Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The Modding Workshop => Topic started by: delta_7890 on October 08, 2001, 04:32:00 pm
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I think this is possible to accomplish, but before I made any major efforts, I just wanted to know if it's wanted. These units could arrive, via a special craft designed to carry these, or by subspace. They would be about the size of a countermeasure, and armed with one laser cannon. They would be be weak, but, due to their size, would be fast manuverable and hard to hit. They would work best in groups, and perhaps use stealth technology (to extend their lifespan). They could be ordered around much like a fighter by the player, jobs could include swarming a target or working as a defensive shield for any friendly craft. this is simply an idea I have, and I wanted to know how much it would be appreciated in the community.
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Hmmmm... meh. I prefer my new, improved drone model (110 kps, two little cannons, released by the hundreds... what more could you want?) (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/biggrin.gif)
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and would that be an in-game model? by my knowledge, you've never put any of your creations in-game.
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I did a vasudan combat drone called the Scarab about 2 months ago. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)
3m long with 1 cannon, 25 hull pts, 25 shield pts and moves at 60 m/s.
They are a real bastard to hit and if they outnumber you more than 2 to 1 they can be really dangerous.
A terran combat drone would be nice as-well.
I figured they could be carried by freighters
in special cargo bays or even in place of a few escape pods.
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Phil.
Trust In Me &
Fall As-well
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that would be sweet. remindes me of those little drones that encircled a valkyrie fighter in the macross 2: SDF1 movie made a few years back with the reporter and the meltran people.
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New Dawn Resolution -COPP That for FS2!
Fabolous-Blood aka Treize K.
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Autonomous laser drones that link into the valkyeres combat computer that target whoever he's targeting.
They'd be useful when set into wings with the 'guard alpha one' command. Useful for bombers definitely!
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Er... if you were talking to me, yes, I just got everything I need last week or so, and have been cranking out bad model after bad model since... I haven't released yet, because I'm still learning skinning.
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well it seems this has sparked some interest. I'll see if I can't pump anything out. No promises though.
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Its a good idea. I'm just wondering if there is a limit to the number of objects the Freespace Engine can handle at any one time? Could put a dampener on the effectiveness of a 'swarm' ...
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Winners never Quit, Quitters never Win.
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It varies, but it's in the vicinity of 80-100.
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Depends on the polys, don't it?
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I think there's also a point above which the missions simply become unstable.
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Slave them all to TAGs.
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Originally posted by Shrike:
I think there's also a point above which the missions simply become unstable.
too many polys in a mission will make it crash after a minute or two...
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well I'm not about to unleash a wave of a hundred of these things, that'd be overkill. Anywhere from 6 up to 24 would be fine. These are just support units (Though I'd like to see how well a large group of these could fare against a destroyer or even a juggernaught).
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Too bad there isn't some way I could modify the ssm table to have these warp in with the targeting laser. that way, sexps wouldn't have to be used.
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Neat, sort of like the Kushan Drone Frigate from HW.
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The models don't have to be huge or high poly.
Nothing more than 50. A spear-shape with tie-interceptor style wings.
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If you weren't too picky about the models you could probably do it with just eight polys and then go for broke on the skin.
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There's a ship number limit too, right?
You could build them in wings of four and make each wing of remotes one POF. That would make the only limit polys.
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Like in Homeworld with those frigates that send out litle drones?
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Originally posted by WraithHost:
I did a vasudan combat drone called the Scarab about 2 months ago.
Erm you sure you want to call it that? The PVS Scarab is the Vasudan FS1 support ship.
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I think Dark tried to call some of his ships Scarabs as well.
Oops.
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ALL names are used now! (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/frown.gif)
I'll just have to brass neck it and reuse a name.
Our military reuse names after a while too.
anyone who wants the Scarab can download it
here ("http://www.red-phil.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/scarab01.zip")
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Phil.
Trust In Me &
Fall As-well
[This message has been edited by WraithHost (edited 10-12-2001).]
[This message has been edited by WraithHost (edited 10-12-2001).]
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How about drones that are shaped like Tsunami bombs, about the size of a countermeasure, and have a single turret with a light (ML-16 or Avenger type) laser on it?
No afterburners or shields, just a wide firing arc for a light gun.
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Ace
Staff member FreeSpace Watch
http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/ ("http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/")
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Ace:
not a bad idea, but have you looked at how large a fighter cannon is ? they must be 3 - 4 M long.
Your idea is good but it would need to be a new lighter weapon, perhaps similar in effect to a ML 16 etc but smaller. also drones that size couldn't carry very big reactors, perhaps the battery systems proposed in a thread a while back would be good. maybe a trickle feed reactor to slowly recharge weapons banks.
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Phil.
Trust In Me &
Fall As-well
[This message has been edited by WraithHost (edited 10-14-2001).]
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Originally posted by WraithHost:
Ace:
not a bad idea, but have you looked at how large a fighter cannon is ? they must be 3 - 4 M long.
Your idea is good but it would need to be a new lighter weapon, perhaps similar in effect to a ML 16 etc but smaller. also drones that size couldn't carry very big reactors, perhaps the battery systems proposed in a thread a while back would be good. maybe a trickle feed reactor to slowly recharge weapons banks.
you know the ML 16 does less damage than colliding with a fly?
