Author Topic: [WIP] FS1 Upgrade  (Read 19586 times)

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Offline TrashMan

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Re: Discussion: FS1 Upgrade
Interesting.  Is that a corvette class?  Does it have a fighterbay?

Half the size of an Orion. About 1km long.
And it does have fighterbays - 3 small ones (one bottom, two on one side).
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Offline Nyctaeus

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Re: Discussion: FS1 Upgrade
Update:  First mission of Loop 1 nearly done.  Just working on some polish

BTW, would people prefer that I release each chapter separately at first, or wait until I've re done the entire campaign?
Go with separate acts, for me. Less testing at once, and more frequent releases.
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Offline TrashMan

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Re: Discussion: FS1 Upgrade
Here's the (now christened) GD Auriga if you want it

https://www.mediafire.com/?l82d1h4idt5kjh9
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Offline Trivial Psychic

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Re: Discussion: FS1 Upgrade
Looks interesting.  I'm not sure if I'm gonna be using it though.

I've recently decided to add in a few more fighters.  I've decided to follow suit with the FS2 campaign, and have a new fighter become available if you complete the loop.  This means that even if I release chapter by chapter, I will have to merge as I go so the new fighter stays with you.  Instead of giving earlier access to later fighters, or introduce ones from Silent Threat, I've decided that the player will get access to some limited production fighters.  For example, if an ace pilot nowadays was given a YF-23 to fly.

I'm currently adjusting the first loop mission to use the new cargo dump sexp (thanks Goob).  I still need to test that all of my failure contingencies are working properly.
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Offline Trivial Psychic

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Re: Discussion: FS1 Upgrade
Loop1 Mission 2 is mostly done, though I still have to play-test my failure contingencies and add debriefings.  I've also been having trouble with a fancy trick I was trying to pull at the end.  The player is launched and recovered from a Sagittarius class light carrier and as the player approaches the fighterbay, the screen briefly fades to black, the carrier is relocated, the player's craft is changed to that of the light carrier, any damage the carrier had is transferred to the player's ship, it is moved to the same course and speed that the carrier had, then the original carrier is removed entirely, the player's ship is put under AI control, and follows the same waypoint, then the view is supposed to to external so the player can see their own ship as the carrier, then the screen fades back in, then a message is played saying that the player's fighter is aboard and they are jumping out, then I use force-jump to end the mission.  Unfortunately, I can't seem to get the view that I want, and the ship never warps.  It tells me that its warping out, but it just sits there plugging along on its original course.  Is there something to do with it not being a player ship that is preventing it from accelerating to capital-class warping speeds?  Because it is forced as a player ship, is the game expecting that warpout speed is to be within the ship's standard engine speed, in this case 30 m/s, but since it's too slow it will never reach warpout speed?

Anyway, I'm also laying the groundwork for Loop1 mission 3, in which a large-scale fleet-on-fleet action takes place some distance away from the player, who is performing a recovery of Shivan cargo while they are distracted.
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Offline Trivial Psychic

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Re: Discussion: FS1 Upgrade
Well, I found away around my player-becomes-carrier warping problem.  I just attached a camera to the carrier and relocated the player outside the combat zone, then tell the carrier to warp out and end the mission once it does.

I was having a bit of trouble with the eyepoints on the carrier however.  I was surprised that if I added an eyepoint to the main hull in PCS2, that the set-camera-host sexp wouldn't use it when defaulting to the hull.  It seems to ignore that kind of eyepoint and instead chose a view from within the hull.  I had to attach it to a turret, which for some reason looked backwards when the eyepoint was looking forwards.  Switching the normal to face backwards overcame that problem, but I was surprised that it wasn't facing in the direction of the normal.

Edit:

Well, that didn't go quite as planned.  Despite the fact that I had the eyepoint slaved to a single part turret, the fact that that turret was actively tracking target prior to the jump-out meant that its eyepoint changed direction, and my view was straight down.  I'm gonna try to lock that turret and see if it does anything.
« Last Edit: January 08, 2017, 09:29:46 pm by Trivial Psychic »
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Offline TrashMan

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Loop1 Mission 2 is mostly done, though I still have to play-test my failure contingencies and add debriefings.  I've also been having trouble with a fancy trick I was trying to pull at the end.  The player is launched and recovered from a Sagittarius class light carrier and as the player approaches the fighterbay, the screen briefly fades to black, the carrier is relocated, the player's craft is changed to that of the light carrier, any damage the carrier had is transferred to the player's ship, it is moved to the same course and speed that the carrier had, then the original carrier is removed entirely, the player's ship is put under AI control, and follows the same waypoint, then the view is supposed to to external so the player can see their own ship as the carrier, then the screen fades back in, then a message is played saying that the player's fighter is aboard and they are jumping out, then I use force-jump to end the mission.

