A small(ish) but hopefully pleasing announcement...

[Dianoga]

Looking really good man, keep it up!

[MrTwosheds]

Looks like an assaultHover class to me, they do the artillery role ok. Just make sure its nice and stable if you do that.

[TheJamsh]

^ I agree on the Hover Assault Class. Think I'm going to scrap the guns/side cannons, and have the main cannon fire Assault Mortars and Combat Cannon (Thinking Pulse Stab). I'll make a decision later once it's actually in game.

Without further ado, the finished mesh! (minus potential guns). Dead chuffed with this one. I've had an idea stuck in my head for this unit for ages, it's quite a feeling of achievement when you model it and it comes out better than you expected.

[Red Spot]

Nice looking vehicle TJ, I do think you might be making it a bit overpowered when I see what you intend to slap on it in the form of weaponry .. or the unit must be armor 'N' and have a hull as weak as that of a scout ...

[General BlackDragon]

its an artillary tank...

Mortars FTW!

[Red Spot]

its an artillary tank...

And its going to cost 180 scrap to balance it in respect to all the other units?

[Zax]

its an artillary tank...

And its going to cost 180 scrap to balance it in respect to all the other units?

No but it will jam every other shot.

[TheJamsh]

its an artillary tank...

And its going to cost 180 scrap to balance it in respect to all the other units?

Lol, If I wanted to reinvent X-Mod I'd have done it by now. It currently seems to slot in nicely next to the Rocket Tank and Assault Tank, but all the races are getting a bit of an overhaul anyway. I've managed to talk N0sTr0m0 into (hopefully) providing some more higher-detail models too, even for the Scion. Looking forward to seeing how they'll turn out.

The original plan for the full scale mod was to balance the races into 2/3 tiers, not only to stay canon with the story but also because achieving balance between 6/7 major races is never going to happen in this lifetime. Creating them is hard enough as is. Serenese/AAN/Black Cerberi would be at the top, followed by the Scion, Hadean, Pathans, New Olympians, then down to the puny races. Maybe when three or four of the core races are done I'll force myself to push on with the others as well. I'm just going to keep going until I really lose my Mojo and make something rad with whatever I have at the time.

I settled on weaponry in the end. Assault Mortar for range, Combat Mortar which is locked to a flak cannon for AA, and twin Photon Torpedo's on the skirt. It's massively in-effective in any form of dogfighting at the moment. We'll see what happens.

[General BlackDragon]

You're forgetting something important.

Weapons all face the turret in 1.3

1.2 could have seperate, forward only weapons on turreted ships. Not anymore, doesn't work IIRC, unless shot convergence can turn it off?

But, in my tests, the laser pointer rotated the same way the turret faced.

Random plug: Somebody go find BBB.

[TheJamsh]

Correct, convergence doesn't turn it off either, just the way it is unfortunately. I have a couple of units who suffer because of it already, but the way the (new) Photon Torpedo's fire makes it hard to notice, so it's not TOO bad.

The older Panther Attack Tank has the same turret/independent weapon layout.

[Nielk1]

You're forgetting something important.

Weapons all face the turret in 1.3

1.2 could have seperate, forward only weapons on turreted ships. Not anymore, doesn't work IIRC, unless shot convergence can turn it off?

But, in my tests, the laser pointer rotated the same way the turret faced.

Random plug: Somebody go find BBB.

Uhh, isn't there a toggle fgor that. I mean, FFS, check my ATV that had the eyepoint locked forward and the turret not. It worked with the right ODF toggle.

Does no one even remember how to mod anymore?

[TheJamsh]

Uhh, isn't there a toggle fgor that. I mean, FFS, check my ATV that had the eyepoint locked forward and the turret not. It worked with the right ODF toggle.
Does no one even remember how to mod anymore?

That's not the problem, the problem is keeping weapons facing forward, when the eye-point doesn't. Not the other way around. Weapon HP's always follow the eyepoint around, weapon convergence doesn't toggle it, Convergence only affects the HP's rotation towards a targeted unit.

[MrTwosheds]

Ill have to say it, if you have a turret you want the guns attached to it, having them stuck pointing forward on the body of an assault hover is completely useless and would drive you nuts if you tried to fight with it, you would end up not knowing which way you were going and which way your shooting. Having roll on a turreted vehicle is bad enough, add having guns that point in different directions and you'll just have a ship nobody wants to drive.

[TheJamsh]

Ill have to say it, if you have a turret you want the guns attached to it, having them stuck pointing forward on the body of an assault hover is completely useless and would drive you nuts if you tried to fight with it, you would end up not knowing which way you were going and which way your shooting. Having roll on a turreted vehicle is bad enough, add having guns that point in different directions and you'll just have a ship nobody wants to drive.

Shift + F2 view will allow you to follow the turret around, but I see your point.

Seeing as the unit probably won't be snipe-able (easy target), I'll probably just stick the eye-point on the turret instead of in the cockpit so you follow the turret location in First-Person view as well as exterior views. I've just finished the Anti-Air weapon for it (FX wise), and to be honest, it's hard trying to attack Archers or any air unit if you're constantly facing forwards. Side note, I also just figured out that the draw_twirl_trail render base is NOT affected by particle culling. Originally the flak smoke was being culled as more ordnance exploded, but using draw_twirl_trail and a special emitter allows BZ2 to draw a lot more of them. Handy tip for any effects guru's out there.

Also, took me ages to figure out that ONLY SupportProcess AI name's actually engage air units automatically, no matter what the attack/subattack task. The AI behaves quite nicely now though. When you order it to attack something, it will behave like artillery (aiming high, and using the mortar). In sub-attack mode it will engage air units as they come into range. AI units don't use the Photon Torpedo's at the moment, which I kind of like. BTW, people need to stop worrying. The idea of Serenesis wasn't to just drop a load of extra pointless units into the current races, rename them and give them a lick of paint/tarting up. All races involved will be very different, some units probably won't make it back at all. It's a new mod, close to a total conversion, so It's worth forgetting the ISDF/Scion etc. as you know it. It's intended to be new and different, not just a re-hashed FE or something.

Video of the Flak Cannon weapon. Exactly the sort of effect I wanted, so once again, chuffed. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R19Gdsqzh3k

[Red Devil]

that looks pretty darn cool