I was thinking this mostly, but most four-segment ships explosively decompress so spectacularly that they don't leave wrecks sometimes, so for the sake of trying to be consistent with the game I probably wouldn't put doors in every doorway. At the bare minimum I'd like cargo bay doors for obvious reasons and one for the generator room. I think I might go with swing doors for the cargo doors since there's no room for sliding doors. I also didn't think of this at first, but doorways could slow down the pilot if he needed to get to another part of the ship in an emergency, so I could leave them off between the cockpit, living quarters, and main hallway.Atarlost wrote:the only reason to have a door is as a pressure barrier
Ship Dockscreen Images (WIP)
I'm not dead. First, device slots. I thought up something that would be universal enough and could take the force of swinging around whatever device was attached to it. So I threw a few primitives in a blender and got this:
http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/9767 ... otblar.png
http://img827.imageshack.us/img827/6351 ... pclose.png
They're about 5 feet across and are pretty chunky so they can support some of the six-ton devices. A smaller one-ton device might not cover the entire slot and just use the inner ring. I've also been working on the cockpit a little but I'm not too happy with how I have the HUD elements laid out. I want them to be displayed such that the pilot will never have a distorted view when looking at them from the pilot's seat, but if I pasted them directly onto the inner "glass" that would mean skewing the textures so much that they would look very distorted from any other angle. Here you can see that I have them floating like holograms, which looks a little funky but is probably acceptable. And yes it's an EI500 hud in a Wolfen, shut yo mouth.
http://img854.imageshack.us/img854/2061 ... ograms.png
http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/9767 ... otblar.png
http://img827.imageshack.us/img827/6351 ... pclose.png
They're about 5 feet across and are pretty chunky so they can support some of the six-ton devices. A smaller one-ton device might not cover the entire slot and just use the inner ring. I've also been working on the cockpit a little but I'm not too happy with how I have the HUD elements laid out. I want them to be displayed such that the pilot will never have a distorted view when looking at them from the pilot's seat, but if I pasted them directly onto the inner "glass" that would mean skewing the textures so much that they would look very distorted from any other angle. Here you can see that I have them floating like holograms, which looks a little funky but is probably acceptable. And yes it's an EI500 hud in a Wolfen, shut yo mouth.
http://img854.imageshack.us/img854/2061 ... ograms.png
Alright, how about something like this? Please forgive the transparency weirdness, that's Milkshape being silly.
http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/4415 ... illing.png
The HUD pane is pretty far away but with genetic modification in the 2500's everyone would likely have perfect eyesight anyways. What I have not done yet is put a targeting reticule on the pane, which I think might be better there instead of most of the HUD elements. The six-button console could be retooled into a touchscreen and enlarged to fit the radar and fuel display. The problem is deciding what elements should go there and stay on the targeting screen. The selected weapon and target data should be on the targeting screen but should the armour and shields go there too? Moving your eyes from where the action is to a little console that's basically in your lap for even a moment could spell death in space, so I want to keep things closer to the front if I can.
This might work though. It's a decent... can't think of the word... of what we see in the game, so I'll probably keep it and tweak the design just so there's not so much story and gameplay segregation. Maybe I'll have some additional panels hanging off of the targeting screen, at least for radar. The console would be a good place to put se and Device Enale menus, so that will most likely turn into a touch screen as I'm already calling it a retconsole since its functions are supposed to change as needed.
http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/4415 ... illing.png
The HUD pane is pretty far away but with genetic modification in the 2500's everyone would likely have perfect eyesight anyways. What I have not done yet is put a targeting reticule on the pane, which I think might be better there instead of most of the HUD elements. The six-button console could be retooled into a touchscreen and enlarged to fit the radar and fuel display. The problem is deciding what elements should go there and stay on the targeting screen. The selected weapon and target data should be on the targeting screen but should the armour and shields go there too? Moving your eyes from where the action is to a little console that's basically in your lap for even a moment could spell death in space, so I want to keep things closer to the front if I can.
This might work though. It's a decent... can't think of the word... of what we see in the game, so I'll probably keep it and tweak the design just so there's not so much story and gameplay segregation. Maybe I'll have some additional panels hanging off of the targeting screen, at least for radar. The console would be a good place to put se and Device Enale menus, so that will most likely turn into a touch screen as I'm already calling it a retconsole since its functions are supposed to change as needed.
