So I'm making a mod with... really big planets... The sun is over 2300 pixels across. It works great, even if the automap looks a little strange.
The problem is, weapons fire is stopped by the "stations" I am using to represent the planets and the sun. This is unacceptable to what I'm trying to do.
I tried using a <SpaceEnvironment>, but theres no examples of it except for the Nebula, which doesn't do what I want, and using this environment always gives me many multiple suns, which isn't at all what I want.
Is there a way to paint an object into the game, have it appear on the automap, AND have it transparent to weapons fire? Ideally, it should be like it isn't even there as far as ships are concerned.
Maybe displaying an effect from an otherwise invisible (0,0 size) station? How would I do that?
Really big planets and weapons fire
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digdug
- Fleet Admiral
- Posts: 2620
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<SpaceEnvironment> is painted from a 640x640 pixels image.
512x512 pixels of the image are used to paint the actual nebula, the 128 pixels of the borders are automatically painted for the borders of the nebula.
If you use a 512x512 pixels image, and define a 512x512 pixels SpaceEnvironment, you should get a single image painted. (i wanted to do this in the past to add distant galaxies or other features in a system)
Unfortunately I noticed that SpaceEnvironment is not able to paint a single large image. (maybe double check, last time i tried to tinker with it was 0.98d)
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For stations, there is an attribute:
noFriendlyFire= "true"
that allows weaponfire shot by a station to not affect friendly stations (I suppose same sovereign), this is used by the Outlaw Miners' Moskva 33 repeater.
But this attribute affects only fire shot by the station itself, so it won't be useful for a sun.
Maybe we can request a new attribute to render stations completely transparent to weapon fire ?
I would certainly appreciate it.
Comments ?
512x512 pixels of the image are used to paint the actual nebula, the 128 pixels of the borders are automatically painted for the borders of the nebula.
If you use a 512x512 pixels image, and define a 512x512 pixels SpaceEnvironment, you should get a single image painted. (i wanted to do this in the past to add distant galaxies or other features in a system)
Unfortunately I noticed that SpaceEnvironment is not able to paint a single large image. (maybe double check, last time i tried to tinker with it was 0.98d)
---
For stations, there is an attribute:
noFriendlyFire= "true"
that allows weaponfire shot by a station to not affect friendly stations (I suppose same sovereign), this is used by the Outlaw Miners' Moskva 33 repeater.
But this attribute affects only fire shot by the station itself, so it won't be useful for a sun.
Maybe we can request a new attribute to render stations completely transparent to weapon fire ?
I would certainly appreciate it.
Comments ?
@alterecco
Yes there is. And it doesn't appear to do anything at all except make sure your ship will be painted on top. Planets in the default game, for example stCrateredPlanet, are backgroundObject="true"
@digdug
That was my first thought. And I ran across the same problems. I don't think it matters how big the image is, but the relative fractions of the file do what you say. I might end up using that as well to replicate the damage from radiation one would experience in the ship area, with some kind of script checking "if environment=sun then BURN!"
I think there does need to be a background feature. It would be awesome, and maybe even cooler (and more useful to me in the long run) if there was a parallaxLevel="X" feature, too.
@all
Right now I've found a workable hack, which basically paints a grid of 0x0 stations with overlay scripts on them. They all display an image that is three times larger than it needs, so that it covers the stations to the left and right of them when they disappear (an object displaying an effect or overlay, once it is no longer displayed on the screen, no longer displays the overlay no matter how large). Problem is, they don't appear on the big map, but they do appear as stations on the automap.
You know, if I mad the image super large with an imageHeight=X, and also transparent, maybe the script would run farther out. That might increase memory usage terribly, however, if the object is big enough.
Yes there is. And it doesn't appear to do anything at all except make sure your ship will be painted on top. Planets in the default game, for example stCrateredPlanet, are backgroundObject="true"
@digdug
That was my first thought. And I ran across the same problems. I don't think it matters how big the image is, but the relative fractions of the file do what you say. I might end up using that as well to replicate the damage from radiation one would experience in the ship area, with some kind of script checking "if environment=sun then BURN!"
I think there does need to be a background feature. It would be awesome, and maybe even cooler (and more useful to me in the long run) if there was a parallaxLevel="X" feature, too.
@all
Right now I've found a workable hack, which basically paints a grid of 0x0 stations with overlay scripts on them. They all display an image that is three times larger than it needs, so that it covers the stations to the left and right of them when they disappear (an object displaying an effect or overlay, once it is no longer displayed on the screen, no longer displays the overlay no matter how large). Problem is, they don't appear on the big map, but they do appear as stations on the automap.
You know, if I mad the image super large with an imageHeight=X, and also transparent, maybe the script would run farther out. That might increase memory usage terribly, however, if the object is big enough.