Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The Modding Workshop => Topic started by: Fury on January 04, 2011, 01:15:44 pm
-
Today we discussed this subject at #scp-fsu.
Everyone agreed that adding shield meshes to all ships that don't have them, such as capital ships, transports, freighters, etc would be very beneficial to the community. Plenty of FSU staffers also approved of adding any such ships to mediavps because shield meshes do not interfere if they aren't turned on, thus preserving retail compatibility. I don't know what is Galemp's stand here, but I'd imagine same applies to fsport-mediavps.
Since a lot of FSU staffers and other people approved of this, the next step is obviously to get some people to do shield meshes. Any volunteers? :)
There should be some consistency in the shape and size of shield meshes. Personally I'd favor a shape that follows the ship's shape but is large enough to allow fighters and bombers get past it and fire at unshielded hull.
-
Is there any sort of triangle limit or something, or has that been removed?
-
Not Star Trek/Star Gate style shields?
-
Everyone agreed that adding shield meshes to all ships that don't have them, such as capital ships, transports, freighters, etc would be very beneficial to the community.
What would be the benefits, other than adding a bit more variety in custom-made campaigns?
-
I dunno, judging by the few FS1 ANIs of shielding (Lucifer, as an example) it seems Volition definitely was set on a fully form-fitting shield which fighters cannot get into, so at least for capital ships I think it'd need to be impenetrable by fighters/bombers going through the shield.
-
Or the lucfer'S shields were just too tight. Anyway i like the idea. Volition started something on the bigger shipes, i believe some freighter has a shield mesh, so why not all of them. Even if it adds the "little variety" to user made campaigns, i think it's worth it.
-
Everyone agreed that adding shield meshes to all ships that don't have them, such as capital ships, transports, freighters, etc would be very beneficial to the community.
What would be the benefits, other than adding a bit more variety in custom-made campaigns?
Wouldn't that be enough?
-
Is there any sort of triangle limit or something, or has that been removed?
Don't know. I posted your question on #scp but nobody replied.
Not Star Trek/Star Gate style shields?
As long as shield mesh itself matches form of the ship, scale of shield mesh is easy to edit. You can downscale it to become form-fitting that fighters can't get past of. Having a shield mesh in the first place is the important part though.
What would be the benefits, other than adding a bit more variety in custom-made campaigns?
Plenty enough of a reason. Variety is always good, especially when it comes in easily accessible and modifiable manner.
I dunno, judging by the few FS1 ANIs of shielding (Lucifer, as an example) it seems Volition definitely was set on a fully form-fitting shield which fighters cannot get into, so at least for capital ships I think it'd need to be impenetrable by fighters/bombers going through the shield.
Lucifer was always a special case with it's five reactors powering a shield that was impenetrable. It being also form-fitting to separate it from other shielded capitals is a good exception.
-
Wouldn't that be enough?
Plenty enough of a reason. Variety is always good, especially when it comes in easily accessible and modifiable manner.
Is that the only reason, or there's something else we should know about it?
-
That's the only reason
-
Adding meshes would be easy if PCS2 had functionality present in Modelview from beggning, namely shield importing and scaling.
-
Would these shields be on by standard? While shields on capitals is a really nice idea, I can imagine the HORROR if someone in their one-man campaign would forget to turn shields off in FRED making players fight a shielded Orion.
-
That's a dumb question.
Of course they won't be on by default :rolleyes:
They wouldn't be tabled in by default (0 shields in retail tables), so unless you alter the tables to give ships shields, they won't have any.
hell, some ships already have shield meshes.
The only ship this would affect in any way is the Mjolnir, which DOES have shield hitpoints tabled in by default, but no shield mesh.
-
That's a dumb question.
Of course they won't be on by default :rolleyes:
They wouldn't be tabled in by default (0 shields in retail tables), so unless you alter the tables to give ships shields, they won't have any.
hell, some ships already have shield meshes.
The only ship this would affect in any way is the Mjolnir, which DOES have shield hitpoints tabled in by default, but no shield mesh.
I don't do tables, I was under the assumption they are on in FRED if they have shields.
-
actually, some retail ships (Mjolnir IIRC) have nonzero shield TBL values but no meshes, thus no shields. IIRC this has been fixed however, since having shields meant that shield quadrants were still displayed on the small icon below the reticle (Not the ship icon next to the target box, the number below the reticle).
