Elephant Rider Question

**Bwian** · 10-16-2005, 20:33

Here's the problem.....

I want to put 2 different types of rider model on a single elephant. Can it be done? I am not worried about them having different weapon types...thats not an issue... I just want to find a way to have two different riders on board.

Failing that....I could also get by with a simple way of making all the riders on the same elephant engage the same target. At present .... they choose targets as they see fit unless the 'auto engage' is off. Just disabling that is NOT an option. With elephants, I want them to be manouvered into firing positions and then open fire. Instructing htem to attack always results in a charge and lots of stamping.....

Here's the plan.....

I am re-mapping my Dreadnought to an elephant skeleton, using JUST the front leg section. This is suitably scaled. The 'top' half was going to be a rider model. The end result was not satisfactory in terms of firepower. I wanted to make a '6 barrelled pellet gun' for the right arm. Easy...I thought. Just place 6 models in EXACTLY the same place. No. Aside from the random animations and the reloading ones having to be masked ( which I can do ) there was no way to ensure they all selected the same target.

If there is NO way to do this, then I plan a multi layered gun attachment which will allow for the swivelling. The upper body will then effectively replace the 'box' the archers were standing in.

Anyway.... this fits in with the 'charge recycling bolt-guns', simple chemical rockets, and short range mining beams I have worked up this afternoon. The 'bolt guns' have 'launching' to simulate the locvely dose of kinetic energy they carry... I still need to find a nice 'ping' sound to play when the arrows strike! Hooray for BI's crossbow animation!

**shifty157** · 10-16-2005, 22:23

Afraid youre stuck on that one bwian. Only one type of rider allowed. Also theres no way to have them only engage one target.

**Kraxis** · 10-17-2005, 11:25

If you use Alt-attack with Elephants you get the bow symbol and you can thus engage the archers onto a target.

**Bwian** · 10-17-2005, 15:27

Kraxis...that only solves the problem for direct human control. It's easy to direct the weapons yourself, but I have to have this work in ALL cases, including the AI control.

What I wondered was, since the elephants seem to have a rider, as well as archers, whether this would work. The rider doesn't seem to actually move at all, just sits there. Also...I don't seem to have a great deal of control over this aspect. If I could make the rider follow a target, then he would form the 'turret' and any 'shooters' would be hidden. The effects of scattered fire isn't that noticable, actually, since the model could easily be equipped with some phoney 'extra' guns via the mesh. I just need the bulk of the body to track the target for effect!

**SigniferOne** · 10-17-2005, 19:24

If you look at the rider skeleton closely (in descr_skeleton) you will see that the same skeleton operates both for the mahout AND the shooters. The 'move' animations are given to the mahout, and the 'attack' animations are given to the shooters. This implies that the mahout has no attack animations, or the shooters any move animations. But everyone in that elephant shares the same skeleton (just different portions of it).

**shifty157** · 10-17-2005, 20:22

Also remember that each person tracks their own target. So for example if your elephant is in the middle of an enemy unit then youll have missiles going in every direction.

**Bwian** · 10-17-2005, 21:45

OK....so....how does the game figure this out.

There are 2 skeleton sets for Elephant riders. One for the forest elephant... one for the 'big' elephant. They both have a full set of animations, including attack anims.

Also, the model used is actually an archer model. For both the rider AND the archers. For the rider, however, they are able to ditch the weapon.

Not that any of this helps though.....

**shifty157** · 10-18-2005, 01:14

The fact remains that you wont be able to pull this one off so that it looks decent. All the riders will not aim at the same person. I suggest having only one archer and editing the anims to have him fire very rapidly.

**SigniferOne** · 10-18-2005, 04:32

Bwian, what's the difficulty? Even though all three use the same archer model, the game tells that whoever is the mahout will have neither the weapon nor the shield showing up, whereas the ppl in the turret will have all the stuff as usual.

**wlesmana** · 10-18-2005, 06:08

Also remember that the second soldier is reserved for the captain/general, so it would ignore the shooting animations if a captain/general is filling the spot.

So might want to tuck the one inside where it won't show up, otherwise your captain model would be there.