[Kusanagi]

I was wondering if there were any plans to revamp some of the asteroid code, or if not, make a few formal requests

1) More than one asteroid field per mission. This could be useful for several different mods, either that OR

2) Allow more than 3 types of debris to be defined for a debris field

3) Allowing a separate name to be assigned to debris

4) A way to change the rotational speed from being constant

I make these requests for Journey to Hiigara as it's needed for the different debris fields. The effect I'd hope for would be wreckage after a large battle or Wolf 359 or after Endor.

[mjn.mixael]

Perhaps, I don't entirely understand the request, but this effect is doable currently. Check out Vasudan Imperium demo.. I think it's like mission 4 or 5.

[Kusanagi]

Which effect? 

Perhaps I should explain a bit clearer.

The current asteroids.tbl only allows for 3 pieces of debris per species. These are defined in FRED as [species] LARGE, [species] MEDIUM, and [species] SMALL. As FRED is right now, you can only choose three total debris chunks for a debris field even if you mix and match from different species.

In JtoH, there are three distinct types of debris fields. The first is smaller debris and has six pieces. The second only has 3 pieces and the objects are far larger. The third type of debris would be huge by FS2 standards, with pieces over 1000 meters.

I would like this changed, and there are several ways to do this that I can think of:

Increase the amount of possible asteroid fields in FRED. This would be a cheap workaround, because you could define multiple debris types three at a time and "cheat" the effect. In the example above, I'd be able to put smaller debris pieces in two different species slots, thus allowing for six pieces of debris simultaneously

OR

Increase the amount of debris chunks defined per species in the asteroid.tbl AND change the dropdown menu in FRED to allow for more than three chunks of debris. Say, five or six? Or maybe select by species? (The last suggestion wouldn't work without multiple asteroid fields)

Right now, whenever you target debris, it will show up as [species] Debris in the targeting window. I'd like a flag or table entry that would be able to change the name of the debris in the targeting window. Say $Alternate Name: somewhere in the asteroid table?

Finally, to clarify the last request, it seems that debris rotates around at a constant speed, regardless of the settings in asteroids.tbl or in FRED. I don't know where this data would be stored or how it could be changed, but the best way I can think of to define the rotational speed of debris chunks would also be in the tbl with a separate entry for it, $Rotation Time which would work the way it does for fighters and other objects. When some of the debris chunks are hundreds of meters long, having them swing around with the same velocity and speed as the smaller pieces just doesn't look good.

Perhaps all this is doable already and I'm simply missing something?

[mjn.mixael]

Hmm, I don't know about all the specifics, but I do know that Vasudan Imperium had a really impressive debris field in a mission. (I looked it up, mission 6). Might be worth a look to see how they did it.

However, I do see how many of these features could be quite useful.