[Dragon]

I would like to introduce my newest idea: The planet approaching system.
So far I have a mission in which you can get down to the planet from space ,from 130km.
It's really simple ,but it's going to serve the purpose of showing the general concept ,as well as a "platform" for further upgrades.
I'd like you to post anything that can improve this mission ,including better models (Earth from INF is really lo-poly),
ideas ,scripts and anything else you think can be added to this mission.
I think it would be good idea to add:
1. Skyboxes ,one with blue sky and one with animated texture ,showing the translation between blue and black sky.
2. Better models:
A. Earth model like the one made by Omniscaper ,but not undesized.
B. HTL Surface model.
3. Scripting ,a lot of possiblities ,for example the one for atmospheric flight made some time ago ,I think it can be adapted to this mission. Also it should be possible to script reentry flames.
4. New models ,like fly-through cloud layer ,modeled clouds ,there's also a lot of possiblities there.
5. Autopilot ,for some reason it didn't worked well for me ,maybe I did something wrong (I didn't payed too much attention to it anyway)
I think entering and exiting atmosphere is an intresting idea and if we manage to get it to work properly it would be great.

[The E]

Still not convinced that this is a good idea with the current engine.
Consider this: When loading this mission, you'll have to have ALL the models loaded in memory. And since a detailed planetary surface is HUGE, what with all the geometry and textures needed to make it look good, I seriously fear you'll hit a hardware limit.
If FSO supported some kind of streaming, I'd be more positive, but you're essentially going against one of the core assumptions of the game engine here.

[Droid803]

Personally, I would do something with planet bitmaps and skyboxes in combination, using the change-background SEXP to simulate approach.

[Dragon]

Detailed planet surface is:
1. As detailed as for normal suface missions.
2. Not even linked to the planet.
Check out how I did it. TBP landscape and INF Earth ,for improving them I want just better quailty of both.
EDIT: Uploading finished ,get the Alpha version of planetary approaches here:
http://www.freespacemods.net/download.php?view.550

[Droid803]

I still wouldn't use a planet model.
Use a planet bitmap. Then a skybox. When you get close enough, switch for the landscape. Forget the planet model - not needed. 60% of the polies on that, if not more, are going to be wasted. You're only ever going to be on one side of it.

[Getter Robo G]

When I thought I was getting no help at all i resigned myself to separating space and ground missions ignoring re-entry or achieving orbit. 

Break it up with a mission load or a red alert...

But that's just me.

[Dragon]

That's what I originally wanted to do ,but there's a problem.
What if I want to take off the carrier ,enter atmosphere ,accomplish a mission ,then return to carrier.
Double red alert has been reported to cause problems and I'm going to use carrier landing instead of warping out.
I also wanted to have player controlled entry someday ,so entering atmosphere would be some sort of challenge.
(not to mention trying the entering chased by the enemy fighters)
I had an idea of player being chased by three fighters into planet's atmosphere ,with one enemy previously hit ,so it ends like Columbia. (and you have two fighters to get rid of on the surface).
Not to mention I think that if somebody manage to script reentry flames it would be too awesome to abandon.

[Getter Robo G]

I suggest you talk to the Sector Game people.

Assuming they are still modding. Some of us have been waiting for how they are pioneering certain tweaks to the engine for years now.

IIRC some of the issues you mention are touched on by them.

[Flipside]

TI is on hold at the moment, you might do better talking to the SoL people on Gamewarden who have a lot more planet-based stuff than we do.

In truth, it'll be very diffiult to anything other than a 'clunky' transition, you could, possibly, fade in the nebula effect, change the background, and fade it out again, to give the appearance of going through a cloud layer, and there are tricks for creating a landscape, but the real problems are the fact that everything will still act like you are in space, and ships have a problem with there being a bottom to the universe

[Getter Robo G]

That sucks, cuase I thought one of the things you guys were working on was gravity.

 

[Flipside]

We are/were, but Gravity isn't just a physics problem, it's an AI problem as well, and of course the fact that if 'real' gravity was implemented, FS2 would quickly turn into a driving game because there are no ships that could actually get off the ground, so some kind of balance has to be struck between reality and playability.

[Dragon]

I have found this atmospheric fight script ,here: http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,50937.0.html
It seems that the author is Nuke and the script is buggy ,though if somebody upgrade it and make start working at around 122km (wiki article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_space#Boundary )
it would be what I would like to have. (making it involve AI ships would be also welcome).
As for gravity it's scheluded for 3.6.11: http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,48559.0.html
(of course if the "gravity points" are what I think they are)

[Flipside]

Yup, the gravity points are what they sound like, placeable centres of gravity.

