Hard Light Productions Forums
Community Projects => The FreeSpace Upgrade Project => Topic started by: Kolgena on January 26, 2011, 04:25:14 pm
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The greebles feel too thematically similar to those on the Medusa. That might be the root of the problem.
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Telling someone to change their modeling style just because you find its association to vaguely similar detail on another model of the same modeler ruins a ship for you is silly
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I'm not saying that it's ruining the ship, but they're clearly different generations of ships and should look different because of that.
Whatever, I'll wait for more progress before saying anything else.
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I can think of only a hand-full of other people I'd trust as completely with the Deimos. If it looks too different for some people, well, they can play with the current hi-poly model.
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Definitely will do that, good idea.
There's no need to make a separate version with side mounted turrets. One will be enough. By default we can table these side turrets not to be functional, untargetable and carry any damage received straight to hull. Then any mods can enable these with just tabling.
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Yeah, was definitely going to do that.
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But then we can see fake turrets...
Hell, people were complaining about extra nearly-invisible turrets (potentially) appearing on the Cain/Lilith (and on the Typhon)...
You couldn't even tell those were turrets, but people still complained about them.
I don't think big, honking fake multiparts on the side of the hull is such a good idea...
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Let haters hate and let the rest not give a ****.
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Fine. I'll just chop them off with PCS2 for my "MediaVPs" copy and keep the one with them for if I ever intend to use them.
Takes all of five seconds anyway \o/.
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The point is to make two separate models. One, normal HTL Deimos with the same turrets for use as a replacement for the current Deimos and another HTL Deimos except with the turrets that were cut for use in custom campaigns.
It is doubtful the model with the new turrets would even be in the MVPs, but rather released separately.
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I see no reason to make two separate models when you can do just one and let tabling do the rest. It is no reason to complain any if you see non-functional turrets on the side, but of course that doesn't stop people from complaining since that's what they do the best.
Now though, this subject is pointless until the Deimos is complete. So lets shut up about it and let Hades keep working.
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It's funny, no one suggests cutting off the side bombardment beams on the Lucifer or even wines about them. I also find it funny how a lot of people were going 'don't greeble it too much, make it smooth' and when I do just that, people start going 'it's too smooth, angle it back out'. It's quite hilarious.
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Yes indeed. I can definitely see why some people like RGA opts to keep their work under wraps until it is mostly done, even if that led to having two different Saths but whatever.
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The problem about those side turrets here is that they are big, very visible multiparts. Which wasn't the case of the Lucy's side bombardment beams. But I'm just all like "Whoe cares" anyway, people who don't like that can, like Droid said, grab PCS2 and remove em. 2 min job.
Keep up the good work Hades.
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The problem about those side turrets here is that they are big, very visible multiparts. Which wasn't the case of the Lucy's side bombardment beams. But I'm just all like "Whoe cares" anyway, people who don't like that can, like Droid said, grab PCS2 and remove em. 2 min job.
Keep up the good work Hades.
The Luci's bombardment beams are nearly the size of a Fenris. There aren't a lot of turrets bigger or more visible than that.
The Deimos not using its side multi-parts could easily be because they serve a specialty purpose the player knows nothing about, or because they're not worth the energy in most situations. Hell, maybe they're bombardment guns, or for shooting space-jumping Shivans. I don't see what the big deal is having a non-functional gun or four.
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The problem about those side turrets here is that they are big, very visible multiparts. Which wasn't the case of the Lucy's side bombardment beams.
Not... really. The Lucifer's bombardment beams' radius is about that of a Fenris' height.
The Lucifer's bombardment beams don't actually look like beams, there's the knack. They could just as well be a completely different piece of alien technology. In addition, the addition of those didn't change that much from the original, it just added four prongs - which were also visible in all CBanims and cutscenes, and can hence be assumed to be "what :v: meant to do with it".
Now this Deimos has big obvious extra turrets, really shouting "I'M SUPPOSED TO BE SHOOTING STUFF BUT I DON'T LOLOLOL". They were only there to make the box art look cool, and they are not present anywhere in the actual game - look at the endgame1 cutscene, note the absence of big honkin' side turrets on the Deimos there.
