Killer's Mods: PF Thales/Escape Pod Fix/Tractor Turrets

This is the location for all mods to collaborate. Anyone making or planning their own mod should post help requests, screen shots and news here.

Moderators: Omega, tillias, Mod Contributor

marX
Trader
Trader
Posts: 16
Joined: Sat Nov 06, 2010 5:56 am

Re: Killer's Mods: PF Thales/Escape Pod Fix/Tractor Turrets

Post by marX »

w03 wrote:Attach your units.csv file and your master_part_list.csv file. I can make all the ships available and fix the damaged parts problems. (On my copy of the game I have already modded for all available ships). However, I must warn you that some of the ships will probably make the game way too easy if bought (such as the beholder).

I'm not sure about the status of upgrading mod ships like the "Le Condor Noir", as I did not design the mod, I just debug it if the programmer says there are errors.
WOW, thank you :D

BTW, would you please price those ships according to their fire power ?
Also, their price should be higher than 3 billion atleast, to make it difficult to attain all of them at once ! !

And what about cap torpedoes and other exotic weapons ?. If I do exhaust them, where can I buy them ???
So, please add all those weapons to a Trantor class planet or any other hard to find place from where I can buy all those upgrades and ships !

PS:Did you find it really odd that the Shipyards don't have any ships or weapons for sale !!!
If you can, would you make all the ships available at shipyards of their respective factions for selling ???

EDIT: I don't know....uploading the units and master part list are getting stuck. Couldn't do it !
So can you wait till I figure this out ?
marX
Trader
Trader
Posts: 16
Joined: Sat Nov 06, 2010 5:56 am

Re: Killer's Mods: PF Thales/Escape Pod Fix/Tractor Turrets

Post by marX »

Here is it......
http://www.easy-share.com/1913659284/ma ... t_list.csv

http://www.easy-share.com/1913659297/units.csv

Can't upload it here......it says quota is full or something :?
Chuck777
Atmospheric Pilot
Atmospheric Pilot
Posts: 1
Joined: Sat Feb 05, 2011 4:26 am

Re: Killer's Mods: PF Thales/Escape Pod Fix/Tractor Turrets

Post by Chuck777 »

KillerB, I was just wondering how it was that you had managed to make targetable sensor turrets? I have been trying to add sensor turrets to my ships, but they don't seem to have any effect on what you see when your ship is active (i.e., when your not controlling a turret). Also, I think that the work that you and wo3 have done on this is really great, I especially like the modified Thales ships.
w03
Mercenary
Mercenary
Posts: 125
Joined: Sat Apr 11, 2009 1:47 am

Re: Killer's Mods: PF Thales/Escape Pod Fix/Tractor Turrets

Post by w03 »

@ marX: Sorry, I won't be able to get the modding done. I was sick for a week, and now the power jack on my computer is completely destroyed...
marX
Trader
Trader
Posts: 16
Joined: Sat Nov 06, 2010 5:56 am

Re: Killer's Mods: PF Thales/Escape Pod Fix/Tractor Turrets

Post by marX »

w03 wrote:@ marX: Sorry, I won't be able to get the modding done. I was sick for a week, and now the power jack on my computer is completely destroyed...
Sorry about that ! :(
Are you okay now ?

Btw, I have added all the ships to the buy config. But some ships just can't be bouught eventhough I have the necessory money !!

Any insight into this issue ??
w03
Mercenary
Mercenary
Posts: 125
Joined: Sat Apr 11, 2009 1:47 am

Re: Killer's Mods: PF Thales/Escape Pod Fix/Tractor Turrets

Post by w03 »

Computer is fixed... if you need any errors/bugs corrected, please send me the file.
KillerB
Bounty Hunter
Bounty Hunter
Posts: 145
Joined: Tue May 05, 2009 7:16 am
Location: Behind you with a missile lock :O
Contact:

Re: Killer's Mods: PF Thales/Escape Pod Fix/Tractor Turrets

Post by KillerB »

Chuck777 wrote:KillerB, I was just wondering how it was that you had managed to make targetable sensor turrets? I have been trying to add sensor turrets to my ships, but they don't seem to have any effect on what you see when your ship is active (i.e., when your not controlling a turret). Also, I think that the work that you and wo3 have done on this is really great, I especially like the modified Thales ships.
To make targetable anything, you can stick it in a turret. Of course then you have to make the new 'Sensor Turret' or whatever available in the masterpartlist.csv...