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With the weapons advances the GTVA's had it wouldn't be a challenge to get an ML-16 into a meter-lenght weapon.
Or just use an LL-4 or something. Since ML is Medium Laser and HL is Heavy Laser, LL is Light Laser. I don't know it FS had any of these.
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A modified ML series weapon using a pure battery core would work.
Could anyone model it up? Maybe call it the GVDr Tunis... I was thinking about some sort of drone like this slaved to a TAG when playing with ideas for the Interregum missions between Twilight and tBE. (since I plan for the final tBE release to include Twilight, the tBE demo, and the main campaign connected)
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Ace
Staff member FreeSpace Watch
http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/ ("http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/")
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Sorry I'd forgotten the ML16 was the FS1 basic laser and not the FS2 one. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)
It should be no problem for up to date weapons to do something similar in a small weapon. I like the LL designation Idea.
Does a weapon have to be in a turret to be slaved to a tag system?
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Phil.
Trust In Me &
Fall As-well
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I just set up 80 scarabs against 3 wings of fighters, guess who won?
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I'm pretty sure it has to be a turret to be tag slaved.
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Ace
Staff member FreeSpace Watch
http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/ ("http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/")
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Originally posted by Jabu:
With the weapons advances the GTVA's had it wouldn't be a challenge to get an ML-16 into a meter-lenght weapon.
Or just use an LL-4 or something. Since ML is Medium Laser and HL is Heavy Laser, LL is Light Laser. I don't know it FS had any of these.
Subach HL-7.
And they'd probably make some peashooter for a little drone... they're not there to take down capships, just annoy the enemy to death.
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try 80 scarabs against a Deimos (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/biggrin.gif)
They really don't like flak cannons do they?
It's good though they were designed as an anti fighter weapon not an anti capship weapon.
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Phil.
Trust In Me &
Fall As-well
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How about making these remote fighting units or RFU's explode on impact and only have a limited energy amount so they cant fire after say 10-20 shots, they have no chance of rejumping so they all kamakazi at a cap ship or whatever they can, if all else fails, set FRED to give em a timer of 10 minutes of action then they self destruct!!
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too bad you can only stick 6 ships in wing... if you could put, oh about... 20 or so in one wing, then weapon drones would actually be good.
And why do they have to be named?
They're munitions, what ever happened to military alphanumerics?
Hmm, the GTVA Mk. 12 ADCAP Weapons Drone (laser variant) sounds good enough, personally. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/wink.gif)
Now, if a game implemented drones or missiles with self-destructing X-Ray laser tips, now that would be cool. SEXPing all that would be pain in the *** , to put it mildly.
[This message has been edited by Shrike (edited 10-17-2001).]
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Can't anyone do a Subach Hl7 to fire like a minigun? (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/biggrin.gif) Hell, we're in the future, don't say me that they haven't discovered a way to cool down weapons! :P
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Originally posted by Neon:
Can't anyone do a Subach Hl7 to fire like a minigun? (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/biggrin.gif) Hell, we're in the future, don't say me that they haven't discovered a way to cool down weapons! :P
ammo based weapons are useless agaisnt shields, so that would make a crappy antifighter drone (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)
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Originally posted by venom2506:
ammo based weapons are useless agaisnt shields, so that would make a crappy antifighter drone (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)
Huh, who talked about ammo based weapons? (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/wink.gif)
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Originally posted by Neon:
Huh, who talked about ammo based weapons? (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/wink.gif)
minigun? (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)
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I made a weapon kinda like that.
the Hellfire weapon system.
1 cannon is a bit pants but very small
a twin array fires twice as fast as a single cannon. These are used as capship turrets.
a hellfire array as carried by fighters has 3 cannons in a single package.
Bombers etc carry Heavy Hellfire arrays that mount 5 cannons and are practically light beam weapons. Some capships carry these as fighter defence.
Real fun to use and good against hard to hit targets. If you can hit a target most of the time anyway though a Kayser is more effective.
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Phil.
Trust In Me &
Fall As-well
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I just made a scarab with no power output but a weapons bank large enough to fire a single shot from a pulsar cannon (250 pts damage).
they make great anti cruiser weapons.
kinda like the Xray laser bomb mentioned earlier. Not a Sexp in sight. make them Kamakazi and they fly in, take their shot and then ram the target and blow up aswell.
this sound like what you were wanting?
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Phil.
Trust In Me &
Fall As-well
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The best thing against small-fast-light targets like drones would be a flamethrower- type weapon... Short range, wide area blanket damage, not really dangerous but enough for those little buggers. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)
I'll let someone else figure out the best way to implement it. (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/biggrin.gif)
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Got screenshots? (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)
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wow, this topic sparked a lot of interest. It even made the HLP news page (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/biggrin.gif) Sadly, I don't think I'll be getting around to making a remote unit. I'm busy helping Venom with his models at the moment (which is growing to become very frustrating mind you. The gluing...grr...). Hopefullly I'll get this process down-pat.