Shield effects on custom-made ships

Tue Sep 07, 2004 12:52 am by Mephistopheles

I have serious trouble producing a good shield effect on a self-made ship.
From the front, the model resembles this. though the wings are not that steep, but rather in a 45°.
From the front it looks like a big X, with HpMount just a bit below the lower wing ends to make it float above the floor on bases.
Now I see HpMount is also used by the shield_link. I found changing HpMount there to HpShield01, for example, change th position of the shield effect itself.

The Problem is I can't get the shields to be larg enough. With the default HpMount in the shield_link I get a shield for most of the lower half of the ship, but even the cockpit is not entirely covered with shield.

In the game this has the effect as long as the shields are up most of the upper half of the ship is unhittable, the NPCs might shoot from above but the shoots go straight through the hull until they hit the shield. Also, when shields are down they don't really try to hit the ship, but rather shoot between the two bottom wings.
And even when I clearly see they should hit ym hull, often the shots go through.

I tried FlAddRadius, which didn't help, btw.

Any suggestions?

Edited by - Mephistopheles on 9/7/2004 1:53:24 AM

Edited by - Mephistopheles on 9/7/2004 1:55:03 AM

Edited by - Mephistopheles on 9/7/2004 1:55:33 AM

Edited by - Mephistopheles on 9/7/2004 1:56:43 AM

Tue Sep 07, 2004 1:02 am by bakedpotato

Sounds like the sur file...
Either your not using the right one or your not using one at all..
Try using the sur file from the dagger or the dragon.
Just copy one of the original sur files from one of the original ships and then just change it to the name of your ship like the mat and cmp file name but with the sur extension and put the sur file in your custom ship folder with the mat and cmp files...

Tue Sep 07, 2004 1:40 am by harrier

One other thing,

Look at the size of your ship and compare it to one of the ships in game, if the ship is large, use one of the larger .sur files

If light fighter sized, use a light fighter .sur, if transport/freighter sized, use either the Rhino or Humpback..

Also the HpShield Hardpoint should be as close to the true center of the ship as you can get it.

Harrier

Retreat[![! ---- I'm too badly messed up now[![!

Edited by - harrier on 9/7/2004 2:45:54 AM

Tue Sep 07, 2004 2:51 am by Mephistopheles

Thanks, I am trying those out. You were right about the sur file, I didn't use any (this is my very first ship mod ever!).

It is a bit larger than the Titan in fact, but smaller than a Heavy Lifter. Doh. The heavy Lifter sur file makes a really huge shield around it. Hehehe easy to hit, but I will see if there is something a bit smaller than the Heavy Lifter and still a similar shape.

EDIT:

Well, for the shields it works fairly with that one, though the shields are big and easy to hit now. Now I have the problem that the hull hits end not on the actual hull, but some distance above it. :-/

Edited by - Mephistopheles on 9/7/2004 4:01:59 AM

Tue Sep 07, 2004 3:10 pm by harrier

Mephistopheles,

Perhaps if you tried the Sabre .sur or even one of the small freighters like the Drone or the dromedary, unfortunately its abit of a case of experimentation, or a slight scale down of your ship if that is better.

Harrier

Retreat[![! ---- I'm too badly messed up now[![!

Wed Sep 08, 2004 4:55 am by Heavy B

Hey meph its me

well anyway , i use this basic rule for scaling ships.

1) import a ship as big is you want your model to be.
2) scale down your ship so it is as big as the imported ship.
3) delete the imported ship and scale your ship up to 40 - 50 times (i tough it was somewhere near this value last time checked)

Wed Sep 08, 2004 11:31 am by Mephistopheles

Well, the ship this thread was all about was only my very first one. I am now working on the Prometheus Corvette for now try it with the sur file of the small transport. ^^

But my main concern is now that in some situations the ship handles really weird, might be a problem with the mass or something, but I am sure I will figure.

Wed Sep 08, 2004 11:39 am by Megistos

If you search, there was a thread that made sense of all the values you need to tweak to get accurate handling. I can't remember the URL of it, but it's not from too long ago.

Wed Sep 08, 2004 2:30 pm by bane42

try this for understanding the flight stats of ships

flight stats

Edited by - bane42 on 9/8/2004 3:33:24 PM

Edited by - bane42 on 9/8/2004 3:34:33 PM

Thu Sep 09, 2004 4:20 am by Mephistopheles

Erm, weridly changing the ship type to FIGHTER or FREIGHTER instead of GUNBOAT solved that anyway.

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