I'm afraid I can't get at my files atm to check on them or upload my freaky targetable turrets/engines etc mod.

This was really just an experiment though....what is really needed is a reworking of all the ships, especially the capitol ships, to give them sectioned off hulls instead of the current 'monolithic' hull. That is in the .cmp file or whatever equivalent VS uses (my experience is with Freelancer) the .cmp should have boxes in it to let you target the various systems. The larger ships should have distinct hull sections which can be independently targeted and destroyed.

Anyone wanna take that on while I'm on the sidelines??

BTW thanks for the feedback!
[OC]Killer B
Vanguard Federation of Gamers
=VFF Productions=
Antares Mod for Freelancer Team
Storyline Writer/Cat Herder/PR guy
General in the Ordered Chaos Corporation
Vanguard 2 Server
Science Fiction and Action Adventure writer at Antares Dreamscape
Website Creator at Awesome Websites
w03
Mercenary
Mercenary
Posts: 125
Joined: Sat Apr 11, 2009 1:47 am

Re: Killer's Mods: PF Thales/Escape Pod Fix/Tractor Turrets

Post by w03 »

The problem with subunit parts is that you can "pilot" them, like turrets, so if someone blows up your reactor while you are "piloting" it, you die even if the capship isn't dead. Also, switching through all the subunits might be a little awkward if you have to go through all your ship parts before getting to the turrets. Lastly, if the subunits are too vulnerable, a single cluster missile could take them out with splash damage. Maybe the SVN will bring new ideas and fixes to this.

I could take on the project; school ends in a month or two, and I have tons of free time during summer. The project will probably be in the back burner for a while, but after I finish meshing and texturing the two or so ships I have left to finish, I can work on it.

@ KillerB: Could you please send me your units.csv, master_part_list, subunits stuff, and the other progress you have made on this project? I'm really interested in this project, and would be willing to work on it more.

unrelated stuff: Finally finished the model for the scythe!!! :D

Image
KillerB
Bounty Hunter
Bounty Hunter
Posts: 145
Joined: Tue May 05, 2009 7:16 am
Location: Behind you with a missile lock :O
Contact:

Re: Killer's Mods: PF Thales/Escape Pod Fix/Tractor Turrets

Post by KillerB »

Hey Wo3! I appreciate your interest in Killer Mods and your help in building the Tractor Turret.
I'm afriad it may be a while before I can send you my latest master parts lists/.csv's...
my laptop is in hock!!!

The targetable subsystems were in the early experimentation stage. I basically just back-tracked your Tractor Turret mod; created a "Starscanner_03 Turret" using a 'small turret' as the starting point, ripping out the guns subsystems & replacing them w/ a single Starscanner subsystem; of course adding the Starscanner_03 in the subsystems area; then of course adding the new Starscanner_03 Turret to the Master Parts List and giving it a price so replacements can be bought; then added extra 'small turret' hardpoints to the experimental vessels (Thales & Ox), with the Starscanner_03 Turret in the hardpoints, and removed the original scanner.

I was able to target & destroy the subunits in the experimental vessels...I wasn't able to tell if doing so had any effect on them :? Before I was able to test fly a Scanner Turret equpipped ship I got in a pinch & had to hock my computer :| So I'm not even sure you can even see anything with the Scanner Turrets installed!

