Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The Modding Workshop => Topic started by: starlord on July 08, 2009, 09:21:35 am
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The renegade legion MOD for freespace and starshatter has been rather tranquil lately with a big thanks to troublesome RL (real life :D) issues.
However, the MOD is still here, and thanks to latest contributor enioch, we have an update to present:
Please meet (many thanks to him again) the terran overlord government ULTOR battleship:
Advice is eagerly awaited.
best regards.
mike.
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Awe-som-o !
Very smart ship! ;7
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Very nice!
(and no, nothing from me yet, still busy busy :p)
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Here are some more renders, straight from the source.
The final color scheme will be...well, non-existant. :P I think I'll stick to white shiny armor, kinda like the Axiom in WALL-E. Starlord seems to approve. But I'll bake occlusion maps on it and texture the greebles.
Ventral fin and aft part still VIP
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Hmmm white color should be very beautifull for this ship but after testing this color on some ship i did, i noticed that this color cause some very strong aliases!
If you manage to avoid it, i'd like to know how did you counter this effect ;7
If you don't mind.
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I wonder: is it possible to upload JPEG files in the thread? I'm quite sure you'll like the renegade legion leviathan pics: the syracuse for instance is a beaut...
want me to post them? ;7
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I recommend you upload the following, given that the rest are quite low-poly and, frankly, kinda fugly :doubt: (no offense to Brad, I know he said he was learning the ropes when he created them, but they're still kinda fugly, compared with the rest of the HTL goodyness out there):
Capital ships: Syracuse, Illustrius, Solstice and Hastati. Not the Ajax! The 'nacelles' on each side give me the frakking heebie-jeebies :shaking:. When I'm done with the Ultor (in the far future, that is :P ), I'll see if I can round them off a bit.
Fighters: Pretty much anything. The Fugio and Saxum are especially nice.
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Also, I would recommend using an external host for pictures, like photobucket or something. Attachments run the risk of getting deleted after a while.
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enioch, you mean the illustrious (renegade destroyer class carrier) or the illustris (TOG battleship)?
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Sorry to post bad news but the Leviathan model (Not Moya) is no longer for DL on MR's site and I cannot find it on my system. I wish I had uploaded it long ago when I first posted the pic. I think it was Starlord who told me it was R.L. related back then.
I will keep looking for it, but it's very possible it will have to be done from scratch. Pity, it just needed a retexture...
If it turns up I will upload it...
[EDIT]: Good news, not an hour ago I was looking through some RTS stuff to work on and it turned up, the original file.
grab it while you can.
http://www.4shared.com/file/117042743/6d306633/Leviathan_RL.html
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@starlord: IllustriOUs. Sorry for the typo... :rolleyes:
@Getter: DL'ing now. I'll have a look.
EDIT: This what you're talking about? Hm. Interesting colors. And I like the back 'fins'. But the rest is still painfully low-poly, for a ship of this size (1300 tris). Hell, it's low even for a fighter. Building it from scratch might be a good idea. Still, thanks for pointing out its existance, Getter.
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Alliance council must dieeeee. . .
Any mass effect inspiration?
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Actually, I think that's a renegade carthage cruiser.
Not too fan of the gyger's alien surface though...
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I think he ripped the texture from the tabletop game (you know, the ship 'boxes'). Could this be the case?
And yeah, looks just like a Carthage.
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Update: New engine pods. Still WIP of course, with only the main panels modeled in. The detail greebling will be dome after I'm done with the engines.
Note the cut-out part in the aft view. This is where I'll put the main engine.
Haven't touched the ventral fin as yet. Gonna get to it during the week end.
As always, feedback is more than welcome
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The ship looks very good. I like the details.
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So what sort of armament will this thing have? Turrets, many? Or just big forward guns of some sort?
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Starlord, over to you. :P
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...Or maybe not :D
@Aardwolf: In Renegade Legions, capital ships carry four kinds of weapons:
They've got turrets a la FS, which they mainly use against fighters.
They've got laser 'bays', which translate to a big broadside of simultaneous laser fire. Think 18th century ships-of-the-line. That's an anti-capital weapon.
They've got a limited number of missiles, used mainly to finish off a crippled enemy ship.
Finally, each capital ship has a 'spinal mount': a huge mass driver mounted on the 'spine' of the ship. This is the BIG gun. :beamz: It smashes through any armor and can cause massive amounts of damage, but due to its 'fixed' nature, it has a very limited field of fire.
