UPDATED creation, need constructive input (still)

Slayer0019 · Post by **Slayer0019** » Thu Jan 29, 2009 4:54 am

All I can say for suggestions is that knowledge of proper section usage will come with time, and you may want to check for any parts that seem out of place.

Malahite · Post by **Malahite** » Thu Jan 29, 2009 7:56 am

I like the green clouds, makes the spikes look venomus. Something bugs me about those two arms thou, but I can't figure out what...

Work hard, this are really good beginning ships

Krishach · Post by **Krishach** » Thu Jan 29, 2009 9:58 am

The arms bothered me just a bit as well. I took in the arms a bit, just 1 rotation, to bring them in closer. I also am trying to get the doodads to look like green lightning.

Is there any way to insert a random delay between doodad executions? Not the start time, but a delay between starts?

EadTaes · Post by **EadTaes** » Thu Jan 29, 2009 10:22 am

I'm asking the same question here. I'm trying to use a lightning effect used over the section of my ship that is the power core and having a pause between executions would help to make it more realistic.

Post by **th15** » Thu Jan 29, 2009 12:07 pm

Wow, the 0.9 version looks so much better.

Krishach · Post by **Krishach** » Thu Jan 29, 2009 12:29 pm

true that. Nice job.

How do you find/apply rotating/moving parts?

Burg Hammer Achtzehn · Thu Jan 29, 2009 4:17 pm

When you select a section, click on the "ED2" button.

It's a nice looking ship by the way.

Edit: I noticed that the ship is made exclusively of parts from the first section group.
Did you know that you can change the pallet of sections to choose from by pressing the tilde key (~) and then pressing the 1, 2, 3, or 4 keys? You can also drag sprites from the Custom Sprites folder into the Ship Maker window to add sections.
Just checking to see if you knew.

Da_Higg · Post by **Da_Higg** » Thu Jan 29, 2009 5:24 pm

[quote="Burg Hammer Achtzehn"]Did you know that you can change the pallet of sections to choose from by pressing the tilde key (~) and then pressing the 1, 2, 3, or 4 keys? quote]

What do you do if the computer lacks a tilde key?

Post by **Anna** » Thu Jan 29, 2009 5:37 pm

Da_Higg wrote:
Burg Hammer Achtzehn wrote:Did you know that you can change the pallet of sections to choose from by pressing the tilde key (~) and then pressing the 1, 2, 3, or 4 keys?
What do you do if the computer lacks a tilde key?

What sort of friggin' computer lacks a tilde key? In any case, if you don't have a tilde key, for whatever crazy reason, you just click "Tools" and then click "1234 Keys Mode".

Da_Higg · Post by **Da_Higg** » Thu Jan 29, 2009 6:03 pm

Anna wrote:What sort of friggin' computer lacks a tilde key? In any case, if you don't have a tilde key, for whatever crazy reason, you just click "Tools" and then click "1234 Keys Mode".

An english one.

Edit: its the ` key on mine. that or ¬

Krishach · Post by **Krishach** » Fri Jan 30, 2009 1:54 am

... actually, no I didn't know about the other 4 sections of parts at the time. Good eye. I've determined I'm happy with how this turned out and I'm not sure if I want to monkey with parts much for shapes sake. but changing some of the repeater parts would be good.

Hehe at first I thought they had gotten rid of the body parts I'd been using, and I was cursing for a while before remaking them straight. All in all, it looks better for losing them anyway. I'll get another version up in a few days. I appreciate the input, and I think I want to make a series of these.

Krishach · Post by **Krishach** » Mon Feb 02, 2009 1:38 am

I've been working on a variation, to make different classes/sizes, and trying to improve on the original, but still asking newbie questions. Here was my rough draft. You might have my same reaction: two out of 3 of these pieces (head, arms, or legs) would fit (ANY two combined would) but the three don't work together.

I think I figured out why I didn't like it: its 3 ships. The nose, the arms, and the legs, are good things, just not together. So I rolled with that and made an artillery piece. Also increased the thrust of my original ship.

Need suggestions as well as criticism; so if you know what might look better feel free. I did want to ask: how do you get the "Aegis effect" armor? I think that is what its called, where one piece glows very very brightly, and doesn't seem to break. I think it makes hella nifty thrusters and weapon sections, but I've no clue how to do it. I tried experimenting, but no luck, and I can't open the old .sb3's to see how that was done. If you know where the info is, just point me there, and I'll read up.

Also, I'm trying to pair some weapons in blank air (alpha 0) as beams for parts that have reactive pieces close to each other, so the beam comes from empty air (think Death Star planet buster thingy) and I want to make it so the beam diminishes when you blow an arm off.

Any thoughts, suggestions, or point-in-the-right-direction reference material would be helpful.

Aederrex · Post by **Aederrex** » Mon Feb 02, 2009 11:40 am

Krishach wrote:A lot

The Aegis effect you can get from the Aegis module which makes sections invincible, or you can go into the effects tab (EFF on the left side) for whatever you've got selected and change the effects type to Fake Aegis, which give you the effect sans invincibility, good for drive flames and such, since having your engines be arbitrarily invincible is kinda odd.

As for the combo beam, if you wanted say, 8 beams combining into one, have the set attached to the ship parented to small sections dedicated specifically to that beam, and then where they meet layer 8 more beams, each parented to one of the sections the first set are parented to, so when those go so does part of the main beam. you may also want to set all the floating beams to link together and set their deviation and arc range to 0 so they all fire in the same direction at the same time.

Example

There are 8 mining beams layered where the other beams meet. it's a bit rough, but you get the idea yes? I really didn't feel like doing any math for lining up the beams.

Edit:

By the way, I find Thrusters look much better if you hide them with layering, but that's a personal preference I suppose.

jwa8402 · Post by **jwa8402** » Mon Feb 02, 2009 1:00 pm

holy crap, at long last a death star beam! Havnt fooled with the new sm enough to know exactly what your talking about but very cool looking!

Krishach · Post by **Krishach** » Mon Feb 02, 2009 1:11 pm

For thrusters: I tried that. You attach the thrusters to a lower piece, and then stack something on top them both, like the weapons, right? I can't seem to get that to work for me with the thrusters. No matter what the host piece for the thrusters Depth is, the thruster is always on top. Did I miss something? The ones I've done so far I've done setting Alpha to 0, so they are transparent.

The blaster pattern there is EXACTLY what I was looking for. I'll try to get that set up... I hope, anyway.

And for the beam: they're all to different sections, and your saying to have the "end result" layered beams parented to the same piece the visible one came from? I'm a little fuzzy on how to set up a trigger that keeps these from being just 2 separate weapons, rather than making it hit a specific source. You made EXACTLY what I was thinking (which would be the inner arms and head of the larger ship here) but I think I am a little fuzzy on how you did it. Not to be cliched, but I still have a lot to learn.

/*/*/**//*/* ok, having a problem::::::::::
my .sb4 file, including the 2 backup .sb4 file with a new name, are gone. The .shp files are still there, but the .sb4s are gone, so I can't open them. And it was JUST for the newest one I'm working on. WTF do I do besides start completely over?