[REL] Small Motor Coaster

[kapuhy]

EDIT: I removed download link for standalone version of this ship, because fixed and improved version is already available both in TWoS, and for non-TWoS players in my mod The Little Ships

Got to stay at home much longer than I'd usually like so I dusted off my old modding projects, and I have something to share with you

After a lot of trial and error I finally managed to make a working GR2 format ship:



It's a small 250 GRT coastal merchant. I used NF_boat_1 as base template so it won't break in half but other than that it works fine.

Some more screens:

https://imgur.com/a/0h9ooBs

[vdr1981]

Looks really great kapuhy !

EDIT:

Known issues:

- zones certainly need adjusting, ship currently sinks too easily.

The reason for "easy" sinking may be the outer red distress flare damage zone. As I can see, all other damage boxes are packed inside it. This means that when distress flare zone is destroyed, all other zones within it will be destroyed as well , regardless of their hit points. This may need some adjustments.



Nevertheless, the ship really looks great!

[kapuhy]

Originally Posted by vdr1981

. As I can see, all other damage boxes are packed inside it. This means that when distress flare zone is destroyed, all other zones within it will be destroyed as well , regardless of their hit points. This may need some adjustments.

That's how it works? If so it would completely change my understanding of how zones work, I thought damage is counted separately for each box within explosion zone each time ship gets hit (and thinking that I made flare zone encompass entire ship so that the flare will go up regardless where ship was damaged - it's not like someone would say " nah, they just blew our bow off, no cause for alarm on the stern"). I'll look into it, thanks!

EDIT: does it also happen for overlapping zones or just if one box is completely inside another?

[vdr1981]

Originally Posted by kapuhy

EDIT: does it also happen for overlapping zones or just if one box is completely inside another?

If I remember correctly, in case of overlapping zones, percentage values are taken. For example , if zone A takes 30% of volume of zone B, then when zone A is destroyed it will take 30% of hit points of zone B. Don't hold me on this one though...


I'll check my old RSD thread and if I find anything useful I'll let you know.

[kapuhy]

Originally Posted by vdr1981

If I remember correctly, in case of overlapping zones, percentage values are taken. For example , if zone A takes 30% of volume of zone B, then when zone A is destroyed it will take 30% of hit points of zone B. Don't hold me on this one though...


I'll check my old RSD thread and if I find anything useful I'll let you know.

At first glance, weird system though I'm sure I can find some creative ways to use it and yes, if you could point me to where I could learn how exactly zones work it would be much appreciated.

I'll rework zones this weekend hopefully and start work on next ship.

[gap]

You made it kapuhy

To my knowledge, this is the first fully fledged AI unit ever released for SH5 directly in GR2 format, and she looks nice too. Bravo!

Out of curisosity: I have noticed that your ship doesn't include any FX file.
As far as I can understand, those files are used for linking certain bones (opportunely placed around units' 3D meshes) with explosions/fire/smoke effects stored in Baza_FX.dat. A perfect copy of the same bones, but without 3D meshes, is also found in the *_FX.GR2 file of each stock sea unit though, to be honest, I don't understand the need for this redundancy.

More in general, I have not clear how the said effects are triggered by ship damage and how they interact with the effects linked to damage zones (see note below), nonetheless you have probably noticed how in SH5 fires and smoke seem to come out from portholes, doors, etc. where one of the stock ships has been damaged, and I am pretty sure that such a precise effect placement is achieved by means of those files.

Have you tried experimenting with them?

NOTE: a possible mechanism, but that's just my speculation, is that whenever a damage box is damaged beyond a certain level, and a given particle effect is triggered (according to Zones.cfg settings), the game checks if the damaged box overlaps one or more FX_* bone linked to the same effect. If yes, one instance of the said effect will originate from each of those bones, otherwise one instance of it will originate from the center of the box (or maybe from where the last impact has happened)

[Mister_M]

Originally Posted by kapuhy

if you could point me to where I could learn how exactly zones work it would be much appreciated.

Here, it is for SH3, but it probably works the same way in SH5...

https://kendras-sh3-modding.forumgam...ics-and-theory