Why are you even doing that?

What's the point of switching to the carrier when the mission ends immediately?
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Offline General Battuta

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Yeah, I don't get it...why bother with all this model and eyepoint switching when you could just use a cinematic camera?

 

Offline Trivial Psychic

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Within the context of the mission, fighter class jumpdrives don't work within the planet's atmosphere, hence the carrier to drop off and pick up.
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Offline Mito [PL]

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Then why would player have the camera attached to the carrier? Why not just set up an event that detects if the player is close enough to the fighterbay and if he is, throws the player's fighter somewhere far away, places the AI with play-dead orders in comand of the fighter, forces the camera out in the space, near the carrier and facing it? Then the carrier departs, and end-mission.
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Offline Trivial Psychic

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I do throw the player to another spot, but given the fact that it takes place in an atmosphere... AKA, nebula, there is a limited visual range.  The ship could easily get out of that range before the jump is complete.
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Offline Mito [PL]

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With SEXPs from "Camera" (or "Cutscenes" IIRC) section you can move the camera around independently from player's vessel. With them you could make the camera follow the carrier, move sideways to it, make it go spiral around the ship... Anything you want, basically. BP cutscenes, the ending of Delenda Est, any in-mission "highlights" (WiH "The Darkest Hour") are the example. I'd say you just need a single position with camera sitting there and centering on the carrier or a single line, parallel to the carrier's departure path, on which the camera would move at certain speed while centering the view on the vessel.

When I played around with FRED I actually made a single mission, which began with a single cutscene segment with a few transitions, so I'm not that much of a beginner with it.
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Offline Trivial Psychic

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I've created a few new cap-ship weapons to make fleet engagements a bit more interesting.  All sides have been given some swarm versions of turret weapons.  I've got 8 and 4-shot swarm versions of the Shivan Megafunk, as well as a 4-shot of the standard turret weapon, and a 6-shot light turret for anti-fighter.  I've also given the Terrans a 6-shot huge and 3-shot standard, and for the Vasudans a 4-shot huge and a 5-shot standard.  I've also created a couple of new turret missiles.  A quad-swarm heavy fusion mortar for the terrans, and for the Shivans a cluster bomb that splits into 4 phoenix V sized missiles with medium explosive charges.
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Offline General Battuta

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You should use burst instead of swarm, probably - really easy change, better on performance.

 

Offline Trivial Psychic

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What are the advantages of Burst over Swarm?
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Offline Nyctaeus

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What are the advantages of Burst over Swarm?
Burst weapons fire few projectiles with very short delay between each one, and independent from overall cooldown. They are mostly good at dealing lots of damage to single target. Swarm fires multiple projectiles in the same time, so with FOF set, you can create shotgun-like turret with area on effect impact.

Without FOF, swarm turrets generate stacked projectiles, if used on the same firepoint. It may look a little bit off, while burst may give you similar damage output with balanced look. Both features are cool, but burst looks better for me.
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Offline General Battuta

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The engine has a limit on the number of swarm weapons that can be fired per frame. Burst avoids that.

More importantly, burst turrets will adjust their aim to track during the burst. Swarm will fire everything in a straight line.

 

Offline Trivial Psychic

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So, burst is probably better for anti-fighter weapons.
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Offline Nyctaeus

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For both actually. Exile has burst plasma cannons used by Earth faction, and they are cool! Burst turrets works well and looks cool as anti-cap weapon anyway.
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Offline Trivial Psychic

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So, I'm still working on this.  My 3 mission loop is pretty much done, and now I've got some ideas for changing some of the earlier missions.  I've also been making use of unused mission chatter wav files and some messages that were actually in the event editor, but not used in any events.  I've added a cruiser acting as a base for the fighters in mission 2, a bit more elaborate cargo recovery to mission 3, as well as give the Omega transport's suspect activities a bit more focus, and for mission 4, I've got a pair of Vasudan cruisers arrive to recover the Rasputin, prompting Terran warships to respond.  I've made every attempt to retain the original dialogue for briefings, in mission, and in debriefings, so that limits how much I can overhaul a mission.

So, still plugging away.

Looking forward to an eventual Chapter 1 release.
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