And Droid803: I think there was a hard triangle limit at one point but it was fixed, no no problems there.
-
If they have a shield mesh but no tabled shield hitpoints, they can easily be enabled in FRED by using custom hitpoints. Even if this were implemented, nobody would have to modify any tables to turn them on in their missions.
I don't necessarily like the idea of capital ships having shields, but this is a case of "if somebody else wants to do it, fine by me". It won't actually affect me one way or another. If somebody makes some cool missions with it, I can't lose. :yes:
-
This would actually be really awesomesauce.
-
actually, some retail ships (Mjolnir IIRC) have nonzero shield TBL values but no meshes, thus no shields. IIRC this has been fixed however, since having shields meant that shield quadrants were still displayed on the small icon below the reticle (Not the ship icon next to the target box, the number below the reticle).
The Mjolnir's the only ship like that, to my knowledge.
-
Hygeia.
-
I thought support ships had shield meshes.
I mean, I've always heard the shield impact sound when shooting at them :nervous:
-
Oh so they do. I never remember it doing anything though.
-
What aboot the Amazon drone? (have not checked the model but that's the way it always seemed to me)
-
I think it was actually the poseidon, or that's what i've been told.
-
I think it was actually the poseidon, or that's what i've been told.
No, the Poseidon has a shield mesh but no shield points, that's the other way round. The Mjolnir has shield points but no shield mesh.
In fact all the freighters and transports in FS1 possessed shield meshes but had 0 shield points in the tables.
-
really?... wonder why :confused:
-
really?... wonder why :confused:
Early FS Alpha shots showed even the Shivan Cain class cruiser with shields (I believe this was back when Shivans were Borg-green instead of red). Leads me to believe that most capital ships had shields up until a certain point in development.
-
Capital ships having shields makes them a lot harder for fighters to kill, cause they generally have a higher shield hitpoint number (and thus a higher regeneration rate), decreasing the 'usefulness' of fighters, which was probably against what they wanted in design.
-
Still, anybody using these models in a campaign that takes place during the FS1/FS2 timeframe better have a damn good explanation for why the technological hurdle to shield largeships just up and vanished. :nervous:
I guess my post is slightly off-topic for this thread, as I'm not arguing against adding them.
Also; for some of the HTL models out there, could some of the retail models or lower LODs be used as starting points for close to form-fitting meshes?
-
I know from testing the shield frigate for the Homeworld mod that shields can have at least 320 faces with no problems.
The only problem I saw from it was that if you fly inside the shield and shoot at the hull, the impact sound is the same as when you hit the shield.
-
The only problem I saw from it was that if you fly inside the shield and shoot at the hull, the impact sound is the same as when you hit the shield.
Curious, I just tried this in FSPort using a fairly current nightly build. I made a mission with a single Chronos freighter and added shield hitpoints using FRED. I can confirm that even if you're hitting nothing but hull, as long as their are shields left you get the shield hit sound.
-
The only problem I saw from it was that if you fly inside the shield and shoot at the hull, the impact sound is the same as when you hit the shield.
Curious, I just tried this in FSPort using a fairly current nightly build. I made a mission with a single Chronos freighter and added shield hitpoints using FRED. I can confirm that even if you're hitting nothing but hull, as long as their are shields left you get the shield hit sound.
To be fair, nobody had really explored the concept of a ship with a huge shield mesh to protect other ships in its envelope. The shield frigate I imported into the homeworld mod had 320 faces and a 200 meter radius and shielded everything inside it with no issues until you flew into it.
-
It's been explored. It is indeed sometimes funny.
-
The "shield impact sound when shooting the hull" is a bug and should be fixed.
It'll get especially glaring with WCS release, since the easiest way to kill a carrier (WC3 onwards) it to fly into it's hangar bay and under it's shields.
-
WCS bugs are no longer our concern, ever since they forked the code.
-
OK, then let's fix it for Wings of Dawn and it's shielded caps. :)
And I think that it could also show up in FOTG, though SW ships ussualy have shields that stick to the hull (hangars are still unshielded though).
-
Well ho ho, I just tried a ship with a 4000-face shield mesh with a 10 km radius....and it works!
Seems like shield mesh face limits not a issue now... :o
-
More controll over the scaling of impact effect would be nice though.
Also, I found that beams don't make shield impact sound, even when hitting the shield (with "no pierce shields" flag).