How do you propose the handle docking with stations? Manually, until you buy an Automatic Docking Computer?

What happens if your ship is the same size () as the station? Do you have shuttles or Transport Pods ?

Does your universe support teleporter technology?

In the even your ship blows up, I assume you have escape pods?

Emergency Medical Hologram? (But make it like Deanna Troi).

NOTE : I AM NOT A TREKKIE. I JUST WATCH IT FOR THE COUNSELLOR, SEVEN OF NINE AND MAJOR KIRA.

One more (for the sequel): Did you ever watch Galaxy Quest? If so, you NEED the tactic Allen uses to win at the end. If you haven''t, ask someone who has or watch it, cause I hate ppl who post spoilers.

My mind is seething with ideas, but they no longer remain relevant to your game ... Jeri Ryan, however ...


NPCs will be inherited from the basic Entity class. They will be fully independent, and carry out their own lives oblivious to the world around them ... that is, until you set them on fire ...

quote: Original post by morfe

How do you propose the handle docking with stations? Manually, until you buy an Automatic Docking Computer?

I hadn''t thought about this too much because the view is locked to a zoomable 3D iso mode (so no Elite-style rotation matching!) I was probably going to go with something like "Get close enough to the station, click to dock with it..." or something like that. (Unless you have a better suggestion )

quote:
What happens if your ship is the same size () as the station? Do you have shuttles or Transport Pods ?

Hmmm... it might be cool to see shuttles and pods sending out shipments to and from your ship. I''ll add it to the list.

quote:
Does your universe support teleporter technology?

Old Empire Telepads are __EXTREMELY__ rare. (You''re playing 1000 years or so after the collapse of a great, sector-wide empire... so there''s lots of old relics left around )

quote:
In the even your ship blows up, I assume you have escape pods?

Yup! Hope you buy have enough for ALL your crew!

quote:
Emergency Medical Hologram? (But make it like Deanna Troi).

LOL! Hmmmm... well, the forcefield projection technology isn''t THAT sophistocated (when you start, shields may not even have been discovered).

Would you settle for a Android Consort with reprogrammable memory and remoldable, lifelike skin?

quote:
NOTE : I AM NOT A TREKKIE. I JUST WATCH IT FOR THE COUNSELLOR, SEVEN OF NINE AND MAJOR KIRA.

Wouldn''t hold it against you if you were!!!

quote:
One more (for the sequel): Did you ever watch Galaxy Quest? If so, you NEED the tactic Allen uses to win at the end.

There''ll be a physics model, tow cables, and tractor beams, so you just may be able to pull off that trick.

quote:
My mind is seething with ideas, but they no longer remain relevant to your game ...

Darn! Well, I appreciate all the help so far! I''m limited in what I can do right now, but you never know for the future!


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Just waiting for the mothership...

quote: Original post by Wavinator
The hard thing for the modular ship, as I see it, is getting the art right and the model to work / animate properly. I have some ideas on how to do it, and hope I can pull it off, but it''s not a snap, unfortunately.

YEs, same here, I think we all can *think* of tons of ideas, and we can quite nicely *imagine* the modular concept. The rather annoying thing is to actually display it. You could go for a purely schematic display, as in "Stars!", and in the case of Stars! it fits very well indeed, and allows the freedom the "building blocks" technique should. But how do you do that if you have to do it in 3D. The only I can see it would be to do all that in 3d. Use something similar to player models in shooters, that would be associated with structural data.
As in, an artist create this cool looking ship, then assign blocks in it, "here''s a block for weapons system, or shield generator; here''s a block for cargo or crew; etc"
The model wouldnt just be a model, it would be a construction with meaning.
Maybe go the other way around ? Create the ship using FIXED building blocks that represent different systems. THEN, over that, create the actual model, the hull. Sounds better to me.

