Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The Modding Workshop => Topic started by: 67th GW Leader on June 08, 2002, 02:08:29 pm
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Hi all
I was making a mission for a campaign, and i was thinking "Hmm... a marine dropship would be great for this scenario" Along the lines of the one from Halo, or the game "dropship" for the playstation 2... you know... shaped like a plane.
Has anyone got something like this? or have they got something they could class as a dropship? if so, and you are willing to let me use it. send it to [email protected]
Thanks
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I could make you one, but as yet none of my models have worked properly, and I suck at texturing! :D:D:D
I could make you the cob, and you find someone to perfect it, if you'd like. :)
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Elysiums are used as troop transports and dropships in the FS universe...
Argos are usually cargo transports but can be used for marine boarding operations.
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if you could killfrenzy, please do. :)
Well, Ace, i don't think the Elys and Argos LOOK the part for dropships... what i'm talking about is a light thing with manuverability...
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like the one out of aliens?
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That one was cool.. UD-J or something
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Originally posted by 67th GW Leader
if you could killfrenzy, please do. :)
Well, Ace, i don't think the Elys and Argos LOOK the part for dropships... what i'm talking about is a light thing with manuverability...
s'pose I could finish off this......
(http://www.3dap.com/hlp/hosted/reciprocity/aldopics/wipTrans1.jpg)
(http://www.3dap.com/hlp/hosted/reciprocity/aldopics/wipTrans2.jpg)
(http://www.3dap.com/hlp/hosted/reciprocity/aldopics/wipTrans3.jpg)
('twas supposed to be player flyable, hence the missile banks)
BTw, I've done the Pheobus bomber, I just need to sort out interface art - particularly the tech ani.
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Cool ship Aldo! That'd make a fine addition to my fleet ;)
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J00 f00lz! Dropships aren't orbit-to-surface transports, they're quick-deploying light carriers! :D:p;)
j/k, interpret "dropship" as whatever you want, I just prefer to think of them as having some butt-kicking potential :D
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Hmm, i'd quite like to desgin a dropship, but i cant.
So long as its not as pathetic as the dropships from starcraft.
pete
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Originally posted by Mad Bomber
J00 f00lz! Dropships aren't orbit-to-surface transports, they're quick-deploying light carriers! :D:p;)
j/k, interpret "dropship" as whatever you want, I just prefer to think of them as having some butt-kicking potential :D
Are you sure your not confusing them with gunships? By name alone the purpose of the dropship is to drop - wether out of another ship to a planets surface or whatever. But you get my meaning. It should be fast, unmaneuverable and with perhaps one or two defence turrets but largely relient on escort.
Aldo - that thing's pretty Aliens influenced isnt it ;)
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Originally posted by aldo_14
s'pose I could finish off this......
http://www.3dap.com/hlp/hosted/reciprocity/aldopics/wipTrans1.jpg
http://www.3dap.com/hlp/hosted/reciprocity/aldopics/wipTrans2.jpg
http://www.3dap.com/hlp/hosted/reciprocity/aldopics/wipTrans3.jpg
That's a GDI Orca! Or at least looks a lot like one! :D:D
Thunder Edit: Grr... read the announcements. Don't quote full images - remove the tags.
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I now have 3 dropship designs (well 2 are 'shuttles' and 1 is a dropship) but you proably wont want it (its much more detailed than Aldos but a lot more blocky and in .ms3d at the moment anyway)
Every mod or TC needs a good dropship! Thats what I say!
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Originally posted by Thunder
Are you sure your not confusing them with gunships? By name alone the purpose of the dropship is to drop - wether out of another ship to a planets surface or whatever. But you get my meaning. It should be fast, unmaneuverable and with perhaps one or two defence turrets but largely relient on escort.
Gunships do not have fighterbays. I think of gunships as beam bombers. Bomber-sized vessels, that do bomber duties, or act as uber-heavy fighters, but that don't use bombs or torpedoes.
A dropship to me is a ship that can drop its fighters very quickly, and then help out in the fight. A quick, powerful hit-and-run light carrier. Great for ambushes or for small deployments (helping cruisers and 'vettes and such).
Of course, my idea of dropships is nothing like the troop transports that simply claim to be dropships. :D:p
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Originally posted by Mad Bomber
Of course, my idea of dropships is nothing like the troop transports that simply claim to be dropships. :D:p
This is a fine idea, but unfortunately the term 'dropship' isn't something that you can define yourself. It is a term that has been used, and is in current use for very specific kinds of ship. A dropship, in every situation in which one has appeared in fiction of any kind, is not something which 'drops' anything, rather it is a ship that IS dropped. Specifically, an armed ship intended to bring troops from orbit to the surface of a planet. There are dropships in Mechwarrior, in Aliens, in Starship Troopers, in Space: Above and Beyond, the list goes on and on. In books, movies, or games, a dropship moves troops. Its not a carrier. I suppose you can make fighter carrier and call it a dropship if you want to, but trying to tell other people that they should use your definition instead of the one that everybody else uses is a waste of time.
