[Hollewanderer]

Can you make subsystems impossible to target, without affecting targetability of the ship they are on? I have a slightly weird idea, and I need an answer.

[diamondgeezer]

No as far as I know, unless you go and delete them from the model file. Methinks perhaps you need to talk to a coder

[Raptor]

What about making them 'hidden' subsystems ( via modelviews POF editor)? that might work

[diamondgeezer]

Hidden subsystems are only really for making split points, IIRC. And you don't see split points appear in FRED, do you? Not that I really know anything about split points...

[Hippo]

Hidden subsystems are just points in the ships hull where shockwaves will start... All other subsystems will be targetable if listed in the table, but those not listed are ignored by the game...

[Raptor]

ahh, that explains that.

Though, the old V Lucifer had a pair of hidden subsystems, that you could blow up, but were not targetable.......

[TopAce]

Maybe an in-built subsystem in the .cob file [like radars]. and not indicated in the tables might be destroyable, and untargettable.

[EDIT] . And what tells it its strenght? I haven't said anything

[diamondgeezer]

OK, I think what you guys are talking about is more or less unworkable unless you get the SCP monkies to look at the sitution. Might come in handy one day, though, so go bug them

[Sesquipedalian]

Um, if a subsystem can't be targetted, what is the point of the subsystem?  It will appear to the player to be part of the main hull, so why not just let it be part of the main hull?

[StratComm]

If you are wanting to make a ship that can move but has no engine subsystem, I suppose there could be a justifiable reason to do that.  I can't see one myself, but that's the only reason to have a subsystem if it doesn't do anything.

And rotating subsystems have to be defined, that's what makes them rotate.  Innate rotating things would be a useful addition too.

[Hollewanderer]

Originally posted by Sesquipedalian
Um, if a subsystem can't be targetted, what is the point of the subsystem?  It will appear to the player to be part of the main hull, so why not just let it be part of the main hull?

To improve beam coolness. And they would be invisible so finding a lone, 'normal' subsystem would not take a eternity.

You see, with them you could make it so the BGreen or other heavy-hitters could blow the visible hole straight through the cruiser [or any other capship], destroying the subsystem representing that parts of hull. Or at least you could use it so the slash beams would make cuts on the ship's hull, like in cutscenes. Most likely it would be a pain to code and model, but think of sheer coolness! With some creative use of lots of invisible subsystems, you could even make little holes made by 'normal' weapon shots appear on fighters. It would be very, very cool IMO, but it would also require a good computer to display [so maybe dump that fighter idea? It would be the most problematic, as a lot of fighters is going to be present in any significant battle]. Still, I think that sheer coolness of seeing a Orion or Shatanas looking like a swiss cheese after a long battle would be just awesome.

Maybe it would be possible to create invisible subsystems with SCP? I doubt that it would be that hard to do when compared to few things that they are doing right now...

[StratComm]

Ah, you're wanting to bypass real-time model deformation by making subsystems that can be blown off.  Except that you have taken it one step further, making it reasonable to have such subsystems without them seeming like arbitrarily-defined sections of hull.  Good thinking  This would actually be really good for those asteroid installations, since you wouldn't have the subsystem cluttering that you get now (Bodicea anyone).  The downside is that unless you have a million little parts on a model (more than our converters or the game can handle on big ships, and a terrible load on smaller ones) that will inevitably result in maybe 10 variations of damage patterns, and will otherwise look identical.  I'm holding out for some optimized damage decals, since they can do a better job on non-catastrophic damage than submodels ever will.

[kasperl]

well, with the HT&l thing, i think it could work.

it would be really cool, if it worked.

[Flaser]

We could make it so that each "real" subsystem would have a number of invisible subsystems assigned.

This way we could actually simulate a hull. If the hull gets blown, the subsystem's below would take the damage and so on until the ship's blown across....

Ooops...this is quite geo-moddish......

Of course it could be done with using static invisible subsystems.

[TrashMan]

Well you can make a subobject (like, lets say a bridge) and name it communication. It will then be the subsystem that gets blown when destroyed. Doing that for all major subsystems would make ships that you can actually cripple visualy. imagine going after engine 01 and seeing it get blown off the main hull!:D

the only problem is, you can't have turrets on the saction that will get blown, thus they have to be resonably small.

[Krackers87]

ohhh great idea! Wing pieces can be blown off of fighters!

[Hippo]

if i were in a condition in which my wing was missing (or other reasonable part), I would rather be whooped by command then stay there...

[TrashMan]

Anyone remember Starlancer and the Coalition destroyer with two engines you could blow off?

[Descenterace]

So ship-mod has been a part of FS2 all along... if the ships are modelled correctly...

Y'know, I put this sort of thing into an engine I was working on (the predecessor of Project Vertigo, which doesn't NEED ship-mod).  All you need is a ship model made up of lots of smaller pieces.  Big ships would need about 200 pieces to make them look reasonable, though.