[Official] Behind the scenes

[Lander1979]

Awesome stuff, I'm impressed with the speed that this has progressed at. I think you deserve a Keks!
Good work!

[Nosfuratu79]

ya i blow these up in game all the time LOL

http://imgur.com/z5cQR4h <---- nice art work lol

[Earth Ultimatum IV.]

Now we start the game and fly to the station, where this part is used and check if everything is right (disclaimer: it was not, had to fix the rotation on some parts )

[ external image ] [ external image ]

Last step: take some screenshots and write an small article about how you are writing an article

Gooooood!

I can clearly see new types of turrets on the first picture.
One of them seems to be a small anti-fighter turret, the second one is a medium-sized turret.
I want more info! And more things to see!

[BigBANGtheory]

Lino what has happened things like bump maps to give the textures some depth through lighting effects? Or am I just blind and are missing them?

Nice model btw, look forward to seeing that one.

[linolafett]

The normalmaps are still there, no worries. The teladi assets are a bit cleaner than the old argon assets we have in the game. Looks way better ingame, i promise! The shapes make it work pretty well

[Earth Ultimatum IV.]

Just don't fill-up those new sectors with too much stuff please...
It's better to have 30 zones with one station in each of them...
...Than 5 zones that have five stations in each of them = LAG LAG LAG
DeVries rocks!

[werewolves?]

Just don't fill-up those new sectors with too much stuff please...
It's better to have 30 zones with one station in each of them...
...Than 5 zones that have five stations in each of them = LAG LAG LAG
DeVries rocks!

I want them to have more empty zones in populated sectors, there should be a couple of empty zones in every sector for the player. It guts me that there is no empty sector in Radiant Haven for the player to build.

The game could be improved heaps with one or two empty 4 build point zone added to every existing sector.

[Cabrelbeuk]

Thanks Lino for the topic . Very interesting.

[Cabrelbeuk]

Was thinking about something... I know that Enormous ships are pains.
But what about a enormous Station-ships ? Having some trade docks, etc.
No need to have many of them. Just one really moddulable (i mean with differents choice, like station) is enough. Could be a great idea.

[linolafett]

All very big moving things cause issues, i think i mentioned some issues earlier on. So having a moving station-ship wouldnt be that great either

[Cabrelbeuk]

I think you quite right, too much movies. And the Xenon I is quite a dream builder as well.
And yes, the Rebirth galaxy is not designed for nomad stations yet...
But it could be, and could launch the exploration part of the game far further, with some special booster for station ships which let it explore the empty space and discover some procedurals-made stuff. And possibly Xenon . Or whatever you want. But would be tons of works, would be like a whole new extension.
But can't deny that be able to do this, use this explorer-ships to build new highway to the discovered place, etc etc... Would give a new dimension to the game. Yeah, i'm dreaming, but it's how things can progress, nah ?

[linolafett]

Back to topic
I just show in a very short manner, how the masstraffic lanes are set up.

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I guess you all know this station, its the cell refinery in Albion space. This is the "buildtree" in 3dsMax, i highlited the first buildstep in white (thats the basis part of a station, if being build by the player or npcs).

I may describe the buildtrees later on a bit more in detail, but let is focus on the lines and coloured spheres here.

The blue lines indicate where the masstraffic will fly, they are just a visualisation for us artists, the game uses only the coloured spheres, the so called "waypoints".

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Workflow looks like this:
-Locate a single buildstep via the layer manager.
-Look out for fitting masstraffic docks.
-create a line connecting two docks.
-using this line, a tool generates waypoints along it.
-define "start" and "end" waypoint and set these two waypoints to "dock" (right side in the waypoint parameters)
-make sure every dock can be reached from every point in the masstraffic network.
-make sure the direction is uniform, either clock- or counterclockwise.
-define "blocklink" waypoints, these are used to have interstations masstraffic (you can see these on the first picture, the most external waypoints are used for connection stations with eachother)
-doublecheck with the "show links for selection" option if all waypoints are connected properly.
-repeat the steaps above for every buildstep.

Sometimes i cant avoid having wierd flightpaths in certain buildsteps, as i cant block, or add waypoints via buildsteps. All waypoints are avaliable immediately for the masstraffic to travel on, but it calculates the fastest route between two docks, so it wont fly uneccessary long routes.

This is the rough overview over the workflow how the masstraffic networks are created. What kind of ships and how many of them fly there is defined in the jobs.xml.

[Artean]

This is the rough overview over the workflow how the masstraffic networks are created. What kind of ships and how many of them fly there is defined in the jobs.xml.

Thanks! Perhaps you could take the time to let us know if they have a real function to the economy? I.e. is the mass traffic there for visual aspect only or something more?

[Sandalpocalypse]

Thats pretty cool, I've always been pretty impressed with the masstraffic system.

Do you know what determines how much there is?

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

Thanks! Perhaps you could take the time to let us know if they have a real function to the economy? I.e. is the mass traffic there for visual aspect only or something more?

I am not sure where a quote may be but I think it has been confirmed and/or worked out by players (Scoob, IIRC) in the beta section that they transport tradable wares (e.g. bofu) between stations in the same zone.

Working on that basis, I am keen to learn whether shooting the red ones is an issue. They only tend to drop inventory items but I have no idea if they could be carrying proper wares in the background code or not.

I wrote about that here for reference:
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=370910

[linolafett]

Masstraffic is indeed used for interstations trade. The station owned tradedrones will fly with cargo on board to the other station to trade. The civillians do not carry economy related cargo.

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

Thanks very much for clearing that up

[Sockrox]

Not what I was expecting.


No yakety sax OR monkeys throwing "stuff"

[UniTrader]

on a related note: the Trading between Ships and Stations is basically Masstraffic, too the related Network is not connected to the main MTN though and just used on demand (the same applies to the MTN for the Welder Drones on Shipyards when building a Ship)

lino is not the only one making Mass Traffic Networks here although our tools differ significantly (3dsmax vs. Notepad++)

[Goliathmk2]

[ external image ] [ external image ]

Are those mining station all connected to a larger complex?
Will we pickup and drag the asteroids to those stations?
How will we do that?
Whats that thing up the very top of the second photo is it a ship? a station?
:shock: A PLANET! which one is it? Seizwell? Ianimus Zura? Spaceweed Drift? Profit Share? Ceo's Buckzoid? Two Grand? New Income? Homily of Perpetuity? urgh i hope it isn't Eighteen Billion i hate that sector, Ceo's Doubt? Grand Exchange? (those are all the ones i can remember)
but WHAT ABOUT THE OTHER SECTOR?
Is it a pirate sector?
Is it Tortuga?
Do they speak in a pirate accent there?
Will they have their own ships?
Will Ren and Yisha start speaking with pirate accents?
WILL BETTY SPEAK IN A PIRATE ACCENT!?
Will they have eyepatch's? Peglegs? Parrots? They have to have the hats?
Tell me, TELL ME EVERYTHING YOU KNOW!

*cough*

Us I meant to say Us.

P.S. Best thread Yet