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Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The Modding Workshop => Topic started by: DavisOfTsurgi on March 28, 2007, 03:52:26 pm

Title: Flying cap ships
Post by: DavisOfTsurgi on March 28, 2007, 03:52:26 pm
I remember somewhere in the back of my CPU i'd made a mod for FSO that let the player fly a beem-free'd Orion with a "BVas" As your primary.
So, i was wondering,
What would be the role flying a cap ship in a mission and why? I only made that for the novelty, and am wondering if anymore could be incorperated in a mission/campaign.
Title: Re: Flying cap ships
Post by: Mustang19 on March 28, 2007, 04:04:15 pm
There have been plenty of conversations on this before. Search for "flying cap ships" or "player cap ships". The conclusion was that it would be best if the player controlled individual beams or batteries of turrets through the comm menu, in the same way he could command fighter wings. Noone has made an interesting capship-flying mission yet, though.
Title: Re: Flying cap ships
Post by: Snail on March 28, 2007, 04:11:14 pm
What about a Time of War? That was... Interesting...
Title: Re: Flying cap ships
Post by: Mustang19 on March 28, 2007, 04:16:08 pm
Did you get it to work? I CTDed after a minute or so every time I played it.
Title: Re: Flying cap ships
Post by: Snail on March 28, 2007, 04:49:53 pm
Uh.... Yeah? I flew it as-is. You're screwey.
Title: Re: Flying cap ships
Post by: Nuke on March 28, 2007, 04:57:54 pm
i had some turret script tests where i managed to slave all turrets on an aeolas to the mouse pointer. it was fat from perfect yet still rather intresting.
Title: Re: Flying cap ships
Post by: Snail on March 28, 2007, 05:04:04 pm
Could you release it then? I'd like to have a look at it. :)
Title: Re: Flying cap ships
Post by: DavisOfTsurgi on March 29, 2007, 04:41:20 pm
How can i host it? it's 3mb zipped.
Also has some retrofit shivan ships in it.
What the search function can do is wonderful....
Title: Re: Flying cap ships
Post by: Mustang19 on March 29, 2007, 05:45:55 pm
www.megaupload.com

www.rapidshare.com
Title: Re: Flying cap ships
Post by: Nuke on March 29, 2007, 08:39:12 pm
Could you release it then? I'd like to have a look at it. :)

well its currently broke. i tried to optimize the code and i broke a key function that converts a vector to an angular rotation. havent really been in a mood to fix it. i might go back and take a second look. also the number of transformations i have to do and the relative slowness of lua it slows the game down alot to have a ship with many turrets.
Title: Re: Flying cap ships
Post by: Unknown Target on March 29, 2007, 08:49:22 pm
Why does everyone want to fly cap ships in FS2? The game is about fighter combat, if you want to fly cap ships why not just play Bridge Commander?
Title: Re: Flying cap ships
Post by: JGZinv on March 29, 2007, 10:51:47 pm
Because then it wouldn't be FS2 with bigger guns....

I mean.. who "wouldn't" want the ability to lead your wingmen out
and have them personally targeted with a slaved weapons system... then
blast them with their own fleet...

It's just a disciplinary discharge...  :)

I was going to say earlier that mouse turret control + multiple camera points
would equal those type of missions where you have to jump in a turret and defend the ship.
Course you'd probably need scripting or something worked in to the sub object movement,
so you could move the turret back and forth for a better range of fire...

But that's just me guessing.

There have been other uses for slaved weapons from capital ships, mostly in the SW novels
that I can think of. But none the less it's nice to hear it exists in some form.
Title: Re: Flying cap ships
Post by: spartan_0214 on March 29, 2007, 11:09:56 pm
Why does everyone want to fly cap ships in FS2? The game is about fighter combat, if you want to fly cap ships why not just play Bridge Commander?

