would anyone mind if i created a heavy cruiser for your use i realy wanna be usefull

I think I can speak for everyone here in this instance. Nobody will mind one bit! 😀 This whole thing depends on community participation. You're certainly welcome to contribute! I've been trying to do something here myself for the same reason. I've gotten the Ladybird Starfighter partially textured. 🙄 Well, one does what one can. I'm using it for my avatar to show my progress. It's hard but it's fun!

well it looks kewl mate keep it up

im off to draw up some blueprins for a dreadnaught class heavy cruiser/blockade runner be back in a bit with what i got

That Ladybird is looking very flyable now Marcel 🙂

Cool, I look forward to seeing it.

Heres a few things I've been working on lately. The textures are temporary and the Wyvern is untextured:[attachment=237:compilation.png]

Oooh Yeah! A real wheel! The game really needs that!

Flyable? Nah, she's really just a pretty face! I still have to cover her rear-end and uh, bottom before she's presentable. 😳 Thanks for the kind words.

Does anyone know if/how I can can give a ship a built in fuel-collector?

Introducing the Talon Interceptor, a small one-man craft capable of extreme acceleration:

[attachment=238:pioneer-msvc-9 2010-09-30 03-40-44-97.jpg][attachment=239:pioneer-msvc-9 2010-09-30 03-40-24-81.jpg][attachment=240:pioneer-msvc-9 2010-09-30 03-41-44-60.jpg]

Nice like the camouflage look 😎

Well done to S20dan and Marcel, your models are coming along nicely 😎 This is what being part of a community is all about, people working together to create something special. And good luck with your dreadnaught Spike 1984, but one question, if your going to make it flyable, how will it fit into a docking port? Look at this, although I can't take any credit for this image as Potsmoke originally posted it on the Frontier Forum 😉

Lol, yeah. Maybe we need a very big spaceport for the bigger ship types 😀 . Nice models guys! Looking forward to piloting them.

Thanks guys (and gals 😉 ) .

It should be just a matter of increasing the scale on the space-station dock area as a quick fix. But the best way is as KingHaggis suggested, having different larger stations for the larger ships.

Thats something I like about X3.

We could also try like Freelancer did and have the massive ships as dockable, like a station.

Has anyone tried making new objects for the generic docking sequence for stations?

We could possibly change it so that when you dock, you actually see the inside of a station with machinery and other ships instead of a flat wall.

I've been testing out the idea of having massive ships that are dockable, as well as areas that you can access/fly-through inside the ship. Heres a small clip using a quick large ship i threw together, its only half a ship which is why one side is missing. Also a shameless plug for the talon 😳 :

Do you guys think its worth pursuing this?

YES! 😮

Excellent idea and already a well executed alpha of the concept - impressive! 😎

This has a massive potential for mission creation and is a great leap in the direction of immersion within the game. Good work s20dan ... much appreciated. Can't wait to see this fleshed out to it's full potential. I am seeing the big open flight decks in the Star Wars movies running before my inner eyes.

Hmmmm ... more and better asteroids (from that other thread) could also be used as hidden big vessels or hidden space stations using this method that you outline ... again huge potential for mission creation and cool plots/stories.

Thank you to everyone contributing to this here mother beautiful space simulation project.

All the best

Frans

Thanks, glad I'm not the only one who likes the idea 🙂

There are a few problems, like when you undock the ship is propelled forward too fast often crashing. But we can work around this, perhaps by having an Exit-only tube that comes out from the dock through the ship in a straight line.

I agree, we must have asteroid bases. But I like your idea of actually hiding a base inside the asteroid, maybe we could have it so that the bases name doesnt show up under 'names' so then it really is hidden, and the only way to find these hidden bases is through misions or lucky random posts on the bulletin board...

This game will be cool 🙂

Hidden asteroid bases? Mmmmmmmm that does sound interesting, you might even have some "Descent-a-like" moments in those caves too! 😎

More fun with bases... Is that a moon or?.....

To get an idea of the scale, take a look at the speed and time-compression settings 😉

only ten days...

...but it seems i was locked up for years into a singularity 😆

great job s20dan, you really understand how pioneer models work!

well, i suggested the use of large vessels many posts ago, one thing left, tomm has to give us the possibility to bind stations and and ships specifications together (please, even if it's not "frontier" style).

and of course first of all a, let's say population bound size for variuos spacestations.

oh, and a system to make use of the possibility that you could fit more then one drive to a vessel, actually you can if you size the number in commodities specs up, but that didn't works as real drive then, it's only more mass you have to carry.

i would prefer this instead just using bigger sized hypedrives, this is really "frontier" style (i guess the LRC would be driven by 8 class 8 drives if i remember right, even if frontier doesn't offer this).

it would give the game a special kind of reliabilty if you could i.e. unload a LRC* with a shuttle or any other small to medium sized transporter instead of docking to a spacestation, even outdside docks are to imagine, like the real one(s) have.