What is really needed is for someone to re-build the virtual spaceframes of these ships, especially the larger ones, using hardcmp or whatever program works with VS. All of the ships are 'monolithic' or one-peice hulls; these are quicker and easier to build but don't lend themselves to targetable subsystems or realistic damage modeling.
For example, when taking down a Yeoman freighter, you bang away at it and bang away at it, and eventually the entire hull shows red in the scanner indicating damage, and then all at once the whole thing goes up. If it were modeled with a sectioned off hull, then whatever section was taking fire would be the only one taking damage (aside from 'splash damage') and that section alone would be destroyed. This is less noticeable with smaller, say fighter size hulls. The reason I used the Yeoman for an example is that it obviously looks like it has a central hull surrounded by cargo modules...but no matter where you hit the hull the damage shows up evenly all over the main hull & the cargo pods.

btw theScythe looks awesome dude! Although it looks more like a Batlaff or however the Klingons spell thier wierd two handed sword/axe weapon...
[OC]Killer B
Vanguard Federation of Gamers
=VFF Productions=
Antares Mod for Freelancer Team
Storyline Writer/Cat Herder/PR guy
General in the Ordered Chaos Corporation
Vanguard 2 Server
Science Fiction and Action Adventure writer at Antares Dreamscape
Website Creator at Awesome Websites
klauss
Elite
Elite
Posts: 7243
Joined: Mon Apr 18, 2005 2:40 pm
Location: LS87, Buenos Aires, República Argentina

Re: Killer's Mods: PF Thales/Escape Pod Fix/Tractor Turrets

Post by klauss »

w03 wrote:The problem with subunit parts is that you can "pilot" them, like turrets, so if someone blows up your reactor while you are "piloting" it, you die even if the capship isn't dead. Also, switching through all the subunits might be a little awkward if you have to go through all your ship parts before getting to the turrets. Lastly, if the subunits are too vulnerable, a single cluster missile could take them out with splash damage. Maybe the SVN will bring new ideas and fixes to this.
Ya, that's why, IMO, critical (ie, engines, stuff like that) have to be modelled differently and explicitly.
Another reason is performance, subunits are full-fledged units, with AI and all. Storing all that state for every ship's reactor would be overkill.
I know, people will say "that's why we need several unit classes", but I disagree. The answer is that engines aren't at all like units in any way other than they can be damaged.
Oíd mortales, el grito sagrado...
Call me "Menes, lord of Cats"
Wing Commander Universe
strook
ISO Party Member
ISO Party Member
Posts: 461
Joined: Fri Sep 03, 2010 12:10 pm

Re: Killer's Mods: PF Thales/Escape Pod Fix/Tractor Turrets

Post by strook »

Well hadn't we have a discussion in the thread "mesh animation"?
Animated meshes I did could be modified to handle several unit parts without having to create "subunits". But my code was rejected, or not?
plz visit my vegastrike project branch here

plz support VegaOgre by donating to it!

My systems: Mac mini 1, 4gig RAM;
i5 Quad Core 2400, 300mbit WLAN, 1,3Tbyte HD, 60 GB SSD,
nvidia geforce 8400gs 512MB, 6gig RAM with Ubuntu 11.4,
win7 and hackintosh installed
TBeholder
Elite Venturer
Elite Venturer
Posts: 753
Joined: Sat Apr 15, 2006 2:40 am
Location: chthonic safety

Re: Killer's Mods: PF Thales/Escape Pod Fix/Tractor Turrets

Post by TBeholder »

KillerB wrote:To make targetable anything, you can stick it in a turret. Of course then you have to make the new 'Sensor Turret' or whatever available in the masterpartlist.csv...
I already mused about turning docks, mounts, etc into subunits, but there were problems:
  1. Essentially it's a full AI of a ship without thrusters - and is going to eats resources accordingly.
  2. Subunits' radars aren't integrated more than feeding a selected target to turrets via "TurretTargetKey"; other systems aren't integrated at all
  3. Sequential walking through the turrets only.
  4. Bug with destroyed turrets (they couldn't be replaced)
  5. Bug with turrets failing to scale in SPEC (mild annoyance only)
Once this fixed, subunits would to be the way to go, yes. Then again, there are other ways that may be opened as the solution to (1)
Maybe (2) is partially circumvented by slipping extra secondary upgrades (which may be a mix of add_xyz and mult_xyz and whatever) into xyz_turret__upgrades - the way it's done in milspec packages. But this leaves the rest of the troubles.
I detached radar dish and habitats from Mining Station once, but abandoned the idea (see above).
KillerB wrote:The reason I used the Yeoman for an example is that it obviously looks like it has a central hull surrounded by cargo modules...but no matter where you hit the hull the damage shows up evenly all over the main hull & the cargo pods.
That was done on Dodo ("skatecargo"). I suspect that the rest wasn't done the same way because of common problems with subunits. :(
"Two Eyes Good, Eleven Eyes Better." -Michele Carter
travists
Expert Mercenary
Expert Mercenary
Posts: 893
Joined: Thu Jul 08, 2010 11:43 pm
Location: Sol III North American Continent

