Moon & Mars

[+yakarov79]

On 18/09/2019 at 12:44 AM, russouk2004 said:

Yeah it does....But I think Mother Nature will destroy us before we destroy it.

Hope not before SF3 is released 🤪

[+Menrva]

Hi, everyone. I had sent a PM to @Stary in regards to an experiment he had made in the past, which may be useful for the development of those two terrains I have showed. Until he responds to me, development of the terrains is halted.

Stary, if you read this, please check your PM when you have time. Maybe your PM box is full and you didn't get my message.

[+Menrva]

Far away, into the clear starry sky... on the Moon...

 

Farther away, a land of blood and ashes... that is Mars...

 

I wasn't able to gain help from Stary regarding a texturing experiment in the TFD format. The terrains currently use a single yet nice tile texture. Both heightmaps have been remade from scratch, in order to overcome engine limitations explained in previous posts. Mars no longer features Vallis Marineris, but another portion of the planet with less elevation changes yet beautiful valleys.

AI is limited to aircraft using custom userlist.ini files which refer only to specific terrain nations, which are United States Space Force, Russian Space Forces, People's Liberation Army Strategic Support Force (Blue Side) and fictional Settlement Defense Front (Red Side). There is no need to edit the game's global _nations.ini file, it's all contained within the terrains' _nation.ini files.

The terrains need specific ground objects for Moon bases and Mars settlements, and custom spacecraft and maybe even flying aircraft carriers. The scenario wants to be what if but somewhat realistic; I'd love fictional yet believable designs, not fancy ones.

Edited January 22, 2020 by Menrva

[PeacePuma]

A new world of simulation literally opens up ... Question: 1) Does the game engine allow you to extend the terrain beyond the stratosphere? thinking about space stations to make trips from there to the ground and vice versa. ... and 2) if this is possible, could a floating structure or a ship (type of engines with unlimited energy) or some structure not anchored to the ground be made? ... I know that with this we can speculate a lot and there are many limitations of the game, but you have already gone far and exceeded some limits and that is already encouraging to propose many ideas ...

 

[+russouk2004]

Good stuff....maybe now Angels have a scenario to take part in...bring on Captain Scarlett and crew...also maybe Thunderbirds ARE go...

[+Menrva]

1 hour ago, PeacePuma said:

Question: 1) Does the game engine allow you to extend the terrain beyond the stratosphere? thinking about space stations to make trips from there to the ground and vice versa

Well, the game does allow to fly up to 115,000 ft or so; when you get above the limit, the camera sways and you lose both view and control over your aircraft.

1 hour ago, PeacePuma said:

2) if this is possible, could a floating structure or a ship (type of engines with unlimited energy) or some structure not anchored to the ground be made? ... I know that with this we can speculate a lot and there are many limitations of the game, but you have already gone far and exceeded some limits and that is already encouraging to propose many ideas ...

I think this is really doable. The recent battlecruiser by @nuni (https://combatace.com/files/file/17224-bc-304-daedalus-class-battlecruiser/) acts like an aircraft. While parked on the airbase, it is made so that it floats; in reality, below the visible 3d model there is an invisible part of it which touches the ground. To create floating ground objects like orbital ships and space warfare carriers should be doable with the same principle; the 3d model should be created with a big z-offset. I'm no 3d modeller, though.

The engine does allow to change gravity values. Moon and Mars have got their correct gravity values each, but to fly on Mars in SF2 is much easier than in reality (theorically) due to the fact that pressure values are Earth-like in-game (this is hardcoded and cannot be tweaked in any way).

Edited January 22, 2020 by Menrva

[Nuni]

Hello everyone, I must say that this idea sounds great, I always wondered if terrains like these were even possible! and I am glad to see that there is people thinking and working on it.

It is correct, the way I introduced the hovering was by making an invisible landing gear in the 3D model at the desired altitude, in my case 300 meters above the ground. I also wanted to implement vertical take off and landing (reason why I used an F-35B flight model). I also wanted to use that to make flying static targets by making separated models of the ships but without engines in the game so I could get a starship statically hovering a city in the middle of a ground and aerial battle hahaha. All of this can be perfectly implemented to make stations and motherships (taking into account that they would not be "really orbiting" unless they were in an geostatic orbit).

Eventhough I am not investing too much time in modding right now I was thinking that my next ships would be more from Stargate franchise or The Expanse, and after seeing this post I would like to contribute with ground objects or whatever!

[+russouk2004]

you could simulate a flying carrier by having set as a vehicle?   huge invisible dummy wheels so its about mile up...even set as a carrier.....which floats on an invisible sea at 20,000 ft  lol...landable then

[Nuni]

I remember that I tried to Z offset groundobjects in SF1, but I think there was a problem because the center of the vehicle is always near to the ground. That is a problem because that could mean a flying carrier at 10000 meter above the ground but the target remains very close to the ground, which means that a strike to the carrier results in shooting at ground where there is nothing hahaha.

