Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The Modding Workshop => Topic started by: Prophet on August 15, 2005, 05:28:14 am
-
I was emptying a freezer a moment ago had this cool idea. I'm not sure if anyone has suggested this before and/or why it hasn't been done.
Ice asteroids! Chunks of pure ice, or regular asteroids with large ice crystals on them. Add some glowmaps, and just think how beautiful field of glittering ice asteroids we would have.
Thought it would require source code to add the option in FRED. Or to replace on of the existing (who needs three colours of asteroids anyway?).
What do you think?
If someone is interested on some heavier coding... Then what about adding somekind of slider so that mission designer could adjust the ice-rock ratio of an asteroid field? I mean changing the number of ice asteroids and regular rocks in a field...
-
The effect would be hard to get - I mean, look at icebergs. They mainly just look like big, white, floating rocks.
-
I know, seen them on TV...
But I'm not talking about floating mirrors.
Stuff flies in space an collides stuff. Ice wont stay smooth and shiny for long out there...
I am just a FREDder with a vision. I am hoping that some creative modelling guru might be able to create a good looking ice-rock chunk... Wasn't there something like these in Tachyon?
But we need some variation to the ateroids. Don't we?
Always the same brown/green/red rocks :ick:
-
I was just going to mod one of the existing roid fields, myself.
Specmaps would be key, I think. Can someone perhaps dig out some screenshots of that Stargate space race episode? That had iceroids, I believe.
-
Ice asteroids would allso blow up in a nice bluish clould of frozen particles :D
-
Not to mention be able to properly simulate being in the rings around a large gas giant :D
-
Perhaps, the modler could take a page from cockpit transparent/reflective effects. Each ice fragment would have an outer skin which, like cannopy glass, is transparent, but also reflective. The map for the skin would also have bits of frosted areas on it. Then, just below the surface, is the opaque part of the ice chunk. It would require the outer skin to be a separate submodel from the inner chunk.
It would take nore more than standard table moding or just making sure the filenamenames of the fragments match the current asteroids, to get them ingame. Making them spit out particles or shapnel when they break would require some recoding of the asteroids table, though I think said table could use an upgrade anyway.
-
I think any form of actual reflection would be far too computationally expensive for a large field. At least in terms of its computation time vs 'value' to the player.
-
or you could give the asteroids LODs and only the highest detail LOD shows reflection.
-
i was intending on upgrading the asteroid system eventually... if someone produces some sweet models maybe i could get around to it
[the ice particle explosion can be done with a custom explosion ani]
Originally posted by MicroPsycho
or you could give the asteroids LODs and only the highest detail LOD shows reflection.
yeah- use the allowance for 5 lods -
up-close-and-personal : lod0 w/ reflections
lod1 = normal distances of lod0 w/o reflections
lod2 ... etc
-
Would actually give us somewhere besides nebulas where things can hide. :devil:
-
whoa...imagine spotting a fighter waiting inambush behind one, being all distorted by the ice
-
Why are asteroids explosive in freespace anyways? they need a new explosion ani (dust and chunks)
-
Because it looks cool.
-
Doesn't anyone remember the ice asteroid belt in Derelict?
-
no....
/sheepish look
i don't think i ever completed derelict
-
Originally posted by FireCrack
Why are asteroids explosive in freespace anyways? they need a new explosion ani (dust and chunks)
No kidding.
-
Originally posted by FireCrack
Why are asteroids explosive in freespace anyways? they need a new explosion ani (dust and chunks)
I could work on this effect, but I think it requires some code changes. If a coder is willing to do that I'll start working.
-
Originally posted by Goober5000
Doesn't anyone remember the ice asteroid belt in Derelict?
Not remember, but I do know of an ice asteroid mod back in the VW archives.
-
DaBrain did some work on this for TBP:
(http://img286.imageshack.us/img286/3886/screen18376jd.jpg)
-
Originally posted by MicroPsycho
whoa...imagine spotting a fighter waiting inambush behind one, being all distorted by the ice
[creepy music]Or a Lucifer, frozen in a solid chunk of ice.[\creepy music]
Why are asteroids explosive in freespace anyways?
Maybe they're all made of solid Plutonium.;7
-
plutonium isn't explosive in the conventional manner IIRC
[you only trigger a nuclear fission reaction by compressing unstable large-atoms enough to make it go supercritical - being blow apart by fs2-ship-guns would decrease it's likelyhood to go boom from a nuclear reaction]
-
Originally posted by FireCrack
Why are asteroids explosive in freespace anyways?
