My newest creation the Certis Argurion

3D1L<>k · Post by **3D1L<>k** » Sun Sep 20, 2009 1:23 am

UPDATE:

Here we go again...

Specifically design to hunt the Kraveliuos Vellator, the Certis Argurion was created uniting the best minds of the three Certis clans. Each one of them contributed their disparate design styles combining them on a single battleship capable, for the first time, to stand her ground against Kravelius forces.

ORIGINAL (check differences with update above):

In the following sequence you will see the ship extending her main two weapons (credit goes to MagusZero for his magusphere), at this moment triggers are activated manually. I'm still working to make them work automatically (maybe MagusZero can help me!!!), also the domed engine vault glows but it is hard to notice here:

After fully extracted they are moved by drivers with 100 degrees of freedom. I wanted to use modified sabot cannons but the weapons have to work well at long and short ranges so I end up using modified plasma cannons.

Maximilian13 · Post by **Maximilian13** » Sun Sep 20, 2009 3:24 am

I like how you made the front of the ship, but imo the engine vault looks too fragile. The dome just looks a little too easy to destroy (and it is such a vital part of the ship). Maybe you could flesh that part out a little, put some protection on/around it. Just my opinion though, do with it as you please

MagusZero · Post by **MagusZero** » Sun Sep 20, 2009 3:24 am

Wait, so what is it supposed to do? There may be a way to make it automatic, but there'd still have to be SOME kind of trigger.

Droid · Post by **Droid** » Sun Sep 20, 2009 4:07 am

Looks more like a colony ship with that city dome and all those cargo pods? near the front.

thanto_ · Post by **thanto_** » Sun Sep 20, 2009 4:09 am

Simple way to get the weapons to deploy automatically - create a weapon that has shooting disabled, and hide it somewhere (maybe set alpha to 0 as well). Have the two weapons trigger on "Weapon acquired target" then un-deploy when "weapon loses target". Set the range of the trigger weapon to a bit longer range than the weapons you're using.

3D1L<>k · Post by **3D1L<>k** » Tue Sep 22, 2009 10:32 am

Thanks for all your comments!

Maximilian13 wrote:I like how you made the front of the ship. The dome just looks a little too easy to destroy (and it is such a vital part of the ship). Maybe you could flesh that part out a little...

I will see what can I do but you will be amazed how strong that part is. Anyway as a quick fix I added shields... those pesky Kravelius Parasitus are a real pain in the neck.

Droid wrote:Looks more like a colony ship with that city dome and all those cargo pods? near the front.

Hey! it is my fictional universe so I reject the truth and define my own reality

Those are not cargo pods but super capacitors and it is not a city dome is a domed engine vault, can you see the core glowing?

. But hey if you want to use it as a colony ship be my guest just let me know.

MagusZero wrote:Wait, so what is it supposed to do? There may be a way to make it automatic, but there'd still have to be SOME kind of trigger.

thanto_ wrote:Simple way to get the weapons to deploy automatically - create a weapon that has shooting disabled, and hide it somewhere (maybe set alpha to 0 as well). Have the two weapons trigger on "Weapon acquired target" then un-deploy when "weapon loses target". Set the range of the trigger weapon to a bit longer range than the weapons you're using.

Sadly triggers are still not working the way I want them to work and for the moment I'm using the ship with the guns fully extracted

.

Not wanting to go offtopic after talking with Magus I made some changes and found that having a section that rotates when a weapon get target lock and having that same section drive by another weapon causes a weird problem. Thanto I will PM you about this... but later.

Using the ship I found that there is a big blind spot in the firing arc of the main guns so I had to add secondary set of weapons.

So let see:

The Argurion and its nemesis the Kravelius Vellator -

On a 1vs1 match it was easy the Argurion finished the Vellator quickly so I went 2vs1 -

Vellators got 1st shot... shields holding -

Well not that much -

So lets get rid of the 1st one -

1st one is gone lets go for the other... not without taking heavy damage -

It's finish -

Aftermath, it was a close call -

I made some minor changes to make the front more streamlined and also some minor color changes -

parameciumkid · Post by **parameciumkid** » Wed Sep 23, 2009 2:06 am

The front part of it is actually pretty close to what I was going for on the Architeuthis, but failed at.
So I like it.

