Turret orientation suggestion

[Hammish]

Now, I have no idea if this is even possible (and if it's not, or it'd be difficult to implement, that's cool) but might it be possible to include an option to flip the Z axis on turret hardpoints on the hulls so that the mounting 'post' pointed upward instead of downward?

Heck, it may already be possible and I just don't know how to do it, but the goal would be the ability to mount turrets underslung along the bottom of a hull, instead of always being across the top of it.  Might look pretty cool with some of the default hulls as well, like the Fang, with launchers hanging under the wings.

[Lurler]

It is possible according to our specification.
But since we have not added any ship that uses it - it isn't implemented yet.

But the idea is to use weapon display parameter:
0 - not display.
1 - normal.
2 - up side down.

It will be available in one of future versions once we add a ship that uses it.

[Hammish]

Nice.

If you remember, give a shout when you make it active in the game.  I have two unique hulls waiting to use it, including my capital ship.

[Lurler]

Actually it is already in
In the v0.9.5. It was very easy to do, so we implemented it with the last patch.

[Hammish]

And this is yet another reason why you guys are awesome.

Thanks!

Now if I can just work out why all some of the models I try to bring into the game end up black and won't take meshes... I'll be wonderful.

Blender and I, we are not friends right now.

[Lurler]

You can import models that are already in the game to see if there are any specific things, possibly?

[Hammish]

Yeah, that's actually what I was trying to do as a basis.  In this case I just wanted to make a turret model that was slightly larger, but when I attempted to export it back to .obj I ran into some issues.  Modeling/texturing isn't really my forte.   I'll figure it out, though, or find someone else out there who can.

Either way, though, got the inverted weapons working quite nicely.  Hoping to have a fresh build out this coming weekend for people to tinker around with, now that I think I have all the weapons where I want them as well as four basic hull paths (more stuff like the Banshee turning into the Mk2, ect) and some of the gear; just need to look at seeing if I can get new skills to add, yet.

[Lurler]

In that case you will probably find this useful as well
http://atomictorch.com/Files/PhysicsAdjuster.zip
It is an application that we use to create ships and other objects for the game ourselves. It allows you to adjust collision box for the model.

[Hammish]

I will check this out very soon.

Another question about physics as well, when you have a free moment: is there a way, or would it be difficult to code in, the ability to accelerate projectiles?  I've been playing around with the dampening attribute a bit and having some fun, I was hoping it'd be possible to go the other direction by setting dampening to a negative value and thus accelerating a projectile after launch... but it didn't really seem to have an effect.

Am I missing an optional tag/attribute that I could use for the acceleration effect, or is it just not possible with the game engine as it is?  The end effect I had in mind was a missile that would launch slow and then increase in velocity as the motor fired.

[Lurler]

No, unfortunately acceleration is not possible yet.
I had some ideas about it, about missiles that pop out of your ship and then start acceleration only after about a second. But since it is definitely not a priority there is no such an option yet.

[Hammish]

Hee, that was my idea as well, something like actual missiles that are mounted as single-shots externally.  Takes time for the motor to kick in and provide missile velocity.

Understand about the low priority though, totally.  Just figured I'd ask.  I actually came up with a temporary work-around anyway: the missiles I'm using to do it essentially launch as a mine projectile with a very short fuse, then just before detonation launch a single scattering projectile straight forward as the missile proper.  Seems to work okay and looks very neat if you do it while strafing.

[Lurler]

Sounds cool. I should try that myself

[Hammish]

It's so easy to do with the easy way you guys set up the scattering property, too.  You can basically use all the parameters of the missile BEFORE you applied the effect and just toss them into the scattering section, set scatter to 0 and direction to 0, and voila it launches out of the front.

Does look a little odd, though, unless you have a teeny little missile or make it fast so that the rocket appearing out of thin air is less jarring.  The trail also looks a bit odd, but hey.  Speaking of which, any chance we might still get the trails editor sometime soon?  I've been having fun tinkering with the physics editor and I like having new toys.

[Lurler]

Trail editor? Well, we don't have it. We just edit it by hands since it's quite simple actually

[Hammish]

... Would you believe I never thought to check the engine_trails folder for matching missile/projectile trails?

I see the data now, and yes, seems easy enough to edit.