Ship modelling suggestion: turrets (sort of a bug)
Posted: Fri Apr 30, 2004 3:02 am
This goes mostly for modders I guess, but I thought of it because of a problem I have in main game.
Problem: weapons go through turrets like they aren't there. I brought this up a long time ago because I was annoyed when in a fighter and going under sheilds to try and strafe turrets, and Milo said it wasn't enough of an issue to change the coding, and I agreed. However, I recently got into a capship battle where I was trying to target enemy turrets in order to lower their point defenses and hit them from afar with my torps. My weapons were going straight through! I had a real feeling of deja vu, as though I'd had trouble taking out PD but couldn't figure out why. Because this game tends to keep capships on a plain, it isn't unusual to end up in a situation where even those tiny Phallanx turrets are far enough from the collision model that you can hit them again and again and have all your shots go through, often either hitting nothing or hitting the hull in useless places.
Possible easy solutions:
1. Just put 'loc:' property for turrets either very close to or flush with the hull. obviously, this restrics turret design, is useless for the Phalanxes, and is not a cure-all.
2. Create turret hardpoints on your model. That is, alter the geometry at the point you have a turret so that it fills in parts that are concealed no matter which way the turrets rotate. This can generally be acheived with a triangular pyramid, though in some cases more boxy turrets are preferable. In certain lucky cases, this shouldn't even raise your poly count! I'd do this for pretty much any turret with the 'loc:' not close to the hull, or any large turret period.
Problem: weapons go through turrets like they aren't there. I brought this up a long time ago because I was annoyed when in a fighter and going under sheilds to try and strafe turrets, and Milo said it wasn't enough of an issue to change the coding, and I agreed. However, I recently got into a capship battle where I was trying to target enemy turrets in order to lower their point defenses and hit them from afar with my torps. My weapons were going straight through! I had a real feeling of deja vu, as though I'd had trouble taking out PD but couldn't figure out why. Because this game tends to keep capships on a plain, it isn't unusual to end up in a situation where even those tiny Phallanx turrets are far enough from the collision model that you can hit them again and again and have all your shots go through, often either hitting nothing or hitting the hull in useless places.
Possible easy solutions:
1. Just put 'loc:' property for turrets either very close to or flush with the hull. obviously, this restrics turret design, is useless for the Phalanxes, and is not a cure-all.
2. Create turret hardpoints on your model. That is, alter the geometry at the point you have a turret so that it fills in parts that are concealed no matter which way the turrets rotate. This can generally be acheived with a triangular pyramid, though in some cases more boxy turrets are preferable. In certain lucky cases, this shouldn't even raise your poly count! I'd do this for pretty much any turret with the 'loc:' not close to the hull, or any large turret period.