@ everybody: Started work on the engines. The right one is an early draft, the left one is the proposed one. Feedback, please!
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Well in RL capital ship armaments consist of 4 weapon types (although some of them are constructed without one type of these weapons, the ultor has all).
-1: spinal mount: leviathans (capital ships) often mount one of those awesome weapons (although some put more the emphasis on laser bays). picture a huge mass driver around which the ship is built (spine) hurling huge projectiles (crowbars) at near light speed. there are 5 types of spinals from A (lightest, mounted on destroyers and escorts) to E (heaviest, mounted on battleships). the ultor accomodates a D class (the E was invented later, as the ultor is an ageing yet potent design.
-2: laser bays: the primary hitting power of a leviathan, laser bays consist of 10/25/50/100 laser cannon packs of various leviathan type calibres. the most powerful are mounted on the sides so that the leviathan may fire broadsides of huge power, although some are mounted on the aft and fore as well. each calibre has a different range and damage factor, respectively according to the length (first number in meters) and width (in centimeters) of the gennium-arsenic crystal powering the laser guns.
the ultor sports 4 bays of 100 37.5/25 lasers (the most potent), 2 on both sides; 6 25 bays of 37.5/5 lasers (2 left, right and aft); and 2 10 bays of 37.5/5 on the fore.
-3: capital missile system: many leviathans (though not all) are mounted with a capital missile system. the system launches swarm of capital ship missiles with different ranges and warhead yields (A to I type, with E being the strongest). the ultor comes with a D system allowing it 3 salvos of the second higest yield missiles). Those missiles are destroyable by the turret systems or interceptor fire.
-4: antimissile/interceptor turret systems. Defensive turrets containing various fighter calibre weaponry (lasers, EPCs, NPCs, TPPs, mass drivers, fighter class missiles... the ultor has a battleship class turret cover net.
Furthermore, like all leviathans, the ultor is shielded (highest flicker rate I.E: efficiency) and mounts maximum armour, as a battleship. also the ultor can embark 48 various fighters (8 squadrons of 6), and can transport 12 small combat craft (from gunboat to corvette class), along with a host of auxillary ships like boarding units or shuttles).
A real power house. And wait till you hear the specs of the shiva, the illustris or the overlord...
Finally, the ultor scores a potent 2.5Km in length ;7
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No problem Enloch.
If you look at the cover of the RL sourcebook it IS the Leviathan... At least I remember that much from the late 80's.
As for the colors you'd have to talk to MR about that.
I Dl'ed the mod and it has more, if not just as many polies, as the others. In fact the opposite applies, the textures are woefully basic for models of that amount. BUt they can be improved.
I do like the hangar "module" and was going to ask permission to use it.
I got some ideas for attaching a chain of them on a station or the sides of a cap ship or transport.
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What do you mean, the 'hangar module'?
Of the Ultor?
Of the 'Leviathan'?
BTW, in Renegade Legions all capital ships are called 'Leviathans'. It's another word for 'capital ship', not a name for a specific class. The cover of the rulebook is both right and wrong in that aspect (I can see why you got a bit confused): what it shows is a 'Leviathan' (as in capital ship), but not a 'Leviathan' (as in a ship class or a ship named 'Leviathan'). I believe it's a Shiva class Battleship.
Confusing? :confused: Hope not. :)
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Enioch is absolutely right!
I made that mistake ages ago.
the leviathan you see of the board game of the same name is a shiva TOG battleship.
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You're probably right...
I only remember having it in my hands, I know I flipped through it but I'm a blank...
Regardless, use as a "guide" model, or not at all, it's atill a possible resource...
I thought you guys were in collusion with the SS RL mod, that's why I almost didn't repost it there. (redundancy)...
So that means the module is either Brad's or Achilles's.
Over and out.
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Can't say I quite understand, but whatever the issue was, it seems to have gone away... :)
Her new butt. Check out the greebling in the main engine recess, as well as the new ventral fin.
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Superb amount of detail. :nod:
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THE ULTOR IS DONE! :D
Well, OK, the fighterbay is still just a cubic recess, but I'm gonna do it with a detail box, so for the moment I'm done.
Four images follow. Please mark the points you want me to put guns on. This is important. Do it. Please.
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Superb! (although might you possibly tell me how I can point out the bays on the image)?
