Battleship Mod

[Steven Kodaly]

Do I see a mod with Honor Harrington inspiration claiming that fighter-analogues have no place in space combat?! Need I remind you of just how effective the LAC Carriers were when first introduced?

...Sorry. I'm a bit of an Honor Harrington nut. Feel free to ignore me in regards to the above.

It's a pity that this is meant for Armada I, though - I only have Armada II, and before you suggest it, eBay is not my friend.

 

[Majestic]

Do I see a mod with Honor Harrington inspiration claiming that fighter-analogues have no place in space combat?! Need I remind you of just how effective the LAC Carriers were when first introduced?

...Sorry. I'm a bit of an Honor Harrington nut. Feel free to ignore me in regards to the above.

It's a pity that this is meant for Armada I, though - I only have Armada II, and before you suggest it, eBay is not my friend.

Perhaps you could do the conversion to A2 for Rod, I do believe he mentioned he was open to the idea and considering A1 sods work in A2 it would all be odf, tt and the like work.

 

[Rodglas]

Do I see a mod with Honor Harrington inspiration claiming that fighter-analogues have no place in space combat?! Need I remind you of just how effective the LAC Carriers were when first introduced?

...Sorry. I'm a bit of an Honor Harrington nut. Feel free to ignore me in regards to the above.

It's a pity that this is meant for Armada I, though - I only have Armada II, and before you suggest it, eBay is not my friend.

I've just started reading the HH novels, (just finished Short Victorious War) so I have little idea just how devestating LAC carriers are. My understanding from my research prior to buying the book is that LACs are not direct analog to fighters, that they are far heavier and are in fact light warships.


The argument about fighters usefulness goes beyond HH, and lets not forget that in the real world human piloted fighters are on the way out as well. 50 years, if thing go the way they seen to be going and there won't be fighters flying combat here on earth either.

Rod

 

[Steven Kodaly]

Well, Rod, I don't mean to spoil anything for you, but suffice it to say, you haven't heard the last of "Horrible Hemphill." I trust that you are reading the novels in published order?

You're right, the Light Attack Craft are, individually, just as you described them - but they are the closest to space-borne fighters that we will see in the Honorverse, as a ship's pinnaces (spelling?) can only survive providing offensive power in boarding and landing operations, and cutters are unarmed. Given what I've seen in other mods, and with your desire to keep poly-count at a reasonable level, I sadly cannot recommend the implementation of such craft in your mod.

Perhaps you could do the conversion to A2 for Rod, I do believe he mentioned he was open to the idea and considering A1 sods work in A2 it would all be odf, tt and the like work.

Possible. I would need to see comparisons of the A1 and A2 files, as I have never had access to Armada One's files - unless there is a resource that gives a rundown of the differences between the A1 and A2 iterations of these files?

 

[Rodglas]

I may be mistaken but I think A2 will accept an A1 odf without much alteration. There are more resourses in A2 but they don't have to be used, and the weapons would have to be added.

Even the AI should work without to much ado.

Rod

 

[Majestic]

I may be mistaken but I think A2 will accept an A1 odf without much alteration. There are more resourses in A2 but they don't have to be used, and the weapons would have to be added.

Even the AI should work without to much ado.

Rod

Yes there isn't much difference. Though some of the hidden labels and code available for A1 was locked out for A2. Why I simply don't know so things like modular stations aren't possible in A2.

But all in all they are basically the same thanks to being built using the same engine, the Storm3D engine.

 

[EAS_Intrepid]

The argument about fighters usefulness goes beyond HH, and lets not forget that in the real world human piloted fighters are on the way out as well. 50 years, if thing go the way they seen to be going and there won't be fighters flying combat here on earth either.

Rod

I know someone whould would disagree with you quite strongly


Seriously: I really like this mod idea. In fact I love it.
Myself I am not too much of a fighters-in-space fan anymore, though I do enjoy BSG and especially Babylon 5.

 

[Rodglas]

I know someone whould would disagree with you quite strongly


Seriously: I really like this mod idea. In fact I love it.
Myself I am not too much of a fighters-in-space fan anymore, though I do enjoy BSG and especially Babylon 5.

I'm going to start a seperate topic on this subject. That way we can actually discuss it without sidetracking this thread.

Rod

 

[Jaing Skirata]

LACs in HH are swarmer ships. Individually, powerless against real firepower. Collectively, they could even knock out a dreadnought. I will always be a fan of fighters.... and if you read Weber's Bolo series, there are fighters armed basically with a triple-barreled Hellbore Plasma Cannon. They are quite devastating.

Anyway, back on topic. I belive it would be possible to convert the mod to A2 , with a little effort. And you can easily gather a huge armada in both armada 1 and 2. You just have to do it.

