Bridge Commander Universe

**Nebula** · **Posted**: 11-22-2004 11:33 PM

ok as the title says bc is missing one key thing on its ships and you only need to go to KA for a reference. i.e. the impulse engines.

I was looking at the reply's for defiants power management mod and I just came up with a big brain storm. I know you think making the impulse engines change glow and color during game ain't possible in the way KA does it for BC but.

my idea is to make a script that calls for a group of five texturs depending on the power setting given in the engineering menu.... this script would change the impulse engine textures when it determines the power setting in game. Rolling Eyes

so each texture would look different from the last, the more power it is the brighter it is and the less power it gets the darker it is.

something like this

texture1 = 76% to100% power
texture2 = 50% to 75% power
texture3 = 25% to 49% power
texture4 = 1% to 24% power
texture5 = 0% power (could also represent when impulse engines are destroyed)

this could easily be accomplished with a small script in scripts/custom/autoload Confused

with a pluge in system built in so if the moder of a ship who wishes to use this mod can have any name given to the textures.the script would search those files to find what the texture name is for that particular ship. This would make it easyer for the moder and avoid problems with the script itself mixing the textures from other ships when in use.
not every one has to use this mod just like every one doesn't need to make hp's with nano fx blinkers in them.

p.s. this could also be applied to the warp nacells
who would be willing to do this Confused

1701-E · **Posted**: 11-22-2004 11:52 PM

I may not be much of a scripter but I think it sounds pretty plausable.

Enterprise2153 · **Posted**: 11-23-2004 12:08 AM

I agree how possibal is this exactly?

gdluque · **Posted**: 11-23-2004 12:48 AM

Beautiful idea Neb... but i think that we need somebody like Defiant here...

**Nebula** · **Posted**: 11-23-2004 12:55 AM

ok... what happened to my poll Confused

EDIT fixed

Mark · **Posted**: 11-23-2004 12:56 AM

beautiful idea indeed.. the scripting is very plausable however this will only work on ships made for this mod (it will require each subsystem to have individual maps in order for them to change)

in theory you could make new textures each would carry one of the different variances however if you plan on doing more then 5 subsystems it would become more or less impossible.

also think about the textures your putting into memory, if its a high res ship like cgsovy it may cause serious slow down

**Nebula** · **Posted**: 11-23-2004 01:04 AM

EDIT: not a nessasary post now....

Mark · **Posted**: 11-23-2004 01:46 AM

thats a brief explanation of my proposal.. it would save memory compared to the standard texture swapping idea and should make mapping for this mod alot easier

**Nebula** · **Posted**: 11-23-2004 01:56 AM

I like that idea alot one clear map with just the impulse engines on it would work much better

MLeo · **Posted**: 11-23-2004 06:45 PM

I see no reason why it couldn't be done.

A plugin system would be very usefull for this kind of thing, like through the ShipPlugin itself.

CaptAidy1701 · **Posted**: 11-23-2004 08:41 PM

Um nebula u cant use the term brian storming its not politically correct as its offensive to people with epilepsy or something nice idea though would look REALLY good on the ENT-A

**Nebula** · **Posted**: 11-23-2004 08:56 PM

heh it was a figure of speach geezs Rolling Eyes

**Nebula** · **Posted**: 12-06-2004 03:07 AM

BUMP.... for news

Is anyone willing to try this Confused

gdluque · **Posted**: 12-06-2004 04:24 AM

It could be really nice...

bren · Commodore Joined: 24 Aug 2001 Posts: 1285

you wont get a "glow halo" around the impulse engines that way.

just check Anduril's Connie.

**Nebula** · **Posted**: 11-29-2005 03:31 AM

Sorry to bring this back, but since the Power Down mod is back I thought this could be relevant again. Wink

oh and bren I wasn't talking about glow... more like texture changes...

Gareth · **Posted**: 11-29-2005 03:52 PM

if this ever gets going, we could possibly use the same technique to heat up the front of the hull, maybe when a ship enters a planet's atmousphere, perhaps?

sfc3fan · **Posted**: 11-29-2005 04:25 PM

Would be a great mod but wouldn't you need a new set of impulse textures for each ship.......

just a sugestion but if it is going to be made wouldn't it be a good idea to work it into my ST:NF project since that is re-hardpointing and reworking all the ships that goes into it, It means that every ship will eventually get this feature

MLeo · **Posted**: 11-29-2005 04:29 PM

A mod should be robust enough to handle a ship not having certain features.

sfc3fan · **Posted**: 11-30-2005 02:17 AM

USS Sovereign · **Posted**: 11-30-2005 04:49 PM

An adjustment to the SDT or something similar to it should allow you to grab those instances simply just define at which speed the textures would themselves.

For example <1000
load blah, blah texture
<2000
load another texture

MLeo · **Posted**: 11-30-2005 04:56 PM

USS Sovereign · **Posted**: 11-30-2005 05:00 PM

I don't agree with this one. The best way to keep all scripts compataible and stable is using the same set of code.

SDT IMO is stable enough and should be used as a basis for it.

Well that's just the way I think.

MLeo · **Posted**: 11-30-2005 05:07 PM

lost_jedi · **Posted**: 11-30-2005 05:25 PM

Sorry to interrupt folks,

http://www.startrekaustralia.com/startrek/federation/avenger/1024x768/avenger016.jpg

This has a pretty neat effect of engine glows. If I am right, this could be achieved with a couple of long bilboards attached to the impulse engine position that increase in size as you go faster?

If its done on a per ship basis in the autload folder on the even of addship. This way people can chance texture to their liking and apply an RGB mask to the texture so that they can have it the right colour for their race.

MLeo · **Posted**: 11-30-2005 05:28 PM

Perhaps not as nice, but something in that line...

Please note, you don't need to make a distiction between 2 ships (atleast, not that I'm aware of).

Just use an event handler and attach it to App.ET_OBJECT_CREATED and then just cast the "source" of the event to a ship and if it's not None, then you are dealing with a ship of which you can then get the plugin from.

USS Sovereign · **Posted**: 11-30-2005 05:37 PM

Hehe, everybody has their views on things and this is mine and most simplest of all ideas.

You say whatever you want to me. But your comparison is not as realistic nor BC engine allows such large scale comparisons you made.

Every script based or involved just uses existing original scripts needed for it.

So if you want to work on this for a month, 2, 3 or more even you're still going to use some scripts as basis for this idea. I just admit what I would do in this situation.

This would cut back time and preserve your nerves, but hey what do I know Wink

MLeo · **Posted**: 11-30-2005 07:21 PM

USS Sovereign · **Posted**: 11-30-2005 07:36 PM

Okay I've got better things to do than argue with no purpose. Who ever takes over this project will decide which way it will be done, although I would say SDT has many more useful stuff than you say but no matter.

FTech is based on ATP3 is it not?!

It's a successor for it and there is a beta over here in the forums somewhere it uses the same set of code as ATP3 so this just proves my point.

MLeo · **Posted**: 11-30-2005 07:44 PM