YEah, I think it''s something that could be interesting actually. Imagine the building blocks like LEGO bricks.
You''d have bricks for "fuel tanks", "shields", whatever you come up with... and after you''ve built your thing, just wrap it in a hull that you could design yourself.
After that, you''ve an empty Hull design that player can fill with the components they want, as long as those components fit into the building blocks of the hull...

waddaya think ?

youpla :-P

quote: Original post by ahw


YEah, I think it''s something that could be interesting actually. Imagine the building blocks like LEGO bricks.

I''m going to go for the bricks idea myself. For capital ships and stations I think this would be really cool and (even better) really doable. It''s easier to specify a bunch of models, their surface connector points, and their textures, than it is to try to make some kind of in-game 3D modeling program. (Also, it''ll be easier to break them apart in combat )

Another great thing is that if you give the player lots of modules and connectors (struts and such) they can come up with their own weird ship designs. I see capital ships and stations as being very much like RTS bases, so there can even be some strategy in how you build.

As for smaller ships like shuttles, transports, and fighters, you only get to fill a fixed hull. This is because there are potentially a lot more small ships than capital ships, and I don''t want to push my luck.

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Just waiting for the mothership...

OK, but reread what I said. I am making a difference between the "logical" building blocks, if you will, and the actual design of the ship.
What I mean is, you''d build the ship *design* using blocks.
Then you get to choose a hull that can contain all the blocks you''ve put. THEN you fill the hull that you''ve now designed with the actual content. Depending on how you fill the hull, you''ll end up with a wide alleys and walkways look for your ship, or the inside of a submarine, with barely space to move, and coffin-looking beds...

I realise all this is a bit too much if you only want the player to do all this ingame. In this case I guess the Mechwarrior approach is still the best for ships, and the RTS approach to building capital ships seems cool enough to me. In fact, I think I''d love to see it done

But I keep those ideas above in mind, as I am sure that would allow users to create their own hulls for ships. You''d just need to have external tools, just like level editors, player models modellers and so on ... I guess I am seeing a bit too far into the future

What I dont like with the fixed hulls is that people dont get a chance to really have THEIR design. I mean, in Star Trek, you cant mistake a Romulan for a Klingon ship, or for a Borg ? But in games, even if you use modules, everybody ends up looking "kinda" all the same, which is very frustrating for me who like to be different
And being able to change the color of my ships is not enough.
I want to be able to edit the damn models/sprites, make my own, and go on the Net with my very own armada, recognisable from everyone : "Aaaah!! Look ! I recognise that flag, it can only be AHW the Merciless! Let''s surrender right now and he might spare our lives!"

youpla :-P

I see exactly what you mean now ahw. The blocks create the size of the interior space, THEN you fill it. Then you wrap a hull around all of that.

I like it. I''d actually like to do something exactly like that in the future. I want to be able to design with this detail in mind, then walk around as the Captain in my own decks. It would be kind of like in X-COm, where you designed your own bases, then actually had to defend them.

But that''s a bit of a ways off... It would actually be really good to have a Quake type of community that would be interested in doing all of this, no?



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Just waiting for the mothership...

Sidenote: What format are your models going to be?

Back to topic: Why not make a bunch of models and then let the user choose the type, and modules he needs, and then SCALE then hull to fit the modules? Don''t do this for all the ships, only the really big ones...

quote: Original post by morfe

Sidenote: What format are your models going to be?

Probably the .x format because it''s supported by the engine I''d like to use.

quote:
Back to topic: Why not make a bunch of models and then let the user choose the type, and modules he needs, and then SCALE then hull to fit the modules? Don''t do this for all the ships, only the really big ones...

Interesting idea.

In the case of capital ships the modules actually ARE the hull. It''s like having a bunch of different hull sections connected by struts: the main drive, struts to connect it to the cargo modules, struts to connect the command module which contains living quarters and the bridge... etc.

Maybe you could actually scale any one of the modules themselves to suit your needs? That might work...



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Just waiting for the mothership...

Check out this game, its a space combat game where you build your ships, using modules!

http://www.interadventure.com


-ddn