 

[Jaing Skirata]

Dead topic that needed rescuscitation.(Forgive spelling; not a word I 've ever used before..) If you do ever do a HH mod for A2, little piece of info: The ships there look basically like double-ended Corellian Corvettes, respectively more or less huge. Long, spindly center, with hammerhead ends, which house the fore and after impeller nodes.

 

[Rodglas]

Thanks, I'm actually well aware of the design of Honor Harrington Ships. Your description is well, the nicest one I've ever seen. More often they are described in manner far more sexually suggestive.

Also I wouldn't say the topic is dead, just sleeping. AndrArmada is taking up most of modding time.

Rod

 

[Rodglas]

I've been thinking about this mod again, mostly background stuff.

Don't be too surprised if you see a new update soon,

Rod

 

[Majestic]

I look forward to it Rod, glad to see you still working on this albeit at a slower pace as we all do with our mods from time to time.

 

[Dan1025]

Looking forward to it Rod

 

[Rodglas]

I wasn't going to post this at first but what the heck...

This is a Old Ones/Ancients/First Ones warship. The oldest know race in the universe believed to be extinct.

Spoiler: [URL="http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z94/rodglas/Battleship%20Mod/old1s1.jpg

[/URL]"]

Spoiler: [URL="http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z94/rodglas/Battleship%20Mod/old1s2.jpg

[/URL]"]

Rod

 

[Majestic]

Looking great, has a bit of Dune/Babylon 5 feel to it, I like it.

 

[Dan1025]

As do I, looks great rod

 

[Rodglas]

I've finally figured out how to use animated textures (at least on a basic level) and its allowed me to do something with this mod I've wanted to do from the beginning.

As those who have been following along know the Mod has some of its basis/inspiration the Honor Harrington series by David Weber. Ships in that universe use an "Impeller Wedge" as there drive system. These are to gravity sheets genetated above and below the ship angled so that the forward aspect is wider then the aft/rear.

I wanted to do something similiar but not the same.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gURox3wLrmE

As you can see in "Battleships" ships generate an energy wave, this is the visable effect of the Gravity Enhanced Electromagnetic (GE-Em, or G-M) Drive system.

All advanced races (those who have moved beyond some form of chemical rockets) appear to use some variation of this same system from the mysterious Poth Edar, Earth's Star Republic and even the vile Dread.

Rod

 

[EAS_Intrepid]

Looks very interesting! I looking forward to more developments of this mod.

 

[Dan1025]

Wow, that looks excellent! Nice to see the mod is progressing

 

[Ragnar603]

Been a while since I've been here, but wow! I never knew you could have animated textures for a ship. How did you do it?? 0.0

 

[Rodglas]

Been a while since I've been here, but wow! I never knew you could have animated textures for a ship. How did you do it?? 0.0

Its simple enough. Animations are attached to nodes like exactly like weapons to hardpoints.

The animation node needs to be attached to the specific mesh your animating.


the node name works like this:

c_anim_tex1x6


the tex_anim.spr file in the Sptites folder holds all the information this is the entry in A1 for this animation


@animation tex1x6
offset 6 0.5 step
# Automatically generate keyframes
@auto=column
@keyframes

the First line refers to the node name added to the mesh
The second line controls the speed and function of the animation.

You can create your own animation nodesjust replace the "tex1x6" with your own node name.

Rod

 

[Ragnar603]

Ohh, I see.

So basically you have a cylindrical shape over the model that has an alpha channel so it cannot be seen and then the animation runs through that. Fascinating lol.

How do you attach the animation node to the mesh? Name it the same as the animation node?

Maybe I could use your guidance and make something from it

 

[Rodglas]

Its the node heirarchy same as weapons hardpoints

Your standard hierachy looks like this (more or less):


Your Mesh
- root
--- engines
--- borg
--- weapons
----- hp01
----- hp02
--- lights
--- etc....


for the animated texture it looks like this

your Mesh
- c_anim_tex1x6 (for example)
- root
--- engines
--- etc....

I might suggest making the animated portion of your model seperately and them mergeing the files near completion. Do not merge the meshes though unless you want the entire ship to be animated.

(Note: I'm using 3dmax5 so if your using Milkshape or another program I might not be much help.)

Rod

 

[Ragnar603]

As far as I know MS3D can't export model animations, I think texture animations might be different as it based off sprites rather than the SOD. I'll have to give it a try.

Oh and another thing, do the SOD exporters for 3DSMax5 work for any of the other editions? Or Maya?

 

[Rodglas]

As far as I know MS3D can't export model animations, I think texture animations might be different as it based off sprites rather than the SOD. I'll have to give it a try.

Oh and another thing, do the SOD exporters for 3DSMax5 work for any of the other editions? Or Maya?

The Texture animations from MS3D should work just fine as your not animating anything in MS3D.

The SOD exporter was designed for Max4 and works in Max5 but not in later editions afaik. It might work with Max3 as well.

Rod