wary ingot
The most (only?) disappointing aspect of this game is ship death. I find it considerably underwhelming to have them literally vanish in a perfectly symmetrical puff of smoke. Given we have asteroids that get chewed up so nicely, its only fitting that ships might receive similar treatment. It could also give you an option for kinetic deaths, if you collide with something that doesn't yield, like a moonlet, at 150m/s.
To retain the behaviour of the lifepod, it could be spawned in after the explosion force is applied to the gibs, so it doesn't get completely lost
bleak sparrow
this would be cool, but also a lot of modelling work
wary ingot
what if you just rendered a ship with its lights off, then sliced up the image with some grungey burned edges?
wary ingot
It's worth noting I dont actually know how the art in dV works
bleak sparrow
sprites with normal maps and lots of shaders on top
wary ingot
could perhaps generate (and output?) gibs automatically via fracturing tools, but that might not look so appropriate applied to metallic objects
bleak sparrow
exactly. that's why I want to check that out, but not commit to it yet.
I do have some gibs models, but just for K37, and that would probably look strange if you got debris from just one ship class.
elder phoenix
I fully support the idea, i've previously suggested wreckages. Which i would now suggest as an alternative in case the debris doesn't work out: Make a static wreckage model for each ship that replaces the original when it explodes.
bleak sparrow
I fully support the idea, i've previously suggested wreckages. Which i would now...
already tried. Lots of modelling work.
but yes, this was the original idea
wary ingot
Perhaps an easy win in this regard - debris particles. Asteroids create heaps of particles, ships don't appear to make any other than a cloud of remass. This should be combined with red hot slag bouncing off of everything.
bleak sparrow
Oooh, I even know which @slate wren I'd ask to make them 🙂
slate wren
! Can do :)
...tomorrow
I'll make a bunch of semi-glowy metal chunks with random struts, should work well as a generic piece of hull
bleak sparrow
I even have some models started for this
but, yeah, in the morning.
(got distracted by a stream of dV)
vast pond
Not bad idea, to be fair. Explosions and explosions are not always the same... could also be like not all the ship get's destroyed, but the engine part opens up like a flower, but the front end of the ship remains semi intact(salvaging purpose). But this is only my general thoughts, no clue how hard would it be or how to do it.
orchid loom
I support the idea of being able to return ship gibs for profit, either by counting as minerals, or by selling random damaged components by market value
rain radish
mark them as 'evidence' like with gathered railgun munitions?
slate wren
Deciding on the design of these is a bit harder than I expected haha
Like it wouldn't make sense for a Prospector to have bright orange shards flaking off (...unless they're just orange-hot)
slate wren
blown out piece of... something important, probably
wary ingot
I was about to say carbonised slag all looks the same any way but things dont exactly burn in space I guess
slate wren
Yeah I'm looking up references and there isn't much material regarding "things heated to 1500K in a vacuum" 😅
My best guess is most things would definitely glow
...I doubt carbon caramelizes or stuff
so little caramel pieces are out of the question unfortunately 😔 shame
wary ingot
how large is that piece?
slate wren
Right now roughly half a K37 cargo bay
but I'll proooobably resize it as we don't want gibs that big, probably
And I'll cut away more of it so it makes more sense if like 5 fall out of an exploding ship
slate wren
Oops! heated up
wary ingot
when I said particles I was thinking along the lines of shards not much larger than an ore nugget, but actual gib looking gibs are also welcome
slate wren
It will be much smaller in the final version, but a few of the shards will be cut out of this one with booleans :)
I want to make a somewhat coherent shape first that I can then fragment so they're at least a little cohesive
wary ingot
given all the ships have flat surfaces you could do the same with a small box, then change the paint colour to make a set for each ship type
and then you can have some solid shards of exterior plate
slate wren
Maybe! For now I'm making some generic ones, I'll wait for Koder's opinion as to ship-specific fragments :)
slate wren
I'd also like to make them a bit more interesting than simply shards, mostly to make for nicer visuals but also to make them less ship-specific so that it's easier to program in
and you know, the less specific they are, the harder it is to spot if they repeat :)
"Hey why the heck are there 2 top-right habitat corners"
wary ingot
if you took the same gib and rendered it in many rotations, would that be more, or less obvious? 😛
slate wren
Probably less and probably exactly what I'm gonna do when I have the gibs ready :>
lucid gorge
My feeling would be to go with generic pieces, and have only a few that are ship-specific, that are really identifiable parts. A K37 spar or curved reactor with the radiator grid, loose grinders and parts of the bay's cage on the eagle, broken masts on the cothon, etc. You don't need MUCH that's identifiable.
slate wren
Very fair I think !
lucid gorge
Koder's call if it's worth being less generic, though, if the generic scrap looks good, that may be fine.
The real question, is can my MPU eat their ship?
slate wren
I think it would be nice to at the very least have it as "evidence"
I'll make one sheet with generic ones and then if Koder gives a green light I'll make an additional sheet with like 4 for each ship
Or maybe a sheet for each ship instead? We'll see
lucid gorge
No, I want to eat their ship's bones.
wary ingot
ha. So I added another ship concept without considering gibs might be anything other than additional hazard, but... #1041996532859289640 message
wary ingot
Or maybe a sheet for each ship instead? We'll see
Under the assumption I was making just particles (but both particles and proper gibs would be excellent) I would have three sets, all generic. None are large enough to be identifiable as having come from any particular ship:
Reactor pieces - White hot chunks of slag, which glow yellow, orange, red, and then eventually stop glowing.
Interior pieces - random struts/beams, pipes, non-tinted/white panels from interior spaces - maybe even furniture if you're feeling morbid.
Exterior pieces - bent/torn panels that can be fed colour info from a ship's texture (or otherwise, maybe ship specific, mapped to various parts of the ship's colour texture). These particles would also ideally be drawn on top of everything else.
bleak sparrow
@lucid gorge we can bind that to an old idea of having some chunks fall of ships when you damage them, to provide some kind of compensation for combat that ends with ships fleeing.
...and with reactor explosion shrapnel, actually.
wary ingot
...and with reactor explosion shrapnel, actually.
Have you ever played Cortex Command? It has a very neat tool for authoring complex gibbing setups. https://indiefaqs.com/images/1/1a/Rocketboom.gif
