Hard Light Productions Forums

Hosted Projects - FS2 Required => Between the Ashes => Topic started by: mjn.mixael on August 13, 2011, 12:24:21 am

Title: Colossus Construction Drone [RELEASE]
Post by: mjn.mixael on August 13, 2011, 12:24:21 am
GTDr Phidias

(http://media.moddb.com/images/mods/1/19/18396/drone.jpg)

Officially designated the Phidias by the GTA, this service craft has been in service since early years of space exploration before the formation of the GTA. The success and the historical importance of the Phidias is well-founded. It was the first ship designed to construct complex designs in space. Prior to the deployment of the Phidias, all spacecrafts were constructed on Earth and then launched into space, but this became impractical and prohibitively expensive. Engineers, scientists, and corporations took part in the design of the Phidias in order to maximize efficiency and versatility. Initially, the Phidias were manually operated, but technological advancements have gradually replaced those with the more-modular and cost-effective drone variants in the core systems. As a result, the Phidias became the most widely distributed spacecraft in the GTA. Because of the large number of contractors and variations, the Phidias has many brands depending on the owner. No other equipment has been able to compete against the Phidias successfully. ~ Thanks to SDM for this.

It comes complete with a specialized beam weapon that acts as the welding beam or whatever you want to call it from the cutscene.

Drop the 'Drone' folder in your freespace2 directory and load up the mission 'Construction Zone' for a quick and dirty example of how the drone can be used. Then think of the possibilities of mixing this with this. (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Modular_Construction_Kit)

This was made possible by The BtA Team (and Bigchunk1)!

Download Here. (http://www.mediafire.com/?689f6o92dkb4mas)

Other Notes: My original plans included submodel animation.. but I couldn't figure all of that out. If you look at the POF, you'll see that all the submodels still exist. So all it needs is a multipart turret/animation expert to make this even more awesome! If you do this, please let me know.

GTDr 3301

(http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk264/mjnmixael/Private/dronebud.jpg)

Just a varient of the Probe but with the repair weapon and textured to look more construction like.

Download Here. (http://www.mediafire.com/?fw4xnim4wef2r5n)
Title: Re: RELEASE: Colossus Construction Drone
Post by: Black Wolf on August 13, 2011, 01:36:27 am
**** yeah. Damned cool, and bloody quick too (frlm an outsiders perspective anyway). Congrats to the team. Course, it stands to reason you'd release this when I'm still 4 or 5 days away from my FS compy. ;)
Title: Re: RELEASE: Colossus Construction Drone
Post by: Commander Zane on August 13, 2011, 09:06:50 am
Construction bases will be so much cooler with these things flying around.
Title: Re: RELEASE: Colossus Construction Drone
Post by: Rodo on August 13, 2011, 09:09:14 am
wow, cool stuff!
Title: Re: RELEASE: Colossus Construction Drone
Post by: Luis Dias on August 13, 2011, 02:13:34 pm
Ok, now I'm psyched to see the half-way- built collossus.
Title: Re: RELEASE: Colossus Construction Drone
Post by: rscaper1070 on August 13, 2011, 02:41:54 pm
 :yes: Really cool. I can see these working on the deck of the new Arcadia.  :yes:
Title: Re: RELEASE: Colossus Construction Drone
Post by: mjn.mixael on August 18, 2011, 09:18:12 am
GTDr 3301 released, see first post!
Title: Re: RELEASE: Colossus Construction Drone
Post by: Black Wolf on August 18, 2011, 09:52:15 am
Weirdly, in PCS I can see through all the black parts of the texture. Not sure if this is a PCS issue on my end, or something weird with the alpha channels and the transparency settings? It's particularly noticeable in the sort of circuit mesh stuff on the drone.
Title: Re: RELEASE: Colossus Construction Drone
Post by: mjn.mixael on August 18, 2011, 10:01:34 am
I've noticed that too.. it's definitely PCS2 though.
Title: Re: RELEASE: Colossus Construction Drone
Post by: SypheDMar on August 18, 2011, 10:11:39 am
GTDr 3301 released, see first post!
:o I didn't know about this.
Title: Re: RELEASE: Colossus Construction Drone
Post by: Mongoose on August 18, 2011, 03:58:05 pm
Someone highlight this!

...who isn't me!
Title: Re: RELEASE: Colossus Construction Drone
Post by: swamper123 on August 18, 2011, 05:25:00 pm
I like it , I love it, thanks ! , will test it ASAP :D
Title: Re: RELEASE: Colossus Construction Drone
Post by: swamper123 on August 18, 2011, 05:33:30 pm
It's is possible to simulate that Phidias is repairing the ship?
Title: Re: RELEASE: Colossus Construction Drone
Post by: Kolgena on August 18, 2011, 05:35:16 pm
Looks nice :D Good job!
Title: Re: RELEASE: Colossus Construction Drone
Post by: achtung on August 18, 2011, 05:49:48 pm
I remember asking if anyone had made this a long time ago, glad to see someone finally has.
Title: Re: RELEASE: Colossus Construction Drone
Post by: Woolie Wool on August 18, 2011, 06:05:04 pm
It's is possible to simulate that Phidias is repairing the ship?
I think there's a sexp for repairing the hull so you'd call that in a repeating loop or something.
Title: Re: RELEASE: Colossus Construction Drone
Post by: mjn.mixael on August 18, 2011, 06:52:49 pm
The mission included with the download is a quick example of how to visually make it look like they are repairing the hull. Do that in additino to the repair-hull sexp (or whatever it's called) and voila!
Title: Re: RELEASE: Colossus Construction Drone
Post by: jr2 on August 18, 2011, 09:05:16 pm
Awesome... combine these with the modular construction parts released.... I forget who released them, but they were awesome too.  Anyway, combine the two for win.  ;)
Title: Re: RELEASE: Colossus Construction Drone
Post by: SirCumference on August 19, 2011, 01:42:58 am
Cool beans! Thanks for your work!
Title: Re: RELEASE: Colossus Construction Drone
Post by: achtung on August 19, 2011, 02:17:00 am
http://www.freespacemods.net/download.php?view.808

