[MOD] Capital Ship Bridge

Post by **UniTrader** » Tue, 16. Sep 14, 21:32

Litauen wrote:1. Long corridor as in station - easy to make, poor immersion, because short corridor feels bad on huge ship, long corridor - too boring to use every time
2. Stairs + corridor - lame
3. Working elevator as in some levels which you need to press - super lame, looks crappy
4. Elevator with magic button which would teleport player to the bridge - button is easy, teleportation - no idea how to make it happen, great immersion (maybe I can play some video during 'teleportation' also)

I searched through basic and md functions but could not find a way to move player from one place to another on the same station/platform. Some pointers from devs would help.

corridors are no good idea if you have a full view around, except you want to do some complicated stuff (the Space around the Landing Platform is considered as skybox (even the Ship the Player is currently on), therefore the parts of the Platform and the corridors are always visible, even if they should be hidden by the geometry) - that approach will look weird.
additionally you have to make it individually for each and every Ship, which is much work..

i would use approach 3 or 4 (or a combination of both) - or for the beginning add the Bridge as second Landing Platform on every ship, because the Platform replacement is weird on Rahanas-Line Ships

for how to teleport the player: i think <warp object="player.entity" zone="$room" /> could work (or alternatively experiment with <add_actor_to_platform />), if we find out how to get a specific Room in a variable. problem there is that they dont exist if not needed..
here how they got a room/dock in the Plot as reference:

Code: Select all

            <find_dock_location name="$DV_CanteranSec__Home_Station_Dock" container="$DV_CanteranSec__Home_Station" freemissionactorslot="true" required="true"/>
            <set_value name="$DV_CanteranSec__Home_Station_Dock_Component" exact="$DV_CanteranSec__Home_Station_Dock.component"/>

Ebron · Post by **Ebron** » Tue, 16. Sep 14, 21:56

If possible I would try to add one of those train you see outside the stations.
On a 3 or more km long ship I think is perfectly reasonable to have a train that transport personell from one point to the other.
Making it move while the player is inside would be probably be difficult so maybe just teleporting the player to the final station while pressing a consolle on the train would work better.

Litauen · Post by **Litauen** » Tue, 16. Sep 14, 23:00

Workplace. Will add monitors later.

[ external image ]

Nikola515 · Post by **Nikola515** » Tue, 16. Sep 14, 23:08

This is just idea. But what if you add menu when docking to ship.

1)Dock to bridge- And you get automatically teleported to bridge.

2)Dock to hangar- And get docked to Skunk docking area.
Or something like that .....
This way if someone don't want walk around ship they can teleport to that location.

NZ-Wanderer · Post by **NZ-Wanderer** » Tue, 16. Sep 14, 23:10

Definitely need the bridge in other places on some ships tho, I landed on the Arawn last night for a looksee, and it kinda looks wierd having the bridge where it is and still have the sides of the ship showing outside the window

As for moving player from landing platform to bridge, what about just having a teleport pad in the landing bay which if stepped on takes the player straight to the bridge, that way no corridors or elevators.

Phipsz · Post by **Phipsz** » Tue, 16. Sep 14, 23:31

I guess the teleport platform has the same issues as a elevator, except the elevator would be more immersive

Of course it would be pretty awesome to be able to move around the ship, be it just from hangar to bridge by elevator.
But I have an idea how it may be solved for now... I don't know if it would actually work, but could you move the bridge to another place on the ship but keep the dockingport where it is? (if you know what i mean)

Freeman_79 · Post by **Freeman_79** » Wed, 17. Sep 14, 04:21

Damn Litauen, nice work, and Egosoft said it wasent likely they will do cap_bridges anytime soon, but you cracked the nut, you deserve a job at Egosoft

Earth Ultimatum IV. · Post by **Earth Ultimatum IV.** » Wed, 17. Sep 14, 13:30

There already are some lifts in interiors.
Maybe they could be re-modelled, and reworked a little bit?
I don't think that a capship bridge would be that hard to make for Egosoft.

Ynesra · Post by **Ynesra** » Wed, 17. Sep 14, 22:06

About form and scale...

http://steamcommunity.com/id/920312/scr ... 1280287395

Vim Razz · Post by **Vim Razz** » Wed, 17. Sep 14, 22:49

Ynesra wrote:About form and scale...

http://steamcommunity.com/id/920312/scr ... 1280287395

Those sorts of refinements can come in time, and will vary from ship to ship.

