SpaceSimCentral

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 Cruiserthere'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 . find that out yourself by playing the game, or be a cheating hound and take a look at the script :mrgreen: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
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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 . find that out yourself by playing the game, or be a cheating hound and take a look at the script :mrgreen: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.
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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.
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:
Code:
set_material('glass', .8,.8,.8,.4,1,1,1,100)

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

i thought i wrote often about thatok, 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 toit's all a matter of hierarchyany mesh loadet or any model called up before a transparent material set part,mesh,object, partwise transparency through alpha channel by texture, will be visibleany 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 allwaysbut 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 exactlyfor a good transparency of a window (no use of a texture assumed) set the alpha to .2 or .3the arcology is a simple one, i called the "sphere_slice" at very end of the script as you can seeif anything inside or in (visual) front of it would be called after it, it won't be visiblethis "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 took, so far for the theorynow historythe 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 itselfthe 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 outsideconfusing?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 waythis has lead then to the idea to use transparency and texture to let things vanish or get shown as i likei should have known this then before, hierarchy is all that mattersit 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 ideano, 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 mindthings loaded before transparency = visiblethings loaded after transparency = invisiblewith knowing this and the fact and that you can use additionally a alpha channel of the texture a lot of possibilities are givenfor 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 channeli hope i didn't make it more complicated as it isbut 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..." :lol: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

potsmoke66 wrote:
things loaded before transparency = visiblethings loaded after transparency = invisible
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?[url]http://s20dan.webs.com/Wyverntest.7z[/url] 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.

potsmoke66 wrote:
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.
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....

I'm envisioning AI scenarios with LRCs and dreadnoughts that park near stations with AI traffic (shuttles, lifters, etc.) moving between the ship, station and perhaps the nearest surface port. You'd find it hard to get permission to dock with the station because the bays would be full and you'd have to wait your turn. The commodity prices would be affected based on what the ship was buying and selling. One might even get permission to dock with the ship directly, perhaps based on reputation, rank, or goods on board. Such vessels would never dock or land, and be ridiculously expensive to buy.

Absolutely Marcel, anything like that must be ridiculously expensive to buy, but if possible it would add an entirely new dimension to the game play, almost a bit like a Derek Smart game aka Battlecruiser.

thats what i am working on designinga few cruisers with the aircraft carrier style abilityall i need is someone to get them working after i model themim thinking a dreadnought class of ship with heavy armour and bristling with turbolasers the yamato of spaceim thinking huge space battles for dominance of fringe worlds between empire federation alliance and even smaller ones for wresting controll of a system from pirates, crimelords, the occasional sect and even maybe the ruling family of a systemattack ships on fire off the shoulder of orion (sorry had to quote BR i couldnt resist it)the shards of a broken planet destroyed by some catyclysmic event or even just blown to pieces by a superlaserhuge planetary blockades where your either dogfighting your way through or commanding a fleet to glass a planet in the name of the empirei understand their are limits but one must start small before echieving epicness and the oolite dreadnoughts expansion realy does give it an epic quality espesialy when you see one attacing a thargoid warship it is epic in every sence of the word oh and btw geraldine i loved that story but my other faves have to be the fiercest creature on altairwhen a plan works well (the empire spy story)on the wrong side of the law (captain jupiter crashes at van mannens star)the outer limits (ya know the one about the guy that works discovering mineral rich planets for a corperation and he has a son to the richest person on the planet alista mahlbron)actualy i love them all and the way they sort of link then get joined up by the time of full circle

Geraldine wrote:
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
oh and on that basis i just thort i could have it dock then use shuttles and lifters to transport stuff like has been said tho im not sure what would work better a dreadnaught just orbiting a station as it would a planet or haveing a seperate docking facility like it would have its own kind of drydock during construction (somthing this size would probably be built by worker bee style ships whils still in spacesince im still learning tho i wouldnt mind it if some one else could try to get them into the game perhaps s20dan could coz i love those stations