As far as bay placement is concerned though, I would like to place them so they can have maximum angle coverage. However, I wouldn't like to place them on the wings, but most likely on the body of the ship. Anyone caring to discuss placement with me?
The spinal is always in the front, so no worries about that, neither for the anti fighter turrets. However, we also need to work out how the missile system will be arranged...
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So, what's the purpose of the wings? They might occasionally be able to block shots that might otherwise hit a bay, but along with that protection comes the blocking of a region from that bay's fire.
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I quite agree, but data on that is more than sketchy, and I'm afraid I don't have an answer...
indeed, the wings might serve as fighter/small ship hosting, although 48 fighters is not much by any means for a battleship... :blah:
However, it's true that those winged designs (derfflinger, dochendal, etc...) are going to prove tricky as far as determining bay emplacement goes...
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@starlord:
Download the pics. Open them in Photoshop (or in Paint). Grab a red brush for bays, a blue one for the missiles, a green one for the turrets and a yellow one for the spinal. Then paint a few dots on the image, where you want the whatever-weapon-it-is to be.
@Aardwolf:
So, what's the purpose of the wings?
Cargo space, fuel storage, crew quarters (they are very cramped in the RL universe. There is a certain class of ...destroyers, I think, that hadn't even bunks for the crewmen), sensors, communication arrays. Take your pick.
Waiting for your weapon placement suggestions
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Ok, I believe I have suggestions as to where bay placements would be:
Feel free to comment.
Notes: the spinal mount would be slightly sticking out of the forward bow of the ship.
Also, the missile system would be one big amount of missile silos clustered together: they would release swarms of capships (similar to the ones in BSG, wish smart homing capability (homing on a hostile while avoiding friendlies) but slower, as those missiles would be pry to interceptor/turret fire.
As far as turrets are concerned, I'm not that sure yet as turrets can mount quite different fighter armaments, but as a battleship, the ultor has maximum coverage. I have a photo here determining what might look like a standard leviathan turrets: It appears to have 4 cannons and 1 hard point for fighter class missile weaponry. it's on page 7 of the leviathan rulebook (the small domes on the ship surface).
as to quarters, it's a good idea: I believe though that the carriers are the ones suffering from that most (the xerxes for one, but perhaps the destroyer class carriers even more). Indeed, how they squeeze 144 fighters and the host of small ships on the canis destroyer class carrier is beyond me... :eek:
feedback awaited...
Edit: while I think of it, I won't be here for the next 2 weeks, so I'll be off the boards for a while. i hope no one gets bothered by that.
Best regards.
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Well, one non-useful comment would be that you should upload those images somewhere more permanent, like photobucket. Attachments get deleted whenever the space is needed, so those nice images will be gone in a few days.
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Let them.
All I wanted was the weapons placement. I'll upload a few finished images to imageshack later on, when I've got some turrets to show off.
Oh, and @starlord: That square 'grid' in the lower fin that you marked as a bay is supposed to be windows. :p I'll put the bay lower down...
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Windows are they? Well I figured out that bay placement here would be interesting due to angle coverage...
Also, can you discern between the 25 and 100 broadside bays? 25 are naturally the smallest broadsides...
Also, in leviathan, some bays are depisted as capable of shooting at interceptor squadrons at long range. Perhaps we can have the smallest bays rigged to occasionnally fire at approaching interceptors, though when the range closens, this duty would be left to the turret systems.
as for turrets, you can also see the leviathan turrets I was referring to on the pegasus commonwhealth corvette (in interceptor, the first line of defense, at the end). The rear of the corvette mounts such a turret which i have described earlier (with 4 cannons and 1 harpoint). The TOG cingulum mounts another turret (with 3 cannons). Those 2 might be used along with varied fighter weaponry to serve as part of the leviathan turret system.
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Starlord, since you are on both forums how about trying to coordinate data between the 2 mods?
Maybe achilles or Brad knows about weapon placement locations?
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Well actually there are no canon documents as to where bay placement is.
However, should bradd have another theory on this...
I'm gonna take a while to answer though, as I'm leaving in 3 hours during 2 weeks...
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Heheh, I saw "in the RL universe" and was like... lol it's fiction? But then I was like OHHHH, he means "Renegade Legion"...
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So, what's the purpose of the wings? They might occasionally be able to block shots that might otherwise hit a bay, but along with that protection comes the blocking of a region from that bay's fire.
Heat sinks.