However, I must recognise that my knowledge of modding was veeeery limited, I would like to give it a try in SF2 and review what an object_data.ini contains. Maybe I try it with the battlecruiser I made.

In the case we make it work also means that AI would attack with air-to-ground weaponry, not air-to-air. We can try to put an invisible, static, aircraft dummy just to have an air target in the same spot of the space station hahaha.

[+Menrva]

3 hours ago, nuni said:

I would like to give it a try in SF2 and review what an object_data.ini contains. Maybe I try it with the battlecruiser I made.

Keep us posted, then. Thank you for offering to help!

 

In other news, I reproduced the Pulse Laser weapon/gun as seen in Ace Combat 7, with custom sound (placeholder) for better immersion: PLSL Stuff.zip

 

[PeacePuma]

@MenrvaExcellent!! could you show us a short video ??? ...

[+Menrva]

2 hours ago, PeacePuma said:

Excellent!! could you show us a short video ??? ...

I wish... my PC is low-end for today's standards. Any video capture software degrades FPS on my end, so I would end up with a video which is much low-res, heavily stuttering and so on. Sorry about this. But I'll keep you guys updated with screenshots if there's anything new worth mentioning.

When I feel like the terrains are in decent, playable state, there won't be any need of videos.

Edited January 23, 2020 by Menrva

[+Menrva]

I am happy to inform all who are interested in the subject that @nuni has offered to experiment and to build more proper objects for the terrains. This is a great opportunity to push the game engine to new boundaries, and I'm glad for the help I have just received!

Nuni, feel free to post screenshots of your works in this thread.

[Nuni]

Bad news, I made two tests with hovering groundobject, here are the results:

1. I used the LOD from my battlecruiser with the landing gears at Z= -300 meters as I used in the aircraft and I obtained this:

The square is located in the coordinates origin of the model, despite having parts in Z - (which means that the rest of the model, even the landing gear is underwater). I made sure that the object data had at least one of the landing gears including the min max extentions.

2. I moved all the model 1000 meters above the origin in the 3DS file, and I obtained this, which I believe it confirms my theory:

In a ground object the center of the ground object is always attached to the ground and it corresponds always the coordinate 0.0,0.0,0.0 in the 3DS model. This explains the second picture: a starship above and all the Mavericks shot going directly to the water hahahaha.

Conclusion, we can make starbases and I guess we can take off and land from them, but AI strikes and directed air-to-ground weapons are likely to be an issue.

[+Menrva]

5 minutes ago, nuni said:

Conclusion, we can make starbases and I guess we can take off and land from them, but AI strikes and directed air-to-ground weapons are likely to be an issue.

Not all is lost. AI strikes are indeed a problem, but let's see if starbases AKA flying carriers are possible. I wonder how the AI would take-off and land on those objects with huge z-offsets.

[PeacePuma]

2 hours ago, nuni said:

In a ground object the center of the ground object is always attached to the ground and it corresponds always the coordinate 0.0,0.0,0.0 in the 3DS model. This explains the second picture: a starship above and all the Mavericks shot going directly to the water hahahaha.

Conclusion, we can make starbases and I guess we can take off and land from them, but AI strikes and directed air-to-ground weapons are likely to be an issue.

but mistakes can also leave some opportunities ... maybe maveriks or guided weapons can be replaced by lasers based on machine guns or unguided weapons ... and also hidden LODs can serve as force fields ... Or do I propose very crazy? ??

[Nuni]

58 minutes ago, PeacePuma said:

but mistakes can also leave some opportunities ... maybe maveriks or guided weapons can be replaced by lasers based on machine guns or unguided weapons ... and also hidden LODs can serve as force fields ... Or do I propose very crazy? ??

Not crazy at all my friend! I already used it in my Battlecruiser, it is a little bit glitchy but it works, it is a giant invisible box around the ship that sometimes withstands several tactical nukes and sometimes allows a TU-95 rear turret to destroy everything hahaha, anyways I don't fully understand the damage mechanics of the game.

Also, good news everybody! The carrier take off at 1000 meters of altitude works! I haven't try landing since the BC-304 has a little design failure... there is no back door to the hangar bay, you have to land from the front, I don't know how AI handle this... Here is some pictures of 16 F-302 taking off from both hangar bays! I used another invisibilty trick, the collision mesh for both decks extends way beyond the hangar bay so the planes have more distance to accelerate or land.