(would have to mail this to tomm)

further i suggest to take a look at the temperature and especially pressure of the planets atmosphere.

i discovered some rather small having a atmosphere pressure of over 1, for a oxygene,carbon dioxide,nitrogene mix this is a impossibility (other might have depending on the elements specific weight, compare earth - mars - venus), i was on venus, pressure there is far to low, it must be over 100 if i'm right, actually it is about 4 i guess, even if that would cost my ship, it has cost every probes life that has ever been sendt there. wherefore some heavy mass planets have a lower air pressure, even this is a impossibility (except the atmosphere is a helium/hydrogene mix).

*for guests; LRC - Long Range Cruiser

there's something coming to my mind, i enhanced the "deliver parcel" module a little further, clients won't give you now all the time the coordinates of the target system and i don't tell you how :shock:. find that out yourself by playing the game, or be a cheating hound and take a look at the script

i would like, to make it somehow bound to the pilots experience to, but i have to ask tomm howto.

also some random chance between yes or no would be great.

more different answers are easy to manage, but english is not my native language and i could need some help, so if you have any ideas, let me know.

it could be that the script "hangs" sometimes, in the beginning i had some problems running it properly, bu they should be fixed, post me mail me or throw a hammer at me if not 😉

and , tomm please if you read this take a look at the script, maybe i've done certain parts wrong, or you might know a better solution.

Thanks for your kind words mate, I learnt a lot from you. 😀

Heres the station file if you or anyone else want to have a play around with it: [attachment=243:deathstar type station.7z]

Theres a problem with models clipping though. If you move more than approx 105kms away from the center of an object and you are no longer facing the center, it clips out of view, even if the outer edges of the object are still in front of you.

I tested the station at various sizes up to about a radius of 5000km which is scale 1000. Its pretty funny flying around a station of that size but the clipping issue is very apparent at those sizes.

The download is set to scale 23, which gives a radius of 115km so the clipping issue is not so apparent when leaving the station.

Btw its just a basic mock-up, theres no LOD, no textures and the .LUA and model are very crude 🙂

Quote:

there's something coming to my mind, i enhanced the "deliver parcel" module a little further, clients won't give you now all the time the coordinates of the target system and i don't tell you how :shock:. find that out yourself by playing the game, or be a cheating hound and take a look at the script

i would like, to make it somehow bound to the pilots experience to, but i have to ask tomm howto.

also some random chance between yes or no would be great.

more different answers are easy to manage, but english is not my native language and i could need some help, so if you have any ideas, let me know.

Perhaps have a low chance for them not telling you the co-ordinates. As it could be annoying trying to find random star 'Ogrun' or whatever. Especially as I have seen colonies over 1000LY from Earth 😉

Obviously if its a simple one like SC1470-3+7 then you can always find it.

But the more answers or outcomes or just random elements to the missions the better I think.

I would be glad to help you with writing up some sentences/phrases for the missions.

How complex can these missions be anyway? Can there be a string of missions, one leading onto another? So once you deliver your package, the next phase of the mission would start, whatever that may be.

I have been looking at updating some of the stars and descritions of stars but I need to get my hand on the gliese3.dat file that contains all of the star data.

Or we could perhaps update it with the Hipparcos star data, which is more current.

As well as add those lost stars(well I havent seen them 😉 ) of Alioth, Phecda, Polaris(Thargoids!!)et al.

Multiple engines/drives would be a great thing. It would be cool if there were some other types of drives too. In FFE there is talk of a 'bubble drive' in the science journals, which is a new advanced drive, different to the one you get in the Argents Quest.

And what about power systems? Like a reactor to power everything on the ship, including hyper-drive. Reactor uses fuel, normally hyrdrogen. Could get different types of reactors, Military Reactor could be Anti-matter reactor, but is very strict in its use as Anti-matter is very destructive.

Some ships could use reactor for propulsion in normal space (anti-grav drive?), and others could just burn hydrogen for Delta-V

Potsmoker maybe you can help me with something. I'm trying to add a see-through window to the Talon with a pilot and cockpit inside, but no matter what settings I give the material in the.lua the window is not see-through.