There is no air in space so ships need large surfaces to dissipate waste heat.
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Is this from a series of books or what? :)
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Series of tabletop games actually. Strategy and battle sim.
Here's the Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renegade_Legion)
There have been a few books (two or three) based on the universe, however.
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Like battlefleet gothic but less arse . . . . :)
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Nice work on the Ultor btw.
If you guys ever get something going I could cough up my capital ship: http://browniemajor.blogspot.com/2008/11/capital-ship.html (http://browniemajor.blogspot.com/2008/11/capital-ship.html). Model's more/less minus the turrets but haven't done anything beyond that. Freespace modding has dropped off my radar completely as of late. I've been doing more artwork just for myself to get a job and so forth.
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akalabeth, as far as standard turret coverage goes for leviathans, what would you recommend? Lasers, mass drivers? NPCs (I doubt EPCs would be used, due to their small range), definately fighter class missiles...
could you give your point here?
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akalabeth, as far as standard turret coverage goes for leviathans, what would you recommend? Lasers, mass drivers? NPCs (I doubt EPCs would be used, due to their small range), definately fighter class missiles...
could you give your point here?
Eh . . . probably just a mix of general purpose AF weapons. Mostly lasers and mass drivers I would think. I look at the Corvettes for a baseline to what a typical ship might carry for a turret. I imagine that larger ships would have similar turrets though perhaps with larger weapons.
For playability's sake it might be best to make them "ship scale" weapons and slightly slower. Since if anyone's noticed attacking a ship that mounts fighter weapons is a real pain in the butt because the weapons hit you pretty much all the time or at least come very close to doing so.
I might even go for some pulse type weapon. I think PI or some similar campaign, INFA or FoW??? uses weapons which fire a burst of say 5 shots. It looks a hell of a lot cooler and looks more like AF fire I think. Plus it'll be easier to distinguish from the ship to ship weapons.
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The pegasus has a very nice circular turret (4 cannons and 1 hardpoint) which could be used on leviathans, although the cingulum's 3 cannon turret could prove interesting too though.
As far as weapons are concerned, I would consider staying as close to canon as possible, so by pulse weaponry, what do you mean exactly?
AFAIK, the corvettes mount just about all energy weapons (as patrol ships often do, due to near lack of small bays/spinals), yet it might be a huge pain to set up an elaborate turret coverage taking account of all weapons... it's true however that given the curcumstances, all weapons might be candidates: the EPC has a very small range, but it can chew a fighter at point blank... on the other hand the NPC is longer ranged, so the fighter theoretically won't even be able to close in, I won't talk about the TPP as I don't know it well, but lasers and mass drivers are a must, as well as fighter missiles... I guess it all depends on tactics, but the booklets are not very talkative when it comes to that precise question.
I guess that a variety of turrets should be considered, each with their specific weapon loadout: pegasus type with 2 lasers, 2 mass drivers and 1 hard point, cingulum with 3 NPCs, Quad EPCs (perhaps near critical subsystems), etc...
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The pegasus has a very nice circular turret (4 cannons and 1 hardpoint) which could be used on leviathans, although the cingulum's 3 cannon turret could prove interesting too though.
As far as weapons are concerned, I would consider staying as close to canon as possible, so by pulse weaponry, what do you mean exactly?
Well the turrets are defined as much of anything really, so there's the possibility to be inventive.
By pulse I mean a turret which fires a "primary" (non-seaking shot) but fires them in a volley. Like they used in the TBP. So if it was a mass driver for example, it fires a burst of say 4-5 mass driver rounds.
Looks cooler imo.
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Indeed! Might also inspire fear to fighters. :nod:
Actually, that's why I was going for multipart turrets... also, this way, we can cheat of the ship's turret armament by letting it fire more substantial (and more diverse, say lasers + mass drivers) volleys.
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Indeed! Might also inspire fear to fighters. :nod:
Actually, that's why I was going for multipart turrets... also, this way, we can cheat of the ship's turret armament by letting it fire more substantial (and more diverse, say lasers + mass drivers) volleys.
Hmmmn, you might be able to do a multi-barrel turret ala the Orion and have one barrel fire say a 4 projectile volley and the other fire a completely different sort of weapon (even a missile?) not sure how that would work out in practice.