Point is, I don't think you can compare these added turrets to the Lucifer's.
In the FS universe there just is no sensible reason to have fake turrets; the Shivans really are not scared away by them. In addition, imagine the load of newbies that will pop up going "why aren't those turrets firing plz help me I want them to shoot stuff".
Compare this to Fury's (nothing personal btw) main argument for having only one version: "because we can".
In short, I really think that having two separate versions is the better option. The benefits of it will greatly outweigh the extra modelling work.
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There has to be 2 versions, or it wont go into the MediaVPs, surely? There's precedent for disallowing ships with extra turrets, this would presumably be no different.
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Only if the extra turrets worked by default would it automatically break the rule. Otherwise, it is up for debate.
If the extra turrets occluded another turret/subsystem and made it more difficult to hit, or broke a mission because it could not be hit from a certain angle, it would be an issue and have to be removed. I highly doubt that would ever happen, and the FSU has pretty thorough testing standards anyways, so it would be caught anyways.
And again, its a two second PCS2 job. 4 seconds if PCS2 crashes.
Also, please do not forget: Hades is FSU. He knows the rules and he knows how far he can stretch it. Also, he has suddenly become one of the more impressive modelers on HLP, so I trust him.
This debate should be put to rest. It is no longer relevant.
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Impressive modeller or not, people jumped all over Trashman when he suggested and did this exact same thing - how or why should this be different? Especially on such a (relatively) small ship, where the turrets are so much more prominent?
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R U SRS?
Did you find one, and only one thing out of my post, pull it out, and ignore everything?
Your concern: "(relatively) small ship, where the turrets are so much more prominent"
FSU. TESTING. CATCH BUG. SQUASH BUG. Jesus man I addressed any concerns of game breaking in the last post.
And. If you still cannot find satisfaction within that response, and assuming FSU does not find any errors and removes the turrets themselves, then you can plop your ass into PCS2, find the turrets, and click the little red 'x'.
Can we shut up about this now?
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Nope.
It's not about game balance persay, it's about people wasting time in mission hammering away at turrets which don't do anything. We shouldn't see a turret and have to think "Oh yeah, this is the MVP deimos, which has thing that look exactly like turrets on it, but which are no threat to me or any of the ships I ought to be guarding, I can ignore them." We should just be able to see a turret, kill a turret. Keep it simple.
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This thread is getting retarded very, very fast. Everyone stand down, trust the FSU team to do their job, and let Hades model his stuff. Seriously.
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The problem about those side turrets here is that they are big, very visible multiparts. Which wasn't the case of the Lucy's side bombardment beams.
*Snip*
Not... really. The Lucifer's bombardment beams' radius is about that of a Fenris' height.
As for the side guns, I might change the function up a but (make them have large, single barrels for heavier guns, missile pods, etc)
I haven't gotten to the chingine (chin engine) yet, still want to finish up the rest a bit more first.
I really like how it looks there, as well as your idea for alternative weapon systems for the side turrets on the Cover Box version. :)
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Nope.
It's not about game balance persay, it's about people wasting time in mission hammering away at turrets which don't do anything. We shouldn't see a turret and have to think "Oh yeah, this is the MVP deimos, which has thing that look exactly like turrets on it, but which are no threat to me or any of the ships I ought to be guarding, I can ignore them." We should just be able to see a turret, kill a turret. Keep it simple.
That's why they can be set as untargetable. And if you're trying to shoot them down just by visual, you have to be facing them, in which case simple pressing "v" key (target subsys in reticle) will tell you that it's the unused one. Problem solved.
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I don't want to say how many time the V key has failed me in pointing out which part of the ship I'm actually shooting... :nervous:
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I am definitely 100% with BW here. Extra turrets should ONLY be on a variant model, not on the MVP original. Who can say if there will be missions with targeting disabled a la that one Wings of Dawn EMP mission? What if someone has their sensors shot off?
