I convert over.
In the coming months though I should be able to buy a new system and I'll probably go back to Win98 SE or maybe 2000, though I prefer 98.
 
Just setting SO to run in Win95/98 compatibility mode is enough to play it in XP with no trouble.
 
Yeah I've tried that and it still crashes. Sometimes I get lucky and can actually fly a mission, with the 95\98 setting, but usually it will just crash.
Speaking of crashing, has anyone tried the kamikaze idea before?
 
Oh, sorry, I must have overlooked that question earlier. Yes, we've done kamikaze fighters in UE. If you want to see how they act, play mission 2A and kill the Ralari first - then, after a few seconds, the fighters should all go crashing into the Fralthi. Mind you, they don't really do any damage, but they could... as it is, they just look really cool ;).
 
How are fighter based turrets handled? What might happen if one was placed on the nose of a fighter?
When I create a capship, or starbase, mesh do I include the turret bases with hull mesh or is it seprate, like the rest of the turret?
Is there a way, or has anyone tried, to script a mission where the capships fight it out while the fighters deal with turrets and enemy fighters? Would it be possible to setup an enemy capship with guns used only against other capships, big heavy cannons, that are targetable like a turret, or bridge, but won't fire at you when you fly against them.
Some of this will factor into the capship design I'm going to start on.
 
Fighter based turrets are handled the same way as capship turrets - they're components attached to a ship. You also specify which turrets (if any) are linked to which cockpit views (the limit being three).

Turrets consist of two separate meshes - the base mesh and the gun barrel mesh. They are indeed separate from the hull.

You can have big heavy cannons, like the Cerberus' plasma weapon, which is basically an overgrown turret. However, when it comes to attacking other capships, these turrets will be fired indiscriminately, without aiming at specific components - if a capship is killed by the gunfire of another capship, go to the nearest casino and bet everything you've got, cause it's your lucky day :).

Scripting capship battles is possible, but difficult. Again, I refer you to UE... play mission 2B, and allow the Fralthi and Ralari to get to the Dauntless. You will then see them trade broadsides of torpedoes (which are scripted in a very specific way).
 
So when I create my capship mesh do I need to build in nubs along the hull for the turret components to attach to? Or does that matter?
Are there files on the web that I could use, for Confed and Kilrathi ships? If there are then the only time I'll actually need to create new meshes are for heavy cannons and any possible secondary threat capships.
Is it possible for capships to kill each other using torpedoes, easily? I wanted to include the heavy cannon idea more as sort of set dressing during a major clash. Although, would it be possible to create custom guns for, turrets and such, since a heavy cannon would essentially be an overgrown turret. But create them so that they are are stronger, and therefore more of a threat.
What sort of size limitations are there with the game engine, aside from polygon limits and fitting within a single waypoint. What I want to eventually create is a Kilrathi shipyard with different sections that are destroyable independently from the other sections. So you can smash a carrier that's part way through construction, and thereby destroy the construction lattice around it. I want to create a central command hub, so you have an ultimate target to shoot for. I'm worried about possible lag problems though.
 
No. You do not need nubs or hubs or anything along the hull. You just need separate turret bases, which you can attach to any hardpoint on the mesh.

There are no files on the web, because they're already in the game. If you want to use them, just add them inside the ship file. And yes, you can create custom turrets. You can also determine how many hitpoints a turret has, and what gun it uses.

No, in fact capships cannot kill each other with torpedoes any more than with normal weapons. I once tried to give a capship a torpedo turret, but it fired them at fighters, so that sorta missed the point. The torpedoes in that mission I mentioned are not fired by the actual capships... and even after they hit the target, they don't destroy all the components, so the capship needs to be killed by scripting.

We have never encountered a size limit, though we have tried some very large stuff (200,000km in radius was the biggest, IIRC). The only problem you'll have is that without HCl's patch, the game will only display the part of the capship that's within 60,000km of you.
 
Thanks.
Can you present more than two fighter choices to a player, like in UE when you can choose between a Scimitar or Epee. Could you set it to allow the player to choose from four different fighters? Or has anyone even tried it?
This is a little off from my planned mod but has anyone tried creating extremely large ships for the player to use. So for example you could build a mod that used Star Trek ships. Obviously the YPR would have to be very low and you would have to remodel some of the weapons to act, and possibly look, like photon torpedoes or phaser blasts. And of course you wouldn't be able to have a carrier. Anyway I thought that might make a cool mod and I figured it wouldn't hurt to shoot that out for consideration.:cool:
 
No, the game can only display 2 fighters when choosing. I suppose you could do some weird system where there are two rounds of choosing, and the second round is different depending on what you chose in the first round. That, however, would be weird :p.

You can have the player pilot anything you like, but the game is not designed for large capships. Most of their weapons are in turrets, of which the player can control only three (and only one at a time) so the player would find himself either bored or unable to fend off his attackers. It might seem like a cool idea, but it would really suck.
 
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