Vehicles
by Eli McClanahan · in General Discussion · 07/30/2002 (8:25 pm) · 16 replies
Figured this would be nice for at least brainstorming about gameplay. I figured it would be a nice topic after reflecting on the vehicles in T2, which is my favorite part of the gameplay.
Should vehicles all be creatures? Do you summon these creatures into battle to be used? Can these creatures be influenced to the other team via magic, etc? There's a number of things to discuss here.
I think the way it's set up, the summoners will be the ones creating the living vehicles, whereas the melee-oriented classes will be able to build them over time. The way this works out, I'd think that the built vehicles will be stronger and tougher, as they'd take longer to construct.
The built vehicles will probably be slower and less agile, but would be more powerful. I imagine the most powerful ones would be somewhat like a rolling fort: a summoner has to summon a beast to pull it, which is controlled by one player. About five other players can get inside this wagon and man cannons or simply have a better defense as they fire their normal weapons.
Thoughts, additions?
Should vehicles all be creatures? Do you summon these creatures into battle to be used? Can these creatures be influenced to the other team via magic, etc? There's a number of things to discuss here.
I think the way it's set up, the summoners will be the ones creating the living vehicles, whereas the melee-oriented classes will be able to build them over time. The way this works out, I'd think that the built vehicles will be stronger and tougher, as they'd take longer to construct.
The built vehicles will probably be slower and less agile, but would be more powerful. I imagine the most powerful ones would be somewhat like a rolling fort: a summoner has to summon a beast to pull it, which is controlled by one player. About five other players can get inside this wagon and man cannons or simply have a better defense as they fire their normal weapons.
Thoughts, additions?
#2
Really I think a mixture of summoned creatures and seige weapons.
07/31/2002 (6:56 am)
No no, tanks we need tanks, and fighter jets Ryan!!Really I think a mixture of summoned creatures and seige weapons.
#5
Siege equipment could be really cool. and combined with destroyable buildings would allow for some really great castle siege types of maps.
07/31/2002 (9:51 am)
I'd love to see ridable griffons and wyverns, and what's a paladin without his trusty warhorse.Siege equipment could be really cool. and combined with destroyable buildings would allow for some really great castle siege types of maps.
#6
Let's see... ideas...
Summoned beasts:
Borak: medium speed, quite powerful; can carry one person at a time
Griffon: very fast, has no air-to-ground attacks (this is left up to the rider, who fires as he sits); can fly; one rider
Wyvern/Dragon: very large, somewhat slow, extremely powerful; can fly slightly; can spew fire from its bowels (and possibly an ice secretion, if you know anything about some dragons); one to three riders (tamer [pilot], coercer ["bombadier," can make dragon spew fire/ice], protectorate [tail gunner, can sit and fire at any angle on the beast])
Adamantoise: (basically, a giant armored turtle) very slow, heavily armored; one to five riders (one tamer and four protectorates)
Giant Millepede: massive, very fast, very powerful; will only attack when attacked (by friend or foe - it'll attack anything near it, not the attacker); no riders
(something fast with low armor, one pilot meant for scouting should go here...)
Siege Creations:
Cannon: two-man operated; fires slowly, can be moved, but not while firing
Siegebow: three-man operated; essentially a giant crossbow meant for anti-aerial attacks or long-range shooting; fast reloading, easy to rotate, slow to move
Catapult: a must-have for any siege attack; massively powerful with a large blast radius; very very slow to move and rotate
(name?): a large, moving shield that up to 5 men can hide behind to avoid fire (seen it in action before, forgot the name); medium speed, only good for defense
War Wagon: a massive, portable base with cannons inside that point outward; has to be pulled by a beast to be moved; one driver if pulled by a beast; 5 cannons able to be manned within
Towers: typical, strong towers meant for defense and sniping positions; not very strong, but offers good defense for the person inside, who either fires through slots in the tower walls, or mans a defenseless mini-siegebow
07/31/2002 (2:01 pm)
Yeah, but I imagine they'd be a pain to animate.Let's see... ideas...
Summoned beasts:
Borak: medium speed, quite powerful; can carry one person at a time
Griffon: very fast, has no air-to-ground attacks (this is left up to the rider, who fires as he sits); can fly; one rider
Wyvern/Dragon: very large, somewhat slow, extremely powerful; can fly slightly; can spew fire from its bowels (and possibly an ice secretion, if you know anything about some dragons); one to three riders (tamer [pilot], coercer ["bombadier," can make dragon spew fire/ice], protectorate [tail gunner, can sit and fire at any angle on the beast])
Adamantoise: (basically, a giant armored turtle) very slow, heavily armored; one to five riders (one tamer and four protectorates)
Giant Millepede: massive, very fast, very powerful; will only attack when attacked (by friend or foe - it'll attack anything near it, not the attacker); no riders
(something fast with low armor, one pilot meant for scouting should go here...)
