[rscaper1070]

I'm curious if anybody has ever put a low poly pilot in with the debris. I've been looking around and I haven't seen any. It kind of surprises me that it hasn't been done yet. It would be pretty shocking to be flying around and have one bounce off your cockpit glass.

[General Battuta]

I'm curious if anybody has ever put a low poly pilot in with the debris. I've been looking around and I haven't seen any. It kind of surprises me that it hasn't been done yet. It would be pretty shocking to be flying around and have one bounce off your cockpit glass.

We did it for the Kentauroi in War in Heaven. It's still in, but we won't be doing it again, because we realized two things.

1) The pilot will leave a huge flaming trail.

2) The pilot will spontaneously explode.

At one point the Solaris also had bundles of bodies in its debris. They were pulled for similar reasons and because the Solaris had so much debris it broke the engine.

[Droid803]

explosive pilots FTW.

[Vengence]

We did it for the Kentauroi in War in Heaven. It's still in, but we won't be doing it again, because we realized two things.

1) The pilot will leave a huge flaming trail.

2) The pilot will spontaneously explode.

At one point the Solaris also had bundles of bodies in its debris.

Oh god hahaha!   You made me laugh so hard there. Flaming trail and spontaneously explode haha oh rich  .  Yeah that does seem to be a bit of a hitch.

[The E]

The Uhlan still has it.

[headdie]

isnt there some retail vasudan ships that have a body in the debris, i seem to remember something about it mentioned in the supposedly unmanned resupply ship

[Rodo]

Well I always wanted to have bodies floating around, but that thing about exploding and burning pilots... I now know why it's not being used

[Trivial Psychic]

Perhaps there be some coding changes done to this.  Have the body chunk be given some pof data which the new code would flag as no-flame and debris-no-explode.  On top of that, it could also be useful it there was a way to have the body spawned as a new model from the explosion.  One could probably do it with some form of scripting.  That way there could be a mission where you come across the scene of a battle and have to scan the debris for pilots, then scan to find any that are alive (just using cargo data) so that a pilot can be recovered.

As a side note, for pilot recovery, it'd be cool to have a specialized recovery craft with space doors that open.  Put a dockpoint on the pilot and then have the doors on the recover craft open up on approach and have the dockpoint placed in the space behind the door.  After docking, close the doors and give the pilot a departure cue with no warp flagged.

[General Battuta]

The flaming debris element is a script, not a code. The debris chunk would indeed need some special form of tag which the script would need to recognize. As for it not exploding, that could (maybe) really bog down the engine if you got enough pilots drifting about.

[The E]

Not to mention that debris would still have to be cleared after a while to avoid running out of DEbris slots.

[Herra Tohtori]

It would have to be changed so that the pilot is an independent object (like a new ship) that is created along with the debris.

Then again, exploding pilots sound like something the Gaian Effort would actually do.

"You'll never take me alive, you Buntu scum! Aieee!" *boom*

[ssmit132]

It would have to be changed so that the pilot is an independent object (like a new ship) that is created along with the debris.

Then again, exploding pilots sound like something the Gaian Effort would actually do.

"You'll never take me alive, you Buntu scum! Aieee!" *boom*

I thought "You'll never take me alive" as well.

What happens if you blow up the Spacesuit? Does that get flaming debris as well?

[Dilmah G]

Well you would've been igniting the EVA/life support gear, so it would make sense.

[Dragon]

Maybe if SCP could add "$Pilot" to subobject proporties, it'd prevent it from exploding and would have something that'd enable telling the script not to set this object on fire.

[Getter Robo G]

Oh God that's funny as Hell.

Flame trail....... <kaboom!>


Briefing Officer:  "Attention pilots, due to amendment 37, subsection F, all combat personnel (both friendly and hostile) will be equipped with suicide vests to prevent capture and possible interrogation." 

Random Pilot: "Er, but Sir, what about possible SAR operations?"


Briefing Officer: "There won't be any. Now, any more questions?" 

 

[headdie]

saves on having to put other personnel in danger conducting SAR in hostile territory

[0rph3u5]

I'm curious if anybody has ever put a low poly pilot in with the debris.

'cause fighter's have cockpits that serve as secure "lifeboats" as well? (like Babylon 5's StarFuries)

At least that is who I explain it in SoI....

[lostllama]

'cause fighter's have cockpits that serve as secure "lifeboats" as well? (like Babylon 5's StarFuries)

That reminds me of Dekker's Eject-o-Land mod, which has a two-man jettisonable cockpit section/escape pod in it if I remember correctly. I think it works like a newly-spawned ship that's generated upon the "parent" ship's destruction (I have a copy of this mod if anyone is interested in having a look).

[Kusanagi]

I wouldn't mind taking a look at it. Could add an interesting element to gameplay.

[lostllama]

I've just given it a go using FSO 3.6.12. It's really just a demonstration consisting of a single mission. You need to lower your hull integrity by ramming into stuff to trigger ejection. The model it uses for the "escape pod" is the Ironhawk 2 Sunrider model (originally made by Black Wolf). I'm not a FRED expert but I think it's a simple thing to implement (it probably uses a replace-ship event or something). Anyway it's attached below.

EDIT: Having trouble uploading... I'll try to sort it out ASAP.

EDIT 2: @Kusanagi - I'll e-mail it to you.

Hmm. Maybe I should ask Dekker for a sequel...

A SAR craft is something I've thought would be a nice addition, like those nanny ships from Starlancer, as well as having the odd ejected pilot (like those seen in X-Wing Alliance). I think it'd be great to take on the role of a SAR pilot and perform rescue operations. For FS I could imagine a modified support ship performing such a role.