Hawkslayer

Well, it seems the key words here are "allows for", not "creates". It seems to me all of the listed items can be new, and pulled together in "new worlds, maps and missions" using this tool. I don't expect the map to make textures for new meshes, for example, but rather to pull those items into the game world in a useful way. I can see how one could think this, although I wouldn't call this intentional "hype", just reading into it more than what it intends. [ December 04, 2006, 01:43 PM: Message edited by: Hawkslayer ]

Is it just me, or does anyone else out there want to see some air units? Naturally to keep it vehicle friendly, they wouldn't be blow up the world via cruise missle kind of things, or even anything all that powerful, but I'd love to see at least a couple air units. One type I'd like to see is a light air platform with a couple variants: Stealthy little EW Jammer scout vehicle (with target designator) 2x Infantry transport Light Gunship w/ ATGM or 20mm How much of this is moddable right now? I'd love to see EMP as an form of "damage" for vehicles also, with heavy armor helping provide more EMP protection than light, etc. (EM bomber / artillery / ATGM style missle) Also, is there anything preventing us from having different kinds of weapons on a single vechicle? (20mm AND Laser, etc) Naturally this would need to be balanced, just curious on the ability. [ December 04, 2006, 12:20 AM: Message edited by: Hawkslayer ]

These little guys look fun. Perhaps a bit over-armed for the game, considering big tanks don't have 3 weapons to them, but I like the concept and definitely would like seeing it moddable, if not rolled into a future official release. I figured you all were talking about mods, not something done by the developers, hence the reference to difficulty.

Hey Bastables, a buddy of mine was getting this message and I think it's a .net framework 2.0 thing that you need to install. (Clay, is it feasable to include this, or check for it in the install?

Yay! I missed your update Clay, good news! I get to check out the new stuff before Christmas! Wanna release the OSX version early? I don't recall it using an installer!

What a fun and interesting thread. I love how hardcore people get about their fictious plotlines about a multiplayer oriented game where storyline doesn't really matter. I do have to say DarkAu, that railgun barrels do have some special requirements.. they currently need to be able to be super-cooled to hold that kind of electricity without melting, and the pressure between the positive and negative sides is significant, and considering the power source and (if used) capacitor type storage for between shots, it's a bit more engineering than bullets shot down a tube, but yes I'd like to see heavy AP piercing railguns and such made as a mod. "They're cool and would add an interesting element to the game" is enough backstory for me. Balance the unit and create backstory to fit. I guess the question is if they're currently moddable as a projectile weapon or not. I'd love to see a good anti-base defense weapon also. Slow, vulnerable, and effective. Maybe something with EMP shells or something would be a balanced way to do it.. instead of being able to kill it, just neutralize it for a min or so while others take it out. I'm sure the developers sometimes moan about all this talk about new stuff we dream up, but it's cool to see a dialog from people who appreciate the work they've done and want to contribute towards it. [ December 03, 2006, 06:52 PM: Message edited by: Hawkslayer ]

Dark_au: Do you mean "This brand new Scenario editor allows for the creation of entirely new worlds, maps and mission"? I believe you need to make the heightmap images/GIS data used for the worlds and maps outside of the editor, but the tool uses those and helps you place stuff. If you're not familiar with heightmaps, they're greyscale bitmap "images" that reflect terrain (white is higher, dark is lower, for example) These can be made in any decent graphics program like Photoshop/Paintshop Pro/GIMP, but to create realistic terrain you might want to get more specialized programs that will export heightmap images. (I'm not sure if stuff like Bryce does that or not) Hopefully this helps.

Not yet, many of us are looking forward to the new players that will be brought into the game by it though!

I think the way to balance a high-penetration slug I see coming from a railgun would be to limit it's sustained rate of fire. A 3-shot burst would be nice, but anything more than that seems overpowered, unless balanced with a minute-long recharge time which would make the vehicle difficult and probably not very fun to play since the game is oriented to a faster paced form of combat. (quick respawn times, etc) Variable rate of fire/velocity sounds interesting but difficult to do as a mod and would have it's own balance issues. A machine-gun effect for light vehicles while retaining a sniper like heavy armor functionality would definitely be impressive. Here's an interesting article on railguns and supposed plans to integrate a railgun system in the new stealth-Destroyer for the Navy that's in development. Sounds like an impressive ship. http://www.military.com/soldiertech/0,14632,Soldiertech_RailGuns,,00.html And, to update my concept for a DT railgun game, it seems like "overheating" would be a bigger issue than need of capacitors, since it would use a direct energy system coming from the reactor thingies all these vehicles are using. I guess a simple way to implement that would be a slow ROF for cooldown. *shrug* Kinda like the ROF of the Quake 3 Railgun or something.

Well you could always drop $200 and get this: http://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/224040 hehe I looked around for some powered armor models but didn't come across any with a quick google search, expect for this pay one. I imagine you might be able to search for some free 3ds models and find something, but walking animations and such might be a challenge for a novice character animator. You could possibly even mess around with Poser and see if they have any models you can export.

