[ShadowWolf_IH]

Fighting in atmosphere would lend a different set of variables to the ships as we know them, handling would be different as our control surfaces for atmospheris flight were buffetted.  But flying in an arial support/superiority role could be kind of fun, strafing ground targets, and taking down arial defenders, sort of like rogue squadron, but better, obviously.....this is FS2.  One may even also have the ability to go from atmosphere to space, or vice versa.  The question is, would anyone even be interested in something like this, or is it just a bad idea from your local source of bad ideas?

[Stryke 9]

It's been thought of before. Problem one is gravity. Problem two is the terrain's poly count. Problem three is having that many subsystems. And so on. Mainly, we're a bit lazy, and if you want that, a game built for atmospheric flight is much better.

[Knight Templar]

who needs gravity, rouge squadron had no evident gravity other than falling when u die.  

[StratComm]

Yeah, but Rogue Squadron actually had a technological system (from the star wars series) that explained why there was no evident gravity; repulsorlifts.  FS has no evidence of that.

[ShadowWolf_IH]

ok a few notes on gravity in fs, we explode, we don't crash land.  However gravitation is something that would be interesting in the code project.  Poly's would be a pain in the posterior, but what if we run them the same was as say the GTI Atlantis?  I know that it uses sub objects, not that i know what this means, i'm just a humble fredder.  Ground objects would be different models that we can place on the large object (planet).  And as for terrain features, we could create a series of object templates to place on our large object.  This may or may not be feasible, but it's interesting nonetheless.  For mobile units, we could edit them in the ships table to have 0 degree turn radius in the z axis, this would keep them planetbound, and would offer the illusion of gravity. Will it work, I don't know, but I am getting ready to test it, as soon as Dead Zone goes off.

[ShadowWolf_IH]

ok note to self, do not set z axis to zero.  oops, sometimes i can be so forgetful.  however, setting it really high has an interesting effect

[Stryke 9]

Problem with subobjects is, a single unified object has a limited number of polys, so we'd be talking multiple meshes tiled together for the textures. ANd if they came too close or were too far apart, you'd see the cracks. Not to mention what would happen if something crashed into them...

And there simply aren't enough polys allowed in the game at once to give you a decent horizon, much less keep a ground below you for a good-length mission.

[AqueousShadow]

Originally posted by ShadowWolf_IH
ok a few notes on gravity in fs, we explode, we don't crash land.

[AqueousShadow]

So we explode in the game, but what about the CG intro? The Herc was shot down and then plummeted down to the surface of the planet (Deneb, right? ). And while zooming down to the crashed ship, you see a...hmmm...I wonder...A CRASHED HADES!! So gravity does exist in FS (sort of ). Anyways, I'm just laying down the facts so don't mind my idiotic self

[Alikchi]

The intro movies were made by Interplay which makes them extremely doubtful. For example, there was only one Hades and it blew up in space. The Lucifer does not have a beam cannon where it is in the intro. The Manticore launches its missile from the primary gun slot. You see the GTD Bastion in the Orion cutscene. Et cetera. So basing your arguments off the cutscenes doesn't work, sadly

[Star Dragon]

Um guys this is FS2 not the NASA Simulator... It doesn't have to be 100% REAL!


   Seriously, Shadow Wolf, if you test works out let me know! I am scrounging around for robot .pof's for a Mechwarrior type senario when first there is the battle to get into the system and reach the planet, next the drop ships send out the mecha while the fighters escort. Lastly you help take the planet! (Burn it all down!!!) Oops! he he I mean liberate those poor souls

FYI  The robotech team made an atmosphere mod (a little thick for my taste but it's the onlyone I know of) and the Bab5 team made an extreame near earth orbit mod that is simply the coolest!!!!

If anyone can help me get robot/mech models/files let me know PLS!!! thanks...

[ShadowWolf_IH]

Star Dragon we really need to talk, that's been my idea for a while.  I'm a long time player of mechwarrior and have a league set up for mechwarrior3 that uses the freespace2 demo for space combat.  I went with 3 because if you play mechwarrior, then you probably know that mech4 is a shadow of what it should have been.  If we can figure out a way, to do planets, my thought on mechs was that the lower half of the mech was a ship in the pof, and the upper half was a turret, the cockpit would be held in a turret.  You wouldn't have arm movement, but in torso twist (which is why i was thinking that the upper half could be a turret), i think i am the only mechwarrior that actually extends an arm further than my twist allows anyway.  That's exactly where i was heading.  For leg movement, it would be a pain, but the idea is that we use an ani to make the legs appear to be moving.  I think that most of this would have to be done in coding.  I was wanting to do this for the reasons that you mentioned above.  Hell, powered armor, could play a part as well.  