Re: Killer's Mods: PF Thales/Escape Pod Fix/Tractor Turrets

Post by travists »

My drifting interests have drawn me away from here for a while, but I thought I'd peak in and have a thought or two.

Do AI ships have armor/hull damage in the four quarters like the player? If so, than a partial solution to the "the whole thing turns red then boom" problem may be to have the target display read and display that info like it does with shields. For example, the target is displayed with a armor/shield display similar to the player's around it. (that's assuming a sufficiently sophisticated scanner of course!)

I know sub-meshes are used as pointers for lights and the like. Could there be a "sub-assembly" sub-mesh(es) modeled after the sub-unit handling, but with all nonessential bits striped out?

The engine programming is way out of my league, so I really don't know if it's possible. That said, the sub-unit routines must be able to query some states from the main ship. Location for example: I've not noticed turrets floating of by themselves because a center point was off by just a smidge then multiplied by movement over time. Further, If the main ship did not track it's states every time you left or entered the main cockpit All stats would return to default (or at least their last state). So a line of code like (I'm using psudo-code here of course):

Code: Select all

Turret:
Am I self powered?
Yes --> done
No --v
        Query Main ship's current power level
        Overwrite self power level with query response
        done
should be possible. Worth it too, as contraband scanners become possible (do a cargo query on a target), better wingman control (send a "clear the path" command, and the wingman queries your current destination then flies there on their own), With fleets you can have expanded battlefield awareness (every wingman in comm range can feed each other scanner data, thus expanding effective sensor range possibly even out-system).

Then again, I could just be a mad man rambling....
TBeholder
Elite Venturer
Elite Venturer
Posts: 753
Joined: Sat Apr 15, 2006 2:40 am
Location: chthonic safety

Re: Killer's Mods: PF Thales/Escape Pod Fix/Tractor Turrets

Post by TBeholder »

travists wrote: Do AI ships have armor/hull damage in the four quarters like the player? If so, than a partial solution to the "the whole thing turns red then boom" problem may be to have the target display read and display that info like it does with shields. For example, the target is displayed with a armor/shield display similar to the player's around it.
I looked into the code, gauges support only 4 shield sectors for the target, but there are 8 gauges for shield and 8 for armor of one's own ship, so with cockpit sprite sets they can be seen in variants from 2 to 8 sectors as they are.
travists wrote: The engine programming is way out of my league, so I really don't know if it's possible. That said, the sub-unit routines must be able to query some states from the main ship.
travists wrote: I know sub-meshes are used as pointers for lights and the like. Could there be a "sub-assembly" sub-mesh(es) modeled after the sub-unit handling, but with all nonessential bits striped out?
No, and no. Subunits and units alike have only plaintext - CSV target priority tables (see in data/ai), XML behaviour setup (data/ai/events) assigned in those tables and XAI maneuver scripts (data/ai/script). No true code can be assigned to any specific unit or upgrade - even Python AI modules can be assigned only in mission modules' code (*).
Everything else is done by the engine, and IIRC mostly from the ship's side at that.
travists wrote: So a line of code like (I'm using psudo-code here of course):

Code: Select all

Turret:
Am I self powered?
Yes --> done
No --v
        Query Main ship's current power level
        Overwrite self power level with query response
        done
should be possible.
Should have been possible. That's exactly what i meant under "other ways that may be opened as the solution..." :twisted: In other words, get rid of subunits altogether, replacing them with "submeshes" (unified with mounts, etc) and "devices" with assigned behaviour scripts (Python, not XAI :) ).
Maybe, this even would be easier than to fix subunits as they are, i don't know.

