@foreign-object-impact, on Sep 7 2006, 10:28 AM, said in Escape Velocity: Orion:

First off, can you have an animation play when a ship gets hit? I suppose you could do this by using submunitions, but I'm not sure how well it would work out.

If you use that as a shield glow, it will only animate if the ship uses the "Use Extra Framesets For Animation" flag and actually has extra framesets (nine in this case). It might be possible to fake a shield glow using weapons, but I can't see anything obvious.

@sp3cies, on Sep 7 2006, 03:04 PM, said in Escape Velocity: Orion:

Use the bööm resource to have it play an explosion when the weapon hits the ship.

Unfortunately, that won't be centered over the ship. However, on a completely different note, it could be interesting as a ship explosion if you had a scenario where ships warped back to another universe when "destroyed"...

@foreign-object-impact, on Sep 7 2006, 10:28 AM, said in Escape Velocity: Orion:

Secondly, is it possible to have collision with astroids/ships, and if possible increasing with speed. The best we've thought of is an invisible weapon firing or exploding continously around you but not damaging yourself with a high recoil, is there a method for improvement?

try looking at this and subsequent posts. There are a few problems with that trick, but it should be possible to get it working fairly well (for the ship-collision problem, give the weapon a ProxSafety higher than its Count).

--------------------
Also, the landing shot looks great, and the station should be very good once it has some textures.

Edwards

@foreign-object-impact, on Sep 7 2006, 05:28 PM, said in Escape Velocity: Orion:

Secondly, is it possible to have collision with astroids/ships, and if possible increasing with speed.

There are other ways besides contuniously firing PD.

They take a bit to set up, though.

One is to use a spob that fires a weapon the subs in to many parts. The first few stages are invisible and multiply the number of 'roids while at the same time randomizing their locations. The final stage looks like a drifting asteroid. Have the graphic spin continuously. (unless you speed up the normal asteroids rotation, they will appear to spin slightly faster - just so you know.)
Make these able to detonate on any ship. You can even make them targetable by PD if you want.

Using a spob weapon is easy to control the distribution, however you can only fire one roid type per spob.

Here's another way that doesn't rely on spobs firing at you
You have to make special cloaked ships in the system. These ships will fire different weapons at you that look like asteroids.

In a test I did, I used three different asteroid weapons.
Large asteroids that floated in a random direction.
Medium asteroids the were fired where you were going to be (unguided turret)
Small asteroids that were fired where you are (1st stage invisible homing weapon, 2nd stage unguided)

In each case the first stage was an invisible "aiming stage" that subbed into the final stage that also had falloff of -1. This made the asteroids fade-in, which looked suprisingly natural.

I suppose you can combine these two ideas, higly controlable distribution and various asteroids and behavior by using a single pers that appears 100% in the system, that also runs away if out of ammo.
He fires his load of multiplying asteroids, then runs away and doesn't come back until you re-enter the system space. If you have one ship distributing the whole asteroid field, you want to make sure he's not a regualr dude that will warp-in according to the number of ships present in the system.

You should take a look at my System Mines plug examples. It tested various ways to mine a system, but had some asteriod elements that are relevant to your usage, I think. I have to update it, however (so give me day or two).

EDIT: I don't think you can easily get varying damage with speed with my soultion. Guy's example in the other thread can sorta simulate this (the longer you touch the roid the more damage you take) But it also uses PD to accomplish this. However, this also makes PD usless for anything else. I don't know if that's a problem for you. My version will destroy the roid with one hit. You can make it sub into smaller roids using prox trigger, but to do this it must sub before it hits your ship... so it will make for a funny asteroid. If you want to do that, I think the best bet would give a prox trigger radius of 1 to 5 pixels realizing that many roids will not sub because the prox triggered with the ship mask touching the roid mask. But for the ones that get to sub, the new smaller asteroids can provide more damage if the ship is still there. Unfourtanately, it is ships moving very fast that are more likely to avoid proper submunitioning.

This post has been edited by Desprez : 08 September 2006 - 11:29 AM

Ok, here is a modified version of System Mines v1.2

Again, this test bed plug was intended to test various ways to mine a system, but of particular use to you, check out the systems, "Widely Mined System" and "Mined System (Asteroids)"
In the first, I have modified the mines to be visible asteroids. "Mined System (Asteroids)" I didn't change, but you will get another perspective on distributing asteroids, (layed by ships). There are actual asteroids in the system too. To see just the created asteroids, set that system to 0 asteroids.

Some notes:
You can make the asteroids targetable with PD, but realize that this will only work for one particular fleet at a time. PD only targets guided weapons that target the fleet, regardless if they can detonate on any ship.

I also added the property of asteroids being able to impact and then break into smaller peices. (Also learned that while the sprite mask defines a hit, prox radius is from the center of the sprite, not edge of mask) I set prox raidus to 20, which is just outside of the asteroid mask. As you'll see, sometimes the subs trigger, sometimes they don't.