Siege Creations:
Cannon: two-man operated; fires slowly, can be moved, but not while firing
Siegebow: three-man operated; essentially a giant crossbow meant for anti-aerial attacks or long-range shooting; fast reloading, easy to rotate, slow to move
Catapult: a must-have for any siege attack; massively powerful with a large blast radius; very very slow to move and rotate
(name?): a large, moving shield that up to 5 men can hide behind to avoid fire (seen it in action before, forgot the name); medium speed, only good for defense
War Wagon: a massive, portable base with cannons inside that point outward; has to be pulled by a beast to be moved; one driver if pulled by a beast; 5 cannons able to be manned within
Towers: typical, strong towers meant for defense and sniping positions; not very strong, but offers good defense for the person inside, who either fires through slots in the tower walls, or mans a defenseless mini-siegebow
#7
08/01/2002 (6:53 am)
Ithinhk we should have mages that summon animals(vehicles). This would give mages something to do ALL the time wether up front fighting or on the way to the front.
#8
How long should it take to construct Siege vehicles? As anyone that's been following the magic system thread should know, spells (summoning beast-vehicles in this case) are evened out in that it takes time to create more powerful vehicles. It's also balanced in that the necessary points/mana required can actually go down over time.
So, how long do you think it should take? Let's, for the sake of argument, narrow down the possible Siege vehicles to about five classes:
*Scout
*Light
*Medium
*Heavy
*Super Heavy
So... how long should each one take? A few seconds to build? A full minute? Should having a race like a dwarf decrease the time? Et cetera...
08/02/2002 (5:57 pm)
Question for everyone:How long should it take to construct Siege vehicles? As anyone that's been following the magic system thread should know, spells (summoning beast-vehicles in this case) are evened out in that it takes time to create more powerful vehicles. It's also balanced in that the necessary points/mana required can actually go down over time.
So, how long do you think it should take? Let's, for the sake of argument, narrow down the possible Siege vehicles to about five classes:
*Scout
*Light
*Medium
*Heavy
*Super Heavy
So... how long should each one take? A few seconds to build? A full minute? Should having a race like a dwarf decrease the time? Et cetera...
#9
08/03/2002 (12:39 pm)
I think that building time would be sorted out in balance, discussion on vehicles types and a system would probably be better at this stage. 
#10
Ok, so I've already begun a time ago the modeling of such vehicles.
Here is the pic of the last one, called Matork:
And how ppl can sit on it:
On the platform I see, 1 or 2 mages/archer.
For the vehicles, we must pay attention to siege weapons, try to not make them too powerful!
Concerning the creatures, don't forget we are in a strange and fantastic world. In this world, creatures can carry ppl, but they can also shot fireball or make flame, they can explode in a rain of acid when they die, they can paralyze an ennemy (and controlled by the "pilot").
I will make a more complete idea post about creatures.
But think about sort of giants mosquitos attacking the ennemy. We can use creatures also as weapons.
08/04/2002 (3:41 am)
I was about to start a thread like this! Ok, so I've already begun a time ago the modeling of such vehicles.
Here is the pic of the last one, called Matork:
And how ppl can sit on it:
On the platform I see, 1 or 2 mages/archer.
For the vehicles, we must pay attention to siege weapons, try to not make them too powerful!
Concerning the creatures, don't forget we are in a strange and fantastic world. In this world, creatures can carry ppl, but they can also shot fireball or make flame, they can explode in a rain of acid when they die, they can paralyze an ennemy (and controlled by the "pilot").
I will make a more complete idea post about creatures.
But think about sort of giants mosquitos attacking the ennemy. We can use creatures also as weapons.
#11
08/04/2002 (3:53 am)
Thats looks really good... and the way its used
#12
or i would have included it here.
GENERAL:
I think that RW will probably need groups of vehicle "teams" to get vehicles up and running, consisting of programmers modelers sound techs texture artists and so on that could work together and submit to Pascal their work as a team, i think that is the only way to approach such a large peice of work as getting balanced vehicles into RW.
08/04/2002 (6:26 am)
This is a subject i am also interested in, i posted this before i saw this thread, http://www.garagegames.com/index.php?sec=mg&mod=forums&page=result.thread&qt=6517or i would have included it here.
