[WIP] Lighthouses mod

[gap]

Originally Posted by JeromeHeretic

And THX for that link, but i already know it. :-)

Glad that you know it already. Very few lighthouse are not listed in the Lighthouse Directory, and it also provides general information and pictures of the active lights, as well as verbal and pictorial reference (when possible) of currently inactive or no longer existing lighthouses.

Originally Posted by JeromeHeretic

When we are talking about this, i have few ideas, but i don't know how to do it. [...]
have few "morse" blinking lighthouses. I think that 4 "bit" table must be enough for everyone.

Is this possible? (Im afraid not... because it is "land unit", but better ask, than be silent and lost this functionality if it is possible)

Yes, it is possible. As said by Jeff, by playing with light particle settings we can mimic even complex flashing schemes. Kendras is a master on this subject, but with some time and the help of a calculator, I can also handle this type of effects. The one lights that we couldn't find a way to reproduce so far, are sector lights: i.e. light beams that can only be seen when looking at them from some angles...

Terrain objects are not configurable, but if lighthouse models are set as land units rather than terrain objects, and if different light halos are stored in a library file, we can then link each lighthouse to any tipe of light effect (or even multiple effects) by use of equipment nodes. There are several advantages in this type of approach:

- Just like air and sea units, land units are handled by the AI; they can see and be seen by other units, attacked, and destroyed.

- they can be made to appear or disappear from the game based on date, simulating the destruction of some of them during the war.

- their lights, set as any other equipment, can be configured by date, simulating the change in usage (or the darkening) of some lights during the war.