Making cannons move

[Hendon]

I was wondering if its possible to make cannons move somehow
Does anywhone know if its possible.



/ME http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Wellington]

It's not possible.

[Lord Krazy]

Wheels help,but this game has
not invented the wheel yet http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

LK http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smokin.gif

[RangerLee]

Quote[/b] (Lord Krazy @ Feb. 25 2003,13:44)]Wheels help,but this game has
not invented the wheel yet http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

LK http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smokin.gif
Hahaha so true it is funny

[Lord Krazy]

You could make a cannon out of a normal unit and
change the graphic and stats to a cannon.
It's not the perfect answere but it could be made
functional.
For example if you were willing to use a little or a lot
of imagination, depending on your point of view,
you could have a six man unit each man being a cannon.
With the man being represented in the bif as a couple of guys and a cannon.When you want it to move, it turns into a horse and moves.If we could get this to function somewhat
then we could simulate horse artillery batteries
after a fashion.Does this interest you or do you think
it's a load of crap?

We have tried it a bit.
We had a 16 cannon unit.Every time it fired 16
cannonballs.It took about 3 minuets to destroy
a line of 3 units.A cheap fun way to get lots of fire power
in one unit at least http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

LK http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smokin.gif

[Kongamato]

Could you make a cannon a combination of sprites, such as a sprite for a wheel, the barrel, etc.. and call it a unit? I guess you cant, as a unit needs to be all of the same sprite.

[Lord Krazy]

Quote[/b] (Kongamato @ Mar. 09 2003,18:26)]Could you make a cannon a combination of sprites, such as a sprite for a wheel, the barrel, etc.. and call it a unit? I guess you cant, as a unit needs to be all of the same sprite.
Do you mean like the lbms in the game?

Or like how the weapons and shields
work with the units?
I was thinking about things like this
but I don't know how will work exactly
So you could have the cannon as the unit and the
man as a shield
or something like I said I don't know but it's worth
thinking about.

LK http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smokin.gif

[RangerLee]

I would love to try out moveable cannons for my gettysburg battles. Especially for day one. Let me know if this gets created.

[rory_20_uk]

I think that having cannons not able to move is quite sensible really. I would have thought that more than the number of men that crew the cannon would be required to transport it with any speed round a map, let alone up a hill and so on. Add to this the cannon balls, powder and other esential bits and pieces, and I think that it is sensible that the cannon can turn on the spot, but can not be moved around the battlefield.
You could design some movable cannon as descrobed above. I would have thought that adding horses to the unit would be a very good idea, as their strength would certainly be required.

[Lord Krazy]

Cannon could move very slowly without horses

Firstly to go backward just required firing the gun
and let it recoil.Simple and effective.

To go forward, the men would rock the cannon forward.
Slow but doable and was done.

However for MTW the horse artillery is the only real
practical thing at the moment IMO too for moving cannon.

LK http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smokin.gif

[rory_20_uk]

Fair enough, I stand corrected that cannon crews could move their guns around... Although as you point out, the speed that would be achieved would be so low as to be virtually pointless in the game.
If one were to increase the unmber of men that are deployed around the cannon, this would increase the speed at which it could be removed, and might be a lot easier than trying to get horses into the unit and look good.

[Wellington]

Unlike infantry and cavalry you must realise that artillery is represented on the MTW battle field (and via the MTW engine) by -

1) a special type of model
2) an infantry unit to serve that model.


In other words TWO criteria.

Any talk of using BIF images to represent cannon is fruitless because it fails to take into account the fact that BIF images only ever represent ONE unit per-se, whilst artillery in MTW represents ONE unit and ONE model.

Until you understand that distiction you cannot hope to surmise what is "possible" in creating new artillery.

The thing to check is NOT BIFs but models and how the MTW engine represents such models.

Can you change these models? Yes

How? By changing the LBMs that represent the models (some aspects/designs of the plates) and changing the order of subroutines that MTW uses to build such models (see the PART in the stickied Animations thread).

Forget BIF's - it's a loser.