[Trivial Psychic]

Might it also be desirable to include an ability for a ship to be destroyed to a hulk rather than to debris?  I expect it'd require modifications to the pof format to include 2 different potential debris stages, as well as alternate table entries so that a ship that destroys to hulk doesn't explode with the same force as one that destroys to debris.  Finally, you'd need a checkbox in the ships editor to tell it to go the hulk route, and/or sexps so you could change this behaviour if necessary, in mission.

[mjn.mixael]

Being destroyed to a hulk is going to be a whole request of it's own, especially since you think it would require changes to the POF format and additional table flags. I'd rather keep this about a simple way to destroy something without debris.

[Tomo]

Pretty sure destroyed to a hulk can already be done with change-ship-class anyway.
(Coupled with a few bits to trigger it and ensure a nice boom)

Personally I think this a better solution than adding anything to the pof - much easier to check that the target ship class actually has a hulk model.

[Dragon]

This could also be done by destroying all subsystems and using a shader to superimpose a debris pattern on the main textures. That's about how it worked in Starlancer.

[mjn.mixael]

exactly, it's a different request than the one I discussed in my original post... take your hulk talk to another thread...

[karajorma]

Thread split.

[Col. Fishguts]

It could be done without changing the POF format.
But introduce a special named debris chunk instead, something like "debris-hulk". If such a debris chunk was present in the POF, let the game spawn it with some invulnerable flag, so it doesn't get destroyed, and maybe add some random slow rotation to it.
Let all other debris chunks spawn normally. With a system like this, the modeler could decide which parts of the ship get blown of and drift away, and which part remains as a dead hulk in the position where the ship went boom.

[Black Wolf]

It could be done without changing the POF format.
But introduce a special named debris chunk instead, something like "debris-hulk". If such a debris chunk was present in the POF, let the game spawn it with some invulnerable flag, so it doesn't get destroyed, and maybe add some random slow rotation to it.
Let all other debris chunks spawn normally. With a system like this, the modeler could decide which parts of the ship get blown of and drift away, and which part remains as a dead hulk in the position where the ship went boom.

This would work, except instead of making it modder discretion, make it FREDder discretion. Ships should only get hulked if they're set with a ship flag (either through the ship editor or a sexp) and they have a debris-hulk submodel. Hell, you could even take out the hardcoding, and let the FREDder determine the hulk submodel through a sexp (i.e. non-hulk debris chunks could be chosen). It might also be cool if more than one hulk model could be defined per pof - debris-hulk01, debris-hulk02 etc. etc. I doubt too many modders would go to the trouble of making more than one, but since three hulks already exist for the Aten, adding the functionality to use all three would be a nice bonus.

The only thing that I would argue against for your implementation, Fishguts, would be the spawning of all other debris chunks as per normal. This might be cool as a sexp option (There are situations where I could see it being useful), but in general using the Hulk option should probably eliminate other debris chunks, primarily because that would force modders to choose between having either very small hulks, minimal debris, or the possibility of "cloned" geometry when both the hulk and the debris are spawned.

[Dragon]

Your idea sounds good, I agree that all debris but submodel ones shouldn't appear when the ship is hulked. It'd also easily allow an option to generate the hulk from the main mesh (the shader thing I mentioned earlier). Though I'd prefer to not only have it as a SEXP, but also as an option in ship editor (in case you want the majority of ships to leave hulks).

[Col. Fishguts]

It could be done without changing the POF format.
But introduce a special named debris chunk instead, something like "debris-hulk". If such a debris chunk was present in the POF, let the game spawn it with some invulnerable flag, so it doesn't get destroyed, and maybe add some random slow rotation to it.
Let all other debris chunks spawn normally. With a system like this, the modeler could decide which parts of the ship get blown of and drift away, and which part remains as a dead hulk in the position where the ship went boom.

This would work, except instead of making it modder discretion, make it FREDder discretion. Ships should only get hulked if they're set with a ship flag (either through the ship editor or a sexp) and they have a debris-hulk submodel. Hell, you could even take out the hardcoding, and let the FREDder determine the hulk submodel through a sexp (i.e. non-hulk debris chunks could be chosen). It might also be cool if more than one hulk model could be defined per pof - debris-hulk01, debris-hulk02 etc. etc. I doubt too many modders would go to the trouble of making more than one, but since three hulks already exist for the Aten, adding the functionality to use all three would be a nice bonus.

The only thing that I would argue against for your implementation, Fishguts, would be the spawning of all other debris chunks as per normal. This might be cool as a sexp option (There are situations where I could see it being useful), but in general using the Hulk option should probably eliminate other debris chunks, primarily because that would force modders to choose between having either very small hulks, minimal debris, or the possibility of "cloned" geometry when both the hulk and the debris are spawned.

Yes, making it selectable in FRED would even be better
And I agree, having identical geometry on the hulk and on debris chunks would be weird, so  maybe a checkbox in FRED to set a ship to die in a hulk instead of the normal debris chunks might be a good option.

[Cyborg17]

How would the game handle the explosion if it were turned into a hulk?  We know from the Legion in the FS2 opening cutscene that there was no explosion.  Should death-to-hulk also force a more muted explosion?  I don't it make sense to have a full-strength explosion when the ship is not actually breaking apart.

[Trivial Psychic]

How would the game handle the explosion if it were turned into a hulk?  We know from the Legion in the FS2 opening cutscene that there was no explosion.  Should death-to-hulk also force a more muted explosion?  I don't it make sense to have a full-strength explosion when the ship is not actually breaking apart.

Might it also be desirable to include an ability for a ship to be destroyed to a hulk rather than to debris?  I expect it'd require modifications to the pof format to include 2 different potential debris stages, as well as alternate table entries so that a ship that destroys to hulk doesn't explode with the same force as one that destroys to debris.  Finally, you'd need a checkbox in the ships editor to tell it to go the hulk route, and/or sexps so you could change this behaviour if necessary, in mission.

The idea is, if you want this option supported for your mod, there'd be 2 different sets of explosion data, one pertaining to how the explosions should look if the ship is gonna destroy to a hulk.  The visual representation I had is that it should have a deathroll only, though perhaps a little more intense than average to hide the transition to the hulk submodel.  The big explosion part that usually breaks a ship up and hides the switch to chunk debris is omitted.  The hulk should also have sustained but less prominent explosion effects that stay with it.  As always, I'm taking my visual cues from the death of the Roanoke from Babylon 5, Season 3, "Severed Dreams".

[JGZinv]

Well this is pretty much obvious model replacement with a flash... but figured I'd link it for example.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hDqjTUREho&feature=player_detailpage#t=7s

[mjn.mixael]

I did this with SEXPs already. Granted the explosions were off when I recorded that, but the general effect is there. Given how much hulks can alter missions and that you guys are already talking about FRED based solutions.. I'm not sure a new solution is necessary. My method could be tweaked and perfected... then voila. Hulks when you want them.

[Trivial Psychic]

That looks not half bad, though it could do without the big explosion, in my opinion.