Because you're not an Admiral unless you've got a BIG ship under your command :nod: :D
Title: Re: Flying cap ships
Post by: DavisOfTsurgi on March 30, 2007, 12:11:44 am
NB that i havent slaved turrets...... :P
I've just put a big F-Beam on.
Title: Re: Flying cap ships
Post by: S-99 on March 30, 2007, 02:18:55 am
I'd love to fly an aeolus. And the whole mouse pointer for turret aiming sounds cool especially. Being able to switch between the weapons systems would be fun to. It'd provide a good level of target and weapons specification. But when you do something such as switching to your right broadside turrets could like the camera change position change too?
Title: Re: Flying cap ships
Post by: Getter Robo G on March 30, 2007, 09:14:00 pm
Why does everyone want to fly cap ships in FS2? The game is about fighter combat, if you want to fly cap ships why not just play Bridge Commander?

QFT!  ;)


I don't mean anything by that. If people want to go ahead. I just think ATM it's a substandard experience.

Title: Re: Flying cap ships
Post by: S-99 on March 30, 2007, 10:51:30 pm
substandard experience. Hell no. The scp and modding forum are making this game go above and beyond, a game that has many different ships besides fighters. As long as the game stays action oriented then this is ****ing awesome, as i doubt anyone wants to fly a freighter...well maybe some freighters out there http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,44089.0.html (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,44089.0.html). As far as my freighter love goes for i'd like to fly an sfr asmodeus.

Aside from the freighter joke. Hey this is awesome and gives players access to one of those other completely awesome elements of the game, the capships (with the beams, AAA beams, flak, and blob turrets of all kind(those are awesome too when used by alpha one)).
Title: Re: Flying cap ships
Post by: chief1983 on March 31, 2007, 01:54:55 pm
If you were piloting a capital ship, or even if not, one thing that I think really needs to be changed is that you should be allowed to give orders to capital ships just like fighters.
Title: Re: Flying cap ships
Post by: DavisOfTsurgi on March 31, 2007, 04:03:15 pm
Easy.
Exctract the Rank.tbl, then set the score needed for admiral to be 10.
Title: Re: Flying cap ships
Post by: BS403 on March 31, 2007, 11:43:27 pm
you still can't give orders to capships.
Title: Re: Flying cap ships
Post by: DavisOfTsurgi on April 01, 2007, 12:15:49 am
attack and depart, what more do you need  ::)
Title: Re: Flying cap ships
Post by: Nuke on April 01, 2007, 01:55:58 am
there are really a few ways to deal with capships in freespace. one way the stick and mouse way, where you fly the ship with the stick and aim some or all the turrets with a mouse. but this sorta misses the entire point of flying a capship. its sorta like a freighter in freelancer, you may have 10 or so turrets at your disposal, but you can only shoot at one thing at a time. capships have a completely different job that a fighter.  a fighter's job is usually to intercept things, destroy small things, defend big things, gather intel for big things and generally keep the space clean enough for big things to operate. classicly in freespace the capships are really white elephants. and if you put two ships on the grid without any waypoints they will just shoot at eachother till one blows up. while it doesnt work too well yet, this way is possible now (im on too that bug now. actually it took me 2 days of reading my code to realize i was on to the bug way back when i stopped coding lua to work with c).

now another way is more akin to mechwarrior, beaning its more about tagtics than good aim. you have a ship, with way more guns and armor that one person should be allowed to control. rather than just click, click, kill, kill. you need to manage energy, heat, damage control, all while manuvering into the best position while coordinating with other capships and fighters/bombers to meet the mision objectives. rather than control all guns at once, you micromanage them. you devide the turrets up into batteries and give each one a job to do or take control of the battery yourself if youre not too busy with other tasks. if your mission is to beam the **** out of something, you might want to do the aiming yourself. while you may command something like the flak batteries or the blob turrets or tell the fighters who to kill and how to link their guns, but dealing with small ships really isnt your job, cept giving them orders through their commander. what you need here is a radar which you may interact with. if a bomber wing jumps in you can click on the wing closest to it and have them deal with it. this way is possible, but im nowhere near to that level of talent.
Title: Re: Flying cap ships
Post by: Snail on April 01, 2007, 03:43:13 am
Well, if we can't do cap piloting, we'll just have to stick with HUD pong. ;)
Title: Re: Flying cap ships
Post by: Scooby_Doo on April 01, 2007, 04:04:49 am
attack and depart, what more do you need  ::)