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Originally posted by Mad Bomber
Dropships aren't orbit-to-surface transports, they're quick-deploying light carriers! :D:p;)
I think that falls under the Strike Carrier designation.
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There's so many designations that it's easy to get confused! :D:D
I see a 'dropship' the same as in Aliens. :)
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Originally posted by morris13
I suppose you can make fighter carrier and call it a dropship if you want to, but trying to tell other people that they should use your definition instead of the one that everybody else uses is a waste of time.
Meh, I'm just saying that my definition of a dropship can kick more butt than everyone else's. :p:D
Strike Carrier... nah, the xSC designation is already taken by Science Cruisers. It would work perfectly otherwise.
Escort Carrier would work, as would Light Carrier, except neither distinguishes the ship as being able to deploy its fighters very quickly. So, to me, those are a different (albeit similar) type of ship.
Of course, I'm not saying anyone else has to use my definition, it's just I'm offering an alternative meaning to the word "dropship", while being mildly annoying in the process. :p;)
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Swedish Fish fighter?
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I have a dropship model (4 turrets)and tested it in the game(has only 1 lod and no debris). It carries either a cargo container or a marine pod (the pod has allso 4 turrets)!
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BTW, Strike Carriers don't need to have a specific designation - the Rakshasa is a light carrier, and is designated SC.
although, I doubt a GTVA cruiser class ship could really carry that many fighters.... dues to the relative sizes (300m cruiser, 25m fighters, excluding cargo space, logistical supplies, etc)
I think the smallest class ship that could carry fighters would be a large corvette / small frigate, and they would have to be specially developed for the lack of space.
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Rakshasha carries fighters? I thought it was the Moloch corvette that had the fighterbays.
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No, the Moloch has a hangar.
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Originally posted by aldo_14
BTW, Strike Carriers don't need to have a specific designation - the Rakshasa is a light carrier, and is designated SC.
Yeah, because it's a Shivan Cruiser. I'm talking about SC at the end of a designation, like GTSC Faustus, not just SC by itself.
BTW, the Rakshasa is a medium cruiser, not a light carrier.
although, I doubt a GTVA cruiser class ship could really carry that many fighters.... dues to the relative sizes (300m cruiser, 25m fighters, excluding cargo space, logistical supplies, etc)
Probably not. Maybe 1 wing's worth of fighters, with barely adequate supplies. Cruiser sized ships should not waste space on fighters.
I think the smallest class ship that could carry fighters would be a large corvette / small frigate, and they would have to be specially developed for the lack of space.
Right, at least corvette sized. Not a very big number of fighters, either, but enough to defend it and do quick strikes.
Take a look at the Obirians in Nodewar and you'll see what I'm talking about. The Daedalus dropship's two fighterbays are filled with l33t, compactable Obirian fighters. (W00t and i get to p1mp NW too!) :D
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GTSC = Galactic Terran Science Cruiser :D:D
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Has anyone thought of the posibility that the hangar on the Science Vessel is for Probes!?
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What science vessel? You mean the GTSC Faustus? That has no hangar...
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Oh, no?:rolleyes:
Check again!;7
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I`ve never found the hanger in FS2 but Fred says that it has a hanger so where is it? At the front?
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Yeah, at the bottom:
(http://www.3dap.com/hlp/staff/thunder/freespace_faustus.jpg)
I think that's where it is...
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How odd, i never noticed that before.
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(http://terransyndi.homestead.com/files/dropship.jpg)
Heres a little dropship of mine.
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Angle the wings down slightly (about 15 - 20 degrees) and make them thinner. :)
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If he does that it'll look even more like a Serapis.
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Too big and chunky to look like a Serapis.
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Its influenced by the Droid Federation Lander, just more angular. I'll probably end up scrapping it and doing another, which i'll again scrap and then make another, which will be better.
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Originally posted by Mad Bomber
Yeah, because it's a Shivan Cruiser. I'm talking about SC at the end of a designation, like GTSC Faustus, not just SC by itself.
BTW, the Rakshasa is a medium cruiser, not a light carrier.
Probably not. Maybe 1 wing's worth of fighters, with barely adequate supplies. Cruiser sized ships should not waste space on fighters.
Right, at least corvette sized. Not a very big number of fighters, either, but enough to defend it and do quick strikes.
Take a look at the Obirians in Nodewar and you'll see what I'm talking about. The Daedalus dropship's two fighterbays are filled with l33t, compactable Obirian fighters. (W00t and i get to p1mp NW too!) :D
Generally speaking, the smaller the carrier, the less efficient it is. It sounds self-evident, but it might not be. For example, against fighters an Aeolus is highly efficient, and is able to easily eliminate a single wing of fighters. Even a Leviathan can do well against a single wing. Thus, a light carrier carrying a wing or two of fighters is a loosing proposition. You have to pay for and crew the carrier ship, which isn't cheap, plus you have to pay for the expensive and fragile fighters which will probably be going through some very high rates of attrition.