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I was thinking about thoseenergy weapons, and I was wondering if there was a way to make a damage/range variant:
For instance, the EPC is very powerful at close range, but much weaker as the range expands (AFAIK, wing commander weapons have some traits like this so perhaps saga is also working on this...)
On the other hand, the greater the range of the NPC (before it fades) the greater the damage...
Has that possibility been covered in a TC yet? Is it feasable under FS?
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On the other hand, the greater the range of the NPC (before it fades) the greater the damage...
Has that possibility been covered in a TC yet? Is it feasable under FS?
You'd be better off asking in the SCP forum I would think rather than assume some random coder will read this thread out of personal interest. I think this topic has been covered before and the answer then was no and I assume it still is. There's a lot in RL that seems unlikely to translate over to FS2 quite honestly.
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Any model updates yet? Ie- Textures? :blah:
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Well enioch is due to his vacations too. :lol:
However, I guess that's bound to happen...
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I UV Mapped half of that Commonwealth destroyer I did ages ago, but haven't finished it yet. I might be doing some freelance work on a small flash game in the immediate near future so any personal projects will hit the back burner fairly quickly.
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Pity, as the design for the enmity was truly inspiring (although I think it was based on 3 engines whereas the model had 2).
Also, I was thinking about the leviathan textures. We don't have anything canon related to that do we? The only leviathan pictures I've seen appear pearly white...
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Pity, as the design for the enmity was truly inspiring (although I think it was based on 3 engines whereas the model had 2).
Also, I was thinking about the leviathan textures. We don't have anything canon related to that do we? The only leviathan pictures I've seen appear pearly white...
Hmmn, when I texture it I'll just make something up.
And yeah I forgot about the 3 engine thing for the Emnity, though the model itself has 4 not 3 so someone can say that three engines generate the power but it's all directed out of four thrusters or something.
EDIT - Oh wait no I was right, I put six engines on there, two per "RL statistic" so effectively it has three:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_3EX_cTYnv-o/SRHF6d4d2wI/AAAAAAAAAD8/LuCBBgvNWgM/s1600-h/enmitylarge_02.jpg (http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_3EX_cTYnv-o/SRHF6d4d2wI/AAAAAAAAAD8/LuCBBgvNWgM/s1600-h/enmitylarge_02.jpg)
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Yes, but don't they refer to right/center/left engines in RL?
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Yes, but don't they refer to right/center/left engines in RL?
Yeah but I take liberties with source material.
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I was thinking about thoseenergy weapons, and I was wondering if there was a way to make a damage/range variant:
For instance, the EPC is very powerful at close range, but much weaker as the range expands (AFAIK, wing commander weapons have some traits like this so perhaps saga is also working on this...)
On the other hand, the greater the range of the NPC (before it fades) the greater the damage...
Has that possibility been covered in a TC yet? Is it feasable under FS?
I don't know if anyone has really used it yet, but it is possible, at least for beam weapons. See the wiki for more info (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Weapons.tbl#.24BeamInfo:).
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I was thinking about thoseenergy weapons, and I was wondering if there was a way to make a damage/range variant:
For instance, the EPC is very powerful at close range, but much weaker as the range expands (AFAIK, wing commander weapons have some traits like this so perhaps saga is also working on this...)
On the other hand, the greater the range of the NPC (before it fades) the greater the damage...
Has that possibility been covered in a TC yet? Is it feasable under FS?
I don't know if anyone has really used it yet, but it is possible, at least for beam weapons. See the wiki for more info (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php
/Weapons.tbl#.24BeamInfo:).
Well. The Electron and Neutron Particle Cannons (NPC and EPC) are both fighter mounted weapons. Sooo . . .I'm not sure how feasible beams are with fighters at this point. Last I heard you had to throw it on a turret and hope the AI fired at the right time or something to that effect. The player cannot actually trigger it, or cannot trigger it with the right delay??? Something like that, I'm not sure.
Still something worth looking into once some models get in-game.
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Look at TBP's WhiteStar. Player-controlled beams certainly are possible, but take some ai-profiles tweaking to work correctly.
More specifically, look at the Neutron beams' #player variant. It's a beam with basically no warmup or cooldown period, so it can be fired like most other primaries. For another example, the Nial's primaries are very beam-like.
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well, the WC fighter weapons work the same, so perhaps saga has some plans to work out with this (they already are working on uneven armour for fighters).
example: the neutron gun is close range, and damage diminishes with distance (in the WC games), very much like the EPC. the NPC is the contrary...