3D1L<>k · Post by **3D1L<>k** » Wed Sep 23, 2009 12:19 pm

Hey!

The blind spot in the fire arc was bothering me so much that I was very close to get rid of the main weapon system. I can not get it right without overshooting the hull and it was impossible to hit small or thin ships. But then I got an idea, nothing new you will say but to me it answered a question that I had for a long time. You see I like to use the ships in AI most of the time, so they must be able to move and fend for themselves well.

So I added a blaster shooting disable and added a section with the core as parent. The sections that were connected to the core were connected to that new section. Made some triggers for the new section using the blaster to activate them, set rotation with borders using a very small angle, just 5 degrees. So when the enemy is detected the ship starts shifting back and forth just 5 degrees it is almost imperceptible, but that is enough to keep the guns on target. Not both of them at the same time but both of them can hit the target in alternate succession. It's working!

The question that I had was if the ship is in standard AI and I lost all forward guns, how can I "program" it so it change movement to use any other existing gun? solution... to make it rotate itself, same thing can be done to alternate between broadside and standard just rotation 90 degrees instead of 180. Flanking is another story though.

thanto_ · Post by **thanto_** » Wed Sep 23, 2009 2:15 pm

that's umm... kind of a retarded solution. Why wouldn't they be able to hit small or thin ships? Are they separate turrets, or are they slaved to the same weapon? If they aren't separate turrets, why aren't they? And if they are, they should have no difficulty hitting anything in range.

as for switching weapons when something is destroyed... well, I'm working on that. I believe there is a way to have something trigger as soon as something is destroyed via a constantly running switch, but I haven't quite figured it out yet.

What I have discovered is that if something is triggered on and off in the same frame for trigger 1, trigger on wins. If it's triggered on and off in the same frame for trigger 2, trigger off wins. I'm sure there's a way to use that. It'll just take me some time to figure out.

derekiv · Post by **derekiv** » Wed Sep 23, 2009 7:26 pm

I like the general shape of the ship, but I personally don't like the combination of light blue and brown.

3D1L<>k · Post by **3D1L<>k** » Thu Sep 24, 2009 11:52 am

thanto_ wrote:that's umm... kind of a retarded solution.

Well it is a solution nonetheless!

thanto_ wrote: Why wouldn't they be able to hit small or thin ships?

Sometimes a picture is better than a thousand words, so let me show what I'm talking about:

The white filled area is the blind spot created by the guns line of sight, the small enemy is represented in red and as you can see the guns can not get it inside the blind zone. When the ship rotates a little it aligns the gun's line of sight with the enemy without altering the orientation of the core, so the core is pointing 0 degrees while the ship is tilted 5 degrees.

derekiv wrote:I like the general shape of the ship, but I personally don't like the combination of light blue and brown.

Well the colors that I tried to obtain were silver (R230,G232,B250), bronze (R140,G120,B83) and steel blue (R37,G107,B42), but since gradients are enable the colors change a little. By the way Argurion means made of silver or just silver in greek. I will check what I can do to improve the colors thanks for the comment.

thanto_ · Post by **thanto_** » Thu Sep 24, 2009 12:01 pm

OK, but why is there a blind spot? All guns have the capability of 360 degree coverage.

3D1L<>k · Post by **3D1L<>k** » Thu Sep 24, 2009 12:15 pm

thanto_ wrote:OK, but why is there a blind spot? All guns have the capability of 360 degree coverage.

In the game you are getting a top view, in my imagination, by design the guns are not at a higher position than the bow of the ship. in a side view it will be something like:

Side view

TOP =====\
=========== \
==============\
=GUN===========>
==============/
============/
Bottom====/

Other way to view it is that the guns are at depth 50 while the bow is at depth 20. If the ship fire the gun it will hit herself.

Droid · Post by **Droid** » Thu Sep 24, 2009 12:16 pm

The blind spot is so it doesn't shoot through its own hull, pretty obviously. Cause sometimes that just looks wrong.

Yes, 3D1L<>k pointed it out much better than I did, plus I got ninja'ed

3D1L<>k · Post by **3D1L<>k** » Sat Sep 26, 2009 8:32 am

Droid wrote: Cause sometimes that just looks wrong.

So Droid do you wanna use it as a colony ship yes or yes?