Edited January 23, 2020 by nuni
Corrections

[Nuni]

We just received a picture from the U.S.S. Odyssey helping in the construction of the first lunar airbase (or spacebase?), which will help in the development more of human outposts. They will carry the textures in later trips...

[+Wrench]

are those 302s Crapuns or new ones??

[Nuni]

8 hours ago, Wrench said:

are those 302s Crapuns or new ones??

I obtained them from A team skunkworks, although I use them only for screenshots with the BC304. I would like to make my own ones. 

[+Stratos]

Amazing work on this mod guys!

[+Gepard]

Cool idea. Such a hovering carriers we could use for a "Battleship Galactica" or "Star Wars" mod.

[+russouk2004]

19 hours ago, Wrench said:

are those 302s Crapuns or new ones??

Crapuns   lolzzz 

[Nuni]

Hey guys I just open my old external hard-drive and I came across with some old designs I made for SF2 and SF1 during almost a decade, almost none of them have been concluded but there is a lot of work done. They could be implemented on this mod I think (changed to belong to the different nations of this mod):

First we have the always-ready-for-combat Terran marine with a generic texture. It managed to be in the fields of Dhimar with a flamethrower (firebat) version that I couldn't find. With their power-suit and gauss rifle it could also be the leading infantry in the Moon and Mars.

But the marines need some help breaking the trenches on the planet surface, so I also made the Crucio siege-tank also from Starcraft (I had a time obsessed in doing starcraft stuff hahaha). This one also made it into the battlefield but without skin, both in tank mode and in siege mode (static and armed with an artillery gun).

Even in other planets, air superiority will be a priority, a stellar fighter must be deployed as well: The terran wraith, which I managed to make it fly (with the obvious landing gear issue) and shot some cool red lasers around. Also without textures or decals... The cockpit was a problem because I have to estimate the size of the spacecraft and once I put the pilots on it turned out to be incredibly big. As I had to make it smaller I also discovered that it becomes very small with the right adjusment in scale for the pilots, which means, normal air to air missiles were too big to fit them inside the inner part of the wing.

And finally here comes the big stuff... The mighty battlecruiser, which I used to learn how to make skins. It is more than a kilometer long and my idea was to make a missile to look like a huge plasma volley so it can shot its spinnal plasma cannon (along with a handful of automatic defense turrets of course!) at very long ranges.

Before the starcraft stage I also had the Halo stage, when I made my first big boy, the typical human frigate, my intention there was to also make its spinal magnetic cannon work by a very fast and powerful missile with a huge fire effect hahaha. This one made its maiden flight lots of years ago in SFP1 with its automatic turrets functioning. But that was much for me to handle by the time... I didn't even know I made it flight in the first place!

And last but not least, I also have a Ace Combat stage (the first one of all actually), so in order to defend a lunar/martian capital city from enemy battlecruisers there must be a mighty and powerful anti-aircraft system that is worthy of the name "planetary defense". The Stonehenge cannon! I remember making an early stonehenge facility in Desert terrain, far away in the south were there is a magnificent cannon, deep enough to fly it through avoiding a lot of air defenses until you reach the other side of the mountain range near the facility! I simply used them as a SAM site (I think I took the Patriot missile launcher .ini) and made them shoot very fast, nuclear missiles with a waaaaay oversized shitty explosion effect made by myself since I didn't know aerial nuke effect existed...

I dreamed of making a whole stonehenge facility and put them in the middle of Paran, so you could see squadrons disappearing from the radar as the stonehenge cannons attacked them (obviously at enoooormus ranges). Dhimar and the United States will send them several raids to destroy them little by little (as they could be replaced). And if you were lucky enough to conquer the facility with ground troops you could kick the last enemy air forces easily!

The one of the picture is an updated version I made for SF2.

And that is all folks!

I have more crappy things (attempts to make ace combat futuristic fighters, floating cities, alien fighters, flying 36km-wide saucers independent day style, tunnels where you can fly inside to destroy things...) but not worthy/successful to be shown hahaha, I always thought it would be great to merge all this stuff in a single sci-fi mod may be there is a chance here (for a veeeery futuristic scenario). What do you think?

[+Menrva]

45 minutes ago, nuni said:

And that is all folks!

I have more crappy things (attempts to make ace combat futuristic fighters, floating cities, alien fighters, flying 36km-wide saucers independent day style, tunnels where you can fly inside to destroy things...) but not worthy/successful to be shown hahaha, I always thought it would be great to merge all this stuff in a single sci-fi mod may be there is a chance here (for a veeeery futuristic scenario). What do you think?

@nuni I am a huge Ace Combat fan, so stuff like Stonehenge is much welcome! I am dreaming of an Arkbird and other giant flying fortresses as well!