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New Dropship


aajs

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You don't need to change submaps if the size is the same. So you can just recolor and have a new dropship, or you can use the 3. dropship trick just only the drop zone.

I did not try it.. i don't think game needs a 4. dropship anyway..

Mine does because I have an impoverished start, so It would be nice if I could start the game with an inferior helicopter.

I would like a Blackhawk, it would carry less troops and have no capacity for drop ships. but of course cheaper.

Drages can you kindly explain the 3. dropship trick?

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aajs please make it russian :)

Yeah well that would even things out a bit as I seem to have a lot of American vehicles.

Mainly because that's what most 3d models are, however we do really need to make the game more multi national to show all the nations pulling together etc....

Do you happen to know the names of any Russian helicopters that are similar to Blackhawk...

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Well I mocked up a new dropship based on the chinook and its fine in the load out screens etc, however when I enter ground combat the game crashes.

Drages or SoulFilcher can you assist me a little here, as I have don't really have any mapping experience etc.

I basically copied the chinook map folders and tile folders and renamed the Blackhawk (for now). I then updated all the chinook values in the xml file to Blackhawk, now sure what else I am supposed to do.

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Is it in maptypes.xml with the chinook entry as the fallback? If the maps lack the entry for the new ship's submap I think the game crashes.

Oh, that will be the issue, where is maptypes.xml I searched my assets folder and also my compatibility version folder with the extra files and all returned 0 results.

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Nice to hear that.. make it very slow and easy to shot down so ppl fail the game at beginning and you wont be any problems about late game :P

A dropship would need much more special renders i think, for the GC and UI..i am waiting your results..

Well the UI should be nice a simple with a little help from a 3d model and blender.

The GC part, now that is going to be really tricky.

I am personally thinking about cheating and just have the Helicopter hovering above the map and have them abseil or parachute down to the floor, that way I don't have to start carving up the image.

But we will see how it goes.

As for it getting shot down, I think the Russian helicopter idea has inspired me to make 3 new dropships that will match the existing ones for time lines in terms of appearance, but they will be halfway between a fighter and full dropship.

That means it can actually be used as a fighter at a pinch. However its disadvantage is that it will be small and not able to carry any ground vehicles.

I am thinking some players will love this as they never use ground vehicles any way.

I will post some graphics here as I progress.

Edited by aajs
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How about a aircraft like the Osprey V-22? It would fly faster to the drop site but land just like a helicopter. This would be a follow on to the original and not require alien alloy...with perhaps a later version that does require the alien alloy but fly faster and take more damage.

Okay - I get where you are going and that certainly sounds like craft number 2 sorted out....

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Just a quick update.

this is definitely possible, however as Drages said in an earlier post the game does not really need an extra drop ship.

For me it was possible as my game starts slightly lower tech than the Vanilla due to lack of funding etc.

So I thought a different tact altogether was required...How about a completely new variant called...ASSAULTSHIPS

These will be a new strategic choice for commanders. a new dropship that is effectively half fighter half dropship giving the advantages of both. This should be very welcome to those who don't modify there starting funds before play.

They will be most useful for those small little bases that have not been developed yet, where the cost of a extra hanger will put you over the edge financially.

I envisage they will almost rival the weakest fighter in that rank so that at a push it can be used to engage the enemy or at least augment a fighter squadron. They will also be slightly cheaper than a full dropship.

The disadvantages will be, that these assaultships will be unable to carry any vehicles only crew...

I think there will 3 types and they will appear at roughly the same time as the dropship variants.

I am still trying to get this working with a little more flare than I have currently.

At the moment I am using the Valkyrie drop zone which means in GC you just see the xenonauts dropped on the ground with a few flares around them to mark the dropzone.

However I am currently trying to get the first assaultship a Russian helicopter hovering above the LZ. This is a little more tricky than it sounds so if anybody understands the sprite xml's well and wants to lend a hand with positioning the sprites etc I would be grateful.

(I already have the graphics handled)

I was kind of hoping to have the helicopter above the LZ with a spinning rotor animation. All of which should be possible at least to someone with more skills than me. However that is currently seeming a little ambitions.

Also if anybody knows of any help guides for the sprites etc please can you post the link.

Previously I kind of worked things out by looking at existing examples, however this is not really helping in this instance.

flyingNE.jpg

flyingNE.jpg

flyingNE.thumb.jpg.08b74f5d6b3388b221bca

Edited by aajs
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The main question is, do we need an assault craft like you made. It's like my awacs. Some ppl will like it and others will hate.

Many players play the game with one squad, others use 2 bUT I can say that 3+ squad users would be very very few. So it means you need max 2 dropship.

Ay original ufo we got avanger which is most powerful fighter and drop ship because it was some kind of space ship rather then a plane.

A drops hip which got a weak fire power would not worth for efforts in my opinion. But having a early tech simple helo like you did is a good point to use. Then you can put some tech to make your planes able to carry more with vehicles. Then you can add maybe another one for very endgame like the avanger a Half spaceship.

Your assault craft can shot down by an unlucky fight against ufos and lose your crew.. it's a lame danger you would not want to risk.

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Well pressing on with this...

I am dropping the rotating rotors for now as don't see it super necessary as non of the other vehicles have animations for when they are static.

Here is a night view of the LZ when facing NE.

Basically you only will see the flares, however if press the elevation button a couple of times you will see the assault ship hovering around the 3rd floor level.

NightMission.jpg

I now need to go configure the hanger / combat / loadout view etc.

NightMission.jpg

NightMission.jpg.77cf615c1ab73d4de9c6e09

Edited by aajs
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Played a few GC Missions, It so much more exiting not landing in a dropship and just being dumped in the combat zone.

You can have a made couple of turns just running to find some cover.

I am liking this a lot.

Here is the proposed base view with the Hind in a hanger with its rotors folded back for storage.

BaseView.jpg

BaseView.jpg

BaseView.jpg.75e3a9be86bd3ee928dffcc33dd

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I am kind of thinking of two rows of seats keeping it narrow like the helicopter.

loadoutview.png

Next step Air Combat.

I will make it just short of a conventional fighter on an auto-win score.

But in real air combat, I want the player to really feel the lack of speed, but enjoy the manoeuvrability.

I guess it will take a lot of tweaking.

loadoutview.png

loadoutview.png.a49e6c8ba0d322325a422eca

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Great job, aajs. Adding a soviet transport helicopter capable to fight in an air combat. :cool:

Thanks,

I used an existing 3D model that does not really do it as much justice as It deserves.

When fully armoured up it looks like this...

mil_mi24_hind_l2.jpg

Now that looks scary.

You cannot even add that many weapon pylons in the game.

mil_mi24_hind_l2.jpg

mil_mi24_hind_l2.thumb.jpg.a523b2b84850d

Edited by aajs
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