Okay, I got this.
*tries rendering transparency*
OH WHAT THE
http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/9462 ... pit000.jpg
I don't know why but Lightwave hates any sort of transparent textures I try. PNGs get white boxes around them with the entire texture being somewhat transparent, and additive transparency with BMPs makes everything that's black completely transparent, and everything that's not pure white somewhat transparent. If anyone here knows Lightwave and could help me, that would be most appreciated.
Anyways, the changes you can see are the addition of a targeting reticule, the LRS is moved off of the targeting screen, and the retconsole now has the captain's log on it. Like I already mentioned it could be used for se menus and other things. The weird lighter and darker parts of the interior windshield whatever-you-would-call-it are just transparency artifacts so please ignore those. I think I'm going to stick to this design and focus on the little details now. The only thing that I'm still musing over is what to do with all the empty space in the cockpit. You can see it in some of the other pictures. Some people have said that other seats or consoles in there would be a bad idea, and it doesn't make sense anyways since the Wolfen could carry at most four people. So... what to put in there? I was almost thinking something like an ejection pod that would quickly fold or close and seal itself, but ships in Transcendence don't have escape pods (at least nothing suggests them).
Edit: I was bored yesterday so I decided to crack open the Sapphire and get an idea of how big it is inside. It's... not. Look at this picture, where each square is a square meter. This assumes the ship is 30 meters long: http://img651.imageshack.us/img651/1092 ... nsions.jpg
Never mind how the cargo pods are completely separated from the cockpit and mounted to the engine, and the engine itself appears to be five thin sticks bolted together. At least it has what could be docking ports.
*tries rendering transparency*
OH WHAT THE
http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/9462 ... pit000.jpg
I don't know why but Lightwave hates any sort of transparent textures I try. PNGs get white boxes around them with the entire texture being somewhat transparent, and additive transparency with BMPs makes everything that's black completely transparent, and everything that's not pure white somewhat transparent. If anyone here knows Lightwave and could help me, that would be most appreciated.
Anyways, the changes you can see are the addition of a targeting reticule, the LRS is moved off of the targeting screen, and the retconsole now has the captain's log on it. Like I already mentioned it could be used for se menus and other things. The weird lighter and darker parts of the interior windshield whatever-you-would-call-it are just transparency artifacts so please ignore those. I think I'm going to stick to this design and focus on the little details now. The only thing that I'm still musing over is what to do with all the empty space in the cockpit. You can see it in some of the other pictures. Some people have said that other seats or consoles in there would be a bad idea, and it doesn't make sense anyways since the Wolfen could carry at most four people. So... what to put in there? I was almost thinking something like an ejection pod that would quickly fold or close and seal itself, but ships in Transcendence don't have escape pods (at least nothing suggests them).
Edit: I was bored yesterday so I decided to crack open the Sapphire and get an idea of how big it is inside. It's... not. Look at this picture, where each square is a square meter. This assumes the ship is 30 meters long: http://img651.imageshack.us/img651/1092 ... nsions.jpg
Never mind how the cargo pods are completely separated from the cockpit and mounted to the engine, and the engine itself appears to be five thin sticks bolted together. At least it has what could be docking ports.
I decided to ditch the current Sapphire's design because it's pretty much impossible to connect any of it together without heavily modifying it. I might make my own version of it to make it look more like a space yacht instead of a weird satellite. While I'm thinking of ideas for that, I'm going to move on to the EI500 since it's easy, but first have a medium IAV:
This one is mostly for fun and I'm not going to put many interior details into it. I just wanted to practice with floorplans a little bit on a ship that has the ability to land, plus it helps my sense of scale which is usually terrible. Since this one has landing gear I'm going to have to figure out how to build some into other iffy ships like the Wolfen and Hornet.
This one is mostly for fun and I'm not going to put many interior details into it. I just wanted to practice with floorplans a little bit on a ship that has the ability to land, plus it helps my sense of scale which is usually terrible. Since this one has landing gear I'm going to have to figure out how to build some into other iffy ships like the Wolfen and Hornet.