http://www.freespacemods.net/download.php?view.809

Mirrored both.
Title: Re: RELEASE: Colossus Construction Drone
Post by: Kon on August 19, 2011, 01:39:25 pm
Great job! I'm really looking forward to seeing someone use these ingame! :yes:
Title: Re: RELEASE: Colossus Construction Drone
Post by: Luis Dias on August 19, 2011, 11:27:45 pm
Gonna guess a mission in BTA where we finally see the collossus being built... and alpha 1 must protect its secrecy from any incoming public disclosure threat....
Title: Re: RELEASE: Colossus Construction Drone
Post by: Androgeos Exeunt on August 21, 2011, 10:56:36 am
Damn, I haven't written such a lengthy post on the Facebook wall since goodness knows when. :D
Title: Re: RELEASE: Colossus Construction Drone
Post by: Luis Dias on August 21, 2011, 10:59:35 am
Damn, I haven't written such a lengthy post on the Facebook wall since goodness knows when. :D

Did you wrote it with the construction drone?
Title: Re: RELEASE: Colossus Construction Drone
Post by: mjn.mixael on August 21, 2011, 10:17:58 pm
Here's another test mission to show a better way to set the drone to fly waypoints and fire it's welding gun. It's MUCH more reliable than the example mission in the original download.

EDIT: This one's better.

[attachment deleted by ninja]
Title: Re: RELEASE: Colossus Construction Drone
Post by: SypheDMar on August 22, 2011, 08:24:17 am
Damn, I haven't written such a lengthy post on the Facebook wall since goodness knows when. :D
What'd you write?
Title: Re: RELEASE: Colossus Construction Drone
Post by: Androgeos Exeunt on August 22, 2011, 09:33:34 am
What'd you write?

Quote from: http://www.facebook.com/groups/8990888471/

mjn.mixael has released the GTDr Phidias, a vessel based on the unnamed drone seen during the Colossus cutscene. This ship features a special beam cannon that is supposed to replicate the "welding torch" used by the original drone in the cutscene. The Phidias comes with unused submodel animations. In addition, mjn.mixael has also released a re-skin of the Terran Probe from FSPort, featuring a repair weapon.

The Colossus cutscene, for the forgetful or ignorant, may be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DX6bzq3M4M4.
Title: Re: RELEASE: Colossus Construction Drone
Post by: mjn.mixael on August 22, 2011, 03:52:30 pm
Here's a video of the drone in action.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEPW24fZTo4 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEPW24fZTo4)

Right now we have two options with the repair beam... Type 3 which allows it to aim wherever and sometimes causes it to aim far away on the target. (Using fire-beam to force fire or it doesn't really actually fire the beam all that often.) Or, Type 4, which forces it to fire down the turret normal.. but on these girders.. it misses more often than anything else that way.  :(

I'm hoping someone can get the multiparts working because then we can use type 4 and it will still be able to aim slightly.
Title: Re: RELEASE: Colossus Construction Drone
Post by: Thaeris on August 22, 2011, 03:57:05 pm
If the FS RTS ever becomes a stable, working, stand-alone mod, I really want to see these in it. :D
Title: Re: RELEASE: Colossus Construction Drone
Post by: SypheDMar on August 23, 2011, 10:50:36 am
If the FS RTS ever becomes a stable, working, stand-alone mod, I really want to see these in it. :D
Me too.
Title: Re: RELEASE: Colossus Construction Drone
Post by: Mobius on September 13, 2011, 12:28:04 pm
Construction bases will be so much cooler with these things flying around.

This. :D
Title: Re: Colossus Construction Drone [RELEASE]
Post by: 0rph3u5 on January 21, 2016, 05:48:33 pm
Sorry for the necro...

But has anyone made a version of the Phidias with a docking port, so it can look like it is picking stuff up? - I want to use them as an alternative to the Centaur for the recovery of lifepods and damaged fighters...
Title: Re: Colossus Construction Drone [RELEASE]
Post by: mjn.mixael on January 21, 2016, 11:14:25 pm
I haven't, but that should be trivial for you to add in the POF.
Title: Re: Colossus Construction Drone [RELEASE]
Post by: 0rph3u5 on January 22, 2016, 05:30:59 am
I haven't, but that should be trivial for you to add in the POF.

I know, just wanted to be sure

FYI, I added to 2 docking points: one for the aforementioned pick-up simulation (0.00;0.05/-0.05;7.75) and one for mounting it on somehting (0.0;-0.8;-5.8/-5.7) - the required paths were of course autogenerated