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(Proof of Concept) Destructible UFO Hulls!


kabill

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...and while you are at it' date=' make ufo's completely modular too so we can shoot holes in their hulls etc. [/quote']

Challenge accepted!..

Full version now is now available and I've started a new thread for it as this one has gotten quite cluttered:

http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/10109-Fire-in-the-Hole%21-Destructible-UFO-Hulls-and-Dynamic-UFO-Assaults?p=111657#post111657

I'll leave the pictures here, though.

Illustration:

UFO sighted:

2014-05-01_00002.jpg

C4 Deployed:

2014-05-02_00002.jpg

Krakooom! Hull breached!

2014-05-02_00003.jpg

Xenonaut soldiers begin their assault:

2014-05-02_00004.jpg

2014-05-01_00002.jpg

2014-05-02_00002.jpg

2014-05-02_00003.jpg

2014-05-02_00004.jpg

2014-05-01_00002.thumb.jpg.fd3cda5206188

2014-05-02_00002.thumb.jpg.5445e9702f1a3

2014-05-02_00003.thumb.jpg.049672a2718ce

2014-05-02_00004.thumb.jpg.5c68d1cd47d77

Edited by kabill
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The majority of the alien hull graphics aren't suited to destruction in some locations but there are quite a few thinner areas that could be classed as weak spots for breaching.

It is an idea I suggested a long time ago, before this new display system was developed so I would be interested to see what can be done with it.

Not interested enough to do the work myself though sorry ;)

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Wow, great work kabill! I remember someone (Giovanni?) at GH proposing long time ago that if someone would be intrested doing modular, tile based ships, he could assist in making it happen...

Edited by Skitso
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That looks really interessting...

And yes there could be fluff explanations to why some points are breachable and some points aren't.. there could be research missions (or just additions to the briefings you get when shooting down UFO types) and nice graphs of those weakpoints...

Really nice... very good work.

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Wow, great work kabill! I remember someone (Giovanni?) at GH proposing long time ago that if someone would be intrested doing modular, tile based ships, he could assist in making it happen...

Can you clarify what's meant by 'modular'? Is that in reference to UFO hull images, or something else? I'm not necessarily sure I'd be interested in overhauling everything entirely (not sure I'd have the time, and I quite like the look of the UFOs as they are now), but if it's not too much work it would be worth a look.

@StK: Some fluff would be nice, although from a gameplay perspective it wouldn't be necessary since the weak-points can be easily found by trying to target the hull with weapons. I also have zero artistic ability; the best you'd get from me would probably be the existing xenopaedia images with big blocky red arrows pointing at the relevant parts of the ship.

If I have a chance, I think I'll put together a pack for testing over the weekend. It's actually not a massive amount of work (much less than building map packs!) so I could probably get light scouts, scouts and corvettes done for testing purposes and extend it to the larger UFOs after some testing if its working well.

I'm thinking that I might have a look at redesigning UFO interiors as well to try and balance the hull-breaches. I was already planning on looking at this (before I was derailed by Skitso's suggestion!), but it might also be necessary in order to offset the fact that breaches make UFO assaults a bit easier. But I'll probably do this separately and put out two versions, one with the vanilla UFO layouts and one with the modified ones.

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I love fluff ;)

And I'd love to worry about it when you do such a pack. (Fuel storages or -lines in the UFO wings or underneath the hull, ammunition storage, general weakspots in the armor where they welded on the parts they needed to make the saucers capable of athmospheric flight)

Maybe I cold even conjure up some of my (limited) artistic skills for some basic artwork, but there are people in this forums that are a lot better at that then I am.

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I believe GH used to have UFOs made with tiles completely, then switched to the prop models.

Your solution fits in the middle, and actually could be a good idea.

Also, logical train can go this way: hulls may be breached in the predefined areas -> it's a good idea to mark those areas visually -> cracks and structural damage will do -> make only crashlanded UFOs breachable.

