Vega-Tech (Battle-Tech/Space MP-Only Mod)

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Moe479
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Vega-Tech (Battle-Tech/Space MP-Only Mod)

Post by Moe479 »

This is basicly an idear about a likewise application of the VS-Engine

Since the BT-Universe, doesnt decribe any privateer-style spacetravel/combat/action the mod is desired as faction/team-based multiplayer-mod only and is primary intended for the use in planetrary leagues like mbo, nbt or iswars aside Mechwarrior or other upcomming projects that seves as engine for groundbased combat.

vs is so far the best looking project around to archive this goal with

The mod should allow of playing/fighting out a preseted situation in a single System, thats loaded on the server. Content will be as close as possible to the Battletech Universe, each Team should be able to 'pulchase' the for them aviable units (must be server sided stuff) before the angagement starts:

Im not shure if evrything what is needed/desired is already possible, among the above described things there r some others that are highly desired:

-heatbuildup instead of energydrain, and some dicing for consequences if u pusch it to far (shudown, amunitionexplosion, pilot-blackout, engine-failure, reactorbreach)
-destroyable sections on ships/stations that can hold equipment what is lost once the section get destroyed
-multible gunnerpositions on ships, stations
-docking points for fighters, smallcrafts and Dropshis(need to be real docks, where the ship is visible/destroyable and operational, but fixed to the dockpioints of the larger ship/station)

its just an idear atm, but it would be nice to have a game thas truly capable of simulating whats needed for an universe so well outlined.
chuck_starchaser
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Re: Vega-Tech (Battle-Tech/Space MP-Only Mod)

Post by chuck_starchaser »

Moe479 wrote:-heatbuildup instead of energydrain, and some dicing for consequences if u pusch it to far (shudown, amunitionexplosion, pilot-blackout, engine-failure, reactorbreach)
Python work.
-destroyable sections on ships/stations that can hold equipment what is lost once the section get destroyed
Units can call for sub-units, hierarchically, via units.csv (in units folder). Sub-units model damage independently.
-multible gunnerpositions on ships, stations
Already implemented.
-docking points for fighters, smallcrafts and Dropshis(need to be real docks, where the ship is visible/destroyable and operational, but fixed to the dockpioints of the larger ship/station)
Already implemented, except I'm not sure docking points can discriminate the types of craft.

Your main problem is on the multiplayer side of things; the code for that is rather young.

This thread belongs in the General Modding forum, if someone might care to move it.
ace123
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Post by ace123 »

Multiplayer is doable in a sort of deathmatch mode, where each side joins, then a Python script can spawn a bunch of server-side AI units for each team, if I understand you correctly. subunits/turrets don't work yet in multiplayer but that's one of more important fixes fixes I will be working on at some point.

As chuck said, a lot of things can be done by scripting in python, so don't worry too much if something isn't directly available in the engine.

Anyway, don't worry about the multiplayer side of things yet. there's plenty of work involved in the other things you were talking about.
Moe479
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Post by Moe479 »

well, first fighter is already modeled and got a basic texture:

Image
ace123
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Post by ace123 »

Cool. You might also want to try making use of normal and specularity textures for those ridges.

A lot of things --the destroyable parts, turrets-- can be done directly inside of units.csv and the mesh files, without any scripting necessary.

However if you get stuck anywhere, I or some others here can help with the necessary scripts.
Moe479
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Post by Moe479 »

actually it got a single texture, do i need to split up the texture for the 5 parts an bt-aerospacefighter got - front, aft, leftwing, rightwing all connect for damagetrasfer to the body-part.

and to do it right from the first model on, is it possible to replace destroyed model parts by crippled ones once they get destroyed, or much better having several ones that resemble the current dammage of the section like:

10%+ paint gets off
25%+ minor damage, small scars
50%+ serois damage, some holes & molten plating
75%+ almost ripped away, just a skeleton, internals are almost fully exposed
100% finaly fully crippled/ripped off.

hmmm but better would be some texture-manipulation like in mechwarrior3 where a projectile 'draws' its very own impact effect on the amor, depending on its damege-power and type, once the amor is down to a definded level, the projetiles will not anymore just produce impactscars, they will breack through the amor and expose internals (i belive they made this by manipulating the alphachannel of the amor-texture, having an internal texture for each model what gets visible through the 'holes')

ps:
my gimp(2.4.5) seems unable to load the normalmap plugin properly, to be more accurate normalmap.exe fails to load libgdkgltext-win32.1.0.0.dll from "C:\Programme\Gemeinsame Dateien\GTK\2.0\bin" whats normaly the adequat folder under a german xp installation for "C:\Program Files\Common Files\GTK\2.0\bin" thats described in the normalmap plugin's installnotes ...
... even copying the GTK folder to C:\Program Files\Common Files\ doesnt solve the problem ... any idear would be welcome!
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Post by bgaskey »

Currently, as ships get damaged, the normal diffuse map fades out to a separate damagemap, usually the diffuse with some added burns, dirt, and scoring to show damage. I don't know if the mesh itself can be changed without engine-side work, but you can certainly do something like that :wink:
ace123
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Post by ace123 »

I googled and found a copy of gdkglext.dll here:

https://zerowing.idsoftware.com/svn/rad ... trunk/bin/

I don't know if that will help with the GIMP... maybe you can try to reinstall it as well as the latest verison of GTK?
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