[Bobboau]

I just looked into this old idea, and found that it might actualy be quite easy to implement so I think it would be constructive to have some talk about the way such a system should be handeled, ie how would you like it to be set up. my current idea will be something like haveing an external model for each weapon. this is simple enough, but there is a problem, the model used a) may look good on some ships yet look realy realy bad on others and b) primary weapons especaly would need to have some sort of mirroring or use diferent subobjects for diferent sides of the ship. and there is the issue of adjusting the fireing point, and missles that have been fired should not be rendered untill they move back into position and only if there are enough missles. so discuss, this will probly be one of the things I get done post 3.6, I want to have a clear path of what I'm going to do ahead of time.

[Liberator]

Personally, I like the way it's done now.  You wouldn't want to leave a lot of ordinance along the outside of the ship.  The only part I diverge on is large bombs.  Fighters could be given a 3rd bay that can mount only a single anti-capship bomb.

Example:

In FS1, the Harbinger(Har-BING-er or Har-Bin-Ger?) was supposed to have a half size fighter drive, IIRC.  Even the Ursa is not large enough by half to carry something half the size of an Apollo internally, much less 4(remember, you were limited to only ever carrying 4 at a time).

So this could work, but if a big bomb is mounted externally the ship should handle differently and the bomb should be vulnerale to being prematurely detonated should the attached ship's sheild come down.  Also, external mounts shouldn't be field rearmable.

I all of a sudden have an image of a harpoon being tossed out the side of a bay and rocketing past the launching vessel and blowing it's target out of space.

[Lynx]

As you said, it'll look good on some ships, and ugly on others. And some ships have internal gun and missile mounts, so that something like that wouldn't even be needed. It should be set in the ships table which ship can show weapon models and which not.

[KARMA]

If I correctly understood, you want to define in the pof of the ship a primary or seconary hardpoint, defining position, normal and maybe direction (or you can use the direction of the ship)
Then you'll have to create a model for each type of weapon, and  changing the loadout will mean to change the model that will be rendered.
Also, the different weapons will come with specific properties (number/position of firing point, ammo...), properties that will be added to the ship.
If the subobject will be destroyed, the weapon will not fire anymore.
If damaged, it will not work properly anymore.
The same could be used, and I heavily suggest so, for turretts, since it'll make modder's life many times easyer
For external missles, you have to think at a realistic way to have the missle leaving the ship and start its run, either by having this exactly model to work as missle model or by having this model disappearing when the missle is launched.
When a weapon is internal, inside the hull of the ship it'll work in the traditional way, there will be no external hardpoints so no external weapon models avaiable
If you leave the hardpoint blank, nothing will happen, you'll just not have any weapon in this hardpoint
BTW, I'd also like the hardpoint system to work with other kind of stuff, like escape pods. In the SW rebel corvette I have 8 visible escape pods, and I'd like to have those pods destroyable, launchable or maybe not mounted from the beginning. Nothing that we can't do already (almost) but an hardpoint method would make it easyer.
Also, the hardpoints could come handy  in some multiplayer mods, for example, there are weapons laying in a melee arena, and you can pick em up only if you have avaiable slots.
We may assign different equipment to the different hardpoints, for example extra fuel pods or additional thrusters avaiable on the secondary banks, in place of a missle rack
So, the different models (a pof each?) will have their own properties, something like
hardpoint: 1 (the type of hardpoint where it'll be mounted: 1=primary, 2=secondary, 3=turrett, 4=other)
object type: (name of weapon/equipment)
ammo (for fuel pods and similar too):

harpoint and object type will be redudnant if you use only primary or secondary banks

and in the pof they'll have their own normal, docking point, firing point, rotation axis if turretts, etc

Edit: could this cover docking points too? I mean to consider them just as hardpoints, in case you want a ship to have a visible cargo from the beginning, or something like that.

[kasperl]

i pretty much agree with what has been said before, but here is what i suggest:

A hardpoint in the POF, defined as primary or secondary, internal or external.
A flag in the weapons TBl, "external;" for praimary an secondary weapons. if the flag has been found, a POF must be found as well. If a hardpoint is blank, nothing is there.

BTW, this could perhaps fit in with Phreaks tertiary weapon system. it might be a very good idea to discuss this with him.

[Taristin]

External weapons, eh?  And should someone fire upon the weapons that are on the ship? Will the primary points be destroyable, and have the risk of the secondary weapons blowing up while still on the 'wings'?

