Metal Mayhem : TW

[Bwian]

Yup...they are indeed based on the Dreadnought. I plan a couple of variants too. These are the proto-types. I also want a spinning hand version for attacks.

[AmbrosiusAurelianus]

Excellent idea, and very imaginative designs for robots and the like. Those Roman guys on the tank things are the funniest picture I have seen in ages! Man, I nearly wet myself laughing!

No disrespect: you are obviously going to change the Romans into something else later. They just look hilarious as they are now.

Once again this looks like a fantastic idea. I shall keep an eye on this thread.

[Sundjata Keita]

Wow, wonderful work as always, glad to see the mod progressing. Although I wouldn't base any of the units on warhammer characters or anything, it sort of loses its original touch.

I might also have a music track for you if you are looking for sort of techno robot music, I've sent you a pm :)

Regards,

Sundjata

[Bwian]

The dreadnoughts are the only 'derivative' unit planned. Both my kids are Dreadnought fans, and I was pressured into it!

I have some smaller variants on the basic outline for utility droids, which put them in a slightly different context. I may also have to change the eyes on the final texture... I was watching Futurama at the time....they are pure Bender!

[Captain-Tiguris]

I can help with ideas if you like?

Look in the Chaos Space Marines in 40K for wiked machines btw

[Bwian]

Feel free to post any ideas you may have! Can't promise I will use them, but I am always welcoming new ideas.

[Meneldil]

I wouldn't mind a kind of Eldar Dreadnought (I think they're called Ghost Walkers now). Sure, I'm not one of your children, but they (the dreadnoughts ;-P ) look so damn cool

[Bwian]

EAch faction will have the capability to build one or two large sized mech units. These will represent the higher levels of upgrade for military construction buildings. I need to finalise the building trees soon, so I can set up the total structure for development of the more advanced units.

There needs to be a blend of 'cavalry' type units, with higher movement rates, and basic military ( slower and tougher ) types. There also needs to be a limited missile capability.

The military units will be broadly as follows:

Faction Basic chassis ( peasant type units, plus original stock design)
Faction militarised ( stock units modified to combat use)
Combat ( basic military units )
Assault ( heavier designs )
Dreadnought ( bad ass big bots with weapons )

For each class, there will be different sizes. Dreadnoughts require a large chassis, but all other units will be buildable on a basic chassis.

I plan on taking the basic military buildings ... archery, cavalry and infantry, and turning them into 'normal, medium and large chassis. Each upgrade level takes you up one rung towards more combat designed units.

I need to use other buildings to add unique weapon options. These will include:

missile technology. Spring launched, or compressed air powered.

Flame technology. Flame guns ( I hope )

EMP technology. Electro guns with high effect on non-shielded units.

These will work in much the same way as Hippodromes etc. add new cavalry units. Hopefully...if I can work it all together...the combination of upgrades will give options like EMP missiles etc. if you build the right things. A few conditionals on the buildings, and a few variants of the same unit just with different stats. Easy.

Anyway ..... getting back to where we were .... there will be more large units. The designs are not all mapped out yet, so I will just see how the creative ideas flow! I really do need to crystallise the units I have into a definite structure and design some more to fill the gaps....I hope to get a basic set together in the next few weeks so I can get some kind of a start to actually playing a campaign. Oh..and I need to turn my sketches of unit icons into pixels too....if I can drag myself away from the modelling software for a bit!!!

[Sundjata Keita]

The dreadnoughts are the only 'derivative' unit planned. Both my kids are Dreadnought fans, and I was pressured into it!

Ah, I see ;) Flame guns should be possible by the way but maybe not graphically great and only over short distances, I imagine you could get it working in a similar way to smoke but then changing the smoke graphic to one of flames. It's not as hard as it sounds.

Regards,

Sundjata

[Bwian]

Ah, I see ;) Flame guns should be possible by the way but maybe not graphically great and only over short distances, I imagine you could get it working in a similar way to smoke but then changing the smoke graphic to one of flames. It's not as hard as it sounds.

Regards,

Sundjata

To be honest, I was thinking along slightly different lines...but this sounds interesting!
As far as smoke goes, the only weapons I know that trail smoke are the missile weapons. Particulalry the burning ones. This puts a definite limit on distance of engagement, and I was hoping to get something a little bit more up close and personal!

I posted a while back to find out what people knew about ranges of engagement, and the consensus seems to be that there is a definite minimum range for this. The Javelin types, Hastati and Velites etc. seem to be about as short range as I can get. I need closer! Ideally, I want missile engagement at ranges

I would welcome any suggestions as to how this could be best implemented!