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If/when this gets off the ground, I'm more than happy for you (or anyone else) to add stuff to it.

EDIT:

@a333 - I'd been thinking about making the hulls of landed UFOs at least harder to breach, maybe. But yes, it could be extended further such that landed UFOs can only be assaulted via the doors. The only problem with that is that it makes crashed UFOs significantly easier to assault than landed ones, and I'm not sure if the rewards of landed UFOs are sufficiently large to warrent the difference.

Another thought that I'd hand, extending the idea of breaches further, is that it would be possible to randomise the crashed UFOs' submaps such that sometimes they already have hull breaches (like what happened in the OG when the power units exploded).

Edited by kabill
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Can you clarify what's meant by 'modular'? Is that in reference to UFO hull images, or something else? I'm not necessarily sure I'd be interested in overhauling everything entirely (not sure I'd have the time, and I quite like the look of the UFOs as they are now), but if it's not too much work it would be worth a look.

Modular, as in made the same way as everything else in the game. So UFO's would have to be made tile by tile from scratch. This would of course be huge undertaking, but would make ufo's fully destructible, ufo roof disable would work the same way as rest of the level, you could make roof breaches, you could see only a part of ufo instead of always revealing it as a whole, etc etc...

If you find the time to put together a testing mod, could some of those breach points be broken at crash land to give variation how to enter ufo even without using explosives?

EDIT: ah, you already proposed this. It would be sweet. If you need any graphics, I might be able to help.

Edited by Skitso
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Modular, as in made the same way as everything else in the game. So UFO's would have to be made tile by tile from scratch. This would of course be huge undertaking, but would make ufo's fully destructible, ufo roof disable would work the same way as rest of the level, you could make roof breaches, you could see only a part of ufo instead of always revealing it as a whole, etc etc...

Ah, ok. I was thinking that it might be bigger chunks than that.

That actually sounds like it would be manageable. I think actually it would be pretty quick to do for the smaller UFOs, though I imagine the larger ones would be a bit of a hastle.

I'm unsure, however, whether it would actually be a very good way of doing it. Assuming that the pieces produce the same UFO designs as the current ones, I think a lot of the destructable elements would be redundent or otherwise look odd if they were destroyed. I think as well it might be quite high cost, in terms of effort, compared with what I'm doing here. It's a shame that there's not a prototype or something to look at, though, as it's possible it would work much better in practice than it is in my head at the moment.

(There is one key advantage to the modular system that I can think of: it could probably handle roof-breaches better. I'd really like to add that in, but I'm not sure how well the UFO rooves can cope with being walked on at the moment. Although the main issue with roof breaches will be the UFO hull disappearing when you can see inside, since you won't be able to see the roof or where the breach is! Not sure how to solve that problem; I'm not sure it can be solved.)

If you find the time to put together a testing mod, could some of those breach points be broken at crash land to give variation how to enter ufo even without using explosives?

EDIT: ah, you already proposed this. It would be sweet. If you need any graphics, I might be able to help.

Yeah, I'll add that in as it'll be no work at all compared with everything else. I'll probably go for a 3 out of 10 with pre-formed breaches - I think that should be common enough.

Hmm, random idea: what about some instances where there's a hull breach, but main door is locked instead of openable. Tactically it makes sense: the aliens will want as fewer access points as possible open. But when there's no hull breach, they don't lock the door because they want the attack to be funnelled from that particular approach (if they locked it, the attack could come from anywhere; if they leave it unlocked there's more chance that an attack will come from that direction as it's the path of least resistance). Basically, it would help shake up the UFO assualts a little bit more by making the easily accessible entry point random, rather than simply adding in more access points along with the default one. Not set on this mind, 'tis just a thought.

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I think it would be a good idea to split the whole ufo hull to sections so they would be revealed the same way as the rest of the map. That would also help in the issue of seeing the whole ufo at once except the breachable parts until its in the players LoS.

