Player use of Turrets

LOL, since you probably have to do a lot of reading as an editor, you may "import" stuff more like a scanner?

Heck, you're the editor here, can you give me some pointers on how make stuff you write interesting?

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LOL. That was just me being in such a hurry to assimilate the info that I read;

That could however add to the fun of the game (if complexity can be considered fun)

and skipped to the next sentence. Very bad on my part. If I did that at work, I'd have my ass handed to me on a plate. It's just that reading the stuff here is a whole lot more exciting than what I read at work. So I tend to read it too fast. Sorry. []

...can you give me some pointers on how make stuff you write interesting?

I don't think you need to worry about that, your writing seems just fine to me. You get the point across, you don't ramble on about unimportant points, and you have a good imagination. Works for me . If you must have something to improve, there's always the spelling and punctuation. But not having English as your first languge, I'd hardly call it a problem. We all make those mistakes occasionally. And I've seen posts by Americans, in college, who don't post as clearly as you. (That's the long way of saying that what you write is interesting [8D].)

But anyway, back on topic. Would adding a null named "crew" work for locating the camera on the turret? Since the crew null is where the pilot camera gets located I assume the same would do for the turret. Sound reasonable? And if that's the case, then that should mean that the inetia effect will still work.

I'll send you a turret with a properly named and placed null today so you can start testing.

mailto:second_chance@cox.net
The Ultimate Guide To Modding: I-War 2 - Edge Of Chaos (on hold during SW MP mod)
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Originally posted by Second Chance

Would adding a null named "crew" work for locating the camera on the turret? Since the crew null is where the pilot camera gets located I assume the same would do for the turret. Sound reasonable? And if that's the case, then that should mean that the inetia effect will still work.

Wooaaah Nelly! Hold up a sec.! We may be on the wrong track.

You're right! somehow I was thinking the camera itself would (could)be parented. But, unfortunatly the camera is orientated on the "crew" position. We would have to make a ship that is nothing but a turret and that won't work (I don't think).
Lemme think about this some more first.


Edit/ thanks for the other pointers on writing [^]/Edit

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To my heavy dissapointment there is yet another catch to this:
I've just discovered, that the Server can't simulate the weapons on a Rem-connected ship properly! The gun fires, you see the hit and hear the "bang!" but damage isn't registered.
So we won't be able to use a rem connection to switch to a turret with a disruptor in it.
Alternativly we could have the player switch ships completly to a "dummy turret" which is the same ship but without missiles or ammo based weapons. Then the disruptor will work (I've tried this sucessfully). The problem is though, when the player switches back to his real ship the weapons and missiles are reloaded to full capacity.


<font size="3"> Lets Re-Think </font id="size3">this whole thing

Whats causing us a problem is not the turret but the Disruptor gun.

We can easily switch to a representation of a turret as long as it doesn't have the disruptor in it. That would be fine for the Falcon. (I'll get back to this below)


The B-Wing and the Y-Wing don't have a turret anyhow! so I propose we make 2 versions:
1) A "Torpedo Bomber" version without an Ion cannon (Disruptor gun) that carries missiles and bombs.
2) A "Attack Bomber" version that has no missiles or bombs but is armed with an Ion Cannon and a (or several) "energy Bomb" cannon(s) to compensate for the lack of missiles.

(think of the Tie Bomber "bombs" in the movies that actually look like a slow moving white bolt streaking at it's target)

The "energy bomb" cannon will have a very low fire rate and the bolt will move so slowly that it can only hit a stationary target. We can tweak it to allow the player to have a long range less damaging "energy bomb" and a short range more powerfull "energy bomb" to select from.

At Game start you would select the B-Wing version you wish to fly depending on the roll you wish to play. whaddya think?

Now to the Falcon turrets:

This is cake: When in the cockpit your weapons are not avaliable to you (they are locked). To switch to your turret you first select a turret via a keybind and then press F1 to switch to the selected turret. Once there you can select a target to attack, press the standard approach key (F6) and your autopilot will take you for a ride while you shoot at your target.
To exit the turret, back to your cockpit, you just press F1 again. (that will stop your ship momentarily because the Autopilot is killed, but I think we can live with that, or not?

I'll have this design for you to try out later tonight when I upload the new mod version.




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Why not split the model into two separate ship models with dockports at the appropriate place? In other words, the main body of the Falcon is it's own ship, and the turrets are their own ships which are docked to the main body via POG.

The ships can remain docked throughout the entire game. And if the turret-section has a small docking_priority, it shouldn't interfere with the operation of the main ship.

Then, when the player presses the appropriate keybind, a script jumps the player back and forth to the turret ship.

Downsides: The main body ship would need AI orders to continue on it's path when the player jumps to the turrets.

Also, if the player undocks while in the turret you could end up with a mess. Not sure how to keep them from undocking... is there a dock_lock function?

<font size="1"><font face="Book Antiqua"><font color="black">"Never before in the history of the world had such a mass of human beings moved and suffered together. This was no disciplined march; it was a stampede-- without order and without a goal, six million people unarmed and unprovisioned, driving headlong. It was the beginning of the rout of Civilisation... of the massacre of Mankind."
--H. G. Wells The War Of The Worlds</font id="black"></font id="Book Antiqua"> </font id="size1">

Yes, there is a very reliable docking lock function.
iSim.SetDockingLock( hsim sim1,hsim sim2 bool lock );

Your idea would be perfect if the turrets were manned by seperate players. You could do that with your kids at home in a LAN and have a real blast (pun intended) together. [8D]

The problem is: there are only 2 ways (I know of) in the multiplayer game to get a player into a different Ship:
a) rem connect (but then the guns do no damage)
b) move into a completly new ship (but then iMultiplay destroys the old_ship)

iMultiplay won't move the player into another ship, unless you give it a valid handle for an "old_ship" to destroy.
That wouldn't be too bad in itself (although heavy on resources) since you could create a "dummy" to replace your, from imultiplay destroyed, Falcon as you switch.
But, when you re-create your "real" Falcon again, as the player switches back from the turret, the missiles and ammo are restored to full capacity.
i.e.
If you run out of missiles you could exploit the game by just switching briefly to a turret and back again.

The iMultiplay function is hardcoded, It's probably intended to prevent exactly the issue with the weapons simulation, that we discovered on rem connected ships.
I guess, the weapons simulation is somehow linked to the players specific handle and not to the subsim itself because in MP there are always several parent sims for the same subsim.

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