poesel

Tsstss, that happens when you give the kids too much ammo...

Dark, I would recommend you read that article here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railgun Especially chapter 3 'Railgun as Weapon'. Nothing is easy at those speeds and amounts of energy. A coil gun would suffer from similar problems as the rail gun. As a side note: having antimatter means just that you have 'unlimited' amounts of heat - not electricity. Commonly one would then use a turbine and a generator to produce electricity or use the turbine to propel the vehicle. Why DT then uses a combustion engine is beyond me (maybe it sounds better?). Or is it AMDI - Anti-Matter Direct Injection?

Well, I have. Try this: Nebelwerfer Its exactly what you propose. Shoots seven medium mortar rounds with a great spread. Notice the smoke effect.

Caseck, I am trying to create an area effect artillery. Its rocket based though. The discussion is here: http://www.battlefront.com/discuss/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=61;t=000094 and if you like to give it a 'shot', download this mod: http://dropteam.johalla.de/download/Nebelwerfer.zip The model is not very nice, though, and in this form is quite unbalancing the game. The next thing on the list would be a gauss gun. But this is still far away... Alex, you overlook one thing: the muzzle blast. We wouldn't have that if the guns in the game were coil guns. Dark_au, I doubt that a rail gun is simplistic in comparison to a common gun. I can make a chemical 'gun' with some matches and a bit of tinfoil. Copper wire and a flash unit would give similar deadly results. Going to military grade is complicated for both techniques. Whats easier depends on what you currently have. Chemical are nowadays the energy source of choice, but, as you said, if (electrical) energy is easy to have a coil/rail gun would be the better choice but probably not an easier one.

Getting the permission is not the problem - I just have to convince myself. Problem is: I don't know how/where to enable that. Thanks to the great Debain pre-configuration this wiki comes right out of the box/package. If you or someone else can give me a hint at what to do I will enable that of course.

Is there a way to leave a comment in these files?

This is from the LightTank: </font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;"> <Animation> <AnimationID>1</AnimationID> <BaseModelName>LightTankChassis</BaseModelName> <TotalTime>2.0</TotalTime> <Sound> <Filename>LightTankMove2.wav</Filename> <Time>0.0</Time> <Priority>50</Priority> <Looping>true</Looping> </Sound> </Animation> <Animation> <AnimationID>0</AnimationID> <BaseModelName>LightTankChassis</BaseModelName> <TotalTime>0.6</TotalTime> <Sound> <Filename>LightTankIdle.wav</Filename> <Time>0.0</Time> <Priority>50</Priority> <Looping>true</Looping> </Sound> </Animation> </pre>

I took the freedom to sort the list after timezones. Its a bit more comfortable to read. It might be a good idea if everyone would enter their playtimes in GMT. Makes calculating easier for everyone (especially aittam ).

Mark, you can see that Thor version in some of the in-game backgrounds during startup IIRC.

A vehicle editor? If you crank out a 3D-editor I'd be seriously impressed. A validator for .physobject files and a 'reload current vehicle data' method from inside the game would be all I need/want (maybe a /reload command in the talkbox, only possible when running a standalone game?).

Thanks, that works. I've put the method in the Wiki. Heres the result for the Cubicle: Thats directly out of Sketchup without any textures applied.

Nice - a 90mm </font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;"> Comparison 76mm - 90mm - 120mm BasePenetration 350 430 430 LossRate 100 160 150 ArmorBurnFactor 0 0.08 0.1 DirectKillFactor 30.2 50.0 50.0 FragmentationFactor 1.7 3.0 3.0 ExplodeFactor 0.45 0.45 0.5 StructuralDamageAmount 0.56 0.56 1.0 Overpenetrates false true true</pre>

Ok, last question for today <CollisionBox> is in the docs, but not its child <Name> as from the Apollo: <CollisionBox> <Position>5.229,-0.975,-4.172</Position> <Lengths>2.528,21.256,1.591</Lengths> <Angles>0,0,0</Angles> <Name>RightTrack</Name> </CollisionBox> I know that <Contact> has the special Name Right/LeftTrack but does it do anything special in the CollisionBox? And to clarify: Position is the center of the box and lengths its dimension. So, for example, a box with position x=5.0 and length x=10.0 goes from absolute x=0.0 to x=10.0?

Does anybody know how to make those greenish vehicle items in the inventory list? Preferably with the GIMP? Some script or filter maybe?

I noticed yesterday that destroyed buildings seem to block LOS and shells as if they are still standing. ThePhantom had shelled the enemy base and destroyed a building. Behind that pile of rubble were 2 Thors. I could see them but could not hit them. They weren't reacting, too, until I rounded the pile.

Well I thought I could thus make a cheapo invisible unit. I took a 76mm and removed all SpottablePoints. Still the bots do see and shoot me. At a distance and without me shooting at all. So there must be another system that makes vehicles visible to bots.

Yes, a canister round instead of the useless HE would make it an infantry killer.