As an update to Clay's post, you gotta go into the terminal and use chmod to make the script executable (chmod +x filename). You can't seem to do this via the finder. I still haven't gotten things to actually RUN but at least the .command file runs now.. so maybe I'll get a server up before New Years =) Edit: Finally figured it out (had bad characters in the text file that were causing errors) [ December 11, 2006, 12:12 PM: Message edited by: Hawkslayer ]

Macrobiotic, hmm.. my textedit defaults to plain text (I am used to it from Notepad), unless I missed something.

Clay - Many games that support modding and custom maps automatically download the missing map/files from the server onto the client.. does DT do this? If not, you may want to consider it as this a feature that most gamers will expect from a moddable game community. Also, the ability to package (and keep separate) mods so they are distinctly different from the main game might be something you consider also. For example quake/half-life/etc support custom mod selection from the gui, keeping things distinctly separate. (say I wanted to make a Jumbo Unit mod where every unit was 4x the size.. you don't want those units thown in the same bucket as the normal ones, since you won't want to mix those up) You may also want to formalize your data into folders like "scenarios" and such, cleaning things up a bit. Even making subfolders for each scenario and graphics/etc might be a good idea since you have graphics separate from the scenario file. I'm really liking this game, and look forward to getting it.. and your continued support of it and making it easier and easier for us to make content for it. While it's starting of kinda small, once things get traction you'll want to be ready for the modding community and keeping things organized and user friendly. With a solid engine, "realistic" damage modeling, and cross platform support I'll be suprised if this game doesn't really get some traction soon. Please get a new demo out!! You want Christmas money going to DT and demos get attention! I'm tired of having 0-1 players out there on the only demo server out there. I also suggest 2-3 maps for the next demo to hilight the different types of gameplay/worlds. Hope this is helpful

Yeah I was thinking about sniper type railgun vehicles, small calibre, very high AP punch and near instant shot impact would make for an interesting game. Add very long recharge rate after X slugs shot for balance. (like a big capacitor that needs to be recharged after firing shots) The internals of the vechicle would be very vulnerable to damage but no explosive ammo.. but a high possibility of crippling blows by damaging the gun, the ammo, or the large "capacitor" which would take up a ton of space. These vehicles would be very likely slow, low armored, or with a very very low fire rate given their punch.. but stuff like pilot/gunner sniping could be an art some pick up, using this weapon like a scalpel, while learning to stay out of enemy fire. Now that the engine is in place, and some solid units are made.. I'd love to see some higher tech stuff out there.

Agreed, in looking to see how many maps the demo has, I noticed everything thrown into one folder.. kinda sloppy if you want to promote a modding community for this game.

I think a 76/90mm sounds nice. I also think a mini-Jammer +20mm variant (no anti air) would also be an interesting option for blitz runs.

Thanks Clay! Sadly it doesn't like this file (used TextEdit and saved it as .command) Console said it couldn't open this file, although it did open the console app, so it seems the association is right. Is there a special formatting type for it or something? (unicode, etc)

Sounds great, and yeah I'd like to see anything like this as destroyable with enough effort. Nice job!

Heh, hopefully you didn't think I was sounding impatient.. I was merely asking some questions.. mostly to Iceman since it's his model here, but whatever. I downloaded Blender for OSX but I'm having issue getting it to run so I haven't played with it yet, but I have a good deal of experience with 3DS MAX and 3D Studio back in the day so I'm looking forward to playing with it.. especially looking at the texture baking stuff out now. Iceman - I like the improvements of the design. The initial design looked like a light tank and the diameter of the barrel didn't convey lots of power to it. I'm really liking your new design and think it'd be a fun, if tricky, vehicle to play. Are flying vehicles able to be made with jammers, weapons, etc? I think it'd be fun to have a EW scout ship that could drop an infantry unit in under the enemy's noses.

What program are you doing to make this 3d model? Is there a guide somewhere where I can play with these? And, I suppose I need the full client in order to view it in-game right?

Wow, looks great. Looking forward to OSX versions of those tools! =)

So are you guys the cause of my beloved demo server being unavailable? *eyes warily*

I'm a new Mac user and love it.. but some games (like this one *growl*) default to dos style commmand line switches in order run them. (it's called GUI, look it up mister 1992 *wink*) Could someone help me out in figuring out how to automate this? "DropTeam.app/Contents/MacOS/DropTeam -enterlobby false –hostmode server –lobbyname ThePainStation –numbots0 8 –numbots1 8 – dynamicbots true –password LookingGlass –gametype Objective" This is basically what I wanna automate (not this exactly) which I copied from the pdf manual. Thanks for your help.. and be nice to me in game! =)

I've been playing the old demo for a week or so now, and am liking it.. but when I went to go play today there was no demo server online. Also, I'm rather tired of playing the same map over and over, most of the time with nobody but bots on there. When is that demo coming out? I'd also like there to be an easy way to run a public "listen" server for OSX clients.. whenever I try to run a server aside from command line it doesn't let me.. and it seems I can't run a command line server AND the client at the same time. Please don't make Mac users type commandline stuff in the console to run things.. that's what gui's are for. Looks like a fun game though, kinda like Tribes.. but more "realistic" I'd kinda like to see more air vehicles also like an escort/scout ship that's fast and agile with jammer technology to it or something. I'd also like to see an ability for another unit to call out target information for artillery with a targeting laser or something like Tribes, so you don't have to have line of sight on something in order to shoot it.