The real priority at this stage is to establish a working prototype to play around with and learn what works and what doesn't in terms of structuring the code and assets, what tools and resources are needed to make things work, how different ideas or arrangements affect gameplay interaction, and so on.

Once that template has reached a mature enough stage, then other folks might be able to help fill out the particular variations needed for different varieties of ship. It's too much work to expect one person to do everything.

In the meantime? sure it's a bit awkward from the back of a Taranis if you really think about it, but even if you match the Taranis perfectly then it's still going to look awkward from the deck of a Rahanas....

If you've got some particular design ideas that you'd like to explore, the tools and resources used in the development of this mod so far can be found in this thread.

Litauen · Post by **Litauen** » Thu, 18. Sep 14, 17:55

Thank you guys for great input.

Update: 1.10 Workplaces with monitors

[ external image ]

@NZ-Wanderer - I will change default locations of landing platforms on all ships to have better view.

Earth Ultimatum IV. · Post by **Earth Ultimatum IV.** » Thu, 18. Sep 14, 18:13

Epic work

Peter Hull · Post by **Peter Hull** » Thu, 18. Sep 14, 19:43

I got a real shock seeing all those monitors, Fantastic

Is there anyway to have the crew standing near the seats? I tried moving them in the save file, but they re-spawn to original positions if you re-dock

Miniding · Post by **Miniding** » Thu, 18. Sep 14, 20:41

Very very very nice work dude!!!!! It's awsome to see your bridge and the latest one with monitors... just wonderdull!!!

I'm sad I can't help you with coding as my XML level is close to your first hour in a dev school.... I can read it, quite understand it but I don't have the mind to be helpfull...

Anyway I keep a close eye on your work (as Ego should like they did for NESA...) and will report back my impressions and ideas...

No stress but you got gold in your hands here!!

Best regards

Ynesra · Post by **Ynesra** » Fri, 19. Sep 14, 12:34

Great work! IMHO, the bridge should be a bit darker, like Skunks cockpit.

Post by **Sparky Sparkycorp** » Fri, 19. Sep 14, 12:42

Looks fantastic.

If at some point you are feeling in a silly mood, might I suggest something like this as an alternative?

(I'm not really serious - it was just something I thought of when looking at the curves of the consoles and the roundness of the room)

[ external image ]

Post by **UniTrader** » Fri, 19. Sep 14, 12:43

Ynesra wrote:Great work! IMHO, the bridge should be a bit darker, like Skunks cockpit.

thats one of the reasons EGO has not yet implemented a Bridge: they have some problems with the Shadows, the Sun / light is always shining inside there (the other reason is they dont want to just add some meshes, but want to add some functionality there you dont have on the Landing pad, too (like useable Control Pannels for example)

Litauen · Post by **Litauen** » Fri, 19. Sep 14, 13:15

@Peter Hull

Is there anyway to have the crew standing near the seats?

Yes, will do that.

@Ynesra

IMHO, the bridge should be a bit darker, like Skunks cockpit.

Will try to remove "omni" records from the XML file, maybe these are lights and will improve the situation.

@UniTrader

(the other reason is they dont want to just add some meshes, but want to add some functionality there you dont have on the Landing pad, too (like useable Control Pannels for example)

What could be the purpose of such Control Pannels? Some action happens when you press something? Similar to the skunk button? If so - then for Ego it should be very easy to do.

jeroll3d · Post by **jeroll3d** » Fri, 19. Sep 14, 13:46

Oh lord!

Magnific work guys!!!

Unitrader, yeah

The Sun and shadows is a problem in litle skunk too. The size of objects influences the shadow generated by a point of light, no?

Post by **Sparky Sparkycorp** » Fri, 19. Sep 14, 13:56

Litauen wrote: @UniTrader
(the other reason is they dont want to just add some meshes, but want to add some functionality there you dont have on the Landing pad, too (like useable Control Pannels for example)
What could be the purpose of such Control Pannels? Some action happens when you press something? Similar to the skunk button? If so - then for Ego it should be very easy to do.

I don't know if it would be possible but seeing as the model seems to be included, is there any chance the Skunk's pop-up side menu could be assessable (assuming it offered something interesting)?

I've never hacked a console but aparently they look like this:
http://x-rebirth.wikia.com/wiki/File:Hackable_01.jpg

Perhaps they could be an interesting alternative to the skunk button in some cases.

egosoft.com

egosoft.com

[MOD] Capital Ship Bridge