Forged Alliance Forever

Re: naval transports

2014-08-24T13:11:18+02:00

Yea, this is actually a pretty old idea, which we never truly able to be implemented. There are perhaps a few variations on this idea which you might consider.

1. The Mothership
This idea is use a naval vessel for the transport and use it to deploy or build hovercraft. I have been able to successfully create a mod for this concept. Simply by creating a Tempest and modifying it to build hovercraft. It operated, quite, successfully, as an off shore land factory. This concept is best suited to the Aeon and Seraphim factions.

2. The Hovering Transport
The idea with this concept is to have a transport which can move on land or sea. It would essentially be an air unit. But would be targeted as a surface unit. It could carry all types of land units and drive on-shore to deploy them. I would probably implement this unit for the UEF faction.

3. The Walking Amphibious Ship
This concept is based on the Cybran Destroyer. which can sprout legs and walk on land. Rather than being a transport. I think this unit could be better implemented as a mobile land factory. Which can move over water. The idea is that it walks onto the beach, and then begins to build Mantis at a fast rate. It's build options would be limited to, say, Mantis, Hoplite, Rhino, and Flak. But it would have 4 construction pads, and make units simultaneously. This concept would work quite well with other walking ships, and experiementals, which are used to secure the beach head.

Statistics: Posted by Hawkei — 24 Aug 2014, 13:11

Re: naval transports

2014-08-24T11:32:27+02:00

Naval transports sounds like a cool idea if you can figure it out! Ugh, closed source codes is such a pain and would be invaluable to have access to in projects such as FAF.

Statistics: Posted by NodCommander — 24 Aug 2014, 11:32

Re: naval transports

2014-08-23T15:38:02+02:00

Transports already use the tractor beam to pull units into it. The issue is unit path finding. If you select a land unit and click to be transported by an air transport that is some distance away, the air transport will take a straight path to pick up the land unit and will fly through any other air unit to get there.

If you have a land (or naval) transport, this unit will have to find a path to the unit to be picked up that will need to avoid colliding with other land (or naval) units and vice versa for the unit that is to be transported. If there is no clear or difficult path between the two units, then they both just sit there. The game engine was not developed with that in mind. This is why the idea of an intermediate helper drone was proposed that assists the land or naval transport. The drone will head out and collect the land unit then bring it back to the transport. A difficult task to create the code for and deal with all the special cases that will come up.

Frankly, I use the hover transport that I have linked above in my custom games and it works fine, as long as you keep in mind the pathing issue. Issue a move command to the land units to be transported as close as possible to the transport or ferry beacon, then a transport command onto the transport or ferry beacon. Also have the transport path as clear as possible between the start point and destination. Since this is typically over water it is not too hard to accommodate.

Statistics: Posted by The Mak — 23 Aug 2014, 15:38

Re: naval transports

2014-08-23T05:09:43+02:00

What about a tractor beam like that of the Galactic Colossus? I know when it does it's grab, the unit orients itself into position. Just a thought

Statistics: Posted by rockoe10 — 23 Aug 2014, 05:09

Re: naval transports

2013-03-30T02:06:06+02:00

Just adding a bit of info since it was not posted here.
Naval Transports by DeamMG

I believe this was the latest and last working attempt at implementing a naval, or in this case hover, transport from the GPG forums. It uses the UEF T1 air transport as a model. It is set as a hover unit that can carry land units across the ground and surface of water.

If I remember correctly, the issue with transports is that one unit (whether the transport or the unit destined to be transported) must be an air unit and relates back to the path finding. The problem that was found by having both units being ground based was that the units could not "path" to each other if it was not a straight or easy path to get to each other. What would happen is both units would sit there doing nothing. I remember the use of drones or some type of helper intermediate unit was discussed but I am not sure why that idea was not utilized.

Statistics: Posted by The Mak — 30 Mar 2013, 02:06

Re: naval transports

2013-03-27T11:47:44+02:00

can you make the drones a mix of the t1 transport and the drone maybe?
because the transport shouldnt have much effect by having to carry units and i think setting down the transport capacity for each transport (and therefore for each drone) should be possible. 8 t1 units sticking on one drone would look pretty retarded xD

Statistics: Posted by Golol — 27 Mar 2013, 11:47

Re: naval transports

2013-03-27T08:23:12+02:00

MushrooMars wrote:
If someone can point me in the right direction, I'll gladly continue work on the thing, but until then, the Nomads SCU needs some love...

