Adding a Self Dividing Ship

[Dragonz]

I remember watching videos of Star Trek, and becoming fascinated when they go into Saucer Separation. I want to build a ship with this capability, but not being able to get this function until you reach a certain point (like a wingman). However, I have no experience in creating ships, nor do I know where to start.

Could you help me with this? I'm sure I can get the wingman part down, with all of the commands, just not the separating part. I don't want it to look like you're releasing an auton from your cargo, and I don't want the ship to remain the same size. When it separates, it would be nice if you see it happen (on the hud, and ship view). I can try to figure out how to make the hud change, but to make the ship alter is going to be tough.

I have lots of ideas on where to go with this (I have been having dreams about this. Nerdy huh? ) and I have weapon ideas, cargo implementations, a storyline, and many more.

I just need help getting it started and I'm sure I will be able to take it from there.

Thanks guys!

Edit #1 Would this be even possible? I know that there is a mod (I can't remember the author, I think it is PM)that makes the Iocrym change to a better improved version after the first dies.

[sun1404]

Maybe you can use overlays to add a sort of short animation for the separation, and spawn two new ships (smaller than the old one) when the animation end?

[Dragonz]

How would I be able to do that? The most experience that I have is changing already existing mods to fit my needs. I have been able to modify weaponry, armour and shields to what I want, but I've never done a ship,plus no clue where to start. Transcendence is where I have learned everything. I have however, been able to modify the looks of Volkov, Jenna, and Roma to the same ship the I play with. It took me awhile, but no clue on how to create a ship.

I know that you need the ship turned to every angle so that you can fly there, but how to get it in that format, and why do you need a mask for all the pictures?

Thank you for all the information. I'm trying my best to do it on my own and only coming here for help.

[PM]

I did not make the Extreme Iocrym mod.

Are you, Dragonz, asking for something like a composite ship that splits into multiple ships, with you controlling the main ship and the rest are wingmen, like in the old arcade game Terra Cresta? (Look up "terra cresta arcade" at YouTube.)

The idea you ask for is likely possible.

As for HUD, not all elements of the HUD are mutable. (I tried to remove the entire HUD for a mod, but that is not possible.)

[sun1404]

You make ship models in 3D graphic programs, like Blender. That one also have a built-in renderer, for processing the 3D model into 2D images.

When you're done making the ship, place a camera and render the ship, then turn it 3 degrees clockwise, around the Z axis, render again, rinse and repeat until you have 120 (or 9 degrees for 40 images if 120 is too much.)

The masks are made by taking your rendered ship images and filling the outside (around your ship) with white, then filling your ship (by selecting anything not white by then) with black.

[Dragonz]

Are you, Dragonz, asking for something like a composite ship that splits into multiple ships, with you controlling the main ship and the rest are wingmen, like in the old arcade game Terra Cresta? (Look up "terra cresta arcade" at YouTube.)

The idea you ask for is likely possible.

As for HUD, not all elements of the HUD are mutable. (I tried to remove the entire HUD for a mod, but that is not possible.)

I am wanting to do something like that. The idea is for the ship not to be able to split until the player gets to a certain point within the game. (I don't want to give away too many details )

And sorry for giving you the credit PM, I just found the person that had uploaded that mod.

Thank you (^o^) for putting it up. It has given me some ideas for future ships/weapons.

PS. Is there a list of all the command functions for Transcendence modders?

[RPC]

The most updated and recent is digdug's list:
http://forums.kronosaur.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=6453

Xelerus is also nice for older functions (the last time I updated Xelerus was ~1.04 or 1.07 I think) but it does have examples and editor's notes on functions.
http://xelerus.de/index.php?s=functions&all=yes

Another useful page would be the legend page on the wiki since it has a lot of definitions that each function uses (like most of the shiporders, etc)
http://transcendence.kronosaur.com/wiki ... ion/legend

IRC is also a great way to get real-time help. Just click on the IRC banner I have and prove your humanity with a captcha so you can talk to me, wolfy, atarlost, etc.

[digdug]

The most updated and recent is digdug's list:
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=6453

Yup, have to update that for 1.3, actually

Wiki is indispensable also when you need infos for events: (it's a bit messy, but we have quite a bit of good useful infos on there)
http://transcendence.kronosaur.com/wiki ... ype#events

And lastly, the ship concept is totally doable.

Let's make the plans for NCC 1701-D as an example.
RENDERS
- Render nacelles part of the ship
- Render saucer ship
- Render entire ship

XML
- Use something similar to PM's hitscan weapons for phasers.
- Make photon torpedos
- XML of ships

CODING
- Custom wingmen event handler for the saucer / nacelles
- use plyChangeShip function to switch between the 2 ships when splitted
- write a function that will keep track of armor damage for splitted/full ship, distributing the damage accordingly when splitting/recombining the ship.
- custom insurance function that when the player dies, it will transfer the player to the other ship using plyChangeShip when splitted (sdw195 wrote a function for that)

[Dragonz]

Looks like I have my work cut out for me. lol