[IceFire]

I've already talked to Inquisitor about this...but I'd really like to link TBP source efforts (which are basically all Bobboau right now) to the rest of the source code.  Ideally so we can share elements when they are beneficial to both regular FS2 and TBP.

Here's some stuff that we have or is under development and essentially I'd love to hear some feedback from whoever about how to do some of these things and how possible some things are over others.

<< Slide Thrusting >>
Bobboau has already done something with this.  I haven't been able to test it because its a debug build and it hangs up on my massively more complex tables since the demo release.  I'm not sure how its completely implemented, but I think the option should be there for turning it on and off.  I'm not really sure if a Nial should thrust around like a StarFury (although I guess it could).

<< Focal Point Beams >>
Basically, the beam type on the Excalibur, the Vorlon Dreadnought, and a few other vessels that I can't think of right now.  Essentially three or four beams coalesce at a certain point and fire a beam at the target.  The trick is getting a beam to fire and then stop at a point and then fire another beam in a sort of sequence.  Possible at all?  Homeworld does it somehow so its not beyond the realm of the programmers the world over but FS2's engine aint homeworld so I question this concept.

<< Gunship AI >>
Already got someone working on it.  Applies to vessels like the WhiteStar which sould behave like a fighter/bomber but should also contain elements in the code that allow for capital ship elements (potential fighterbays for instance).

<< Hyperspace Jump Points >>
A simple code change probably.  The Warp.POF is already being read so its just a matter of changing the POF to match a B5 like jump point.  There's also the color shift....when a vessel enters its yellow, when it exits its blue.

There's also the matter of jump gates.  Not sure if we can make them operate so that they are activated by fighters and capital ships at certain points and open to end the mission, begin one, or spew out fighters.

<< Barrage Fire Missiles/Guns >>
I'd like to be able to specify, kind of like the $Swarm function right now, the number of shots between refires.  SO....fires 5 blasts, refire of 20 seconds, fire 5 blasts.  Repeat.  I'd also like to specify the delay between shots.  The key is to maintain the normal turret tracking so that this can be done on any turret.  Even with rotational turrets, barrage fire is inaccurate as the first few shots always miss and the rest tend to be skewed and miss the mark 90% of the time.


I also love the lights and all the other fixes.  Keep it rolling!  Appreciate any feedback on how this all may be accomplished in a integrated source code kind of way.

[Unknown Target]

When you say slide thrusting, do you mean that you can change the controlls, or is it default for all ships?
I mean, it can be done with tables, you know that, right?
Otherwise, it sounds great! I love the focal beam thing.

[IceFire]

Its downright aweful in the base table changes right now.  Bobboau has already made code changes to make it work better.

I'd actually be most happy with a single slide/non-slide toggle key.  But apparently what Bobboau did works nicely.

[Inquisitor]

I'll leave it to bob to make the call, but if the code changes are significant, we can setup a TBP branch for you guys.

[IceFire]

New development.  Eternal One has returned in a fashion and he's very interested in the source code elements.  I understand he's pretty good at programming and he knows what the vision is...so I think he'll be in contact with you shortly.

[Bobboau]

the beam thing you want to do doesn't sound like it would be too hard to do, but I'm not sure how to tell it wich turrets to use as ending points and when to start fireing, perhaps some linking could be done with the object properties.

[Kazan]

the beam thing

n-count "precharge" beams with a "source point" and "Dest point" in untransformed model coordinates - a charge time, and duration

then the main beam would have an source point, time offset (starts counting soon as the clock on the system starts running and the precharge beams start charging up), then a duration

[Thorn]

What Homeworld ship uses a focal point type beam? I cant think of any....

[ZylonBane]

Originally posted by IceFire
<< Focal Point Beams >>

You can (theoretically) do this without any source code changes. Just create a weapon point and a dock point where you want your beams to converge, then pre-dock an invisible-textured, hostile stealthy ship to it. Fire  the converging beams at the ship, then fire the main beam. Voila!

[Galemp]

That works fine (I tried it with the DS superlaser) but you can't get the tributary beams to stop firing all at once unless you have eight table entries.

[Stealth]

remember this is Freespace, not Babylon 5 or Homeworld.

I must admit, the beam thing i LOVE though... do you mean like a 'super-weapon' kind of beam?  like in the death star?

also the sliding is pretty neat, do you mean sliding as in Descent 1, 2, and 3?  where you can press "1" and "2" and 'slide' (literally) left and right?

i guess that defies the laws of physics, although there's enough flaws of those in FS

[Bobboau]

the beam thingy
I think it would work better if there was just a fire beam at turret, then we could just have
when
|-whatever
|-fire_beam_at_turret
   |-source turret  
   |-destonation turret
when (chained and delayed)
|-true
|-fire_beam
   |-main_beam

or better yet, have the two events merged
so that this
when
|-whatever
|-fire_beam_at_turret
   |-destonation turret
   |-source turret  
   |-source turret  
   |-source turret  
would fire the source turrets to the destonation turret then after some sort of time that could be arbitraraly added or set in the table of that beam it would fire the destination beam
so the final complete sExp would look something like
when
|-whatever
|-fire_beam_at_turret
   |-ship fireing
   |-ship being fired at
   |-destonation turret
   |-source turret  
   |-source turret  
   |-source turret  
   |-...

slideing
this should now be fully implemented, I have given key bindings to slideing, and I even made thrusters that are pointing in diferent directions go off diferently baised of the direction there pointing

the warp in/out thing
I've gotten warpmodel working though the B5 hyperspace jump effect is considerably more complex, some of you may have notesed the little flickering points that come out of a warp effect this was the beginings of some of the more complex parts of the effect that I was trying to do, the thing that is totaly screwing me up is the way that ships seem to grow and shrink as they come into/go out of hyperspace, and while I do have code for doing this it will look very strange if you are looking at it from a perspective rather than head on, this could be improved on if I had some way of specifying a opency map when a polygon is to be rendered

the other two things
haven't touched em

[ZylonBane]

Originally posted by GalacticEmperor
That works fine (I tried it with the DS superlaser) but you can't get the tributary beams to stop firing all at once unless you have eight table entries.

Just have the tributary beams all start firing at once.

[tomcat]

HEY ..someone change please the Turret Initial Position..Nova look bad with all those wide barels large turrets pointing upward:)

[Bobboau]

we could probly give a default pointing value (in the model properties), but when you make the model you'll still have to have them pointing strait up