There is someone who thinks like me after all.  scary.

[Vasudan Admiral]

i've got mech3, played the demo of mech4 and i agree, from what i saw, mech4 really is nowhere near as good as mech3.

i think planetary attacks are the ultimate goal for the coders. being able to fly into a planet's atmosphere and attack ground targets would undoubtedly raise the genral standard hundredfold. it would need to be accomplished in steps.
1) get planet objects to work properly
2) implement new aspects of pofs allowing them to be buildings, ground units (ie, keeping them on the ground etc)
3) if the planets are to look real, horizons are neccasary, some background tweaks should handle this (as in take up a large portion of the main background)
4) atmosphere as in clouds (a sort of full nebula in a cloud layer mabey?)
5) gravity may be implimented (a sort of constant blast force affecting ships going under a certain speed, being under a certain damage level and capships under a certain distance?)
6) all the itty bitty effects added over time like wind, water meteor showers etc.

oh, and the gravity would probably be the hardest thing to get. or mabey clouds.
a mech warrior TC would be intresting
and as you may have guessed, i am guessing for most of this

[Hippo]

Originally posted by Alikchi
The intro movies were made by Interplay which makes them extremely doubtful. For example, there was only one Hades and it blew up in space. The Lucifer does not have a beam cannon where it is in the intro. The Manticore launches its missile from the primary gun slot. You see the GTD Bastion in the Orion cutscene. Et cetera. So basing your arguments off the cutscenes doesn't work, sadly

As far as i know, Jotenheim wasn't anywhere near deneb... and i saw it explode... i fleww around untill all the debris exploded... i didn't see no planet...

[ShadowWolf_IH]

So then which of us wants to look like an idot and tell the coders that we wanna drive mechs too?  I was thinking that lams (Land Air Mechs) would be of fun, they can transform from a starfighter to a battlemech.  Fredding would be accomplished with a switch to "allow ground mode", if that wasn't hit, it doesn't matter if you are in a Lam or not, you can't switch to ground mode.  But you would still have your choice of atmosphere worthy fighters.  If ground mode is selected, you could be in Lam, or in a mech, in which case you are planetbound while your multiplayer friends bombard you.  I just find the idea intriguing.  And i know of people in the mech communty would eat this up.  I've already gotten some of them adicted to FS, I don't know if it would revitalize FS or not, but there would be a definate influx of new people, and a new kind of MOD.

As far as other ground effects are concerned, buildings and such, there is a POF for asteroids, although i once got a hostile asteroid in a mission that hostile in fred.  So then we have something to work with as far as inanimate objects go.  Turrets.  Don't we already have them?  and then like i said, templates for terrain features, these would be set as objects in fred, ie...river bed 1, mountain range 1, with as many different ones and types as a modder wants to come up with.  I don't know if this is the right code to use for something like this, but i think it's worth looking at.

[vyper]

from a sheerly fredders point of view, you could achieve your idea of  multiple objects that are joined together (yet independent) by the use of the "docking" code. Just a suggestion

[karajorma]

They'd need to first fix the code so that you can successfully join more than two ships together of course.

[Flipside]

Getting the LODS to work together wouldn't be fun, but lots of subobjects would possibly work. Something the size of a planet is over a thousand Samanthas in circumference (approx 9000 km) That's a big damn model, no matter how you look at it! At least the Nebula effect could be modified for clouds, but I'm not sure how convincing it would look from above or below the cloudline.
Either way, do not expect mega-detailed surfaces, I wouldn't knock anyone here as a coder, since I last programmed in Z80 (Back in the days of the Amstrad 6128), but I do know that the sheer volume of code that would be required for seamless planet/space scens in FS2 would be an absolute nightmare. It was like the talk of doing a scriptable camera for cutscenes, a chat that went on in Sectorgame, it's a brilliant idea, until you take it to pieces and look at how much rewriting and additional code would actually be required. Yes, there is code for scene rendering and moving the 'camera' around which is attached to a ship, but to actually get the camera to turn, look at an object while it is moving , behave to a 'script' would take a severe amount of recoding.
The planet thing is a great idea, and I wish you every luck, but I would honestly recommend you take a look at what you would have to do before you put in a lot of hard work
Remember... FS2 is pretty unforgiving even with 'legal' techniques, imagine how stroppy it will be when you try to 'trick' it?

Flipside

[ShadowWolf_IH]

A fun discovery, as of june 26, the Robotech Mod has probably got the ability to do total transformations.  Ship to Robotic.  This is possible with the code.  So it would appear that Robotics is possible, now to conquer gravity and planets.

[Solatar]

What's the Robotech site again? I used to use the link from F2S, but the sites dead right now.