attack my target
ignore my target
help me out here!
Title: Re: Flying cap ships
Post by: Snail on April 01, 2007, 04:12:32 am
I don't think a Capship could 'help me out here!' It would probably just follow you around, then squash you.
Title: Re: Flying cap ships
Post by: Scooby_Doo on April 01, 2007, 05:32:02 am
Well I meant attack the attackers that are attacking me
Title: Re: Flying cap ships
Post by: Snail on April 01, 2007, 05:45:10 am
Only if they're big ships, since capitals can't attack fighters.
Title: Re: Flying cap ships
Post by: chief1983 on April 01, 2007, 05:52:30 am
Not with capital beams, but doesn't every capital have anti-fighter weaponry that, if the fighter were in range, would devastate it in seconds if it were fully brought to bear?
Title: Re: Flying cap ships
Post by: Scooby_Doo on April 01, 2007, 06:25:32 am
Only if they're big ships, since capitals can't attack fighters.

You haven't played with my stuff yet  :lol:
Title: Re: Flying cap ships
Post by: Snail on April 01, 2007, 08:26:03 am
What I mean is that they won't move to attack fighters, they would just stay stationary. So unless you've got a modified object types table, then they would just sit there. They would fire their anti-fighter weaponry, but wouldn't try to pursue it.
Title: Re: Flying cap ships
Post by: Gregster2k on April 01, 2007, 03:38:31 pm
Hmm, here's an idea...let's give the player ship a dummy craft, dock it with a big capship, then move the capship around with the player ship tugging it and order the capship to shoot things?
Title: Re: Flying cap ships
Post by: Snail on April 01, 2007, 03:40:08 pm
That's a good idea.
Title: Re: Flying cap ships
Post by: Getter Robo G on April 03, 2007, 08:34:41 am
You haven't played with my stuff yet  :lol:

You DO realize that could very well end up in someone's siggy...  :nod:

Personally, I'd rather play with your ships... Stuff will cost you extra! (double for males) ;7

Title: Re: Flying cap ships
Post by: Snail on April 03, 2007, 08:45:53 am
I don't even want to know.
Title: Re: Flying cap ships
Post by: S-99 on April 03, 2007, 05:28:55 pm
The mechwarrior way sounds perfect for capships. I mean you can control the ship where it's going while your aiming your turrets with the mouse, but you have to remember that it's a capship, completely different role than a fighter. With capships you usually set out your vector, then you do the aiming with the mouse, until you remaneuver to a new vector and do more shooting, of course if the situation called for it on a difficult mission you could very well aim with the mouse while maneuvering your capship...it just wouldn't be recommended as well since it would be tedious.
Title: Re: Flying cap ships
Post by: chief1983 on April 03, 2007, 05:36:57 pm
That's very true, if anyone has played Battlefield 1942, that sounds a lot like the way you pilot a battleship or cruiser in it.  Line up the ship to travel alongside another ship or the coast, then aim the big guns and send forth a barrage, and when you're out of range, turn around/re-align/etc.
Title: Re: Flying cap ships
Post by: JGZinv on April 03, 2007, 05:54:59 pm
Hmm now we just need a "Commander on deck!" and a bunch
of boots clicking together for a sound file when you dock to
take over the cap.  :)

I wonder if there's a way to switch between turrets, based off the
weapons switching system on the fighters?

Like you dock, then could select individuals - then link them all.
Not sure if that would be the best way of doing it when you have
separate sets of AA, flak, and anti cap weaponry though...
You'd almost need a set of the F keys dedicated to a cap weapons
panel of sorts. For example, F5 = AA, F6 = beams, F7 =cap weapons,
F = all. Then you could narrow it down from there I suppose with the switcher
if need be.
Title: Re: Flying cap ships
Post by: Nuke on April 05, 2007, 03:47:01 am
i think i stomped out the bug in my turret code, unfortuneately i ripped out all the trackrate and angle limiter code in the process. so im gonna need to rewrite those. but i just tested it on an aten and it works.

