[Scooby_Doo]

Here's some ideas I would like to implement after I've finished all my confed models. I'll be adding more stuff as I come around to it (or if someones has some suggestions).  Think of this as public notes to myself.


Landing Gear:
My guess is part of lod 0.  A detail box wouldn't work because they would need to rotate. 
For sexping I'm guessing (is there an easier way???)
1. wait till mission over and within range of landing bay
2. Take control of player ship, move ship to landing decent path start
3. Move camera to a "camera" subsystem on the capship and point the camera at the fighter, it should track the craft as it comes in for a landing.
3. Have AI do the landing/docking  so it'll come down on landing approach
4. At specific time/distance start rotating landing gears

Things I need to take notice to:

• The landing/docking endpoint (touchdown) must be the same height for all ships otherwise bombers will have their wheels falling into the floor and light fighters will float in the air
• This can also be used for fighters just sitting in the hanger bay

Changes to existing model: Cut out the wheel wells and some retexturing for those wells, nothing too major.

[Luis Dias]

O_o wow demwheels.

[headdie]

certainly in FSO (not sure about WCS builds) there is a built in landing mechanic which might prove usefull

http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Subsystem#.22allow_landing.22
and
http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Ships.tbl#.24Collision_Physics: onwards

edit

corrected second link

[Scooby_Doo]

I'm aware of the landing physics in ships.tbl, but what's "Allow landing" do?

[headdie]

It means that a subsystem (I presume modeled) can be used to trigger the landing mechanic, so basically you fly at the subsystem marked with the flag meeting your ship's criteria for landing and the landing code will trigger, iirc all that will remain is figuring what trigger you want to use for the landing gear and how much room you will have under the fighter for the landing gear, perhaps as the table options don't seem to be able to set a "rest altitude" then using either a rogue vertex or the bounding box controls in newer PCS2 builds to adjust the height might help.

[Dragon]

Actually, you'd need to fine-tune it using radius, since capship to fighter collisions are done with a mesh to radius system. Only capship's mesh gets checked, but for the fighter, the radius is used.
Of course, you could ask SCP to change that. Some additions to the landing code would be needed for gear to truly work.

[Scooby_Doo]

Well you wouldn't really have to physically land  on the hanger floor, just slightly above it to prevent the dreaded collision rubbing sounds.

Hmmm the docking point on the carrier would be just above the floor.   The docking point on the fighter would be vertically level with the bottom of the tires.

[Dragon]

Well you wouldn't really have to physically land  on the hanger floor, just slightly above it to prevent the dreaded collision rubbing sounds.

Au contraire. Diaspora introduced a special "landing physics" feature, which enables you to actually touch down on the hangar floor (as long as the floor is a subsystem with the "allow landing" flag set). Landings are quite possible, and if it wasn't for a couple of missing SEXPs and an annoying quirk in the collision engine, they'd be on the level of Starshatter.

[headdie]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vxwNJVKaFO8

to see what the system looks like in Diaspora

[Scooby_Doo]

This is what I'm aiming for:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y521CV97GBg&feature=relmfu  at 27:07 when the dragon comes into land.  That's the end-mission viewpoint, otherwise having landing gears (wouldn't be worth the effort.  I should really fred up an example. LOL also those wheels are tiny for such a massive craft.

Well you wouldn't really have to physically land  on the hanger floor, just slightly above it to prevent the dreaded collision rubbing sounds.

Au contraire. Diaspora introduced a special "landing physics" feature, which enables you to actually touch down on the hangar floor (as long as the floor is a subsystem with the "allow landing" flag set). Landings are quite possible, and if it wasn't for a couple of missing SEXPs and an annoying quirk in the collision engine, they'd be on the level of Starshatter.

Well since it should be AI landed that could be accomplished my way too, although I can see it being useful in other situations.
Also on another note, the landing gear rods need to be somehow hierarchically  linked so I can stretch for some ships.  For example, the bearcat needs to be raised up so the front wheel gear is actually sticking out reasonably, but the rear struts need to be lengthened.

[Scooby_Doo]

Now with front landing gear:

note this requires 9 rotation subsystems (three for the struts, 6 for the doors

[guitarfan01]

Looks amazing.

[Scooby_Doo]

Second concept idea, missile launching bays


This would me much easier to implement than the landing gears.  Only thing that really matters is the ability of the scripts to capture launching secondaries event. Rotate the bay doors, launch and reclose them.

It would require about the same amount of work on the base model as the gears, only this time it would need only two separate subobjects.
Oh and you would have to be able to tell which missile pod is connected to which missile doors.  Perhaps a parameter in the doors properties, i.e. missilebank=1

[Deathsnake]

Very nice. I hope it would work in Saga. At least it good in Ingamecutscenes like I used. I put the fighters close to the deck. But with wheels it looks perfect. What I wonder...

In Wing 3+4 the ships has wheels again. Wing Commander 1+2 has Landing gears. See in the Blueprints:

http://static.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/wc1rapierblueprint.gif
http://static.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/wc1hornetblueprint.gif
http://static.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/wc1raptorblueprint.gif

Or Star Citizen the Hornet:
http://static.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/rsi_hornet.png

[Scooby_Doo]

I suppose it depends on how you land.  If you come down in a simply clunk, the gears/pads would work.  Otherwise the moment a ship lands, EVERYONE on the ship hair would be standing on end as the metal screetching.  Worse yet... when they actually have to move the ship around while on the hanger, it needs to have wheels

[Scooby_Doo]

The missile bay with a dummy missile for looks



P.S..... OMG photobucket's update is HORRIBLE.

[Dragon]

That looks nice. If only the missile could launch like it should, not only straight ahead...

[Deathsnake]

Just     

 

[Thaeris]

Minor nitpick, Scooby. Note that your mainwheels will bear most of the fighter's weight when on the ground, so they tend to be larger than your nosewheels or tailwheels (should you have such). It may be due to perspective, but your mainwheel trucks seem to be bearing smaller slicks than that of the nosewheel truck. And even though you have four slicks in total at the aft of the fighter, you also have a far higher concentration of weight as well. You may want to get some larger diameter slicks back there...

[Dragon]

This would me much easier to implement than the landing gears.  Only thing that really matters is the ability of the scripts to capture launching secondaries event. Rotate the bay doors, launch and reclose them.

They're already pretty much implemented, only they open upon selecting the missile bank and not upon missile launch.