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Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => FS2 Open Coding - The Source Code Project (SCP) => Topic started by: diamondgeezer on May 09, 2003, 09:44:57 pm

Title: Cargo and speed
Post by: diamondgeezer on May 09, 2003, 09:44:57 pm
You know how a cargo container slows down the transport hauling it? Could this feature be made optional, as a FRED flag or ships table flag or something? Makes my ISSAPCs behave all gay, you see.
Title: Cargo and speed
Post by: Starks on May 09, 2003, 09:45:42 pm
ISSAPC?
Title: Cargo and speed
Post by: Stryke 9 on May 09, 2003, 09:47:01 pm
It could, but whether in the end it's really desirable is another question altogether. After all, higher mass=higher inertia. Just make the transports faster when unladen.
Title: Cargo and speed
Post by: diamondgeezer on May 09, 2003, 10:05:04 pm
Well, I thought about rasing the speed and then using the speed-cap SEXP to keep the speed equal, whether laden or unladen. But what if the ship is ordered to attack when unladen? It'll rush off at full speed.

Stryke mate, I think we need to be wary of people dubbing suggested features undesirable simply because they could cause problems if not properly used - remember the thread asking for multiple docking? Zylon said people would abuse the oppertunity to dock millions of ships and probably crash the game. After that, the suggestion died. This kind of attitude will stifle many new ideas - it'd be like V saying 'we better not let people place ships in a mission, in case they put in too many'.

Could a coder please let me know whether my request is workable, and whether it will be added to the to-do list?
Title: Cargo and speed
Post by: Stryke 9 on May 09, 2003, 11:02:26 pm
I'm not talking improperly used- it's Zylon's thing to find ways to abuse stuff. My thing is finding much simpler ways of producing the same effect without a code change.

Ah, assuming that anything would be simpler than a code change, I suppose.:D
Title: Cargo and speed
Post by: diamondgeezer on May 10, 2003, 12:01:04 am
So... can you think of a way around my problem? Or are you going to defer to the experts?
Title: Cargo and speed
Post by: karajorma on May 10, 2003, 02:52:11 am
DG I've never tried this but what happens if you adjust the weight of the cargo container?
Title: Cargo and speed
Post by: Stryke 9 on May 10, 2003, 03:20:57 am
Mass, you mean? Possible. It must do something.
Title: Cargo and speed
Post by: karajorma on May 10, 2003, 03:27:26 am
Quote
Originally posted by Stryke 9
Mass, you mean? Possible. It must do something.


I would expect so. The game uses it for decided what gets knocked about by the morningstar but it might use it here too.
As for the weight/mass mix up that's an easy mistake when you aren't fully awake yet :)
Title: Cargo and speed
Post by: Stryke 9 on May 10, 2003, 03:31:11 am
It's useless in the kinetic weapons department, though, because only the Neph has a different value. I think it must have been intended to be used for a much bigger set of functions that they never finished before release- you'll always find these half-completed remains of old code in games.
Title: Cargo and speed
Post by: karajorma on May 10, 2003, 11:16:14 am
I was thinking more along the lines of why a morning star can push a fighter or bomber around but can't do the same to an Orion but I guess we'll have to wait until someone who has looked at the source shows up and tells us :)
Title: Cargo and speed
Post by: Starks on May 10, 2003, 11:18:26 am
What size of ship is the Morning Star limited to? Can it push a Poseidon or Ellysium?
Title: Cargo and speed
Post by: Stryke 9 on May 10, 2003, 01:49:22 pm
Yeah, a little. If you go all-out on a transport from the front, you can see it get knocked around a bit.
Title: Cargo and speed
Post by: diamondgeezer on May 10, 2003, 06:05:33 pm
Perhaps the Morning Star moves ships based on the class flag, ie fighter, bomber, transport, huge, etc. And yes, I thought about lowering the pod's mass, but then you risk having the thing thrown all over the place by collisions.