anyway once the code is back up to its former state of functionality i might make a battery system for the guns, where guns may be grouped into batteries and then ordered to do a partcular task, or directly controled with the mouse. it would be at least part of a tactical control system. i also want a system that lets me set a course with the joystick rather than a direct control, which should free up your stick hand for other tasks (no not that you sick freak :D). then energy management, damage control, and view systems can be implemented. my main concern is all this script would kill your performance down to nothing.
Title: Re: Flying cap ships
Post by: Scooby_Doo on April 05, 2007, 05:44:00 am
You haven't played with my stuff yet  :lol:

You DO realize that could very well end up in someone's siggy...  :nod:

Personally, I'd rather play with your ships... Stuff will cost you extra! (double for males) ;7



HAHAHAHA

Title: Re: Flying cap ships
Post by: chief1983 on April 05, 2007, 02:39:59 pm
Well nuke, if you get good enough at porting to C maybe you could commit it :)
Title: Re: Flying cap ships
Post by: S-99 on April 05, 2007, 03:48:36 pm
Speaking of capships attacking fighters. If you didn't make it good enough, i can see a deimos trying to outmaneuver a ulysses trying to destroy it :lol:
Title: Re: Flying cap ships
Post by: chief1983 on April 05, 2007, 04:24:50 pm
Heh, my fear would be people trying to play baseball with the colossus :)

In fact, I think that could be fun.  The CBL (Colossus Ball League) would be a fun thing to start up.
Title: Re: Flying cap ships
Post by: S-99 on April 05, 2007, 05:16:39 pm
Sound like, have someone pilot the colossus and have someone fly the ball(myrmidon). It'd be a great multiplayer where the bat runs around chasing the ball, and when the person flying the myrmidon least expects it, they'll turn they're fighter right when the colossus is pulling one of its seriously ****ed up and speedy turns(i've seen the colossus make a turn before, and man that was ****ed up, but it hits the ball) for a homer.
Title: Re: Flying cap ships
Post by: Snail on April 05, 2007, 05:41:07 pm
Who'd be swinging the bat?
Title: Re: Flying cap ships
Post by: chief1983 on April 05, 2007, 05:48:08 pm
The colossus pilot of course!

Edit:  And then it'd be like dodgeball, a bunch of other Colussi trying to knock the ball into the batter!
Title: Re: Flying cap ships
Post by: S-99 on April 05, 2007, 11:15:17 pm
I know what'd be worth a million laughs, get something like a deimos, and make it use the fighter ai, and have it chase down some squadrons. I wonder how'd that play out.
Title: Re: Flying cap ships
Post by: Nuke on April 05, 2007, 11:31:33 pm
Well nuke, if you get good enough at porting to C maybe you could commit it :)

i dont think taylor and goob would let me commit any code. i really suck at c. they might let me commit to the head branch, but them wmc and bob would hate me too :D
Title: Re: Flying cap ships
Post by: takashi on April 06, 2007, 09:52:22 pm
*imagines a whole bunch of saths pursuing a wing of fighters*

man, they would move slow.
Title: Re: Flying cap ships
Post by: spartan_0214 on April 07, 2007, 05:18:08 pm
*imagines a whole bunch of saths pursuing a wing of fighters*

man, they would move slow.

No need to move slow when a beam cuts clean through the wing of fighters...
Title: Re: Flying cap ships
Post by: takashi on April 07, 2007, 06:24:32 pm
thhis thread is giving me ideas....


*swaps AAA's with BFreds/greens*
Title: Re: Flying cap ships
Post by: Scooby_Doo on April 07, 2007, 07:30:39 pm
Give the fighter extra long range Trebs  ;7
Title: Re: Flying cap ships
Post by: S-99 on April 08, 2007, 06:50:46 am
I think trebs got enough ****ing range:p, geez they got close to enough range that's over a standard beam.
Title: Re: Flying cap ships
Post by: takashi on April 08, 2007, 04:21:35 pm
extra long range CLUSTER trebs with ultra accurate heat seeking abbilities!