[Mod] Playership Drones v2

[PM]

Uploaded to Xelerus earlier today. It replaces the previous releases of Playership Drones. Below is a quick description.

This mod lets the player buy and command a limited number of unmanned playership drones. The drones behave much like wingmen, with some differences. The player can also dock and swap ships with a drone, at which point the old ship becomes a drone. While the player is piloting the ship, he can upgrade them as he sees fit.

New in v2:
* Added numerous playable ships; most have 40 facings.
* Added portable shipwright.
* Added ship scuttling.
* Removed Shenlong. Shenlong is featured in its own mod. (Search for "The Immortal Shenlong" at Xelerus.)

[digdug]

* Added numerous playable ships; most have 40 facings.

PM!
This is awesome!
Did you actually re-rendered all those ships to 40 facings ?

[PM]

Unfortunately, no. I rotated the sprites. Some ships have minor wobbling, but not enough to "burn out peoples' eyes". The exception is the Ronin, which I disabled because the wobbling was painfully obvious. The forums were down when I considered browsing the "Transcendence artwork" thread for information. Then I thought, what did people do to get 40 facings ships before George released TransArt? Aside from Aeonic's Molotok, I guessed they rotated the sprites.

Recently, I downloaded TrueSpace and managed to load some of the TransArt files (though I am missing some texture files). Are you proficient in TrueSpace? If so, is there a way to get TrueSpace to take snapshots of rendered models? Pressing render button is as far as I get, then I think "Then what?" Somehow, I doubt carefully positioning the eye then press PrintScreen for screen capture is going to work (well). I really would like to render 40+ facings ships the right way, but I do not know enough about TrueSpace to pull it off.

[digdug]

Are you proficient in TrueSpace?

unfortunately, no, i'm not.
I managed to export the files in 3DS to use in other 3D softwares, Truespace is also veeeery slow on my old laptop.
Some files were not exported well, there are errors in the meshes because of the conversion.
In any case, if interested:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/720869/transcen ... meshes.rar (34.8 MB)

SiaFu seems the only one to get something good out of Truespace, for now

[Aury]

At least d1gdug didn't kill the UI on his instalation of truespace like I did XD

[PM]

I stumbled some more in the dark in TrueSpace, and finally figured out how to view the model from the camera, and render scene to file. After some rendering, the sprites are smaller and more pixelated than the stock images in the game. It looks like there are more steps to do after rendering. (More guesswork!) I like to re-render the Ronin and maybe the Centurion so my eyes do not burn out from the wobbling. For the other ships, if I cannot get the look quite right, I will leave them.

Update: 40 facings Ronin done. Will redo a few more problem ships then reupload the mod.

Update #2: Redid several ships, and added a Steel Slaver with 40 facings (which wobbled horribly when I tried to rotate the sprites previously). At the rate I am going, I will redo most if not of all the ships in the mod, and maybe add more playable ships.

[ThePrivateer]

PM, I'm thinking of changing the name of myDrones mod so the names don't conflict.

It got me confused, so I'm sure other folks will get confused too and seeing as your mod is oldest, I'll change the name of my mod to something different.

[PM]

Uploaded an update on Feb 15, 2011.

List of changes:
* Added a warning if the player attempts to change ships while piloting a custom ship.
* Added Ronin, Steel Slaver, and Zulu-II to the playable ship list.
* Added EI200 and Ronin/B to the selectable starter ship list.
* Updated 40 facings ship sprites from rendered scenes. All wobbling should be gone. (Rejoice, digdug.)
* Upgraded some (large) ships from 40 facings to 60 facings.

Uploaded another update on Feb 16, 2011. This update restores the green color to the 40 facings Molotok.

[PM]

Uploaded an update on Feb 28, 2011.

List of changes:
* Added the following playable ships: Borer, Earth and Dragon slavers, Hammerhead, light IAV, Oromo, Sotho, and T55.
* Added Borer II to the selectable starter ship list. It begins with mining equipment and a tritium propulsion upgrade.
* Added overrides for mining colony and Korolov Shipping. They include shipyards.
* Reduced capital ship facings from 60 to 40. (AI cannot handle 60 facings.)

Since the mod has almost reached the 5 MB limit, this will probably be the last major update for a while. I had more ships finished, but they were cut to keep filesize below 5 MB. My long term goal is to render most ships to 40 facings, and make them playable, and maybe modify enemies to benefit from 40 facings.

[sdw195]

easy way to keep the file size down is 7-zip it and then put it in a zip file for xelerus (because xelerus doesn't like 7z files )

[PM]

Minor update uploaded today (Mar 1, 2011). It fixes the problem in which the player could not rebuild an Earth slaver. I overlooked the fact the game has two versions of the Earth slaver.

[PM]

Update to 1.05 uploaded today (Mar 20, 2011).

List of changes:
* Removed Korolov overwrite. The ships that were sold there are available at the Arcology.
* Added a new service to Fleet dock services: Upgrade launcher. This is to prevent any conflict with my new mod, Fleet Dock Services: Upgrade Launcher.
* Added another service to most stations with Shipyards: Enhance item. This lets the player repair or enhance any installed device or armor segment by +10%, up to a maximum of +50%. Cost is about 20% of the base item's worth per purchase of services. Uninstalled items are ignored. This feature is experimental and was originally planned to be a separate mod, but conflicts with this mod and Reactors Pack 912 would have made it a maintenance headache, so it was added to Playership Drones to keep things simpler.

[PM]

The previous upload contained a test file instead of the alternative Domina overwrite. I just uploaded an update to fix that.

[PM]

Yet another update. This one (Mar 23, 2011) removes item enhancement services. Enhance Item is undergoing a rewrite so that it will not conflict with my other mods.

[PM]

New update (Mar 31, 2011).

List of changes:
* Britannia requires more XM900 missiles to rebuild.
* Changed Wolfen's starting equipment: Replaced hull plate ionizer with class II deflector. Added KM500 Stiletto missiles to make up credits lost by the shield change. Done to prevent reactor overload in the beginning.
* Drones can dock at CSCs (except the Antarctica).
* High level or military ships purchased from shipyards get free targeting program and/or enhanced visual display. Rebuilt ships get no such benefit.
* Replaced dockscreen and station overwrites with action additions.
* Removed menus from "Upgrade reaction" option. Download and add Reactors Pack 912 for menus.
* Removed "Upgrade launcher" option from Fleet dock services. Download and add Service Pack 912 for that option.
* Ships can be sold or traded at shipyards.
* Stations that can decontaminate the player can do so for drones.