And a minor note on crewing: A Nimitz class carrier has an air wing of 2500, and a naval crew of 3500.
That's roughly 25 people per fighter. A Perry class frigate has a typical crew of a mere 187., and a Burke, 340. Small carriers are simply not efficient.
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Shivans don't have a crewing problem! :D
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I thought the bay on the Faustis was on the side of the back. Open it in FRED and turn on docking paths...
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That'll be a hatch-based dockpoint, NOT a hangar bay. :p:D
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Has anyone actually done a Strike Carrier? You could use it for a short, Voyager like campaign, but with fighters. Say, two or three nodes into enemy space, trying to get back, or as exploration vessel.
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Chuck a hanger on a Deimos and it'd be ideal for that purpose... Well, it could be a bit faster I suppose. Perhaps an Aeolus shaped thing to the scale of a Deimos with a hanger (take out the front engines and put a hanger in there... it'd work pretty well IMO.
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A while back when I thought I might have the time and energy to develop a campaign, I was intending on basing it around the development of a smaller, faster GTVA fleet.
Shrike is absolutely right that SMALL carriers don't work. One or two fighter wings aren't worth supporting anywhere. Four is probably the absolute minimum, and six is better. In terms of effeciency, larger carriers do give you the most fighter power for a given size ship. However, this isn't nessecarily an effecient warship. The Hecate is a perfect example. Its great at bringing lots of fighters to a battlefield, but thats all it can do. It's also very ineffecient if you don't NEED that many fighters. The English and Russian carriers are good examples of a more modest philosophy. The Russian ship especially is considerably smaller than the Nimitz, carries about 1/4th of its crew complement, but unlike the Nimitz has its own very capable air defense and anti-ship systems. Like the Hecate, the Nimitz absolutely depends on a fleet of support vessels to defend it, since it can't really defend itself. The Kiev, on the other hand, is perfectly capable of operating all by itself, and works very well indeed with a small support fleet of 2-5 frigates and destroyers. A Nimitz, by comparison, never goes anywhere without at least a couple dozen attendant air-defense cruisers, anti-submarine frigates, and assorted escorts. A Nimitz/Hecate is great if you know that any battle you get into is going to be a big one. The modern Navy is beginning to face the problem that a Nimitz battlegroup is way more than most situations require, and a much larger commitment of resources than is nessecary most of the time.
The GTVA is facing a similar problem in a post-Capella environment. The battles against the shivans, especially the utter failure of the Colossus, demonstrate that size and firepower aren't the answer. The ships that performed most effectively, like the Aeolus, Deimos, and Orion, were ships that had a good mix of offensive and defensive firepower, and could get where they needed to be quickly. Even in FS2 fleet battles, you get a lot more advantage from being in the right place (ie: behind the Sathanas) than you do from being huge and tough.
After Capella, the primary concern is no longer pitched fleet battles against huge shivan forces, but becomes focused around exploration and patrol of GTVA space. The current GTVA fleet structure is designed well for large battles, but an Orion is a bit unwieldy for dealing with pirate incursions or trying to track down shivan remnants. The GTVA has also lost a pretty significant part of its fleet, so they're going to be needing new carriers anyway. The Hecates are much like a Nimitz. They're the hot stuff for carrying lots of fighters, but they need a lot of escorts. The Orions are more independant, but very old.
The ideal solution, IMHO, is something much like we've been discussing. A ship somewhat larger than the Deimos, in the 1-1.3km range, with a good turn of speed, excellent fighter defenses, and six wings of fighters or so (2 Perseus, 2 Herc II, 2 Artemis, for example). LRB Green, if anything, for anti-cap work. Stay at a distance and let your fighters and escorts do the work. One of these carriers, a Deimos or two, and a couple of Aeolus cruisers would be a very formidible task force, capable of dealing with threats up to single destroyers, without requiring the kind of manpower or material commitment that an Orion or especially a Hecate would.
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Originally posted by aldo_14
s'pose I could finish off this......
http://www.3dap.com/hlp/hosted/reciprocity/aldopics/wipTrans1.jpg
http://www.3dap.com/hlp/hosted/reciprocity/aldopics/wipTrans2.jpg
http://www.3dap.com/hlp/hosted/reciprocity/aldopics/wipTrans3.jpg
('twas supposed to be player flyable, hence the missile banks)
BTw, I've done the Pheobus bomber, I just need to sort out interface art - particularly the tech ani.
make it into a POF file and leave atleast enough places for me to texture and MAIL ME THE POF. i will texture it. weapon systems or not?