Vega Strike Forums

starbright wrote:
Erm.. I've started making my heavy missile launcher even more complex. But as soon as that code is ready I'll rip it out and replace it with a hardpoint I promise.


Here you can see the missile launcher with missile loaded and the feed mechanism poking out from beneath the wing. It still needs more work of course.

The three shapes on the rear wing are the liquid-droplet radiators. Each includes a wide slot spraying droplets at a target. I've made them small and recessed them in the hull to make it less likely that coolant would be lost in a dogfight.


Here is a look at the new wings from a distance.

I've included the blend file as usual. It's a bit of a mess (full of triangles and twisted faces) but replacing the wings is turning out to be a big job and time is tight right now.

As usual this is a work in progress, with a design evolving as it goes. I'm interested in everyone's input.

Blend file http://www.starbrightillustrations.com/ ... ip85.blend

Looks very nice! One note-the missile launcher looks a bit flimsy-it could be bulked up a bit.
I like the radiators-I'm thinking a silvery sheen as a texture.

I love your ship! I can't wait to fly it. The details and greebles are very nice. I look forward to seeing the textured version, but take your time - the more details the better! Keep adding details!

Good job

(I hope it gets in the next release )

*Gentle prod*

You still working on this?

Looking at what other people have said in this forum about using franklins I think that they do in fact have at least one turret on them. (point defence I believe) The reason that this doesn't show up in the weapons listing is that Turrets go under the sub-units description in the ship info not the weapons.

Great model none the less.

-REBEL3- wrote:*Gentle prod*

You still working on this?

I'm trying to get back round to it as quick as I can. Real work (I do translations) has picked up, and England are doing well in the World Cup, between the two it's really eating into my time.

@ Drak Zelthor, about the turret.
Oh no, now you tell me! I'll put it back in - what does a point defence turret look like? Something like a gatling gun in a little ball turret?

starbright wrote: @ Drak Zelthor, about the turret.
Oh no, now you tell me! I'll put it back in - what does a point defence turret look like? Something like a gatling gun in a little ball turret?

Sorta-here's the turrets from the Crayfish.

Take your time-as long as it looks good in the end, we don't mind.

The franklin has two turrets, according to units.csv.

You don't need to model them though, just have a couple flat places for them on the mesh, I'd recommend one topside and one bottomside for good coverage.

Deus Siddis wrote:You don't need to model them though, just have a couple flat places for them on the mesh,...

Sounds good to me

And I got Vega Strike to work on my lappy by forcing it to do everything in software, no direct 3D card support. But even though I turned everything down, turned off the shader etc, it was so slow it was like a hypnotic screen saver. So I'm still a little in the dark about how the game actually works. I'm having fun making the model though. Should have some time today...

What version of VS are you using? Also, what style of laptop are you using? I know that I used to run VS on my Macbook-I got around 50ish FPS with (what appeared to be) good quality. FYI, most of the setting sliders in the 0.50 setup are broken.

Still, something doesn't sound right. Almost any new lappy should be able to get good performance out of VS if the settings are low (unless you go the solar system in VS-it's custom, so it slows computers down).

One other thing-I would recommend SVNing up, if you haven't already. Instructions can be found on the wiki.

Normally I don't double post-but I noticed we didn't answer your questions from about 2 pages ago!

"I guess the Leeches might look like a rack of limpet mines ready to be seeded in the spaceship's wake?

The heavy missile on the other hand. Is that like a Battletech heavy missile system - a big bin with little holes on the front for swarms of missiles to shoot out of - or a single launch rail?
Is the spaceship capable of reloading, or is this system one shot?"-Starbright


Here's the description of leeches-straight from the Master Part List

"Like the Crippler, the leech gun relies on sophisticated projectiles housing single-shot laser warheads and minimal targeting systems to do the dirty work of rendering a target vessel disabled. Unlike the Crippler, the leech gun has a reputation for being sufficiently underpowered that it's dangerous to not pack more lethal weaponry as well."

Heavy missiles are normally one big missile. The system can reload.

Here's the description for the torpedo:

"Featuring bulk and drive style rapidly approaching that of a small vessel, these beasts pack a heavy punch, but tend to have acceleration curves suited to catching only the less than fleet of foot."

You don't need to worry about how particular weapon systems look, just model generic weapons or weapon housings based on their size and type in units.csv.

All you need to know is, whether it is a gun or missile, special or normal, and light, medium or heavy (the franklin can't mount anything capship sized weapons so no need to worry about the larger size classes).

