[DarthWang]

In the main Freespace 2 campaign, towards the end in the Capella missions, there are a lot of blinking red radar indicators, which are supposed to represent the Sathanai at the sun, but the Sathanai over the sun is just a background image, so if you go to check  out where the blips are coming from, you eventually find these small triangular things (about the size of a Pegasus fighter). They're  completely black and very hard  to see, and when you shoot them they run away.

[karajorma]

*Facepalms*

Yep. You're not supposed to actually be able to get that close. But when FS2_Open increased the desertion radius from 75km to 750km it became possible to go give them a once over.

Congratulations on being the first person willing to spend 5 minutes or so of their life flying out there to look at them (or being smart enough to stick the game on high speed so you could do it).

[Jeff Vader]

In the main Freespace 2 campaign, towards the end in the Capella missions, there are a lot of blinking red radar indicators, which are supposed to represent the Sathanai at the sun, but the Sathanai over the sun is just a background image

That part is quite enough on this issue. The rest... you just ruined the most intimidating part of the last missions. Thank you.

[Getter Robo G]

We can go to 750 KM away now?

 

Thank you! Now we have plenty of room for 22km ships to dogfight in...

  (just kidding, you I love large capship missions)

[ShadowGorrath]

Why are people scared of mission "Apocalypse" ?  It's fun. But I never see any screenshots or videos from that mission, mostly because people are scared to take screenshots/film it, due to the nasty surprise towards the end.

[IceFire]

In the main Freespace 2 campaign, towards the end in the Capella missions, there are a lot of blinking red radar indicators, which are supposed to represent the Sathanai at the sun, but the Sathanai over the sun is just a background image, so if you go to check  out where the blips are coming from, you eventually find these small triangular things (about the size of a Pegasus fighter). They're  completely black and very hard  to see, and when you shoot them they run away.

Yes thats true.  A great little trick to add the Sathanas fleet into the last few missions and remind the player they are there.  This technique is also used on the SOC mission in the binary system.

[DarthWang]

I used time compression.

But what are those things anyway? Do they have a name? And would it be possible to use them somehow in a mission (not as just radar blips)?

[Jeff Vader]

I suppose they're SJD Sathanases. And surely you can use them somehow if you can come up with something they could do. But the original intention was to just represent a Sathanas that is supposed to be so far away that the player can't see it (easier on the hardware, you know).

[Droid803]

You don't really NEED to use SJD Saths if you just want to represent sensor blips.
Heck, I can use a few SF Dragons, check something in FRED and achieve the same result.
Then, when the fool comes to check what those things are...they promptly get swarmed by Dragons. 

I never even knew of the desertion radius...

[Mobius]

Use sensor blips. You can find one in Warzone SCP's discussion in the FSCRP forum. They're not complex models, they work admirably.

[CP5670]

This is much more noticeable in Into the Lion's Den, since you can target the ships there and see them from their external view. The game contains a low detail Sathanas model (but which has the right scale) that would have been ideal here, but they instead used that little tetrahedron for some reason.

[DarthWang]

When I target the ships in ITLD it shows them as being actual Sathanai

Also what does the "D" stand for in SJD Sathanas? And why do they move when you shoot them? Do they have AI scripts? Can they be given orders in FRED?

[Mobius]

I think the "D" might stand for "distance". They could have used a name like "SJ Sathanas#distance", something like what they did with the Bastion.

[IceFire]

I used time compression.

But what are those things anyway? Do they have a name? And would it be possible to use them somehow in a mission (not as just radar blips)?

I'm not sure what you mean.  They are just a model used to represent the Sathanas at a great distance.  Toss a sequence of these into a mission and voila.  IF they are made targetable then they appear as a Sathanas on the targeting scope.  If not then they just appear as a fuzzy dot on the radar.

[Titan]

I thought it was also what was used in that first mision when you find the sath, cuz it was supposed to represent just some black mass with these huge fangs coming out at you from nowere.

[Jeff Vader]

I thought it was also what was used in that first mision when you find the sath, cuz it was supposed to represent just some black mass with these huge fangs coming out at you from nowere.

Baka. You can still see it. It's not at a great distance.

[Droid803]

Yer. I recall getting hit by it as it jumped out...or something. >.>

[haloboy100]

How do they make it so that when you target an SJD, it looks like a tetrahedron when you're next to it, but an actual sath in the radar?

[Droid803]

LODs?

[haloboy100]

Does that matter in the target box?