[Setekh]

This mod idea was inspired by a Stargate episode.  

A model, with 3 or 4 separate fighters: they are all subsystems of one 'ship'. All the fighters receive the same commands, so they fly in a fixed wing formation. So the player, or an AI pilot, can control effectively four figthers at once - one can be destroyed and the others will continue to fly, as they are subsystems of the ship.

It would be effective story-wise as a resort used by the NTF when pilots were rare, or something along those lines.  

[Fineus]

Could we do that for the FS engine?

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[Setekh]

Yes we can (I'm 90% sure) - if we can get separate models within the one ship model, everything else will work - we can simply have shield meshes over each individual 'fighter', each fighter will have gunpoints and thrusters etc. and each will be a subsystem of the drone fighter wing.

[Fantomeye]

MAKE IT OUT OF ONE SUBOBJECT or else

[Setekh]

They can be handled the same way that turrets are - as individual subsystems.

[Fineus]

In that case: Wicked!

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Webmaster: Hard Light Productions
Staffer and P1mp: Ross128   Sounds of Thunder
Fight the future!

[Setekh]

I catch you online once and you're not on ICQ! Can you say D'oh?  

[Shrike]

I dunno.....sounds cool, but I don't know how well it will work in practice, to tell you the truth.

[Fineus]

It might look terrible- but this site is for pioneering things... so lets give it a go! (anyone know modelling?)

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Webmaster: Hard Light Productions
Staffer and P1mp: Ross128   Sounds of Thunder
Fight the future!

[Shrike]

I'm busy with other models at the moment.

[Setekh]

At least we'll know what doesn't work  

[Admiral]

Interesting idea Setekh.

How would they stay together, would it be some invisible 'thread' connecting the ships or can you actually have them part of the same 'ship' but not connected.

If they were connected then they couldn't really change formation, so when they turned it might look a bit funny and if one or two got destroyed it might look like the flying is unsyncronised.

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"All empires Fall. You just have to know where to push."

[Setekh]

Well, the Knossos model is not all connected.  

[Admiral]

There we go then.

I still can't shake the idea that it would look artificial though since the fighters wouldn't really stay in formation while dogfighting, they'd lose their advantage.

Maybe it would work better for something else, such as a brace or torpedoes or a drone ship with little ships stationed around it (aka Homeworld).  If you did that it would look pretty cool and as it was a capship it wouldn't need to manouvere.

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"All empires Fall. You just have to know where to push."

[Jake Logan]

that sounds difficult. i always have problems with multible objects so i know i can't do it.

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"I like tomatoes because they are so red"-Daveb

[Setekh]

Well, we know it can be done - now we just have to figure out how.  

[morris13]

hey Setekh, did you ever figure this out?

[Nico]

I thought about that too, but it was for asteroids, to have more dense asteroid fields. By making them rotate, and move the subobject axis out of the submodel itself, they would move around.

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venom2506
Member of the Robotech mod for FS2

and of Hidden Terror, the Shivan campaign

and My own page

[JarC]

Now I don't know s**t from modelling in FS yet, but there is this special texture that says hidden...isn't there?

so, if you have each 'fighter' stuck on the end of a pole, all poles connecting at the other end, and texture the poles with the 'hidden' texture, wouldn't it make it appear as separate objects?

[Warlock]

Give me a few.

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Warlock
 
DeathAngel Squadron
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