(*) This may mean that the common Python code can be modified so that it would try and start a context-specific (unit name, faction) Python code.
"Two Eyes Good, Eleven Eyes Better." -Michele Carter
travists
Expert Mercenary
Expert Mercenary
Posts: 893
Joined: Thu Jul 08, 2010 11:43 pm
Location: Sol III North American Continent

Re: Killer's Mods: PF Thales/Escape Pod Fix/Tractor Turrets

Post by travists »

Well, It was a thought. The data must be tracked somewhere, but if it's not accessible it's not accessible. Sounds like the solution would need a complete re-build. :shock:

Off I go to parts unknown again.
TBeholder
Elite Venturer
Elite Venturer
Posts: 753
Joined: Sat Apr 15, 2006 2:40 am
Location: chthonic safety

Re: Killer's Mods: PF Thales/Escape Pod Fix/Tractor Turrets

Post by TBeholder »

Wait, did those tractor turrets transfer the salvage in the ship's hold or in their own?
"Two Eyes Good, Eleven Eyes Better." -Michele Carter
w03
Mercenary
Mercenary
Posts: 125
Joined: Sat Apr 11, 2009 1:47 am

Re: Killer's Mods: PF Thales/Escape Pod Fix/Tractor Turrets

Post by w03 »

If I recall correctly, the cargo was transferred to the ship's hold, not the turret's.
TBeholder
Elite Venturer
Elite Venturer
Posts: 753
Joined: Sat Apr 15, 2006 2:40 am
Location: chthonic safety

Re: Killer's Mods: PF Thales/Escape Pod Fix/Tractor Turrets

Post by TBeholder »

oookay. then i'll try with docks...
"Two Eyes Good, Eleven Eyes Better." -Michele Carter
KillerB
Bounty Hunter
Bounty Hunter
Posts: 145
Joined: Tue May 05, 2009 7:16 am
Location: Behind you with a missile lock :O
Contact:

Re: Killer's Mods: PF Thales/Escape Pod Fix/Tractor Turrets

Post by KillerB »

Wow I really opened up a can of worms with the targetable scanners thing!

TRACTOR TURRETS
@beholder: yes the tractor turrets pull things into the cargo hold of the ship. The only trouble I had when using them was that you have to switch from turret to turret until you get to one of the Tractor Turrets that happens to be on the same side of the ship as the loot....and by then it had often drifted away :shock:

To make looting from the bigger ships really practical, we would need Tractor Turret replacements for all the turret types...might be simpler really just to go through all the original turrets and just add a pair of Heavy Tractors/lt gun mounts/special upgrade to each turret's files.
That way any turret you entered that happened to be on the right side of your ship could pull in the loot.

CAPSHIP ENGINES & ARMOR
A problem I've run into with the Player Flyable Thales & other PF Capitol Ships I've experimented with is that eventually, you're going to get an engine shot out and then you are pretty much snakebit...I have managed to limp a Thales down to a planet on the power remaining in the capacitors & then install a new engine...but the biggest one available is WAY smaller than the original engine that came with my good used Andolian corvette!
[OC]Killer B
Vanguard Federation of Gamers
=VFF Productions=
Antares Mod for Freelancer Team
Storyline Writer/Cat Herder/PR guy
General in the Ordered Chaos Corporation
Vanguard 2 Server
Science Fiction and Action Adventure writer at Antares Dreamscape
Website Creator at Awesome Websites
w03
Mercenary
Mercenary
Posts: 125
Joined: Sat Apr 11, 2009 1:47 am

Re: Killer's Mods: PF Thales/Escape Pod Fix/Tractor Turrets

Post by w03 »

@KillerB: The problem with adding tractor beams to everything is that first of all, turrets need to be rebalanced so fighter versions and those for military use don't have tractor beams, and the same turret for civilian use would. For example, the heavy capship turret on the ox would need a civilian version with extra tractor beams on it, and the military version would need the same turret without the tractor beams. All the unit files with turrets would need to be modified. Also, if you are shooting at cargo with the tractor beams on the turret, it is very likely that you will hit the cargo with whatever weapons are on the turret as well. When piloting big ships like the Leonidas or Watson, this becomes a big problem since trying to tractor in the cargo with the first weapon you find may end up with you vaporizing the intended loot with a Whiplash beam or discontinuity shot. :shock: Not good for profits.