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Update: I've posted links to downloads for an early version of the mod, for people who want to try it out. I'm particularly looking for feedback about the new UFO layouts (if you use them), along with bug reports of any kind. But any comments are welcome.

@Skitso: Yeah, that might be a plan for future versions. I'll look into it.

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Update: The alternate UFO interiors version has been updated with hull breaches for Corvette class UFOs (crashed only).

For the Corvettes, I've implemented Skitso's idea above: the hull is broken into several parts so you will discover the UFO progressively rather than spotting the entire hull in one go. This means that the breachable sections are seamless with the rest of the UFO and have no obvious visual markers (you can still tell them apart by using the free-fire mode, though).

Although I had some concerns about how that would look, in practice I think it works very well. I was worried the UFO might look odd if you've only discovered parts of it, but actually it seems fine. It's come with a cost, though: in order to avoid props displaying through the hull, I've had to set the draw layer of the hull components to 2, which causes the UFO hull to draw over soldiers when they're next to it outside. It's a minor aesthetic issue, but its bothersome and doubly so because I'm not sure there's going to be a good way to fix it.

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I had a quick test and gotta say: I'm impressed, you actually got it to work! It's not (yet) that polished, but works.

There's some funky stuff going on with the UFO shadows' alpha channel, and as you mentioned, there's some challenges with layer draw order. But otherwise, great stuff! Hadn't had a change to test corvettes yet, but I'm sure the new LoS system improves this even further.

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Can you adjust the sortpoint of the spectre rather than the draw level?

Maybe. I don't know what that does or how it works, so I've never bothered with it. Any chance you could give me a quick rundown?

There's some funky stuff going on with the UFO shadows' alpha channel,

Can I get you to explain this, as I'm not quite sure what you mean.

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Ah, cool. Yes, I'd spotted that. Had some issues when copying images; not quite sure why. It's fine on other images, though.

Assuming I go back and redo the smaller UFOs with broken-up hull parts, I'll correct it then. Thanks.

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I may have found a workable solution for the draw-issue.

Apparently, setting a spectre as "UFO door" makes the image reveal with the rest of the UFO. Setting the breachable hull segments to that setting therefore means that the entire UFO is revealed seamlessly with no obvious holes or gaps.

This solves the layering issue as I can use a whole-UFO hull image (sans breach-points) to overlay the UFO interior (as in vanilla) on layer 1, so there won't be any issues drawing over units. It would mean not implementing the individual hull component system, though. That's a shame, as I quite like it, but it might make for a better fix overall.

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The original art has smooth shadows and sprite edges. You have:

WgRVtDa.jpg

Doesn't look like I'm going to be able to fix this, at least not using the graphics software I'm using. For whatever reason, the programme loads the images like that. Odd thing is, it works fine for the Scout image, it's just the Light Scout and Corvette which load wrong. Might be due to image file conversion or something? (I don't really know; I have practically no experience of image manipulation software!)

EDIT: Ah, no, got it. Problem solved.

Also doesn't look like I'm going to be able to fix the issue of the ground not displaying properly through the damaged hull sections from the outside. I'm really confused by this, as it works fine with UFO doors that are already in the game. But I've played with all sorts of things this morning and can't seem to make it work properly. If anyone has any thoughts on this, I'd be grateful for them.

Edited by kabill
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What was the solution to aliased edges?

It was just a display mode in the software I was using. For some reason, it was defaulting to one for the scout image and another for the others. Don't know why, but at least I know what I need to do to fix it.

I've been playing around with creating some debris when the hull is destroyed. I'm hoping this will help in terms of knowing where the breach is once you're looking inside the UFO. Having layering issues again, though.

EDIT: I've solved the issue with the UFO floors. I need to set the relevant floor tiles with the 'UFO floor' variable. I'd not thought of this because most of them are set to off by default; it never occurred to me to check the tiles which ordinarily display through the door.

With that in mind, I think I've solved most if not all of the display issues, finally. Just need to fix everything now!

Edited by kabill
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