[Starman01]

Hello,

I'm going to create my first planetary mission, but I will also make the approach towards the planet via autopilot, and chained missions with no briefing/debriefing to make the enter and departure of the atmosphere.

For the first try I created a f.... huge planet model that really works fine Then while I was approaching the planet with the autopilot, I was suprised to see a game feature that I didn't knew yet.

I was getting a "to close to planet, taking damage" message and I really received damage. Now, this was totally unexpected, I didn't knew there was something like that in it.

While this is kinda convinient, I would now like to know how this can be setup. The thing is, I already received the damage while I was very far away, and so it makes not much sense.

Can someone give me any hints regarding this issue, table-hints, special pof-entries or anything else ?

Thanks in advance

Starman©

[karajorma]

It's hard coded AFAIK. originally planned something with planets but never finished it.

[Starman01]

Well, in that case that is really bad news   Since the damage already appears at this far distance, I will not be able to create the planetary missions that I planned.

****adds another feature request to the already too long SCP wishlist****

[karajorma]

Just call the planet something that doesn't have the word planet in it.

[Herra Tohtori]

Um, if I named an Orion "GTD Planet", would I have similar phenomena? Like, it would cause damage to anything coming too near it? 

[Petrarch of the VBB]

Yep.

[Starman01]

Just call the planet something that doesn't have the word planet in it.

Ha, who would have thought that Thanks, now I can at least build my mission.

[Solatar]

Instead of calling it "planet something" call it like "system name number" (i.e.-Ribos IV).

[StratComm]

Um, if I named an Orion "GTD Planet", would I have similar phenomena? Like, it would cause damage to anything coming too near it? 

That's a bug.  "Planetside Transport" shouldn't trigger gravity damage.  Surely there's a better way to deal with that than a hardcoded name.

[Dark Hunter]

If you were gonna have a mission actually in/on the planet, well it's easy to do if its a gas giant. Just use a nebula and say you're in a gas giant's atmosphere. As for flying over rocky planets.... I know its possible (I've see it done) but I'm not sure exactly how.......

[Shadow0000]

So...this seems interesting, for Sol: A History I'll have to change the $Name: Planet Moon in the Ships.tbl right ?, the POF name doesn't matter right?.

****adds another feature request to the already too long SCP wishlist****

It would be nice we could manage different planets in the TBL by assingning gravity field max/min lenght and intensity.

If you think about this, if the ship is supposed to be able to enter the Atmosphere, we would need to experience this damage effect, and then add the kind of shudder that the ship recieves when there is an strong Engine Wash, so it would give the impression our ship starts to vaporize slowly....

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Is this kind of gravity field calculated by the "Mass" in the POF file, then we would be able to control and modify at least Max Range, right ? (but not Min range and Intensity)

[Trivial Psychic]

Surely there's a better way to deal with that than a hardcoded name.

This sounds like a job for:  objecttypes.tbl, once it gets fleshed out some more.

[Herra Tohtori]

By the way, could you add an illusion of orbiting a planet? Like, you make the planet a model that rotates, and the background starfield and nebulae are on the inside of a HUGE ball and they too rotate? This would effectively create an illusion of orbiting the planet instead of just floating there above the surface...

Of course the lighting for the planet would have to be something else than just textures. Well, it would also create a problem, I think, when the systems star is on the other side of the planet and the planet shades the fleet. Is it even possible to implement a moving star as a main source of light?

[karajorma]

I see no reason why you can't create the planet as a rotating subsystem of an invisible box.

Rotating the background would be more difficult though.

[Trivial Psychic]

The fun part is it it's got any settlements on it.  Dark side would have city glows, but sun-side wouldn't.  As the planet rotates, you'd want the areas passing through the terminator into night, to activate their glowmaps, but the only ways to do that is by making the model with a huge number of glowmaps, then activate them via sexp as they turn.  Of course, you can't have that many maps for the model because of the HTL situation.  Therein lies the problem.

[karajorma]

Do them as glowpoints rather than glowmaps Of course you'd need a hell of a lot of patience to add them all in

[Herra Tohtori]

Why the **** bother to activate/deactivate them when they pass into shadow/light?

Just make them dim enough to show up subtly in the dark side and dim enough to be flooded by the sunlight on the light side. Just as it really happens.

The city lights are not, I fear, as bright in nature as they appear on satellite photos.

[Mars]

Just like I don't think nebulas are actually technicolored, but it adds to the feel of the game.

[Herra Tohtori]

Yeah, well, I myself would much appreciate plain starfield and perhaps the Milky Way instead of technicolor nebulae, and on some special missions some cool gas clouds in the background. Nebula missions I've always shunned a bit - there are no such regions in space that were so dense you can hardly see your wingmen.

Nor are there lightnings. But granted, if I imagine them happening instead in atmosphere of some gas giant it's much better and the missions themselves are way cool.

Monocolor nebulae I can accept, they are cool when they make the shadowed side of a ship glow on their color.  But in general, I'm all for subtle effects yadda yadda yadda. Again, Frespace has always has excellent gameplay as its biggest good side - graphics used to be crappy, FSO has made them better. Still, the gameplay and the general feel has stayed much the same IMO. Why is that so, even if the graphics - including the background nebulae - have hugely improved?

Coolest thing accomplished by background nebulae is IMO environment mapping making the ships shine. It still FEELS (almost) the same when you get into the fight. The changes in gameplay only step forward in some of more special mods like TBP with it using lateral thrusters and so forth.

Sorry. I just cannot be anything other than a realism freak. 

[Shadow0000]

. Is it even possible to implement a moving star as a main source of light?

You're supposed to rotate the planet, but as the Sun is a background you can't move the planet in around it. The main problem is that if you rotate the planet, once you're inside it's gravity field your ships should also rotate along the planet in a fixed or relative position to it, changing the focus on the light source, of course the system star is always in the same position. I don't think this is really possible, to have a relative and unoticeable movement as it happens in reality...

Anyways I don't really care about relative movement and gravity affecting it, it's not like I am going to play a 24 hs mission and see whoa....now is night on earth

The fun part is it it's got any settlements on it.  Dark side would have city glows, but sun-side wouldn't.  As the planet rotates, you'd want the areas passing through the terminator into night, to activate their glowmaps, but the only ways to do that is by making the model with a huge number of glowmaps, then activate them via sexp as they turn.  Of course, you can't have that many maps for the model because of the HTL situation.  Therein lies the problem.

There is a Shader that is specially used for this. However that solution would work, earth for example has 3 basic maps, the day map, and the night map and nightlights Glow map, which are supposed to be shown only over the dark face of the earth and change as the Earth rotate.