The lasers/missiles heat the asteroid rapidly causing it to explode.
-
Originally posted by Kazan
plutonium isn't explosive in the conventional manner IIRC
[you only trigger a nuclear fission reaction by compressing unstable large-atoms enough to make it go supercritical - being blow apart by fs2-ship-guns would decrease it's likelyhood to go boom from a nuclear reaction]
NOTE: Not ment to degenerate into a discussion of FreeSpace Weapon Physics! NO RANTING!
The impact of the weapons is significant enough to cause a chain reaction. We have the mass many times over required for criticality. We only need a small amount to go critical to cause a chain reaction. Throw lots o energy oriented in one direction at the material, and you get linear compression, like pressing a finger into a sponge, except plutonium doesn't change shape. So a small fission starts, and, Boom.
Oh, and it was a joke, Plutonium doesn't even occur naturally.:rolleyes:
-
i believe plutonium occurs naturally - just not in large quantities
-
Originally posted by Kazan
i believe plutonium occurs naturally - just not in large quantities
Yep. Almost completely man made. You generally need a fast breeder reactor to make it in the first place and natural ones tend to be rare on Earth :D
Notice I said rare and not non existant BTW :)
-
and rare on earth
-
I'd imagine it would be pretty rare anywhere to be honest :)
-
asteroids in FS explode becaus ethe engine lacks the capabilities for it to break apart with dust/particle or to blow chunks off and an asteroid that just falls apart would be boring
-
it lacked the capabilities, with enough nagging from people like us, anything is possible!
-
Originally posted by Kazan
i believe plutonium occurs naturally - just not in large quantities
Now this one I can back up with solid proof!
The heaviest naturally occuring element in the known universe, is uranium. Plutonium is not formed unless run through a controlled and mediated fission reaction.
So unless breeder reactors evolve in some godforsaken corner of the universe, Plutonium is listed as a man made element along with all other elements with an atomic number greater than 92.
And besides, nuclear fission, (in the modern sense) can only occur with a massive input of energy which again is typically only derived from the fruits of man. Fission is thermodynamically undesirable, so as a natural phenomena is quite rare.
And in reference to above statement, please don't confuse the process of Nuclear Fission with natural radioactive decay.
-
i know my radioactive processes very well - i simply thought uranium had a higher atomic mass and higher proton count that plutonium
looks like Pu is 1 neutron heavier than U - so i'm assuming it goes through two beta-decays and capturing one neutron
-
Originally posted by Boomer
Now this one I can back up with solid proof!
But I can shoot it down with even more solid proof. You'd have done well to ask me why I was so sure that natural nuclear reactors were rare instead of saying that they were non-existant :D
Originally posted by Boomer
The heaviest naturally occuring element in the known universe, is uranium. Plutonium is not formed unless run through a controlled and mediated fission reaction.
Wrong. Uranium can naturally form plutonium at a very slow rate by neutron capture followed by beta decay. Traces of plutonium are found in uranium ores. It also exists as the product of supernovae. In both cases the amount is very, very small though which is why plutonium was discovered before it was isolated.
Originally posted by Boomer
So unless breeder reactors evolve in some godforsaken corner of the universe, Plutonium is listed as a man made element along with all other elements with an atomic number greater than 92.
We don't need to look in some godforsaken corner. There's at least one on Earth. Read up on the Oklo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklo) natural nuclear reactor. It's pretty interesting, Especially the link at the bottom with a comparision to man-made reactors :)
-
You know what would be cool? If the coders implemented a way to hide behind asteroids :D
-
Originally posted by Kazan
i know my radioactive processes very well - i simply thought uranium had a higher atomic mass and higher proton count that plutonium
looks like Pu is 1 neutron heavier than U - so i'm assuming it goes through two beta-decays and capturing one neutron
You mean ~ 2 protons and 4 neutrons heavier...6 atomic mass units heavier (on average) U doesnt decay into Pu in any standard reaction IIRC, the Pu form breeder reactors comes from U238 (nonreacting, it's used kinda like a sheilding) absorbing excess neutrons from the reaction, then undergoing beta decay to turn some of those into protons.
-
Plutonium 239 is the one used in bombs and as you can see that's obviously one mass unit heavier than uranium 238.
As for natural formation I already mentioned a few further up :)
-
P239 and U238 are the ones on the Periodic table too - which means they're the most abundant isotopes