[Nuke]

ive been reworking the atmospheric flight model. currently working on some better gauges, and fixing a bug in computing the horizontal lift component when in a bank (seems way stronger than it should be). i also want to add gravitational falloff, more atmospheric layers, spherical planets with atmo, multiple drag and lift surfaces, control surfaces, proper torque physics, ect.

[Dragon]

It seems that you have listed all that I wanted but reentry flames ,though they are mostly eyecandy and I can even explain lack of them.
(like energy shield reducing the friction).
Is there any way I can help you with this?
I very like your work on pirates in Nukemod ,the only thing they're missing are ships bigger than Rumrunner ,so I guess your planet model will be at least as awesome as them.
I'm looking forward to final Nukemod release.

[Nuke]

well i thought about that actually. i just forgot to mention it. ive had in my mind for some time an idea for a mission taking place during reentry. it starts out with a rumrunner fleeing from a ragnarok class. since a rumrunner is capable of atmospheric flight and a ragnarok is not. the rumrunner is trying to get into the atmosphere of a gas giant, the ragnarok plans to stay on trajectory till the last moment, then fire its burners to avoid. during the mission the pirates take out its engines and it enters the atmosphere. the pirates escort the rumrunner in and have to defend it from some phoenix class fighters while the ragnarok, tunbles and systems blow up and fail and tries to eject some escape pods. to make things more interesting you can make it so that the pirates attempt to retrieve some of the pods before they can jump out. i havent decided what sde the player would fight on, as it would be intresting to play the mission from both sides.

for effect id set up a number of particle spewers over the hull of the ragnarok. ive worked on particle generation code before. another idea i had would be to make sort of an rtt scorchmap that essentially be a glow map that slowly grows brighter by additively drawing flamelike bitmaps to it. scriptable, yes but im not sure how it would look. this is one of those things i wish we had a second map channel for. so i can scorch the ship based on the dot product between the face normals and the velocity of the ship, so that faces into the wind scorch faster than the rest of them. this with particles would look downright awesome. but theres feasability and performance considerations as well.

[Dragon]

Wow!
I never thought about getting a capship battle into atmosphere ,you want gas giant ,but I can imagine such mission above ground ,fighing enemies in upper atmosphere while trying not to fall to the ground or burn completely. I think you can add a "damage limit" to units in atmospere ,below which the ship will immidiately blow up
(holes in armour+high temperature=not good).
I don't know if it's possible ,but it would be fun to see Ragnarok not to explode ,but to fall with increasing speed into atmosphere ,disappearing under cloud layer in the end ,most preferably pointing it's neck into space.
Off Topic: Is this thread http://www.game-warden.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5621 still actual?
Because I would like to apply in the ships/weapons tabler position.

[Getter Robo G]

I always wanted to do a "drop pod" or escort mission where only a handful of capable units can guard the objectives from enemy units or surface to orbit missiles.

like something out of Starship trooper, or Gundam...

[Nuke]

Wow!
I never thought about getting a capship battle into atmosphere ,you want gas giant ,but I can imagine such mission above ground ,fighing enemies in upper atmosphere while trying not to fall to the ground or burn completely. I think you can add a "damage limit" to units in atmospere ,below which the ship will immidiately blow up
(holes in armour+high temperature=not good).
I don't know if it's possible ,but it would be fun to see Ragnarok not to explode ,but to fall with increasing speed into atmosphere ,disappearing under cloud layer in the end ,most preferably pointing it's neck into space.
Off Topic: Is this thread http://www.game-warden.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5621 still actual?
Because I would like to apply in the ships/weapons tabler position.

youd have to talk to axem about that. children of shiva is essentially a campaign utilizing the nukemod fleet. axem pretty much heads up cos, and ive given him full creative freedom. nukemod on the other hand is in the middle of a slowly progressing yet serious overhaul. many of my ships are still not htl happy, nothing has normal maps either. also my coding projects seem to take the biggest slice out of my time right now.

[Nuke]

to keep you informed on the status of atmospheric flight, ive managed to fix some bugs in the air density calculations, got gravitational gradient working, and layed down some of the framework for spherical gravity (mainly alternative calculations for altitude and gravity). i also added atmospheric layers, so you can have a dense layer for example. this lets you simulate a certain mission from bsg. im going to attempt to simulate the moon titan (or a rough approximation at least), mainly because the earth is way too big to fit in fs, titan has a denser atmosphere and yet is about half the size. its escape velocity is also low enough not to fling you into the kill zone when you leave it.

heres the kicker, im gonna need to dip into the actual game engine to turn off certain parts of fs's physics engine, so that script can override it. im gonna need to make the collision detection system in the game tolerant of out of range velocities. i may even need to transplant parts of of my atmospherics system into fs itself. my original plan was to see if i could implement a new physx based system, but untill they make physx cards for laptops im sol.