Heres what I have for the material:

❓ ❓

AFAIK thats enough to make the following object see-through so I'm stumped 😳 ❓

i thought i wrote often about that

ok, short and reproduceable (anything else but short, can't i give a short explanation once?)

first don't depend on the modelviewer alone for transparency, he will show only about 50% of transparency what's in the game.

to the how to

it's all a matter of hierarchy

any mesh loadet or any model called up before a transparent material set part,mesh,object, partwise transparency through alpha channel by texture, will be visible

any mesh loaded... after a transparent set material will be invisible or partwisely invisible, depending on how you use it (size, texture alpha)

the transparent set object should appear as (half)transparent itself of course allways

but don't forget the first sentence, the modelviewer is not accurate, maybe tomm can fix that once, i can live with that since i have done it often enough to estimate the result, but to check the inside of the arcology while modeling i have to "remove" the dome, else i can't see what's inside exactly

for a good transparency of a window (no use of a texture assumed) set the alpha to .2 or .3

the arcology is a simple one, i called the "sphere_slice" at very end of the script as you can see

if anything inside or in (visual) front of it would be called after it, it won't be visible

this "issue" will lead also to the vanishing arco's (one dome is blanking the other, depending from which side you look at) in the game, even the "blanking" thruster issue is based on that hierachical stuff. but there's no way to get around that i guess, because after all only logical, if you think about.

check maybe the Eagle or the X-Wing to compare to

ok, so far for the theory

now history

the Eagle is a good example for all three possibilities, because i used a transparent window and a (two in fact) transparent set texture (cutout) together.

first in hierarchy is the "inner window" which is not a window in fact only a cutout showing the rostrum itself

the sphere is turned inside out of course (inverted) to show it as inside.

next in hierachy is the window itself set to a transparent material and using a "overdrive" blue to make the blue color shade it has when lightened up (deep blue on shaded side)

last in hierarchy is again the same cutout as first, only positive to show the rostrum from the outside

confusing?

this i discovered by accidence, you can say.

the pilot was my first one i played around with that, because i wanted to have a transparent visor (glasses)

as i did so, half of the head was vanished, or the part of the head where the visor should appear 😯

where is it gone to? vaporised?

i checked my script and, aha the missing parts was called after the "visor"

ok, i thought a bit complicated but on the other hand useful, i can use transparency not only to make something transparent, no i can use it cutout certain parts if i follow the rule in the right way

this has lead then to the idea to use transparency and texture to let things vanish or get shown as i like

i should have known this then before, hierarchy is all that matters

it is in fact i guess allways the same, but to make such for a .x model even harder to achieve since you can't control the hierachy as good as in a script

more troubles with FFED3D's CCW (not true set) double sided material, FFE uses internally single sided, you will need a box for a window, set right hierachy and crossed fingers to make it work (a prayer can help to maybe and if set wrong you can see through to the very background layer of the game), this has lead me first on the wrong path.

after all i won't miss this, in the beginning i felt just like you and had no idea

no, i was frustrated and thought i can't make a useful transparency, i guess you can read this still somewhere here.

but you will only have to keep this in mind

things loaded before transparency = visible

things loaded after transparency = invisible

with knowing this and the fact and that you can use additionally a alpha channel of the texture a lot of possibilities are given

for simple cutouts (black alpha channel on texture) a setting of .99 will allready leave out all that is set on the alpha channel 0 (i guess thats ok, greyscale, 0 = black 255 = white) if you like to use it for blending use anything between 0 and 255 and a corresponding material setting somewhere between .1 and .9 depending on the "strength" of the textures alpha channel

i hope i didn't make it more complicated as it is

but check some models of mine, i guess that will help more

in german we say "the apple falls not far from the stem"

well they say when my father has explained something he has started allways in stoneage

my cousin described it like this

"when he talked about a battle of knights you wasn't shure if he would go downstairs to dig his armor out of the cellar..." 😆

king haggis, uncle bob, to the word "föhn"

duden says:

it's a allover (ancient)germany used word, but gone lost to others then swiss (like many others), it's from latin favonius and means a warm spring or westwind, used also for fart.

used for the (original description) "electrical hot air shower" since ~1925

Thankyou dude. Couldnt quite get my head around that one, in fact I hadnt even thought that loading it later would make any difference at all.

But all works well now so tanks 😉

Potsmoker66, I remember you posting this ship with twin lasers...

Is that real or photoshop or something?

Edit//

Im having a problem with the selector function on a model. Its to do with the pilot.

When the model is loaded to fly, the game gives an error about the pilot model and the selector function.

Potsmoker, I know that you made the selector function so you might want to take a look?

http://s20dan.webs.com/Wyverntest.7z

Thats the ship there, a Wyvern explorer. Try to fly it in the game and see the error message.

Its a bit of a strange model in many parts so maybe that has something to do with it?

Cheers.

Do you realise the implications of what you just said there Gernot? What you are proposing there is a movable docking platform, even more than that, hyperspace capable docking platform! 😮 Imagine this, in the game you could buy an entire space station, equip it with fighter squadrons, transports or what have you, point weaponry for defence, thrusters to move the station to sub light speeds and a massive hyperdrive engine for system jumps. In effect that is what a LRC is, but why stop at that? The reason I mention this is, in the "Stories Of Life On The Frontier" book (included in the original release of FE2) there was a story called All That Glisters by David Massey. It was the story of a cybernetic barman who worked for hundreds of years to save enough money to buy the station he worked on and how he planned to convert it into a massive exploration vessel. Just a wee thought there folks.... 😉