[Joey_21]

Suppose I have a ship that has beams on its side but for some purpose or another the enemy craft that the ship is supposed to be firing at is directly in front of it instead of beside it.

How about a force-ship-rotate s-exp that works a bit like this:

when
----is-destroyed-delay
--------Aries
----force-ship-rotate
--------GTD Bastion (name of ship doing the turning)
--------X (which axis to turn on)
--------90 (number of degrees, negative values to turn the opposite direction)

[kasperl]

shouldn't this be in the SEXP thread?

[Killfrenzy]

Either way, this could be the single most useful thing that could be implemented now. It would make capship battles more believable.

[Black Wolf]

Could we also add a little section for to face ship? You could either set it to x degrees and or zero degrees and "ship Name". Or even "Ship name" and x degrees, so you could rotate past a ship.

[Goober5000]

Um, I just added set-ship-facing a few days ago which will do just this...

However, it does it instantly, not gradually.

[Joey_21]

Originally posted by Goober5000
However, it does it instantly, not gradually.

Hence a purpose I would rather have force-ship-rotate.

Seriously though... it's very unrealistic to see a ship automatically change directions like that...

[Goober5000]

Meh - someone couuld always add an optional speed parameter.  There's probably a function in the ai somewhere that would do that.

[Ulala]

I like this idea!

[Killfrenzy]

I could see this:

"This is the KS Victorious engaging Swarm carrier. Starboard broadside!"

Ship heels over to port to bring her starboard guns to bear, and they open fire in a blaze of energy.

[Petrarch of the VBB]

It would also be a way for Orions to win beamfights. I am fed up with them flying head on to their target, when all the turrets are on the sides.

[TrashMan]

I've been proposing the same thing ever since I joined the boards...
WE NEED THE SET-SHIP-FACING sexp!!!!

But you would need more parameters:
- which ship is doing the turning/facing
- ship towards it will face
- how will it face it (left, right, top, bottom..)
- speed at which it will turn

----------------------------
It could be done like this:
 each facing/side has it's own normal (like a weapon) and the ship tries to move around untill that normal points right at the enemy ship. And it tries to keep it that way!

[Goober5000]

Geez, calm down. Didn't you see that it was implemented already?  It's currently instantaneous, but it could be modified.

[Ulala]

Modification would be cool. Capship battles might start to make a little more sense.

[Killfrenzy]

Yeah, and then these warships might actually act as if there are humans in charge rather than monkeys (or an orang-utan in the case of the Collossus)

[Ulala]

[redmenace]

Originally posted by Killfrenzy
Yeah, and then these warships might actually act as if there are humans in charge rather than monkeys (or an orang-utan in the case of the Collossus)

well more or less "Monkeys on space crack". May I add the same monkeys that developed user interface of truespace(3d moddeling program).

[LAW ENFORCER]

Thats a bit harsh! ... blender:rolleyes:

Now THATS a user interface!

It was originaly going to be Myst IV: Blended Worlds, all about how some books were blended and seperated and how you had to solve many diffrent pussles over strangly twisted lanscapes that intertwinded with eachother leaving some pussules from the start not completeable until the end!:eek2:

However, it was deemd to crappin' hard and was made into a 3D modeler instead...

[_argv[-1]]

In ai-chase, the ship approaches its target, then starts circling it as it gets close enough. Another AI goal type to chase without approaching could be done. I'll see what I can do.

[Raven2001]

A really nice thing would be, instead of forcing the ship to face another ship, the SCP dudes could implement AI engage scripts where we could shoose the tactics the ship would use...

For example, a Ravana would use a "dive" tactic... it faces the target, fires, at a certain range the Ravana will have to disengage, fly a bit, and turn around for another dive... a ship that has beams on the side, will always fly circles around the Target in order to have the side beams pointing at it... this sort of stuff... but implemented in AI scripts so that the capship battles look realistic, where the BIG GUYS do some maneuvering

[_argv[-1]]

Originally posted by Raven2001
A really nice thing would be, instead of forcing the ship to face another ship, the SCP dudes could implement AI engage scripts where we could shoose the tactics the ship would use...

For example, a Ravana would use a "dive" tactic... it faces the target, fires, at a certain range the Ravana will have to disengage, fly a bit, and turn around for another dive... a ship that has beams on the side, will always fly circles around the Target in order to have the side beams pointing at it... this sort of stuff... but implemented in AI scripts so that the capship battles look realistic, where the BIG GUYS do some maneuvering

Something wrong with the Ravana just facing its target and shooting away? (It still approaches its target if it gets too far away, of course.)

If it tries to dive like that, it'll lose almost every battle against ships with lateral turrets, because it will spend most of its time diving and therefore unable to bring its main guns to bear, while the target is still busy putting beams through it. When attacking another ship you're supposed to shoot at it.