[Whitelight]

Someone had asked in another thread if the shadow carrier had a fighterbay, well it doesen`t.. 

The reason i`m posting is because I have edited the carrier and placed a fighterbay in it.
If anyone is interested in it and can upload it somewhere i`d be happy to e-mail it to them so it can be at your disposal.

I`d also have to include the table file. Also to keep the original carrier from overriding it I have name it SH Carrier2.pof.
So if anyone is interested, post away. 

(edit) the bays are pathed also, forgot to mention that, sorry.

[akenbosch]

shadows fighters "unmerge" from the anything "carrying" them. seen the battle of gorash yet?

[Whitelight]

I don`t recall it if i`ve seen it..
If it`s in one of the 5, b5 season dvd`s I do have it.

[akenbosch]

its a section of an episode. you can see it on youtube:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYB8RcuKbaw&mode=user&search=

the shadow crab launches a small clluster of shadow...stuff which splits into fighters. as far as i know this could be how battlecrabs (being organic creatures) poop.

[Whitelight]

Ah yes, I have seen it, thanks. 

Kind of makes a fighterbay redundant. 

Poop 

[IPAndrews]

Being human I simply wasn't able to think of everything, but adding a fighterbay would do no harm. Just make sure it has 6 paths for fighters emerging from the bay so you can launch full wings of 6 Spitfires. A lot of FS2 ships have 4 paths emerging, which means when you have a wing of 6 launch, ships 4,5 and 6 all end up stacked on top of one another. Which is silly.

The ball of Shadow fighters I always wanted to do but multiple docking never quite worked right in order to stick the Shadow Fighters together.

[0rph3u5]

The ball of Shadow fighters I always wanted to do but multiple docking never quite worked right in order to stick the Shadow Fighters together.

Since 3.6.9 multiple dock point work - If you have played "The Procyton Insurgency" you might recall that freighter in the 2nd mission carrying 4 or 5 fighters

[IPAndrews]

Try adding Zephyrs to the Raider Carrier.

[0rph3u5]

you mean like this?
did it FRED


EDIT: Still doubting - though so

[attachment deleted by admin]

[karajorma]

Does it actually work in game? Or does it dance around like a drunken ballet dancer as soon as you give the fighters any orders other than play dead.

[0rph3u5]

does it dance around like a drunken ballet dancer as soon as you give the fighters any orders other than play dead.

that's why I posted the target view window only
and there is problem with getting the fighters undocked - but multi-docking like this works

EDIT: tried to get undocking to work (when-argument) but just caused a CTD 'cause of the AI code
Assert: pm->docking_bays[dockbay_index].num_spline_paths > 0
File: aicode.cpp
Line: 16221


Call stack:
------------------------------------------------------------------
    ai_dock()    ai_execute_behavior()    ai_frame()    ai_process()    ship_process_post()    obj_move_all_post()    obj_move_all()    game_simulation_frame()    game_frame()    game_do_frame()    game_do_state()    gameseq_process_events()    game_main()    WinMain()    WinMainCRTStartup()------------------------------------------------------------------

[IPAndrews]

This is obviously some strange definition of "works" I've not been previously aware of.

[0rph3u5]

This is obviously some strange definition of "works" I've not been previously aware of.

well,
18 objects can dock with another vessel now - and undock if that is part of their classes AI orders
ergo multidocking per se works

docking 18 fighters with a raider carrier works (if you make them initially) too - but the problem is that the fighter AI is not suited for that (as giving fighters the order to dock or undock crashes the game - and fighters still turn their "nothing-to-do"-cricles if they are not attacked and have not other orders even if docked)


- hmmm... isn't that something for a new feature....

EDIT: even so it would be suited for the "Spitefire-Ball"-thing to launch spitfires from a battlecrab or a carrier ...
eg. you are docking 8 spitefires to a cube with shadow textures (which by the way has the ablility to fly 1000 m/s and makes no damage nor blast upon exploding) - ingame (now that's FREDing part) the cube is launched and headed for a target 2000m from the battlecrab/carrier the cube detonates and releases the spitfires which change their orders from "Play Dead" to "Attack Anything"

[IPAndrews]

If undocking fighters from the Raider Carrier doesn't work how do you expect undocking fighters from a shadow textured cube to work? You could texture it with invisible.bmp anyway . Find someone to do it if you want to include it in your fixed TBP Final. My modding days are over.

[0rph3u5]

If undocking fighters from the Raider Carrier doesn't work how do you expect undocking fighters from a shadow textured cube to work?

the cube detonates

scripting-- just self-destructing it --- did work with containers should work with fighters
maybe I can talk someone into this

[Whitelight]

Being human I simply wasn't able to think of everything, but adding a fighterbay would do no harm. Just make sure it has 6 paths for fighters emerging from the bay so you can launch full wings of 6 Spitfires. A lot of FS2 ships have 4 paths emerging, which means when you have a wing of 6 launch, ships 4,5 and 6 all end up stacked on top of one another. Which is silly.

Then i`ll add 2 more, to make it 6.
On a side note, I don`t have the expertice to upload files. Like I stated in an eariler post in this thread, so if anyone really needs this I can send it, via e-mail. I`m working this week so it may take a few days before i`m able to add the extra bays, but adding bats, I can manage.   

[0rph3u5]

Just say a word once it is done - than I'll tell where to send it and I'll make a .tbm and stuff ready needed to get it ingame along with the old carrier

[Whitelight]

k 

(edit) Looks at post count. 

(edit2) I have a question about the Bays/paths. Currently I have them from the front and center of the model,
but before I go any further, would it be better if the bays were on the bottom, or the front as they now are?  I`m not sure if the front would be better or not, so let me know what you think. 

[Whitelight]

Got to lookin at the carrier and the subsystem layout.
Don`t really want to relocate the subsystems on the belly..  So i`m going with the front-foward for the fighterbay.

(edit) finished fighterbays. 
At some point, someone will probably request a docking point, so as a bonus, I added one. 


 

[IPAndrews]

Don't be tempted to mess with the other subsystems. There's a reason they are positioned inside the geometry such that you can't hit them. You damage them via a combination of FRED scripting and telepaths rather than gunfire.