Sure I'd be happy to help you out.For the moment until new features are added (if?), the best way to use the ships is like you said, as either floating next to the space station, or as a dockable station itself. The first is extremely easy to do, the second a little harder but not too hard ;)So its up to you which way you want to get it in the game, let me know and either way I'll help you out, like Potsmoker did with me

s20dan twin lasers?no photojob of course.just buy yourself someonly the 1MW dual pulse are available on the market right now.but a useful weapon for smaller ships like the cobra mk1that it looks that good is because the guns of the cobra have the same spacing as the dual pulse laser.if i remember right it's about 13meters, but i can be wrong.if once comes that glorious day when we will have a (working)backfiring laser, more funny stuff can be done.but this is like i said only a common 1MW dual pulse, you never tried one?oh, the *@@!%& selector function?well i struggled over that myself sometimes i guess i explained that somewhere, but i guess i will have to do that often the secret behind is not to call it from the main model, means not from the one that contains the ships specs.anything else works (*crossing fingers and staring to ceiling*)edit:it seems to be caused by the pilot respectively by the selector as i see now.but i said seems, because sometimes the error messages lead you on a wrong trail.i'm working on it (play soundfile)something else i know allready is the specularity "overdrive", this causes a "soft" GL error, but it has nothing to do with the not loading ship, it only produces a endless row of error messages in stderr.if you really like to use higher specularity as 100(%) use the color values they can be over 1 and no error occures.i know not quite the same because if you "overdrive" the specularity level it comes very pointed.

s20dan wrote:
Sure I'd be happy to help you out.For the moment until new features are added (if?), the best way to use the ships is like you said, as either floating next to the space station, or as a dockable station itself. The first is extremely easy to do, the second a little harder but not too hard ;)So its up to you which way you want to get it in the game, let me know and either way I'll help you out, like Potsmoker did with me
right here is what i have as an ideaall stations can be docked at by big ships by floating in orbit relative to the stationthey then transferr goods and sutch using the shuttle method as they would a planetspecial docksfor these ships would be for reparing them and building them but nothing else realy but as a dry dockother stations could be added just for other purposes of course like rock hermits for cheap parts or taxi ranks or even tour bus ranks in scenic systems both of them you dock at for odd jobs of courseyou could have naval academys for each race (more on that in your race descriptions thread btw)or even a system that has rings to fly through as a racetrack (racing missions)just a few examplesbut some of the dreadnaught specificaly the carrier class will be dockable and im talking for fighters and stuff and perhaps by cevillian craft for the recieving of fighter escort style missions we need to work out if their will be any civillian models i will have to make and what they would be used for

s20dan, good that i have a shaved head, else i would have ripped off my hair too somewhere is something i still have overseen, but WHAT? (a nasty little bug i suggest, a secret weapon of the mindbenders, some nano bug, one you can't see )the funny thing is ican't get i work even if i strip anything else except the pilot,but it SHOULD, i used to check my pilots in this way in the very beginning, because they didn't get loaded to modelviewer when called standalone then.

writing down even what you don't know could help sometimes...i found the nasty little bug and eliminated him, there's now a green slimy something where he was it's not to heavy and i was allready on the right path before i went to bed (if i don't find a solution i usually do so)firstthe pilot needs LOD to be specifiedsecondi suggest to use a rather low value like 1 or 10 for LOD1then call the pilot in this wayif lod > 1 thencall_model('pilot2', v(0,.65,-11), v(1,0,0), v(0,1,0), .11)endthat's all, once discovered the solution is mostly very simple.this usually never happens to me because below a certain distance you won't see the pilot anywayand i used to use LOD2 set to 10 usually (depends a little on the size of the model) to call the pilot.i can't tell you what exactly causes this, maybe collision data don't allows requests to get_arg_string(0)at least it has something to do with that.i'm thinking still about a better solutioni guess i can use the colorvariable data to for the randomseed, it's a hex value, but can be turned with a C command to a common string of natural numbers. of course that would mean no control for the (advanced)user about the appearing of the pilots gender or dress color. in the actual way you can by editing your reg#(s) in the savegame.

Well done, glad you traced that down thanks. So it was because the pilot was not called with LOD ? Ok good to know. @Spike/ /for the moment, Im pretty sure you cant have ship to ship docking of any kind. So the only way that you could dock to your big ship, is if the game thinks its a station. Which means you cant buy or fly it... Although I have never tried to give a model the flags of both ship and station, but I dont think that will work as its not designed to (yet).So you can set the ship up as a station with a docking port and it will just be a station that looks like a ship. Later we should be able to do more with it once there is ship to ship docking and the like.Or the other thing that you can do is just load it up with the station as an object next to the station, like the old LRC used to. It wont be dockable, it would just sit there.It could even be made to look like it was docked to the station, via an external docking port.