A better way is to reorder the turrets so the tractor turrets are first. The order you switch into the turrets is the order they are listed on the units.csv file, IIRC.


Better yet would be to develop a control so you could open a menu or something and select the turret you want to switch into.
strook
ISO Party Member
ISO Party Member
Posts: 461
Joined: Fri Sep 03, 2010 12:10 pm

Re: Killer's Mods: PF Thales/Escape Pod Fix/Tractor Turrets

Post by strook »

My mesh animation is still implemented in unit_generic.cpp.
For usage see here.
In the moment, only a continuous animation loop is implemented.
But you can easily turn off that, if you want to create units with more than one mesh.
The restriction is, that you can't add functionality to a mesh. You need to modify the unit class and add there the functionality.
For example if you want to shoot down parts of a unit you need to implement that 2 sub meshes are displayed at once and that they could be hit differently.
To reach this you need to create a new unit class that calls both draw funcs of the meshes and calculate the bounds of every submesh.
I think this is too complicated to realize, the easiest way would be to create a subunit class that takes most of it's attributes from it's parent.
Let me know if you want to have this feature installed.
plz visit my vegastrike project branch here

plz support VegaOgre by donating to it!

My systems: Mac mini 1, 4gig RAM;
i5 Quad Core 2400, 300mbit WLAN, 1,3Tbyte HD, 60 GB SSD,
nvidia geforce 8400gs 512MB, 6gig RAM with Ubuntu 11.4,
win7 and hackintosh installed
KillerB
Bounty Hunter
Bounty Hunter
Posts: 145
Joined: Tue May 05, 2009 7:16 am
Location: Behind you with a missile lock :O
Contact:

Re: Killer's Mods: PF Thales/Escape Pod Fix/Tractor Turrets

Post by KillerB »

w03 wrote:@KillerB: The problem with adding tractor beams to everything is that first of all, turrets need to be rebalanced so fighter versions and those for military use don't have tractor beams, and the same turret for civilian use would. For example, the heavy capship turret on the ox would need a civilian version with extra tractor beams on it, and the military version would need the same turret without the tractor beams. All the unit files with turrets would need to be modified. Also, if you are shooting at cargo with the tractor beams on the turret, it is very likely that you will hit the cargo with whatever weapons are on the turret as well. When piloting big ships like the Leonidas or Watson, this becomes a big problem since trying to tractor in the cargo with the first weapon you find may end up with you vaporizing the intended loot with a Whiplash beam or discontinuity shot. :shock: Not good for profits.

A better way is to reorder the turrets so the tractor turrets are first. The order you switch into the turrets is the order they are listed on the units.csv file, IIRC.


Better yet would be to develop a control so you could open a menu or something and select the turret you want to switch into.
Right well the thing is though,
>First of all to actually use the tractor part of the Tractor Turrets you built us, I went 'into' the turret & switched weapons until only the tractor beams were active.
>Secondly, it doesn't really matter which turret comes up first, because the next time you need to select a turret, the thing puts you into the next one after the last one you used...as I recall...

@ Strook: Veerrry interesting....I can't wait to experiment with this *sigh* after I get my laptop back.......
[OC]Killer B
Vanguard Federation of Gamers
=VFF Productions=
Antares Mod for Freelancer Team
Storyline Writer/Cat Herder/PR guy
General in the Ordered Chaos Corporation
Vanguard 2 Server
Science Fiction and Action Adventure writer at Antares Dreamscape
Website Creator at Awesome Websites
TBeholder
Elite Venturer
Elite Venturer
Posts: 753
Joined: Sat Apr 15, 2006 2:40 am
Location: chthonic safety

Re: Killer's Mods: PF Thales/Escape Pod Fix/Tractor Turrets

Post by TBeholder »

KillerB wrote:Wow I really opened up a can of worms with the targetable scanners thing!

