[Solatar]

If I understand this right, then instead of "turreting" a ship in a modeling program, I'd go add "turret points" just like I would add primary or secondary hardpoints. Then in the ships.tbl, I'd have an entry for each turret (underneath the weapon to be used or something) where I specified the turret to be mounted there?

That could be really cool...

[chief1983]

Actually I like the idea of putting the points in the model, but being able to actually just place the turrets completely independent of the model's own data would make it more versatile, and I think that's what they were talking about.  It sounded like for the external mounted secondaries they defined the actual location of them in the table, but I could be wrong.

[Nuke]

the jist of it is that when you model a ship, you only do the hull model with no turrets. you would specify a location and orientation of the turret as well as the turret model name in the subsystem entry of the table. for example:

Code: [Select]

$Subsystem: someturret, 5, 1.0
$Model: someturretmodel.pof
$Position: 15,23,42
$Orientation: 10,20,0 ;euler angles in degrees, since 99.9% of modders dont understand orientation matrices, or have the patience for uvec,fvec,svec
$Default PBanks: ( "some weapon" )
$Pbank Capacity: ( 30 )
yes i know that how its parsed is completely arbitrary, how its actualy done is a whole other ballgame. nof if i were to imlement this, i wouldnt make it work only with turrets. id include other subsystems as well, such as physical subsystems, rotating parts and animated subobjects.

[Solatar]

That would actually be pretty sweet. If I wanted a special surveying ship, I could plop another radar dish on a Fenris cruiser, or I could throw different turrets on a warship. It would help me fix my tiny pet peeve of beam cannons shooting out of Orion multi-part turrets...

[DaBrain]

I wonder if this would also require changes in PCS2.

[Fury]

I wonder if this would also require changes in PCS2.

If it does, someone please add "export all textures to a folder" feature, pretty please?

[DaBrain]

That's a nice feature idea as well.

If you use 3d Max, you can already do that. Just load the DAE file.
There are multiple Max scripts that will allow you to save all textures to a folder.

[Trivial Psychic]

How about, in PCS2 (or whatever pof-editing program you're using), in place of where the turret will be, you place a special dockpoint, with very specific parameters (similar to where you put the name in), and code FSO to exclude them from the dockpoint list, but allow the special turret pofs to be added in, either via tables or even in FRED.  The orientation of the turrets would be dictated by the orientation of the dockpoints.  This would prevent any serious changes from being needed in PCS2 (or whatever).

[headdie]

what if SCP was to create a set of default beam, Flack, Laser, Blob and missile turret models with separate skins then if needed mods could create new models and/or skins for the demands of the mod, it would also mean that model makers dont have to design the turrets unless they have a specific look in mind just put a marker on the POF saying turret 1 here

would this be to big a deviation of cannon to be "officially" implemented

[Commander Zane]

For the most part, there isn't really a default turret of anything for any ship.

[chief1983]

It would not require PCS2 changes either way.  With just changes to the engine, you would be able to take any model and just start sticking turrets on it via the tables.  You would just need models of turrets in separate files.

[DaBrain]

If this is possible at all, do you think these parts would be 'stackable'?

Like putting a part on a ship which has a node where another part can be put on... and so on?

It sounds pretty cool, but I'd still consider this a 'nice to have', especially if that makes things more complicated.

[Nuke]

that would make it kind of overcomplicated i think. but i would like to be able to place physical subsystems in the same way. id probibly just use multi-docking for that.