Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The Modding Workshop => Topic started by: Water on August 30, 2010, 08:42:28 am
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This is something I've been working on in the background for a while. It's an attempt to see how a large hangar bay might work and at the same time produce mainhalls using modular components.
It's nowhere near as advanced as mjn.mixael's Galatea mainhall project.
One of the ideas I came up with was a universal fighter tray capable of reconfiguring to accept most of the FS fighters and the Athena light bomber.
(http://i229.photobucket.com/albums/ee67/waternz/Mainhall/a-fighter-tray.jpg)
Another one was about storage, using a rack method developed for cars. This rack can hold twenty two fighters. Another possibility is to have the trays move instead.
(http://i229.photobucket.com/albums/ee67/waternz/Mainhall/a-fighter-rack.jpg)
My starting assumption on the racks is that the Bastion mainhall is for fighter launch and recovery with sixteen trays equal to four wings. The rest of the hangar is devoted to other tasks. Placement is subject to change though. Further to the rear we have elevators for the heavies like the Ursa etc. Other areas are assigned to support ships, bombers and weapons. Excuse the mess.
(http://i229.photobucket.com/albums/ee67/waternz/Mainhall/a-fighter-bay1.jpg)
The aim hopefully, is to develop a few mainhalls with this messy Bastion wip being another one.
(http://i229.photobucket.com/albums/ee67/waternz/Mainhall/A-bastion1.jpg)
At a later stage it should be possible to walk around the hangar bay, either in a mini game or in a browser using Unity.
Feedback welcome
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you're my hero
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WAY cool. :eek2:
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Just out of curiosity, do all those fighthers actually fit inside an Orion destroyer?
I've always been complaining about the size of the fighters compared to the capital ships so now you've got something like that I would like to know if my relative size perception is right or wrong :p
To add some feedback to your work:
I see you are using a grip to move the fighters into that universal fighter tray from their slots, maybe the other idea of turning the racks into universal fighter trays themselves is better, you could use a rail system to move the fighters directly from the racks to the launching position and back without having to wait for the tray itself to be free.
I guess the worst problem with that would be the increase in polycount, but I recon this will not be added in models so that problem can be overlooked.
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This seems to be intended for static renders only; polycount is not that much of an issue.
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This.... :eek2: This.... is extremely, extremely cool stuff.
I'm wondering how pilots will board their ships. I've always assumed from [V]'s mainhalls that there might be walkways/gangways running along the walls linking each bay, with ladders attached to them (or elevators perhaps). You've probably got a solution sorted out for that anyway. :)
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Damn. I was hoping I'd be able to work on the Bastion mainhall too. :p
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Why not work on the Aquitaine map?
There's also a certain want for a Solaris or Karuna mainhall....(hint)
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This is pretty cool and more in-depth than what I'm doing! Nice work.
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Hmm, just realised that there are walkways leading to the fighter trays in that modified retail Bastion mainhall shot in the original post. :o So I guess that's covered already.
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Just out of curiosity, do all those fighthers actually fit inside an Orion destroyer?
I've always been complaining about the size of the fighters compared to the capital ships so now you've got something like that I would like to know if my relative size perception is right or wrong :p
I see you are using a grip to move the fighters into that universal fighter tray from their slots, maybe the other idea of turning the racks into universal fighter trays themselves is better, you could use a rail system to move the fighters directly from the racks to the launching position and back without having to wait for the tray itself to be free.
I guess the worst problem with that would be the increase in polycount, but I recon this will not be added in models so that problem can be overlooked.
They did. I had the camera set up incorrectly allowing the trays to be a lot closer to each other. Unfortunately with it fixed, the extra distance between trays adds up, pushing the support ship out the rear. It's something I've got to rework. With the high density racks space isn't a problem at all. At a later stage is should be possible to do a cutaway of an Orion showing where this stuff fits in.
All the rack trays need to be the universal type as a mixture of fighters will be there at any one time. Poly count only becomes an issue for a realtime walkthrough.
(or elevators perhaps). You've probably got a solution sorted out for that anyway. :)
Although hard to spot, both the Bastion and FS2 mainhall both show several small lifts traveling from the main flightdeck to the fighter tray walkways.
Damn. I was hoping I'd be able to work on the Bastion mainhall too. :p
heh, which version?
This is pretty cool and more in-depth than what I'm doing! Nice work.
Thanks, still a lot of hard work to catch up to you though.
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Wow that's so cool - and I love the configurable platforms and the crane arm thing! Awesomely functional. :)
Have you had any thoughts about what standard fighter retrieval procedures might involve? Like the medusa and ursa can just plonk themselves down, but fighters like the valk, herc and uly can't really do that if they want to be able to take off again without days of repair work. The only landing/taking off we see in FS is in the vasudan mainhall, which doesn't really tell us much about how terrans might do it.
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Here's what I think could work.
Starting with the fighter trays shown in the Bastion hall.
The fighters launch and land on these trays. The crane picks them up and moves them to the racks. Newly landed fighters get rotated 180 before rack placement. At the bottom of the rack is the maintenance and weapon loading areas. So besides fighter storage, the racks get to move prepped fighters up, fighters requiring servicing down and at the same time acting as a queueing system.
Thoughts?
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Hangar... Hanger is something you put your coat to hang on. Or some one who hangs things (or people).
