[gevatter Lars]

I have a question...what else, I am always asking and asking...

My question is can I make an own shild for caps that fit to the shape of the hull?
I think it is possible, but how is it made?

My thought was, since a shild is a own model (IIRC), to take the main hull of the ship and just make it a bit larger.
Question is when that works, what I have to do to make that model a shild and invisible.

[demon442]

this whole shielding a capital ship thing has been done before, unsuccessfully I might add.

[vadar_1]

Originally posted by demon442
this whole shielding a capital ship thing has been done before, unsuccessfully I might add.

Yes it has been done before, successfully. The SSD Diablo was completely shield-meshed.

[demon442]

I stand corrected.  But didn't the AI stop putting power to shields and all of it to weapons?

[vadar_1]

The problem with shields on capships is two-fold:

1) To make a skin-tight shield-grid (the diablo had a 'relative form'), youd need of polys, effectivly doubling the poly-count on the ship. It would also be very difficult. Therefor, a bomber could slip between the gap in the shields (since these are plasmic shields, not force shields), and launch its warhead, then escape back outside the shield, where the shockwave would reflect off it.

2) The main threat to capships besides bombers is beams. Currently shields do not deflect beams... so much for the shields.


However, the AI can handle shields fine.

[demon442]

Oh well...i was remembering a thread on the VBB about this same thing and thought it was the same problem.

[Grey Wolf]

I made a ship I called the Titan-class cruiser before, which did have shields. It was a fairly fast ship, with a pretty good setup of forward-facing weaponry. The real threat I noticed toward it was not beams, but flak. It tended to fly quite close to the enemy ships, too close for beams, but get it's shields shredded by flak.

[CP5670]

By the way, who made that Diablo ship? I might want to use that in my campaign, but I don't know who to credit.

[gevatter Lars]

Fighter flys behind the shild->
No not if they are so close as I have planed it. Just a few cm above the hull! Show me the ship that can get behind that!

Polycount-> That dosn't matter at the moment. I just want to know how to make them...lets say for a prov of concept / want to know how it would look.

Beams-> There aren't any Beams in Wing Commander so that isn't a problem...well there was one beam, but that was a planet shredding one, so even the best shild would hold a second against it ^___^

Thats it so far...if anyone knows how to make a shild like I have discribed it please tell me.

Other think...can the impact ani be changed? Maybe into something more electric or in something like in, well Wing Commander?

[karajorma]

Originally posted by gevatter Lars
Fighter flys behind the shild->
No not if they are so close as I have planed it. Just a few cm above the hull! Show me the ship that can get behind that!

Polycount-> That dosn't matter at the moment. I just want to know how to make them...lets say for a prov of concept / want to know how it would look.

The two are not mutually exclusive. If you increase the poly count of your model above 3500 you probably won`t even be able to get it to work in game. If you do make a lower poly shield model then it will have gaps large enough to fly a fighter into.

 As for how to make the shield why not download one of the shielded caps already out there. I believe a shielded Aeolus is already out (don`t know the address though)

[Mad Bomber]

If I remember right, Kazan made a few shielded capships for UA, but never used them.

[gevatter Lars]

That didn't realy solve my problem... I have searched for shilded models, but every time I convert them to pof to see how it works only the model is converted without the shield.

I have made a very simple model, a box and a bigger box as shield and got both in TS.
What do I have to do now to get this shield effect for the big box?

[StratComm]

Simple.

1.  Make sure it is untextured
2.  Call it "shield" in truespace
3.  Give it a light like any sub object should have (I think)
4.  Group the shield and the light together and glue them to the hull as a subobject

[Killfrenzy]

Correction of 1) Needs to have a monotone colour.

[gevatter Lars]

Seems as if I got it working...now I have to make a new shild for every ship in the mod...damm it, but its ok as long I can keep the polycount low enough to keep it playable and high enough to make it looking good.
The Confed ships would be easy mostly boxes from WC3-4 but WC 1+2 will be very difficult...

and thanks for helping. Hope that I can show you some results in the future.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by CP5670
By the way, who made that Diablo ship? I might want to use that in my campaign, but I don't know who to credit.

MEEEE!!!!!!



Incidentally, the Diablo mesh doesn't really match the hull cos I couldn't model it well enough in Blender.  It worked ok, although I never used it much cos The Ghost and the Darkness was stillborn.  The sides are horribly weak, though, due to the AI's broadsiding tactics.

Personally, I'd try and make partly shielded capships - i.e. only top and bottom, or something, so there's a weakness to probe for.

Of course, I have other reasons for liking this idea....

[Grey Wolf]

I wish we could do shields like in the Honor Harrignton books for capships. Inpenetrable grav bands cover the top and bottom, with sidewall generators for the sides, and a perfect up-the-kilt or down-the-throat if you manage to get in front of it

[Galemp]

Well, I suppose this is as good as a time as any to publicly release the...

[glow=black]SHIELDED LUCIFER MODEL!![/glow]

Made by DTP for the Freespace Port, but never implemented. Stealth or someone should be able to now, in my absence.
You guys can contact DTP on how he made it. It doesn't open in modelview but it works fine in-game. Have fun with it.
Get it HERE now!

[Stealth]

Originally posted by GalacticEmperor
Well, I suppose this is as good as a time as any to publicly release the...

[glow=black]SHIELDED LUCIFER MODEL!![/glow]

Made by DTP for the Freespace Port, but never implemented. Stealth or someone should be able to now, in my absence.
You guys can contact DTP on how he made it. It doesn't open in modelview but it works fine in-game. Have fun with it.
Get it HERE now! [/B]

eh?  me?

what do you want me to do with it?  let me know and i'll do it

you should let me know about these posts, i almost missed it



let me know

[Nico]

Originally posted by vadar_1
The problem with shields on capships is two-fold:

1) To make a skin-tight shield-grid (the diablo had a 'relative form'), youd need of polys, effectivly doubling the poly-count on the ship. It would also be very difficult