Trying "unconventional" spaceship design, C&C

Slayer0019 · Post by **Slayer0019** » Tue Apr 14, 2009 5:11 am

I epically love the substructure. 2 thumbs up, and applause.

Nutcase · Post by **Nutcase** » Tue Apr 14, 2009 5:14 am

I also applaud you for the girders. And bonus points if you managed to keep the ship at least partially battle worth with them. All I ever manage to do were weak points.

Elias_The_Crimson · Post by **Elias_The_Crimson** » Tue Apr 14, 2009 6:51 am

Began doing a custom sprite for a "Steam cannon". Thought heck, if I don't get started with custom sprite making now, when will I?

Here's what I ended up with after countless tries and errors:

I realize now that the shell-insertion isn't very visible >.<
Also the muzzle flash is somewhat "sparky" since I had a blackpowder cannon in mind. Might have overdone it, you tell me, heh.

On the ship:

What do you think? ^^
One thing that crossed my mind is, that since it is so heavily armored, it would logically sport a mere few, rather powerful weapons (instead of a clusterfuck of MG's in addition to only ONE powerhouse-weapon). At least it seems to me as the most suitable setup for the 'steampunk' genre?

On a related note: Anyone got a free, non-watermarking GIF maker without a trial limit? AGif and Easy GIF fails in that regard :S

Homer · Post by **Homer** » Tue Apr 14, 2009 7:03 am

Awesome custom sprite love the chain fed belt idea.

Slayer0019 · Post by **Slayer0019** » Tue Apr 14, 2009 7:18 am

And another epic success with that belt thingy. I see a potential fleet forming.

Sponge · Post by **Sponge** » Tue Apr 14, 2009 7:56 am

I feel inclined to point out that the cannon looks rather like a crudely drawn penis.

Crazyeyes24 · Post by **Crazyeyes24** » Tue Apr 14, 2009 8:03 am

Sponge wrote:I feel inclined to point out that the cannon looks rather like a crudely drawn penis.

Now that you say it... But I honestly love the chain feeding effect. Maybe try making a beefier version that cycles slower to make the effect more visible. (Add a back cover or something to reduce the "penis-effect")

Commodore111 · Post by **Commodore111** » Tue Apr 14, 2009 8:52 am

Elias_The_Crimson wrote: On a related note: Anyone got a free, non-watermarking GIF maker without a trial limit? AGif and Easy GIF fails in that regard :S

Trial version of Game Maker? It can export to GIF.

Swamp Fox · Post by **Swamp Fox** » Tue Apr 14, 2009 10:37 am

Elias_The_Crimson wrote:Anyone got a free, non-watermarking GIF maker without a trial limit?

Gimp works. Gifsicle is the best I've ever used, though it's command line.

Elias_The_Crimson · Post by **Elias_The_Crimson** » Tue Apr 14, 2009 3:05 pm

Well like they say, guns are extensions...

On a serious note, it DOES look awfully phallic now when I think about it... I think I can coverthe rear part up with a section though, right?

Also thinking about making sprites for a smaller tri-barrel MG (as substitute for the stock machinegun), and some sort of doom-cannon to have on the front?

toothyp1cks · Post by **toothyp1cks** » Tue Apr 14, 2009 8:11 pm

That's a very good ship. I like the substructure. I think you should have some sort of fixed weapon running down the spine that lobs massive artillery shells (but that's my opinion). The guns you made are good but the belt-fed idea has a problem. What happens when the gun stops firing to reload? It can't really be called reloading because the gun doesn't actually reload so it's just a period of time where the gun stops shooting.

Nice ship. How'd you get the sections to glow?

Elias_The_Crimson · Post by **Elias_The_Crimson** » Wed Apr 15, 2009 4:36 am

Thanks

Not sure exactly sure how to fit a massive artillery unit in there, specific suggestions would be nice x). What I had in mind was something huge hidden inside the nose of the ship (the armor plates separate when it deploys).

To be really honest, belt-feeding is not what I had in mind when I drew the cannon in MSpaint, more like a shell rack. But belt feed works too ^^
One could easily rationalize the firing delay as barrel cooldown, but I get your point; The animation sequence should be slower/longer.

Oh, and the section glow is enabled by default for all sections on any ship. The reason it's more visible here is because I turned it off for most sections such as the armor plates

EDIT:

I downloaded GIMP and began getting started with animations (by using layers as frames, right?). It seems to give me somewhat what I want, but a problem that occurs is that every time I try to save the animation as a .GIF the program adds additional delay to the frames "to prevent evil CPU-time eating animation". Isn't the delay between frames supposed to be 3 ms at 30 fps?
What the F, and Why the F?

parameciumkid · Post by **parameciumkid** » Wed Apr 15, 2009 5:36 am

No, you forgot that ms are 1/1000 of a second; with that in mind the delay should be closer to 33ms/frame.

Elias_The_Crimson · Post by **Elias_The_Crimson** » Mon Apr 20, 2009 6:36 am

Semi-bumping the thread with some new content, namely gun sprites! Thanks a bunch-o again for tipping me off about GIMP

I'm having a really hard time with these, especially implementing them on the ship because I get ERRORS whenever I have mirrored them.

Anyway here's what I came up with during last week:

I call it the Fifteen-Kilopound cannon. It will be nested (depthed) underneath the wings, firing slow with hign damage.

Also, a chaingun-ish turret:

Planning on having a couple of these (probably in pairs mirrored with eachother as to look like dual-barrel turrets) in the more cramped places.

What do you think? ^^

jwa8402 · Post by **jwa8402** » Mon Apr 20, 2009 6:49 am

I love big heavy cannons so the first one is awesome, but the chaingun turret is pretty nice too!