Yeah, more love than a little poney.

Statistics: Posted by pip — 27 Mar 2013, 08:23

Re: naval transports

2013-03-27T06:40:40+02:00

You're right, it wasn't particularly slow, but it was still noticeably slower. The Drones are based on a merge between the Stinger T2 Gunship and Rover Engineering Drone, so the slowdown of the units is inexplicable and unsolvable.

If someone can point me in the right direction, I'll gladly continue work on the thing, but until then, the Nomads SCU needs some love...

Statistics: Posted by MushrooMars — 27 Mar 2013, 06:40

Re: naval transports

2013-03-27T05:17:26+02:00

Can u make a drone out of a T2 UEF gunship ? Or change a transport so it is dockable and work with that ? Maybe you won't have the drone speed issue if the unit backbone is different (i dont know at all just suggesting).

Do you think it is possible the transport is very slow because it somehow already received the order to land on the ship after dropping the units ? And it slow down as if it was in approaching manoeuver ? I dont believe it but who knows.

What i think remember tough, is than a T2 UEF gunship with a pillar inside, when docked and then released from a cybran cruiser wasnt particularly slow. So maybe reverify it and compare your unit with the uef gunship or as i said restart with a gunship as the base unit ?

Statistics: Posted by Poch — 27 Mar 2013, 05:17

Re: naval transports

2013-03-27T00:39:46+02:00

I tried multiplying the unit's speed by 100 while it was slowed down. Almost no effect.

It looks almost as if the sim speed of that individual unit is slowed down, because when I stuck a drone on the Seraphim Air Staging platform and then deleted the platform, the drone stayed sideways for a good 2 minutes before it finally righted itself.

Edit: ONE OF THE THINGS JUST FLIPPED UPSIDE-DOWN. MY MIND IS BLOWN.

Statistics: Posted by MushrooMars — 27 Mar 2013, 00:39

Re: naval transports

2013-03-27T00:09:33+02:00

cant you just speed the drones up?
changing speed always seemed to be simple.
And i would think the speed goes down by a certain percentage if something is attached so couldnt you just set the usal speed of the drones very high so they rush to the units like crazy and fly back with an acceptable speed (vice versa for deploying for sure)
and btw for the aeon drone just a usal t1 engineer with about 1/3 the diameter could be used because it wouldnt look that bad

Statistics: Posted by Golol — 27 Mar 2013, 00:09

Re: naval transports

2013-03-26T22:46:13+02:00

Y'know, I love Chris Taylor, but I hate GPG so much. See my post earlier about how the drones are slowed? Well, it turns out that this happens to the Stinger as well, it's just less exaggerated. More interesting fact: I can't fix it. I cannot find the variable which is changed that makes the air transport slower after detaching from a naval transport, I've tried every single function and variable I know, and some I didn't know before, and I still can't fix it.

Statistics: Posted by MushrooMars — 26 Mar 2013, 22:46

Re: naval transports

2013-03-26T21:39:13+02:00

It is no problem as long as the hitbox of the unit is right. Put the drones far away from where the transport is being hit by a laser or bullet. That way, the transport gets hit even though the drones are indestructible.

For AoE damage weapons it doesn't matter anyway.

Statistics: Posted by Plasma_Wolf — 26 Mar 2013, 21:39

Re: naval transports

2013-03-26T21:13:22+02:00

Well, the issue with the drones being indestructible is that while they are loaded on to a boat, they can absorb an infinite amount of damage. If your enemy had 50 battleships firing on the naval transport, there is a chance that the Naval Transport could survive for an hour because the transport drones block the shots just right.

What I'm thinking I'm going to do is put a shield on the transport drones that transfers incoming damage to the naval transport with a modifier. I'll also make the drones untargetable so they aren't flakked to death when deploying units.

Statistics: Posted by MushrooMars — 26 Mar 2013, 21:13

Re: naval transports

2013-03-26T20:36:22+02:00

cool.
but the drones should be indestructable because thats why you use naval: it should noit be possible to do anything against the drop with your 500 asfs.

Statistics: Posted by Golol — 26 Mar 2013, 20:36