Something to try:
You could also simulate a system of asteroids that is very chaotic. Where they bang and crash into each other.
You'd need to have the created asteroids, as well as real asteroids. And have the created ones able to impact against the 'roids and prox radius triggered by 'roids too.
The real asteroids can't impact against each other, and the created ones can't hit each other, but the real ones will be able to hit the created ones.
So, in effect, the player warps into the system. Some asteroids he can hit, some he can't. Meanwhile, sometimes asteroids will collide and break apart. Of the resulting bits, some are dangerous, some are not.
Also, note that the collisions will only happen when visible as the real asteroids don't exsist when out of the player's view, thus preserving your valuable created 'roids.

EDIT: Ok, I played with mixing real asteroids with created asteroids. (and updated the file to v1.2)
This is in the "Colliding Asteroids" System. The results are so-so, in my opinon.

Also, something to note: prox radius when trigggered by ships can spawn subs. Prox raidus when triggered by asteroids does not spawn subs. Interesting.
And Nova has trouble when asteroid spins and weapon spins point to the same RLEs.

This post has been edited by Desprez : 08 September 2006 - 08:59 PM

@desprez, on Sep 9 2006, 12:43 PM, said in Escape Velocity: Orion:

(Also learned that while the sprite mask defines a hit, prox radius is from the center of the sprite, not edge of mask)

Aha, that explains some things. That also sucks.

With your spob-based solution, what kind of radius does it cover? How many shots does it make or does it continually make them? Or more specifically, how can you make sure it covers the entire system while allowing for dense enough asteroid fields and without maxing out the shots?

@guy, on Sep 9 2006, 08:16 AM, said in Escape Velocity: Orion:

With your spob-based solution, what kind of radius does it cover? How many shots does it make or does it continually make them? Or more specifically, how can you make sure it covers the entire system while allowing for dense enough asteroid fields and without maxing out the shots?

Hmmm. I actually remembered the Max Shots number wrong. I thought it was higher.
However, a clarification. The bible says 128 Max Shots on Screen. Is this the case, or is it really Max Shots in System? If it is the former, there's your answer. If it's the latter, then I'd better go back and check to make sure the asteroids are distributing properly.
In fact, in one example where all the 'roids were immediatly surrounding the planet, and therefore all on screen at the same time, there weren't actually enough. I had intended 144, but there are probably only 128. That's only 16 less, so I didn't notice. I had better check that firing a gun doesn't cause asteroids to dissapear. Anyway...

Now, as to how it's done, there are a couple ways I tried.
In one case, I used a single shot subbing into 72 parts, then subbing some more.
In another case I used a rapid fire burst of 72 shots, then subbing into more. This way was slower to gerenrate, but worked better when the player happened to take off from the planet.

In the "Widely Mined System", the pattern is this:
(All shots are 180 inaccuracy - this provides the initial random direction, and provides the varying distance from firing spob in the later stages)
First, 72 rapid invisible shots that travel to 900 pixels out (in 3 frames) then sub into 4 parts.
Next, those subs travel 400 pixels (in 2 frames) in a random direction then sub once.
The next parts travel 200 pixels in a randome direction and sub into the final visible asteroid.
This pattern yields a random distribution of 288 asteroids in the range of 300 - 1500 pixels from the firing spob.

By modifying the distances, you can make some really neat distributions, such as an actual asteroid belt, or ring, at a certian distance around the spob, and of a particular thickness and density.
Also note that asteroids generated in this way have a fixed density. One that doesn't change as the players screen resolution changes, as it does with normal asteroids.

For the original concept of mines, I wanted the planet to fire once, and not fire again until the shots all expired. But in the case of asteroids, I think you might be able to make some interesting effects with a shorter life-span and a burst reload 1/3 of the life-span.
So, say 50 roids are fired off, then 5 seconds later 50 more fade-in, then another 50, then 50 fade out while 50 more fade in, etc. This could make a pretty trippy asteroid field, as you are never quite sure when one will pop up. It'd be like a murk effect on crack.

@desprez, on Sep 9 2006, 09:36 AM, said in Escape Velocity: Orion:

<snip>

You're crazy man. You need a different hobby.

@desprez, on Sep 10 2006, 04:36 AM, said in Escape Velocity: Orion:

Hmmm. I actually remembered the Max Shots number wrong. I thought it was higher.
However, a clarification. The bible says 128 Max Shots on Screen. Is this the case, or is it really Max Shots in System? If it is the former, there's your answer. If it's the latter, then I'd better go back and check to make sure the asteroids are distributing properly.

Unfortunately, it's in-system.