And yes.. It is pretty
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An Orion Hanger hangs Orions. :D
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Another one of my dozens of FS continuity questions answered... Really nice man o_o
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Hangar... Hanger is something you put your coat to hang on. Or some one who hangs things (or people).
Thanks, completely missed that.
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Gotta say, this is looking impressive. :yes: Are you planning to try and scale it to fit the Orion model at some point? I've always wondered how they fit all the fighters into capital ships without taking up all the space, and this project would be great for working that out.
Excellent work. Best of luck with the rest of it! :)
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This idea is amazing! Looking forward to it. :)
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Gotta say, this is looking impressive. :yes: Are you planning to try and scale it to fit the Orion model at some point? I've always wondered how they fit all the fighters into capital ships without taking up all the space, and this project would be great for working that out.
It already does (mostly). Part of the reason for the stacked fighters is to save space. I've re-though the layout a bit so some of that's changing.
I'm away for a week so I won't get to touch this again till next weekend.
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Sorry for the :bump: but I think this is too cool to leave drifting towards the end of this board.
Has this developed any further?
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Progress has been made, but haven't had a chance to work on it since Christmas.
The Galatea is a good check for wall dimensions. Sorry about the masterchief, sourced it from the net (no name in the archive)
The railings need to be sorted.
(http://i229.photobucket.com/albums/ee67/waternz/Mainhall/galatea-walls.jpg)
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love it, nice work
hmm with the Master Chief in the GTA, the shivans better surrender :P
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Thanks for replying, Water. Hopefully you can replace the Master Chief models with the new character models that mjn.mixael is in the process of making.
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:lol:
I think the Master Chief should be in one of the main halls as a background character, just as an Easter Egg. :D
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Heh, he's scaled to three meters, but as they're freespace meters, anythings possible.
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What I'd really like to happen with hangar/launch bays/landing paths: actually landing and taking off from, even be sitting in a ship while is being moved from their storage position to the launching bay and then receiving the green light and take off for every/most mission. Also seeing this ships move and take off as the missions requests them: "Delta wing is taking off to support you Alpha" and being able to actually see the animation and actually have available for the mission as many ships as the Capital Ship has inside.
That would be a cool addition to the game IMHO.
Is this why this is being worked on?
P.S.: I searched for "aunch bays" and the most recent thread I could find was this one.
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firstly a 1 year :necro:
secondly
No this is for an upgrade to the graphics for the FSPort menu, see http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=71036.0 for the current progress
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technopredator, would you please stop resurrecting ages old topics all the damned time. Just don't do it unless you have very good reason to do so. Thank you.
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And no, in this case, you would be better off starting a completely new topic.
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So is only for a menu display, too bad.
OK I'll try not to "necro-tread" but then you complain that peole don't use the 'Search' function, you should have a specific time to consider a thread dead unless necessary to post in, if you don't have it.
I'll not start a topic on what I wanted because there is not point, clearly the best advances towards it is this, older topics suggested something similar to my idea but no work so far that I can see, so at the seems nobody is working on it and nobody cares to. I know the game can work without it but I suggested it because in term of gameplay improvement I think it would be a "Cool++" feature, but well...
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OK I'll try not to "necro-tread" but then you complain that peole don't use the 'Search' function, you should have a specific time to consider a thread dead unless necessary to post in, if you don't have it.
There is.
Warning: this topic has not been posted in for at least 30 days.
Unless you're sure you want to reply, please consider starting a new topic.
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So is only for a menu display, too bad.
OK I'll try not to "necro-tread" but then you complain that peole don't use the 'Search' function, you should have a specific time to consider a thread dead unless necessary to post in, if you don't have it.
I'll not start a topic on what I wanted because there is not point, clearly the best advances towards it is this, older topics suggested something similar to my idea but no work so far that I can see, so at the seems nobody is working on it and nobody cares to. I know the game can work without it but I suggested it because in term of gameplay improvement I think it would be a "Cool++" feature, but well...
- There is a bit difference between a thread that is a couple of weeks to a couple of months old and one that is over a year old.
- Water says in the op that this is a project looking into updating the menus nothing more and the discussion in this thread never goes down the path you are looking for
- A search query that finds this should find the thread i linked to which is more up to date
- as for the features you are asking about some features along those lines have been discussed in relation to the catapult system used in BSG for the Diaspora team
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Oh that message... lol, yeah I overlooked it.
I over-read that too, I thought it was a remodeling of Orion for FSO.
Well obviously I didn't find it with the term I entered, all I ofund was 2003-2006 threads (odd enough) and this one, I even tried 2 different terms set.
- as for the features you are asking about some features along those lines have been discussed in relation to the catapult system used in BSG for the Diaspora team
See? that is so cool, it would be great that being an important FSO improvement it could be easier to find, maybe on an admin. only edit master sticky: "Major FSO upgrade discussions" where you'd have only links to the actual threads, or something like that it occurs to me, maybe another with "minor upgrades" or something... I mean like a 'master sticky' that I saw, but engulfing the features/models you're working on FSO, FSU & by project, small/big ones, so you don't have so often: "you know what would be cool..." threads. Also another one with discarded ideas that are too far away from FSO game path.
I have seen the stickies of FSU & SCP & there is not such sticky. I'd lurk more for sure and post less (since you don't like me here nor in RC, yeah don't worry, I notice it) if you had it and the search engine wouldn't give me pages of old threads