Now, this is WEIRD... help meh

Mon Nov 01, 2004 11:47 am by Argh

Ok folks... please, somebody help me out here.

Basically, for my mod, I want "ships" that cannot (repeat- CANNOT) steer up or down.

This was very easy to accomplish, after tweaking the correct variables in the shiparch.ini, and I thought, "woohoo!"... then I tried things out in the mod.

Basically, here's my problem: when ships leave a docking point, they aren't traveling in a straight line away from the point! Instead, the FL engine randomizes the angle a wee bit on exit, apparantly. As this part of my mod more-or-less depends on this NOT occuring... I need to figure out what's causing this, and how to turn it OFF.

Do I need to add more docking points to the path, and just put them in a straight line going outwards, so that by the time the ship gets done hitting the points, it's traveling in an absolutely flat way? I cannot have these ships have even a small amount of up/down orientation, or this part of the mod won't work right.... help...

Mon Nov 01, 2004 12:05 pm by Anton

I'd take a guess it's down to the orientation of the dock points.

+++ out of cheese error - redo from start +++

Xtreme Team Studios

Mon Nov 01, 2004 12:08 pm by Argh

I'm taking a look at them now, in the CMP files... it doesn't seem to be there, so far as I can see. Of course, I'm messing with the default docking ring, which may have errors in it that just aren't apparant unless you're doing something like this. I'll try deleting all of the existing docking points and putting in new ones, and see if that works.

Mon Nov 01, 2004 12:21 pm by Megistos

May I ask at this point exactly WHY you want ships that can only steer on one axis? I don't see the point...

Mon Nov 01, 2004 12:43 pm by Argh

Hmmmmmm...

I've made the game crash, by elminating the B dock. Confound it... I'm going to have to check out the customized docking rings I've seen various people do around here, and see if they have the same basic problems.

As for why... well, let's just say that if they weren't spacecraft, you wouldn't want them to be able to fly.

Edited by - Argh on 11/1/2004 12:43:56 PM

Mon Nov 01, 2004 12:52 pm by Chips

You mean drive round the universe? Your nutts

Mon Nov 01, 2004 1:04 pm by Zack Lyons

If they weren't spacecraft you wouldn't want them to fly.....huh? If they weren't spacecraft you wouldn't want to even take it into space, which defeats the whole purpose of having the ship in FL in the first place.

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Mon Nov 01, 2004 2:34 pm by Anton

Is this a winnebago? or a capri? a space born capri i could live with

+++ out of cheese error - redo from start +++

Xtreme Team Studios

Mon Nov 01, 2004 5:55 pm by Argh

I only wish the intended uses for this "non-flight" were so lame

You'll just have to wait for me to get the first Alpha working well enough for screenies...

I don't suppose anybody has a clue why this bug is happening yet? I just got home, so I'll take a few more whacks at this problem now.

Mon Nov 01, 2004 7:38 pm by Codename

Are you making some sort of driving game with the FL engine? That would be cool.

Mon Nov 01, 2004 8:04 pm by Argh

...something like that, yes.

IF I CAN GET THIS TO WORK... pant... wheeze...

I've been messing with it for 2.5 hours now... the exit trajectory appears to be random and I have yet to find a contstant that sets this, nor an environmental reason (i.e., moving the docking point doesn't seem to do any good). I'm now going to try a multi-point exit with a deliberate curve x,z to see what the docking AI does with my request here... maybe THAT will get this bugger to behave!

Mon Nov 01, 2004 8:36 pm by Argh

Well, now I know a negative. With DockPoint B and DockMount B, the docking AI doesn't pay any attention whatsoever to the DockPoints, and simply spawns the character's ship at DockMount, with a slight (but very annoying) amount of variabilty.

Now, I've been looking through the files for battleships, which use a very discrete set of docking/undocking steps, and they use DockMount C and DockPoint C. Maybe that's what I need here. Going to check them out and try to experimentally verify that they do, indeed, launch ships at an absolutely flat angle...

Mon Nov 01, 2004 8:59 pm by Argh

It appears that using DockMountC and DockPointC is the way to go. Because this DockMount type seems to explicitly call for docking by going through the 2 waypoints, which also seem to control position and orientation, I should be able to (theoretically) build a mod that will place objects at a given height Y ... and if they cannot change their orientation X, then in theory, they won't be able to leave the "ground". I have tested this by flying over 10K away from the point of origin, circling back around (which should've compounded any errors) and then returning to the origin. No problema... sweet!

So, basically, this works, unless they run into something.

In which case, I'll make them die, so that the engine's flaws aren't quite so obvious. Heh.

I should also note that Nudge works just fine at propelling ships in the Y axis, even through the ship cannot orientate itself in that direction.

Tue Nov 02, 2004 8:34 am by Argh

Hmmmmm....

It appears that it's not DockMountA's fault, after all. It's just something special about planetary docking rings, probably hard-coded (which would explain why changing the parameters much at all causes the game to crash).

I'm now ready to try to put the next item into the game, and then ... we'll see.

Tue Nov 02, 2004 10:19 am by Argh

Oh yeah, and if an experienced shipwright could PLEEEEEEEASE go over to the Modeling/Skinning Forum and help me out... I might get the Alpha done sometime before Hell freezes over.

I am SO SICK of not being able to figure out why my skinned objects aren't showing up in the game. I've read the tutorials over and over again, and nothing seems to work like they say they should........ GRRRRrrrrrrrrrrr.

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