Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => FS2 Open Coding - The Source Code Project (SCP) => Topic started by: Uninvited on January 14, 2007, 01:21:19 pm
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Would it be possible to make it so that the engine glow of ships disappears when the ships acceleration (thrust) is 0? You could still be moving, but because your thrust is at 0, you're just coasting to a stop.
I don't know how everyone else feels, but it really bugs me when ships are stationary and their engines are still outputting as if they were moving, just at a lower intensity. If there was some sort of fizzle, or dispersion it wouldn't be as bothersome, but as it stands your engines jet straight out the back as if you had forward thrust on.
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does it bother you when there air oxygen fueled gasoline explosions in space too :p
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I do not think that the light is what makes the ships move. It's more likely it's just a by-product. Analogous to this:
A car engine produces a sound if it's on regardless of whether or not the car is actually moving. But as you throttle up the engine, it'll make more sound. If you haven't already noticed, at least fighters and bombers actually do have throttle-dependant engine glows, but I must agree that the same should be applied to capital ships too.
Anyway, if you want that stationary ships don't have engine glow visible, you can always FRED it in to the mission by disabling ships that are stopped, and once they have to move, un-disable them. That definitely works if you don't care about the "D" letter disturb you. It's just more job for the FREDer. Or, you can make a script that every ship that has a velocity of zero uses empty engine glow texture or something. (NB: I don't know the script stuff but I know it can be done). That would be a better solution as that would make it work the same way in all missions, not just in those that include all the disabling-undisabling hassle.
By the way, explosions can very well happen without oxygen, that's not a problem per ce... Not all chemical compounds require oxidizer to be volatile materials. Besides, remember that there actually must be quite large amounts of oxygen stored inside the ships to maintain the life support system. They can't produce all of it on the run, they must have some emergency storages on board in case the oxygen generator system or whatever the hell they use break up, as often happens to equipment even without fights...
Now, fire needs only three things to exist: combustible material, oxidizer and sufficient heat to break the combustible material and oxidizer into single atoms that can react and form reaction products that have lower enthalpy than the original reactives. If enthalpy difference is negative, reaction is exothermic and releases energy... All these requirements can be thought to be fulfilled in FS2 explosions and that's it.
Asteroid explosions are quite ludicrous, however. They simply vaporize in a big ball of fire, when they should just break into multiple pieces with visible light only coming from heated stone/metal...
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Realism aside, it bugs me, too.
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On some ships, the parts 'covered' by the glow are pretty ugly.
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FRED Ships Editor Checkbox - Engine Glow Off
sexp
toggle-engine-glow
-shipname
-0/1 (0 for off, 1 for on)
-optional ship 2
-0/1 optional, but required for any changes to ship 2's engine glow status
-etc.