-REBEL3- wrote: "Like the Crippler, the leech gun relies on sophisticated projectiles housing single-shot laser warheads and minimal targeting systems to do the dirty work of rendering a target vessel disabled. Unlike the Crippler, the leech gun has a reputation for being sufficiently underpowered that it's dangerous to not pack more lethal weaponry as well."

Heavy missiles are normally one big missile. The system can reload.

Wow thanks. The leech gun sounds like a gauss gun with smart ammo containing a laser. I've added a nice big gun under the cockpit, I made it triangular to house the magnets used to project the laser ammo where it needs to go.

I've also made the missile system a whole lot bigger.



and a closeup of those missiles from an iteration before I decided the ammo feed should be armoured

Here's the blend file. Don't look too close I've ripped open a big hole under the wing that isn't closed yet, and there is a whole bunch of other stuff to do too.

http://www.starbrightillustrations.com/ ... ip96.blend

@Deus Siddis -- The flat bits for the point def turrets are next on my todo list.

Looking really good.

Make sure you save separate blend files of the weapons throughout the process. The earlier missiles could be used for an less expensive, less powerful missile launcher.

So far, it looks very nice!



*EDIT*-klauss just informed us that the engine CAN support seprate weapon entities without having to have any code changes. Yay! Start snipping those guns off!

-REBEL3- wrote:*EDIT*-klauss just informed us that the engine CAN support seprate weapon entities without having to have any code changes. Yay! Start snipping those guns off!

OK, snipped 'em off.

*edit*
You can also see the round flat place on top for the point defence weapons. There is a similar (OK exactly the same, I shift D duplicated it) one underneath.

*edit*
more work...

Looks very nice! I do like the gold cockpit-is that just a temporary rendering texture, or were you planning to use it for the final version?

Oh-I noticed in your blog you planned to put a little person in it-we've done that before. Here's the link.

http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/forum ... 8&start=90

-REBEL3- wrote:Looks very nice! I do like the gold cockpit-is that just a temporary rendering texture, or were you planning to use it for the final version?

I like the gold too! I'm thinking of keeping it.

You asked me before about my lappy and why it is having such problems playing Vega Strike. It's a Packard Bell EasyNote and the graphics card is a S3 Savage http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/forum ... =1&t=15344. Ubuntu doesn't have a driver for it, or it does, but without direct rendering support. I have to run things like Blender or Tux Racer with software rendering. It's all very slow and buggy.

I'm still looking for a solution though, you never know.

Very nice! Good job!

Shark wrote:Very nice! Good job!

Thanks!

I had a look at your site. I love the HUD graphics you did. http://i421.photobucket.com/albums/pp29 ... _hud_2.png

Edit---



You can now see the pilot. Or at least their outline.

Thanks! Looking at that image again I probably should have labeled everything.

Too bad I can't download knowledge of C++/Python and the current state of VS's code into my brain like in The Matrix.

I should also re-do the interface in SVG or something instead of HTML that works only in IE "quirks mode".

er, compared to the other windows in the ship.. that pilot looks like hes fucking huge :O

Remember though, he'll probably never be seen. so it doesn't matter much either way.

-REBEL3- wrote:Remember though, he'll probably never be seen. so it doesn't matter much either way.

Actually the pilot very well could be visible and it is always best to model everything to scale anyway, otherwise it probably will never look to scale. And having things look their size is really important, for a game like this especially.

I've been working on the pilot. There are still some problems - the worst of which is a strange dark area in the cockpit - but I think he is approx the right size now. I modelled him independently of the spaceship to be sure.



Here in this render you can see the strange dark bit in front of the pilot (flipped normals maybe? bad lighting?)



He, he, I made the windows of the passenger compartment transparent. Would it be OTT to model a VIP lounge in there for the diplomats?

Edit----

Here is the latest blend http://www.starbrightillustrations.com/ ... p124.blend, in case anyone wants to play mesh doctor and tell me why the front of the cockpit (the pilot's console) renders so dark.

starbright wrote:
He, he, I made the windows of the passenger compartment transparent. Would it be OTT to model a VIP lounge in there for the diplomats

Probably not-I know we do some of that for bases. Make the inside of the lounge low-poly though.

Just a general comment about the ship-it seems to me it should look somewhat more sexy-sort of like the H496 (http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/forum ... 28&t=9024), the Seaxbane (http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/forum ... =28&t=8627), or the CT1000 (http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/forum ... =4&t=12134). IMO, it should look like whoever owns it made an effort to make it look pretty. While your model is great, it just seems a bit too utilitarian to me. I guess I would recommend generally make the ship flow together more, and round lots of corners. Since it is a diplomatic ship, it would be a bit of a symbol of the power of the owner.