GENERAL:
I think that RW will probably need groups of vehicle "teams" to get vehicles up and running, consisting of programmers modelers sound techs texture artists and so on that could work together and submit to Pascal their work as a team, i think that is the only way to approach such a large peice of work as getting balanced vehicles into RW.
#13
Have you created animtions and mountpoints for this Beast and so on and exported it as a dts/dsq yet?.
08/04/2002 (6:46 am)
Djaggernaut:Have you created animtions and mountpoints for this Beast and so on and exported it as a dts/dsq yet?.
#14
This is mostly an eye candy for the moment...
I have to work on maps objects, lot of maps objects.
08/04/2002 (8:11 am)
No, not yet.This is mostly an eye candy for the moment...
I have to work on maps objects, lot of maps objects.
#15
As an experiment I created WalkingVehicle.h and .cc, pur copies of the 1.1.2 WheeledVehicle.h and .cc files. Then I renamed the WheeledVehicleData and WheeledVehicle classes to WalkingVehicleData and WalkingVehicle.
I changed the engine code slightly to mount the legs at the shoulder instead of the hub.
I commented out the code that programatically rotates the wheels.
So I now have a vehicle with legs that have a bounce like the springs on the car. They turn with the steering. It looks pretty good.
All that is left to do is animate the wheels (legs).
I created a leg in Milkshape and animated it with a "walk" sequence.
I am trying to figure out how to animate the wheels in addition to using the spring and steering animations but I am having lots of trouble and getting UE's when trying to add threads.
Is anyone else doing this kind of thing and if so can we join forces here and solve this conceptually simple problem?
Ideally we would want to animate the walk sequence in forward and reverse based on the direction of travel and the velocity.
08/28/2002 (5:36 pm)
I too am most interested in getting walking vehicles working. I've started a couple of threads on this and have gotten nowhere.As an experiment I created WalkingVehicle.h and .cc, pur copies of the 1.1.2 WheeledVehicle.h and .cc files. Then I renamed the WheeledVehicleData and WheeledVehicle classes to WalkingVehicleData and WalkingVehicle.
I changed the engine code slightly to mount the legs at the shoulder instead of the hub.
I commented out the code that programatically rotates the wheels.
So I now have a vehicle with legs that have a bounce like the springs on the car. They turn with the steering. It looks pretty good.
All that is left to do is animate the wheels (legs).
I created a leg in Milkshape and animated it with a "walk" sequence.
I am trying to figure out how to animate the wheels in addition to using the spring and steering animations but I am having lots of trouble and getting UE's when trying to add threads.
Is anyone else doing this kind of thing and if so can we join forces here and solve this conceptually simple problem?
Ideally we would want to animate the walk sequence in forward and reverse based on the direction of travel and the velocity.
#16
Another idea that should be concidered is that animals as vehicles should be considered as player objects, you could simply then have a set of bones, for the player/animal, and use mount points and additional animated mounted meshes with mount points for other players, mount a vehicle on a "animalbonesplayer", with that vehicle having additional mountpoints for human players.
well you did say brainstorming lol
As a note on my Dragon idea, i created an impressive model for this at 3800 polys, (yeah i know its high) so i am now adjusting the textures to try and reduce the polys whilst not losing the effect, i also did the anims and exported it as a vehicle into tribes with mountpoints for 2 players, i intend to submit this to Pascal when he gets back and once i have reduced the polycount enough, it will be up to the code guru,s to reimlement it into RW.
08/29/2002 (11:52 am)
Although i have little understanding of the code involved couldnt you use a simple 2 sequences for the wheels like an ambient sequence that relys on an if, else statement, ie if vehicle is moving play wheels turn, else return, and then concentrate on getting the actual animal mesh animations working, in otherwords most of the work would be in the "animal" animations, with only the turning of the wheels in the carrage part of the mesh, you would probably need 3 anims for the wheels, forward, back and still, just an idea, as i said i dont know code but thats initialy how i would try this.Another idea that should be concidered is that animals as vehicles should be considered as player objects, you could simply then have a set of bones, for the player/animal, and use mount points and additional animated mounted meshes with mount points for other players, mount a vehicle on a "animalbonesplayer", with that vehicle having additional mountpoints for human players.
well you did say brainstorming lol
As a note on my Dragon idea, i created an impressive model for this at 3800 polys, (yeah i know its high) so i am now adjusting the textures to try and reduce the polys whilst not losing the effect, i also did the anims and exported it as a vehicle into tribes with mountpoints for 2 players, i intend to submit this to Pascal when he gets back and once i have reduced the polycount enough, it will be up to the code guru,s to reimlement it into RW.
Torque Owner Ryan J. Parker