[Mortex]

After many hours of hard labour I have an installation in POF format. Only two small hitches.

1) The targeting boxes for certain turrets are huge, almost a big as the targeting box for the whole thing,  this doesn't affect the multipart turrets for some reason.

2) Secondly when anything is order to dock with the installation the base its self simply vanishes from the mission.

Help.....

[Starks]

DUDE! That is so incredibly whack!

[Galemp]

Vanishes, as in, turns invisible? Or is it gone completely? What happens to the ship that docked with it? Are you sure it's not a mission bug?

[Grunt]

Originally posted by Mortex

Secondly when anything is order to dock with the installation the base its self simply vanishes from the mission.

Man, that's a cool effect. Leave it on !

1) Make sure that the axis of the tricky turret objects is in the center of objet (Truespace).

2) Never give docking orders to more than one ship at a time. Check that the dock point is phisically accessible for the docker ships (not blocked by some geometry of the docker or dockee ship).

[Bobboau]

1) there is a button to fix this in TS called move axis to center of object
2) you need to points

[Mortex]

Thanks for your help so far but still so many questions...

Vanishes, as in, turns invisible? Or is it gone completely? What happens to the ship that docked with

The installation just disappears from the mission, it's not on scanners, and you can fly through the space it used to occupy on screen. The docking ship (in this case a GTT Argo) remains and seems perfectly happy although it now has no orders.

1) Make sure that the axis of the tricky turret objects is in the centre of object (Truespace).

Ok I can fix that, I have some problems with this model where I had moved all the axes to the centre of the model just checking though, do you mean the axes for the turret sub group (i.e. the geometry and the light) or just the axes for the geometry (there seem to be two in TS for some reason )

Are you sure it's not a mission bug?

I replaced the station with an Orion and it worked fine.

you need to points

Two points? I’m using Aurora, through I set up the location of the two vertices manually, the first point is as close to the hull as I can make it, the second point is aprox 1.8 meters up to set orientation and 0.8 meters out from the hull. What normal should I enter in the two dock point vertices? The dock is perpendicular to the port side of the station.

And while I’m at it, where should the last vertex of the docking point path be in relation to the dock point.

[Grunt]

OK. A dock consists of two dock points, both positioned ON the surface of a polygon (can be farther away but then the docker ship will not touch the surface, which would look weird).
1 meter distance between the two points is OK, the normals are perpendicular to the surface.
There MUST be a PATH assigned to the dock. The path consists of (preferably 2-4) path points (vertices). The path leads the docker ship to the dock.
The docker approaches the farthest path point and aligns its center with the path point. Than followes the path until the closest path vertex is aligned with its center. Then it approaches the DOCK POINTS until its own DOCK POINTS are aligned with them.
In PCS the first path point (number 00) is always the farthest.
The distance of the closest path vertex should be somewhat higher than half length of the biggest ship you will want to dock.
For an Argo, 100 m distance is enough for the closest point. Considering large vessels I would place it at 300 m, then the other vertices farther and farther (with the farthest between 500-1000 m).

Place the axis of the turret OBJECT in the center, and the axis of the COMBO (object + light) on the surface where you want the firing point to be (or both axes on the surface, doesn't matter).

[Mortex]

That's rearly helpful stuff Grunt.
The path is all set up, i'll move the points out a bit though.

So as I understand it both dock points should have the same XYZ co-ords and normals apart from one number (in my case the Y co-ord) which will be 1 higher (in my case, to move it 'up' the ship a bit)

I'll give this go tonight. Thanks guys.

[CP5670]

Are you using fs2_open 3.53? That vanishing effect might be due to zero mass (see this for more information), so it could just be a case of setting the correct mass value in the pof file.

[Mortex]

Are you using fs2_open 3.53?

I'm not, the POF had no mass though.
I have repofed the model taking note of every ones advice and it now works (and making sure it has mass :wink: )

Thanks every one for your help.

Now to get this campaign finished...

[Bobboau]

I must figure out why Aurora is eraseing things, I am certan that it is loading it corectly but (what I think is happening) that it is just updateing the data with blank feilds, but only on some systems

[Anaz]

Bob...you might want to check everything having to do with linked lists...sounds to me like you might be trying to initalize a head node twice, or erasing its data somewhere.

[Bobboau]

it has no linked lists

[Mortex]

I noticed when I was using Aurora, if I clicked out of an entry field it would put in zero or not update the data.  I ended up using tab to navigate instead.

Really like it though, It so much easier to do paths and to just generally see what your doing.

[Anaz]

Originally posted by Bobboau
it has no linked lists

oh...well there goes that idea for debugging....

So you're using all arrays then?