TRACTOR TURRETS
@beholder: yes the tractor turrets pull things into the cargo hold of the ship. The only trouble I had when using them was that you have to switch from turret to turret until you get to one of the Tractor Turrets that happens to be on the same side of the ship as the loot....and by then it had often drifted away :shock:
IMO, it should do it on its own if given a radar without friend-or-foe and AI role set to CARGO (see in data/ai/VegaEvents.csv and VegaPriorities.csv - priority 0 for CARGO targets and 31 for anything else). Then you'd only need to approach, align the ship and let the turret AI to do its job.
BTW, Tractor are already have role="CARGO INERT", though Heavy Tractor haven't (hence Dodo behaviour). Special short-range tractors for turrets can be set up the same way.
As to drifting away, without using SetVelocityRef properly attempts to pick up anything moving already tend to end up with either hurling it in the opposite direction or crashing into the next container in a group, so...
KillerB wrote: To make looting from the bigger ships really practical, we would need Tractor Turret replacements for all the turret types...might be simpler really just to go through all the original turrets and just add a pair of Heavy Tractors/lt gun mounts/special upgrade to each turret's files.
Probably medium/heavy/capship would be enough, depending on what capships are for sale, anyway. Dedicated subunits are better if only because of AI roles (see above).
"Two Eyes Good, Eleven Eyes Better." -Michele Carter
KillerB
Bounty Hunter
Bounty Hunter
Posts: 145
Joined: Tue May 05, 2009 7:16 am
Location: Behind you with a missile lock :O
Contact:

Re: Killer's Mods: PF Thales/Escape Pod Fix/Tractor Turrets

Post by KillerB »

The AI mod idea is interesting; the only trouble I can see with that is the tractor turret would be gobbling up EVERYTHING nearby, and then you would wind up with a hold full of junk.
Of course you would only want to do this with a completely different Tractor Turret design than the one developed by WO3. You would need a mini-turret subunit to a main turret, with the tractor beams mounted and the AI set to CARGO (as opposed to say FIGHTER for a PD turret or CAPSHIP for the bigger turrets).

What I think would be preferable would be an additional Turret command: "CARGO" that would make the tractor equipped turrets do their thing.
"Fully Automated"
"Target"
"Cargo"
"Off"
Ideally two modes" "AUTOLOOT CARGO" to let the TT's suck up anything nearby, and "TARGET CARGO" to make them only suck up what you have targeted.
[OC]Killer B
Vanguard Federation of Gamers
=VFF Productions=
Antares Mod for Freelancer Team
Storyline Writer/Cat Herder/PR guy
General in the Ordered Chaos Corporation
Vanguard 2 Server
Science Fiction and Action Adventure writer at Antares Dreamscape
Website Creator at Awesome Websites
KillerB
Bounty Hunter
Bounty Hunter
Posts: 145
Joined: Tue May 05, 2009 7:16 am
Location: Behind you with a missile lock :O
Contact:

Re: Killer's Mods: PF Thales/Escape Pod Fix/Tractor Turrets

Post by KillerB »

On second thought, anything big enough to NEED tractor turrets (because its too big to turn & bear a forward firing Tractor Beam) would probably be big enough to just gobble up anything & everything that spills from a destroyed cargo ship.

An extra hard point on the Ox, Yeoman, Clydesdale etc on either side w/ Tractor Turrets (tractor beam only w/ a Cargo AI) should about do the trick.
[OC]Killer B
Vanguard Federation of Gamers
=VFF Productions=
Antares Mod for Freelancer Team
Storyline Writer/Cat Herder/PR guy
General in the Ordered Chaos Corporation
Vanguard 2 Server
Science Fiction and Action Adventure writer at Antares Dreamscape
Website Creator at Awesome Websites
Post Reply