@desprez, on Sep 10 2006, 04:36 AM, said in Escape Velocity: Orion:

For the original concept of mines, I wanted the planet to fire once, and not fire again until the shots all expired. But in the case of asteroids, I think you might be able to make some interesting effects with a shorter life-span and a burst reload 1/3 of the life-span.
So, say 50 roids are fired off, then 5 seconds later 50 more fade-in, then another 50, then 50 fade out while 50 more fade in, etc. This could make a pretty trippy asteroid field, as you are never quite sure when one will pop up. It'd be like a murk effect on crack.

Heh, that'd be fun.

Incidentally, I've just updated Collision Damage to include support for medium ships :). I also noticed that if you have other PD weapons, not only do you have problems with them firing when the dummy ship is near but the collision damage also only works when the dummy is near :huh:. Lastly, is it just me or does the cloak flag "visible on radar" work even when it isn't checked (ie, you can't hide ships from radar)?

This post has been edited by Guy : 09 September 2006 - 09:27 PM

Is it possible to have an animation play when you land or on the landing screen? If so, will it loop or not?

Another question:

We've been wondering if its possible to make landing on a planet available after a certain bit is set, the three ways we've thought of are:

1. Make planet landable only when destroyed
2. Change Planet's government, to one which will let you land, not good for the intended uninhabited planet
3. Create an identical system which replaces the existing one

Which of these is the best way? Are there any other ways?

This is mainly because I want a chance to implement the hazmat suit I'm working on at the moment:

@foreign-object-impact, on Sep 22 2006, 11:42 AM, said in Escape Velocity: Orion:

We've been wondering if its possible to make landing on a planet available after a certain bit is set...

For an uninhabited planet, the govt solution won't work at all. How can spaceport control do anything when there isn't a spaceport?

Anyway, as you seem to want a planet that you can only land on once you have certain equipment that makes the environment non-hazardous, using the destroyed/undestroyed functionality should work very well (even the "you can't land here" messages are already set up properly). I would recommend having the planet start destroyed, and then undestroy it to let the player land, but that's mostly personal preference.

@Ed boy:
If you tell the spöb's dësc to play a movie, it will play when you land, before the game displays the spaceport dialog. This is regardless of whether the "Play after instead of before" flag is set, but that shouldn't matter for your purposes.

Edwards

Hey, nice. Does that work for anything else besides documented ones?

do you know what formats would work?

and also, wouldn't the destroyed spob trick affect the other ships in the system?

@ed-boy, on Sep 23 2006, 08:36 AM, said in Escape Velocity: Orion:

do you know what formats would work?

Anything Quicktime can play, although interactive formats probably will not interact.

@ed-boy, on Sep 23 2006, 08:36 AM, said in Escape Velocity: Orion:

and also, wouldn't the destroyed spob trick affect the other ships in the system?

Probably. I don't think that AI ships will land on destroyed planets (although "Economy At Work" ships might- those are ships with the "scoops asteroid bits" flag set, but without the "mines asteroids" flag, and they will land on normal unlandable planets). How exactly do you want this planet to act?

Edwards

Just make sure you use a format that will work on default installs of QT on OS 9, X and windows.

@guy, on Sep 22 2006, 04:41 PM, said in Escape Velocity: Orion:

Hey, nice. Does that work for anything else besides documented ones?

It doesn't seem to have any effect in outfit, ship, or bar descs. It plays very nicely in the "About" dialogs, the introduction dialogs, and the post-escape-pod desc.

Also, a few notes:
If the desc is blank, only the movie will be displayed.
Do not use the "cinematic" flag with planet descs. The screen will stay black after the movie finishes, and player will be promptly dropped back into space, without actually landing on the planet.
MP3 is a perfectly valid format. I can see this being used to interesting effect in conjunction with desc 32766.

Edwards

Ooh, escape pod.

@edwards, on Sep 24 2006, 11:49 AM, said in Escape Velocity: Orion:

MP3 is a perfectly valid format.

Not for animation

Well ideally, we want certain AI ships (which have the outfit) to be able to land, but prevent everbody else from landing. The same applies to you, but I don't think that this would be possible. What would probably happen is that as soon as you have the outfit, and the spob undestroys, then everyone can land.

This post has been edited by Ed boy : 24 September 2006 - 12:53 PM

Anywho, something to whet your appetite for the time being:

I'm trying to force wings into making people, hopefully if the end-product looks good, (this still needs things like ears, eyelids and hair and I need to do something about the eyes and nostrils) I'll try and combine it with the Hazmat suit.

Anywho, comments, criticisms and whatnot welcomed.

EDIT: Oops, should have logged my brother out first F.O.I.

This post has been edited by Ed boy : 25 September 2006 - 11:15 AM

I'm debating whether to make this just a mask, or to make it into a proper helmet, which should I do?

No idea... but that looks awesome. Why don't you try both?