The docs does not explicit say this, so I ask: a <SpottablePoint> makes a vehicle visible to other units if this point gets into LOS to another <SpotterLocation>, correct? Where did you put these for the current vehicles? Directly at the highest point of the vehicle or a bit lower? Are there other points at the front and end of a vehicle for 'around the edge' movements?

There was a suggestion from dark_au for a tank with a liftable turret. Another option would be to put a spotter point at the top of a telescoping mast or a tethered mini-heli. Good for artillery units or the CMD to stay hidden behind terrain. Or, on second thought, for the upcoming spotter infantry. To keep it simple the special action key would just move that part to either HiStop or LoStop.

It seems to be slow days here in the forum so it might be apropiate to rehash some old discussions. This is about sensor in- and output. Current state: every vehicle sees only those enemy vehicles it has LOS to. Except for the command track which sees all vehicles that at least one friendly sees. So it looks like all vehicles can create a one way communication channel TO the command track, but it can't send anything back. Like, say, the position of all enemy vehicles it knows about. This makes no sense technolgy wise (since we can all chat with each other) - its probably a gameplay decision. When all vehicles are connected there is no surprise possible. The first contact will give you away. So how can we make sense to that and still have an interesting game? From the background description we know that the air in DT is full of EM noise and its hard for sensors to find anything useful. Lets imagine two things: 1) most of this noise is CREATED by a command track. It is specially designed to disrupt enemy communications. So if you are the only CT on the field you have no communication problems and all your friendlies get a live picture like the CT has now. Nothing more - if an enemy is hidden from all friendlies hes still not on your map. 2) if the enemy has a CT too, then communication rapidly detoriates. You have to resort to very slow communication models to get anything through. That means you still get the info from 1) on the tacmap but the updates will be slow and the information old (maybe those delays depend on the distance to your CT - that would stop players from hiding their CT far away in the mountains). It may take even minutes for information to get through the channels. These two things would give a team good reasons to actually have a command track in its ranks and it should also be close to the middle of the action to shorten the delays. To hunt and kill enemy CTs would also be a worthwhile pastime.

Ah, the joy of _reading_ docs Questions: <Joint>: "Slider - this is a joint which can rotate about a single axis and can also telescope toward and away from the parent on that axis by having force applied to it" How can force be applied? Is there some way to voluntarily do that telescoping? Is there a limit to the telescoping? <Spread>: How does that compute? I went up to 0.45 and start ed shooting backwards! <Contact>: Just to clarify: a contact will collide with the ground and not move into it. If some extruding part of a model wouldn't have a contact point it could move into the ground, correct? A telescoping drill wouldn't have a contact point? Units of measurement: is 1.0 supposed to be a meter? I know it doesn't make a difference, just for the imagination. Thanks

I'm sure the heightmap is wrong. I hadn't installed that scenario before. The objective has a brown texture but is on the side of a vulcan. Inside the vulcan it gets green.

I second that with the vanishing red blips. That is new with this version. If you had choosen a different mod than base when you start the game, you can't switch back. The name on the mod line changes but the text is still the old one. You have to restart to fix that. The icons for the diagrams could be on the side of the map not on top of it. Smaller icons with a description under it would be nice too. I have to say that I like the new functions the tacmap provides but the interface still needs some loving... When you click on a vehicle in the tac map you don't get any information about it. Especially when you have a cluster of bots you even don't know which bot you really got. Clicking on a vehicle should give you the normal info window with name, vehicle and current order. The keyboard button for the smoke grenade doesn't seem to work (backspace). Shooting normally works. I just played three scenarios with two server crashes. That is not a good ratio The dropships now fly much better. This has been a long way but I think its now really good. If they would drop the vehicles in the way you look when dropping - that would be the sugar on top The camera is much better, too. Shows what it should even when close to buildings.

This goes mainly to Iceman, jedevlin and adzling but does not exclude anyone else. We all try to get a model into the game but have failed on one or the other step. This is a bit frustrating since we seem to be very close. I propose that we join forces to get ONE model right. Complete with collision model, animation, textures and sound. If we can finish one we know how to produce all others. I suggest we use a tracked cube with a cubical turret to keep things easy. Programs of choice would be Sketchup and Blender as both are freely available for both Mac and Windows. If you are interested send me an email (link on top of this post). Suggestions would be apreciated.

With 500m/s you get a range of about 4km (on Hopewell). That range seems ok for me. Unfortunatly you can't see the launcher very good on those pictures and I haven't found a better one. But I'll go with that feeder principle as it solves another problem: the launcher is IMHO still too good (even with reduced ammo). I'll make a launcher 'block'. The launcher will only be able to pivot around y (up and down). That should make it sufficently difficult to aim. For the record, heres the Nebelwerfer: Nebelwerfer Unzip in Mod directory. Look for the Paladin NW. The settings for the ammo will stay for the next iteration. Btw, the smoke trail effect looks REALLY cool.