For now, I've bodged a solution - using a single model to represent the docked craft. To be honest, I might get away with this since I probably won't have my ISSAPCs swapping ISSCVs all that often...
Title: Cargo and speed
Post by: Stryke 9 on May 10, 2003, 06:09:59 pm
What about when you switch the UHOJB with the NRAAN and modify the TLA to fit the SNK profile?
Title: Cargo and speed
Post by: Starks on May 10, 2003, 06:12:43 pm
What do all these abbreviations mean?
Title: Cargo and speed
Post by: diamondgeezer on May 10, 2003, 06:20:41 pm
ISSAPC = Inter Solar System Armoured Personel Carrier

ISSCV = Inter Solar System Cargo Vehicle

Stryke = Spam

I've told you before, LLL, go watch some Space: Above and Beyond. Do it now, or Stryke gets it.
Title: Cargo and speed
Post by: SGT_R22eR on May 12, 2003, 02:27:36 am
One problem is that the current FS2 engine doesn't depend on newtonnian physics, where you would have inertia in all axis, but the game engine only supports foward inertia (coming to a stop takes time, but you don't slide when turning or even continue your movement in one direction while the cockpit faces the other way). It would require a full engine overhaul to incorporate that stuff. Sure it would be useful for a lot of mods (TBP for example), but will be extremely difficult.
Title: Cargo and speed
Post by: diamondgeezer on May 12, 2003, 11:08:43 am
I ask for one little thing, and it turns in to a physics debate. Every single time I post in the SCP forum... I'm getting properly fed up of it :blah:

Of course I'm not a coder, but given the apparent complexity of what I'm requestin, I'd put a dollar on a programmer having been able to imlement my request in less time than it's taken for people to hijack yet another thread...
Title: Cargo and speed
Post by: karajorma on May 12, 2003, 11:32:51 am
Calm down DG. It's only one post and from someone new to the board as it is. Besides it did seem like you'd solved the problem.

Welcome to HLP SGT_R22eR. You may wish to have a look at
this (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,14985.0.html) thread if you want to look at a discussion about realistic physics in action.
Title: Cargo and speed
Post by: diamondgeezer on May 12, 2003, 11:39:21 am
Bah. I just got in from work, and I seem to have left my sense of humour there. But my point stands - every time someone asks for a minor little feature to make FREDding easier, for example, it turns in to a big physics discussion. And it's getting a tad annoying.

Hello R22er, sorry if I upset you - I'm told I ought to be nicer to noobs :)
Title: Cargo and speed
Post by: karajorma on May 12, 2003, 11:56:21 am
I know what you mean DG.
 It also means that if you bump the topic people who don't look hard don't realise what it was about. I did suggest having a thread which mearly consisted of a quick summary of the ideas people had and a link to the original thread a couple of months back but no one seemed to care.
Title: Cargo and speed
Post by: SGT_R22eR on May 12, 2003, 02:53:59 pm
Well, sorry DG, but anything that has anything to do with flight characteristics, it involves physics... It is a natural law... anyway, my point is that, with the way the engine is right now, we probably won't see this feature as of yet. SCP will have to modify it greatly and they have to take into consideration a lot of factors before implementing features. I know they have a long list too... just got to wait a bit... everything is possible, but not at the moment.

BTW, Karjorma... I read that thread after... sorry guys but this thread was on top... :)
Title: Cargo and speed
Post by: SadisticSid on May 12, 2003, 03:01:34 pm
Well, perhaps a better solution would be to implement a cap-speed SEXP - a ship would maintain a limited speed under all of its goals, not just those associated with waypoints. That would solve dg's problem, I believe. It may also be of use in other situations, too.
Title: Cargo and speed
Post by: karajorma on May 12, 2003, 03:32:11 pm
Quote
Originally posted by SadisticSid
Well, perhaps a better solution would be to implement a cap-speed SEXP - a ship would maintain a limited speed under all of its goals, not just those associated with waypoints. That would solve dg's problem, I believe. It may also be of use in other situations, too.


That could be very useful actually. Think of situations where ships are redlining their engines to do something. :yes: Shouldn't be all that hard to do as a SEXP either.
Title: Cargo and speed
Post by: IceFire on May 12, 2003, 06:17:24 pm
So far...the problem as I understand it is:

Quote
Makes my ISSAPCs behave all gay, you see.


So what DOES it actually cause problems for?  I've got docking equiped ships in MOD's before with no so called "gayness".  Infact, the freighters are rather emotionally neutral...there's no ability for them to be happy.