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Man. I didn't know such a suggestion would bring up so much heated debate. Personally, I'm on the no-extra-visible-guns-on-the-default-version side, but if they can be removed in PCS2 without leaving any notable discrepancies in the mesh (like a conspicuous space in the underlying model), then I've no objections. I do have another suggestion however, but it could be more of a can of worms... though less in terms of overt aesthetics. My suggestion comes down to visual effects, borrowing a technique that so far I've only seen used on the Boadicea... subsystem debris. When for example, a turret is destroyed on a normal ship, there's an explosion, some briefly rendered generic debris chunks that disappear almost immediately, and then you see the destroyed model of the turret (if one was included). Including subsystem debris means that visible chunks of the destroyed submodel will be spawned from the explosion that actually look like they used to be part of it, and they won't disappear after a second or two. The Boadicea used this so that chunks of the asteroid surface could be blown away. The only thing that might need some source code additions would be to give enough outward momentum to the debris, as on the Boadicea they don't fly away at any great pace. The drawbacks to using this (that I know of) are down to the number of polys... though a more informed modeler/coder might have more reasons to shoot down this suggestion.
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One issue with debris is how it effects balance. Imagine that a ship has added debris for the cool factor, but it basically becomes giant shrapnel hurling through space and impacting other ships, significantly damaging them.
Subsystem debris is relatively small, but the potential is still there.
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People keep bringing up the Lucifer, but the problem is that's not really comparable. The Lucifer's bombardment turrets on the side, you look at them and you don't think gun because they don't actually look like a gun, or for that matter terribly threatening. Deactivated and not targetable, they only register as being shiney greebly bits like the spikes on the Lucifer's back. These, on the other hand, are very visibly and very clearly weapons, even if not activated in the tables. Not only would this possibly cause problems for a player in a hurry or in a primitive-sensors/no-sensors situation, it would be aesthetically strange to watch a Deimos with the turrets on it but not activated while fighting because it would clearly have weapons that it's not using.
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Yeah, I'm very much with Black Wolf and Battuta and NGTM-1R on this. The potential for confusion aside (I can guarantee that I'd probably try to blow them off at some point, and I actually know the game), I feel like having big obvious guns tacked onto the sides of the Deimos that don't really do anything would just look plain stupid. Like, the first thought that would come to any semi-new player's mind would be, "Well this looks wrong...maybe something's screwed up with the game." There's also the question of aesthetics; I've always associated the Deimos with "smooth-sided space brick," and having random turrets hanging off the sides totally nerfs that.
(Also, the suggestion that I should have to download some modding tool I don't have installed and have no use for and then learn how to use it far enough to delete the extra turrets just to take care of the issue seems fairly asinine. But maybe that's just me.)
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You people are hypocritical if you bash on c914 and TrashMan for including extra turrets that don't even look like turrets that would be disabled, but are absolutely fine with massive multiparts hanging off the side.
Look at which has a higher potential of misleading players to shoot at them : random little knobs/lights on the hull, or a full-blown multipart turret?
Do note that the first were given a big fat NO.
The only one that stuck was the Lucifer's "bombardment beams", which are really just a set of claws...that appeared in every cutscene, and basically don't look like turrets. AT ALL.
The only real solution is to sabotage all the turrets at mission start (or whenever it arrives), but that means you can't have a -destroyed object or subsystem debris.
What exactly is wrong with having two models?
Are you assuming modders are so incompetent they can't go to FSMods and download the upturreted version?
Yes, I'm assuming new players can't tell real and fake turrets apart, which I feel is a fair assumption...
Now, unless there's an option to hide the subsystem entirely via tables, I think the turrets should go, just because of the confusion it could cause. Even if the turrets could be hidden, there shouldn't be platforms for the side turrets cause it'd look strange with them gone. (this is in response to the example Hades currently has up).
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What turrets on the Cain are we all referring to?
And my point to drop it is that it is so easily changable, and up to Hades. The opinions have been heard, and no one has anything to add. Droids post is a fne example of adding very little to any point that has been made, and everyoje is repeating themselvess.
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This argument is pretty god damned silly. Not because of what people have said, but because it's irrelevant for a model so early on in its infancy.
I know something like this could theoretically 'break' things, there's no need for you all to blow up at me as if I don't know anything about balance. I, frankly, find it insulting.
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The Cain Turret Issue: http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=64780.0
c914 wanted to add a few turrets to make its armament more symmetric.
people blew up.