[Fineus]

Nice idea Raa but it would have to be balanced so that it doesn't happen to often... consider how much damage a Cyclops detonating at point-blank range would do...

[Unknown Target]

Well, it's pretty simple, I think. This is what you would need:

In the table file, you would need a parameter:

$Hardpoint Local:


After that, you would need to have a position for each external hardpoint, like

+Point 1: 34, 34, 34

And you could have up to, oh, how about 10 hardpoints?

And you would need to add a tag in the code that tells the game to render the missile, even when it's not fired.

I did that table thing to provide a means for as little recoding as possible, because if you need to do it in PCS or Modelview, you would have to specifically recode some aspects of those programs

[Shinobi]

Sounds like a cool idea. The idea of a ship warping in, deploying a big-ass SSM half its size before warping out again would be memorable indeed

[Taristin]

Originally posted by Unknown Target
I did that table thing to provide a means for as little recoding as possible, because if you need to do it in PCS or Modelview, you would have to specifically recode some aspects of those programs

Yes, but it's better to have it in the pof data. I hate using tbl coordinates. it's just a pain.

[karajorma]

What's all this about putting the location of the hardpoints in the table? It has to go in the pof if possible. Putting the location in the table sounds like a monumental pain in the arse.

[Unknown Target]

For the modders, but not for the programmers

[Taristin]

Ahh, but it only has to be programmed once.  Who's the ones who are going to be using this feature?

[Black Wolf]

Meh - how is it all that hard? Youd have to copy and paste the coords from modelview into Aurora or PCS anyway - what's the differenceif it's into one of those or the tables?

[KARMA]

I suppose that it'd be a little boring

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Black Wolf
Meh - how is it all that hard? Youd have to copy and paste the coords from modelview into Aurora or PCS anyway - what's the differenceif it's into one of those or the tables?

Cause when Kazan finishes his new pof editor with a better viewer you'll be able to do it all in one program (or still be stuck cutting and pasting if you put it in a table). Better yet you can simply place lights in Truespace and have the pof automatically figure out where the hard points should be.

[Flipside]

Well, once the code freeze is off, I'm going to request shockwaved subsystems again, that should give people enough fun when a hardpoint is desdtroyed

I'd say table-based actually, not only is it easier from a programmers POV, but because it means you can specify more details about the hardpoint and possibly limit weapon selection based upon the type of hardpoint, it's maximum size limit or whatever at some point in the future
Also, you could add info regarding how much damage it's destruction does to the ship in general

[StratComm]

I'd be a little concerned with ballooning the table size though.  Especially if we go to a hardpoint system for turrets (would require  a turret code rework - ick! - but could also allow side mounted/angular mounted multiparts), that's a lot of extra entries that are getting loaded for little or no reason.   Put it in the POF, you only load them when you need them.  Plus, while the location is intuitive enough, a normal vector would be a bit problematic to enter into tables.

[Bobboau]

uhm, you know the coordanants of the 'hardpoints' are al ready in the model, the primary and secondary fireing points, I'm thinking that there may need to be multable subobjects within the pof and in the ship's table you specify with subobject you want to use for that ship, this way you can have full missle objects for things that have weapons mounts externaly, just the tip for things that are mounted internaly and specaly built versions for ships that neither one of these two would work for. in the weapons table you specify an external veiw pof containing multable subobjects (only one of wich will be rendered), and in the ships table you specify wich submodel to use for weapon rendering.  now this isn't some new maga system, I could probly make it so hitting a weapon model disables it, but this isn't anything that will make the way for little more than some eyecandy, it is just rendering a model at the fireing points.

[Nico]

yeah, the gunpoint coordinates, that's where the guns shoot from, and that's where the model center is placed. Up to the modelers to place the axis right. Imho, it should be done that way:
just add a tag in the weapon entry ( you know, where you set the guns that can fit to that gun/hardpoint ), like a "-ext" ( external ) tag. Then the game applies the pof assigned to said weapon in a new line in the weapon tbl ( $docked_weapon_pof:nameofpof.pof )

Then don't bother about mirroring, coz
1) the weapons can't be made symetrical
2) they don't HAVE to be symetrical, if the weapon was done taht way, well, i doubt there's a "lefty" weapon

Just repeating what you said, anyway.
I was thinking it would be cool to have missile pods too ( like the hydras on the AH64, the tubular thing that carries all the rockets, and would not disappear ), but then again those can be modeled directly on the ship.