Joking aside, I figure if you set the ISSAPCs to a higher initial speed (they were relatively fast anyways) and then attach the container on, they will be fine.  Speed is usually cut something like 30%-40% and that'll be nice.
Title: Cargo and speed
Post by: TrashMan on May 13, 2003, 03:57:24 am
Well.....is anybody doing the cap-speed SEXP?
Title: Cargo and speed
Post by: SadisticSid on May 13, 2003, 05:29:19 pm
Something I'd much appreciate is making the speed SEXP(s) allow ships to go faster, as well as slower.

Sid.
Title: Cargo and speed
Post by: CP5670 on May 13, 2003, 10:09:54 pm
Yes, that would be very nice. :yes: I use cap-waypoint-speed quite often to synchronize ship speeds in convoys but currently the highest speed you can make such a convoy move at is the speed of the slowest ship in it.
Title: Cargo and speed
Post by: Alan Bolte on May 13, 2003, 11:45:09 pm
Quote
Originally posted by CP5670
...the highest speed you can make such a convoy move at is the speed of the slowest ship in it.

I do believe you've just discovered one of the laws of warfare.;)
Title: Cargo and speed
Post by: CP5670 on May 14, 2003, 01:15:01 am
:D

In most cases it is okay, but the problem tends to come into play when using ships that are slower than they probably should be for their size, the Leviathan being a good example. That thing is slower than even the destroyers. :p There are also times when you need a ship to go a little faster than usual for one mission only due to gameplay balance reasons.
Title: Cargo and speed
Post by: TrashMan on May 14, 2003, 01:57:05 am
1. Change the tbl entry... (I did)..

2. Wait for the set_speed SEXP....
Title: Cargo and speed
Post by: diamondgeezer on May 14, 2003, 01:43:19 pm
IceFire: this thread could die right now if you'll just implement an option to negate the slowing effects of cargo. Or, we can sit here and argue about it.
Title: Cargo and speed
Post by: karajorma on May 14, 2003, 01:57:42 pm
Quote
Originally posted by diamondgeezer
IceFire: this thread could die right now if you'll just implement an option to negate the slowing effects of cargo. Or, we can sit here and argue about it.


Adjusting the Cap-waypoint-Speed SEXP would allow you to do what you want. Simply add an event that becomes true when the cargo is docked that alters the speed. Simple.

An adjusted Cap-Waypoint-Speed SEXP would also allow other effects (like I said, Redlines engines is a good one).

Furthermore I'm guessing that the current Cap-Waypoint-Speed SEXP checks to see if you have exceeded the maximum speed in the table. All you'd have to do is remove that check and everyone's problem is solved.

If the current SEXP does work the way I think it does it would probably be a case of commenting out a couple of lines of code to make it work.
Title: Cargo and speed
Post by: Hippo on May 14, 2003, 03:14:07 pm
Quote
Originally posted by SadisticSid
Well, perhaps a better solution would be to implement a cap-speed SEXP - a ship would maintain a limited speed under all of its goals, not just those associated with waypoints. That would solve dg's problem, I believe. It may also be of use in other situations, too.


NOOOOOOO... I've spent 2 weeks tweaking a destroyer for AHTW so it goes faster! Don't ruin all my work (unless its only FS2). ANd even if you changed speeds, manuverability would stay the same, so it would take a larger area to turn... Not to mention, people setting it to 100Ms ... :shaking:
Title: Cargo and speed
Post by: karajorma on May 14, 2003, 05:28:26 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Hippo


NOOOOOOO... I've spent 2 weeks tweaking a destroyer for AHTW so it goes faster! Don't ruin all my work (unless its only FS2). ANd even if you changed speeds, manuverability would stay the same, so it would take a larger area to turn... Not to mention, people setting it to 100Ms ... :shaking:


People can do that kind of stupidity now by editing the table. I see no reason to hold the rest of us back because of their stupidity. Their missions will join the ranks of those with 3 colossuses and 6 Sathanases and promptly be ignored by the rest of the community.

The sensible ones amonst us are talking about maybe a 5-20m/s boost for ships in certain situations where the ships are driving their engines past the safe maximum.

As for this being for FS2 only take a good look at the forum you're on. Unless you're hoarding the FS1 source and not telling us of course it's for FS2 only! :rolleyes:
Title: Cargo and speed
Post by: TrashMan on May 15, 2003, 05:55:48 am
The point was giving the ships a speed boost eve when they are not following waypoints...
That's why the set_speed SEXP is for....and it can be used for other cool things too....
SO JUST DO IT....DO IT....:yes: