Air Units

[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 ]

[Imperial Grunt]

I think some air units would be great. Especially a stealth UCAV type vehicle that could loiter in assigned areas to provide intel and attack with missles.

A low-flying NOE gunship would be great too. Something like the Commanche without rotors.

Of course the game AA systems would make mincemeat of these things, but I still see them being very useful if kept away from AA threat rings.

[Hawkslayer]

Yeah, I don't see this game becoming Air dominated anytime soon.. but some variety of Air units would be fun to see, and certainly a realistic component in warfare.

ATGM's would tear these up also, heck.. even 120mm shots if the pilot was lazy and stood still, although I'm more in favor of "Star Wars/Airplane" style flight characteristics over a hoverplane type of unit. Hmm.. I wonder how high hovercraft can fly? Maybe one could be shaped into a NOE "aircraft" with easy landing capabilities (hit x).

I think a gunship equivalent of an A-10 "Warthog" would be cool too, making use of a "burst of multiple 30mm projectiles" form of weapon, and a fairly long reload time, for strafing runs against ground defenses and tanks.

[ December 04, 2006, 04:32 PM: Message edited by: Hawkslayer ]

[Imperial Grunt]

Well, given the backstory of DT, anything flying is a easy target. Therefore the platform has to be either stealthly or flying NOE, or both.

Anything loitering around the battlefield like an A-10 would be instantly dead.

And I love A-10s.

[Chilibird]

I'm gonna work on a modded version of the Viper DS, called the Viper AS, after we finish with our other projects. (We're keeping busy ) I might give it either an Ion, or a 20 MM gattling gun, and jam it. Could at least make things interesting.

[Hawkslayer]

I started making a light air vehicle last night (learning Sketch Up) and below is how it looks so far, I don't actually have the game yet (soon), but started playing around with a model.

If I can up the thrust on hovercraft so they fly high enough to be considered NOE, I may do it that way (since that would be easier to fly)

Currently I'd like to give it a 30mm gun (is that moddable) and lol was gonna jam it.

It still needs some detail work, and obviously some texturemaps, but here ya go (bottom if the 30mm gun a warthog uses, which I'll mimic)

The gun will shoot forward, but is obviously designed to shoot below as well as strafing runs.

So.. what do you guys think? Obviously it'll have camo textures on the green parts, with sky coloration on the light blue part. The red will have "thruster" type graphics (the edges for the hover ability, with the back being the forward thrust)

[ December 06, 2006, 01:53 AM: Message edited by: Hawkslayer ]

[Hawkslayer]

Here's an update to the model, a good bit less bland than the first. I like it, not too bad for 2 night's work on a program I never used before. I'm loving Sketch Up! I'm able to do stuff that was a major pain back in my 3DS MAX days. Now Blender.. *sigh* that'll be more of a trick to figure out. (I hate hotkey oriented stuff)

I'm leaning towards fairly armored front and bottom, minimal side armor and weak cockpit, back and top armor. 30mm AP gun with Jammer. (anything green would be weak, with the armor emphasis on the light blue areas)

It would be a good for recon, exploiting the backside of tanks, artillery, and light vehicles, It would be weak against laser, artillery (if it ever "parked" (x)), and of course any lucky large calibre hit, or side/rear/top spraying from 20mm. The whole back half is engine and mechanics, ammo below and front of the cockpit.

[ December 06, 2006, 03:08 AM: Message edited by: Hawkslayer ]

[Hawkslayer]

Ok.. so.. how do I get this baby into the game?

It's in sketch up right now, and I imported it into Blender via 3DS file format, but Blender is painful with it's interface I haven't messed with it much.

So.. how do I export it, what settings for the export options, etc.

I assume I'll pull it into Blender to work on the texturemap, and some XML is involved, etc.

I have no idea how to set the gun so it rotates and moves up and down properly. Currently the gun is on another layer in Sketch

Basically the gun is Forward-fire oriented, with -30 to +30 degree arc left-right and 5 to -120 degree rotation down. (if it doesn't act goofy and flip the targeting stuff (mouse aim direction) once it passes -90 degrees.)

If I can though, I'll make it so it is able to move all around, just with more angle at the front, but I'm imagining it's not possible to constrict it that much right now.

I'm kinda interested in the effects of recoil on this unit also.. should be a tricky one to use if side shooting makes it move sideways. I know in the A-10, that gun actually slows down the flight of the plane.. good thing it's fixed position.. no hoverjets for them.

But anyways, this isn't an A-10 clone.. it's not durable enough.. but I do want some punch to it.

Is 30mm AP possible, or do I have to stick with pre-coded guns?

Basically, a stealthy light gunship. I can imagine parking it also, to create a safe drop zone with it's Jammer.. opening itself up for artillery and.. well.. everything.. since 2/3 of it's armor is on the bottom. Otherwise, it's jammer won't be all that helpful outside of jamming itself, since it's a big floating target when moving slowly.

[ December 06, 2006, 03:00 AM: Message edited by: Hawkslayer ]

[Hawkslayer]

ok.. from the Hurricane's XML

<NominalAltitude>18.0</NominalAltitude>

Is this the "typical" flying altitude? (ie, you change this to make it fly higher)

<ThrusterSpacingX>10.0</ThrusterSpacingX>

<ThrusterSpacingY>10.0</ThrusterSpacingY>

Any idea what these mean?

<MaxThrustForce>40.0</MaxThrustForce>

<AccelerationRate>0.25</AccelerationRate>

Is thrust for forward momentum then? I figured there was an up thrust value?

I assume AccelerationRate is the equivalent of "torque" in that a slow moving car can still get going quickly, is this correct?

Also, for the turret info:

<Type>FakeHinge</Type>

<Anchor>0.0,0.0,2.5</Anchor>

<Axis>0.0,0.0,1.0</Axis>

<StopTorque>30.0</StopTorque>

<MotorTorque>60.0</MotorTorque>

Could someone explain these also?

All this is from the demo, so Retail values may be different.

Is there a tool in the Retail that generates all the polygon info for these collision items for the XML?

<CollisionTriangle>

<v1>0,-4.05985,3.353435</v1>

<v2>0,-3.83749,2.27742</v2>

<v3>-2.821513,-3.755044,2.460439</v3>

<Facing>Front</Facing>

</CollisionTriangle>

Also, with the Hermes:

<Type>AutomatedGun</Type>

What is the logic for this gun? Does this shoot jammed targets that are within LOS? How does it determine if they are air units or not? Could one make this ground targetable, or is the game code for this tag only Air units. Also, if I jumped a Shrike off a jump and flew it across the sky, would this be considered an Air unit, or is it coded in a tag?

[ December 06, 2006, 04:24 AM: Message edited by: Hawkslayer ]

[poesel]

See the Tempest thread in the main forum. There I have explained some of the things.

More are to be found in the Wiki, especially here:

XML commands

But be warned: designing vehicles in DT is currently a lenghty process but there is hope on the horizon...

Oh, and yes: silly person, you!

[Hawkslayer]

Thanks for the XML link Poesel, it doesn't explain all my questions, but it's a start.

[Hawkslayer]

<PassengerCapacity>5</PassengerCapacity>

Does this turn a vehicle into a personnel carrier?

[poesel]

Yep. This is the number of inf you can pick up Same goes for buildings.

Transporting inf is a seldom used feature in the game (at least I have never seen it).

[Hawkslayer]

Originally posted by Hawkslayer:

Ok.. so.. how do I get this baby into the game?

It's in sketch up right now, and I imported it into Blender via 3DS file format, but Blender is painful with it's interface I haven't messed with it much.

So.. how do I export it, what settings for the export options, etc.

I assume I'll pull it into Blender to work on the texturemap, and some XML is involved, etc.

I have no idea how to set the gun so it rotates and moves up and down properly. Currently the gun is on another layer in Sketch

Basically the gun is Forward-fire oriented, with -30 to +30 degree arc left-right and 5 to -120 degree rotation down. (if it doesn't act goofy and flip the targeting stuff (mouse aim direction) once it passes -90 degrees.)

If I can though, I'll make it so it is able to move all around, just with more angle at the front, but I'm imagining it's not possible to constrict it that much right now.

I'm kinda interested in the effects of recoil on this unit also.. should be a tricky one to use if side shooting makes it move sideways. I know in the A-10, that gun actually slows down the flight of the plane.. good thing it's fixed position.. no hoverjets for them.

But anyways, this isn't an A-10 clone.. it's not durable enough.. but I do want some punch to it.

Is 30mm AP possible, or do I have to stick with pre-coded guns?

Can anyone help me with these questions?

[poesel]

For the Blender thing - wait for the next release, then we'll know more

Gun rotation: look at Lostop and Highstop. You can limit each axis but you cannot give different ranges depending on the current value of another axis.

Recoil is another parameter and is very well simulated (try to shoot the plasma mortar to the side on a low g planet...)

You can give any gun any value - easy. If you need a new 3D model - complicated (see above).

Just one piece of advice: think about what the unit will do in the game and how it compares to other vehicles. Especialy if it will change the balance.

Then see what others here think about it. If its accepted here it has probably a good chance to get into the official game (the Bacchus is such a case).

Designing is the fun part, the rest is work!

[Hawkslayer]

Thanks Poesel, What's special about next release?

I've seen people with models in-game, could someone help me with this now, versus later?

I have a model, I'm learning the tags, but I need help creating the models that the engine likes, and how to generate the collision info.

EDIT: I found this buried in what I thought was scenario only editing, which is helpful:

http://dropteam.johalla.de/moin.cgi/Designing_3D_Elements

but nothing yet on the armor stuff, or how to place components.

[ December 09, 2006, 06:41 AM: Message edited by: Hawkslayer ]

[Hawkslayer]

I'm also curious on people's thoughts about the looks of the model.. any comments?

Assuming it flies ok, how high would you want it to be?

"really high" (higher than the tops of the hills in Raid) could be nice in that when fairly close it's not clearly on the horizon..

but lower (say 3-5 stories off the ground) would be more NOE, and could more easily use hills and such for cover.

What do you think about a 30mm gun w/ jammer? Considering the range away from things, it;d have to be parked to jam anyone but itself.

And what do you think about it being able to carry some infantry as passengers? I know it might not be all that common right now, but on some maps with really tight air defense it could be nice to have a way to sneak past standard defenses and drop them off. (and support them)

[ December 09, 2006, 06:54 AM: Message edited by: Hawkslayer ]

[Toby Haynes]

Originally posted by Hawkslayer:

I'm also curious on people's thoughts about the looks of the model.. any comments?

The model looks good. Is this going to fly in a horizontal position or would it fly forward with the nose down a bit (more like a helicopter)?

If it is using the dynamics model for the Viper, then the latter I guess.

Originally posted by Hawkslayer:

Assuming it flies ok, how high would you want it to be?

"really high" (higher than the tops of the hills in Raid) could be nice in that when fairly close it's not clearly on the horizon.. but lower (say 3-5 stories off the ground) would be more NOE, and could more easily use hills and such for cover.

I wouldn't want it to be stratospheric - 5 stories off the ground sounds reasonable (that's about the height of the spikes on the CommStation.

Originally posted by Hawkslayer:

What do you think about a 30mm gun w/ jammer? Considering the range away from things, it;d have to be parked to jam anyone but itself.

30mm would be fine as it would give the weapon a longer range but what about the rate of fire? To be a low-flying terror in the skies, maybe a burst of 10 rounds with a reload time of 3 seconds? Jamming is probably going to be absolutely required for this object as I assume it's armour is going to be weak.

Originally posted by Hawkslayer:

And what do you think about it being able to carry some infantry as passengers?

This would definitely be cool. Carrying passengers is definitely underutilised in game, maybe because it requires REALLY good coordination between two human players. I assume it would have to park to allow players on board. Dropping infantry off at 5 stories up would be fine too - these guys seem to survive jumping off cliffs without trouble

[Hawkslayer]

<Type>AutomatedGun</Type>

What is the logic for this gun? Does this shoot jammed targets that are within LOS? How does it determine if they are air units or not? Could one make this ground targetable, or is the game code for this tag only Air units. Also, if I jumped a Shrike off a jump and flew it across the sky, would this be considered an Air unit, or is it coded in a tag?

Any ideas?

[Hawkslayer]

Toby, I'd really like to be able to figure out a way for it to be a high-hovercraft versus using the Viper flight characteristics.

While I'd love the Viper flight characteristics to be improved (or at least lighter vehicles be more agile), this unit is really modeled after a hovercraft type design so I'd have to kinda tweak it to be more plane-like since it's not intended to be a true spacecraft.

I'm looking into burst fire, I agree it'd be ideal for this unit but I don't see a way to do this yet.

I'd like to have enough punch to take on heavier units quickly, but not be a super-unit. It has enough unique things going for it already, I don't want it to be THE unit for heavy hitting also. But we'll see.. an ATGM version may be a more anti-armor version if I can't figure out a good way to balance a 30mm gun on a unit that can't slug it out for a long fight.

Hopefully the whole projectile "leading" quirk will be fixed soon so you can lead and such easily since this baby will be pretty quick.

[Imperial Grunt]

OK, here is my idea for a DT Gunship. The model is below.

Drops like a dropship and then flies NOE (it can fly higher in a permissive environment). It cannot truly hover and must remain moving, but can fly slow.

Weapons:

2 30mm chainguns with 800 rounds each

2 AAMs (most outboard missile on each wing)

4 ATGMs

10 flares/chaff to blind/jam incoming missiles

Other characteristics:

-When firing guns, the gunship must maintain forward movement towards the target, or the recoil of the gun will cause gross inaccuracy and eventually a stall of the aircraft. Exception is on near zero-G maps.

-Lock for ATGMs is similiar, but a little faster, than the ground ATGMs.

-AAMs lock in a similiar manner for air targets.

-Gunship flying low near a sensor jammer would be jammed.

-The Gunship is a little more armored that dropships, and faster and more maneuverable.

This is what it looks like, minus camo:

As far as all the modder stuff, I leave that to more capable hands.

[Toby Haynes]

Imperial - is that a unit you actually have the model for or just a screenshot?

I can probably knock something like that up in Blender given a couple of hours (low-poly version) and then look towards putting all the details together later (high-poly overlay for baking). Let me know if you are interested.

[Imperial Grunt]

3drt.com

Its the same place BF got their models for DT. There are plenty more that can be addede to the game.

The industrial set and city sets would make for some great maps!

[Imperial Grunt]

And these are some great turrets!

-14mm Mini-gun

-ATGM Launcher

-Double-barrelled 14mm anti-personnel cannon

-20mm Cannon Turret (2 guns)

-76mm Improved Turret (2 cannons)

These turrets are not drop-pod capable and take longer to set up. The defending team should get access to these at the price of less vehicles (giving the attacking team an advantage of mobility and making the different sides less symetrical.

And this could be a 200mm cannon, capable of both in-direct and direct fire.

With these things, more tacticaly playablel, offensive vrs. defense type scenarios could be made.

[Imperial Grunt]

And these are some great turrets!

-14mm Mini-gun

-ATGM Launcher

-Double-barrelled 14mm anti-personnel cannon

-20mm Cannon Turret (2 guns)

-76mm Improved Turret (2 cannons)

These turrets are not drop-pod capable and take longer to set up. The defending team should get access to these at the price of less vehicles (giving the attacking team an advantage of mobility and making the different sides less symetrical.

And this could be a 200mm cannon, capable of both in-direct and direct fire.

With these things, more tacticaly playablel, offensive vrs. defense type scenarios could be made.