[wlesmana]

You can just put the missile attack as prec. Even the AI seems to like using it at point blank range quite often. Of course, it's a bit of a hassle for human players as you need to stop (Backspace) then re-attack to use it.

[Sundjata Keita]

To be honest, I was thinking along slightly different lines...but this sounds interesting!
As far as smoke goes, the only weapons I know that trail smoke are the missile weapons. Particulalry the burning ones. This puts a definite limit on distance of engagement, and I was hoping to get something a little bit more up close and personal!

I posted a while back to find out what people knew about ranges of engagement, and the consensus seems to be that there is a definite minimum range for this. The Javelin types, Hastati and Velites etc. seem to be about as short range as I can get. I need closer! Ideally, I want missile engagement at ranges

I would welcome any suggestions as to how this could be best implemented!

Yes well you would have to attatch it to a missile type unit and at short range you could probably get it looking really good, here is my idea.

Put the missile as wlesmana says so it only fires at point blank range, the firing animation will have to be just a spinning gun or something, just something without too much movement. Then on the missile you can put either a trail effect or just smoke effect but change it to a fire image (maybe some smoke too?) You could do all kinds of things, plasma, lasers, whatever, just with different effects.

Regards,

Sundjata

PS Did you get my email?

[Bwian]

Well...it's working!

I can't seem to get the combination of a flat trajectory and the right range...which is slightly annoying!

I also noticed that if I reduce the maximum and minimum angles to around 10 degrees, that has a distinct effect on range. I reduced velocity, and the weapons didn't fire unless the enemy was really quite close.

The firing animation was triggered at the normal range, but no missileswere unleashed.

Now I need to work on teh actual missiles. They are just stock ones at the moment. I am using the flaming boulder effect, with a flaming ballista end effect. The model is set to be the ballista bolt ( presumably, since it is flamed, it's using the burning version.)

Next step is to make a new model for the missile, with a longer tail, and more volume! I also want to make it do more damage....I changed the 'damage' from 0 to 5 ( now at 25 )...to have the desired effect! I want a LOT more damage to be possible



This shows the range at which they engaged...which I have got down to about the length of the flame model! Ideal. They DO fire at point blank too!

[Bwian]

Yee-haw! I just found the texture that makes up the trail, and replaced it with the texture used for the head of the flaming boulder....and you get ...

FIRE!



( cue soundtrack from The Crazy World of Arthur Brown )

[Sundjata Keita]

You make it look easy Can't wait to see this aplied to some huge robots.

[Bwian]

OK ... the conversion process to BI has begun!

I am starting with the weapons, and then I will start on the models.

The current 'advanced' weapons list is looking like:

Flamer
Gauss gun ( rapid fire rail gun type weapon using an electrically charged barrel )
Chemical rocket
short range mining laser

Shifty is working on something a little more....er....explosive.... but there are still some bugs to iron out with the RTW effects system! He's having to unpick it from scratch to work out what fits where.

Anyway...that will pretty much be the lot for the none 'physical' attacks.

I have messed about with some interesting variations on the theme though. I wonder if you gave a unit no movement, an explosive 'flaming ballista' type missile and very close range engagement.... would that constitute a simple proximity mine ?

Working on some ground effect hovering units now. Including some gunships

[al'Callaendor]

good

[shifty157]

I have messed about with some interesting variations on the theme though. I wonder if you gave a unit no movement, an explosive 'flaming ballista' type missile and very close range engagement.... would that constitute a simple proximity mine ?

Not possible. I thought about this before but theres hardcoded issues. Number one im pretty sure there is a minimum range. Number two I know that if an enemy unit enters within a certain range a missile unit will switch to its secondary (melee) weapon. And since you cant apply effects/projectiles to melee weapons youre pretty stuck.

In other news once i get a decent amount of free time (which will hopefully come this week) I can finish off this project and make it look pretty and impress you all.

[Bwian]

Oddly enough.... both weapons with 'prec' launched prior to a charge, and weapons on mounts such as elephants, will engage at very close quarters.

There is also the 'skirmish' button which you can enage and force archers to stand. The minimum range you can set, though, remains at 20. So, whilst a mine can be built...it would only work for human controlled forces. The AI would open fire at 20 regardless.

[Bwian]

picture laden excuse for a bump









And these are only the ones which I have actually put in game .. more are lurking on my HD modelled but not converted

[Bwian]

Hey...now we ARE getting serious... I started making a website.

Dos that mean we are a proper mod now