Topic: How about a debris cloud model??!!

[Panzergranate]

How about a debris cloud model for use in FMSE script scenarios??

They have debris clouds in Star Trek episodes to represent destroyed starshups so why not in the SFC game.

It would need to cover the area of a starbase yet be made up of generic girders, lumps of polycrete, metal, tubes, junk and other bits.

The debris cloud could be race generic as in recognisable as Gorn, Klingon, Lyran, Kzinti, etc. with some common parts such as nachelle parts, etc.

It's just an idea for a different modelling project.

[Roychipoqua_Mace]

In FMSE, I used all the random junk, like N-PUCK, N-BEAM, and N-POD, and just scattered those objects around as debris for the missions. However, an actual debris model like you say would be pretty neat.

[Panzergranate]

In the SFC 1 Klingon missions they have a sort of debris cloud made up of dead Klingons floating in space. There is even a UI for a body in the SFC 1 UI selection but I'm yet to figure out where they hid the body model.

The trouble with using N-PUCK, N-POD, etc. in FMSE is that it takes up a lot of individual model slots.

Waht is needed is just a single model, diameter of a damned big starbase or Borg Cube, made up of all the expected wreckage from a blown apart starship.

This would show up on Probe scans as N-DEBRIS (K-DEBIS, L-DEBRIS, etc.) in the FMSE plot storyline, and the player would have to decide whether it's smart to investigate it, shoot another Probe a bit nearer to it or some other course of action.

As for the N-PUCK, try using the XMN model with Explosion Value = 500, Sensors =1, Scanners = 1, Bridge =1  and 1 x DroA with one reload and you have a Kzinti Drone Mine.

Replace the DroA with a Tractor and 6 x APR and you have a captor mine. (Drone Mines can have tractors too but it is kind of cruel!!)

As you can figure, the "let's just blast it" solution to being tractored isn't very clever!!

And the nice thing is.... when hidden in dust clouds, asteroid belts or yet to be modelled debris clouds, they make for an undetectable until too late nasty surprise to the scenario player as they don't make red rings to give them away.

I was asked to add them into the shiplist in our LAN games here, by the Kzinti team, and after falling foul of the bloody things too many times, wished I hadn't agreed!!

All I can say, from a Klingon Player's point of view, is that they're a typical dishonourable sneaky feline device that only something as low as a Kzinti could concieve.

[Roychipoqua_Mace]

Those drone and captor mines do sound nasty! Even though they have a bridge, they're unmanned, right? I could picture those cats sending their own to blow up though.

Actually, I think the Dead Klingons are just textures, maybe like 360-degree sprites. Check out "Klingon-splat.pcx" in the SFC1/Textures folder.

[Klingon Fanatic]

Those drone and captor mines do sound nasty! Even though they have a bridge, they're unmanned, right? I could picture those cats sending their own to blow up though.

Actually, I think the Dead Klingons are just textures, maybe like 360-degree sprites. Check out "Klingon-splat.pcx" in the SFC1/Textures folder.

Panzergranate,

What if you simply substitute an asteriod for the debris field.Mod file. In games that use that asteriod would show the debris field near other asteroids...

KF

[Don Karnage]

maybe you can use damage ship and try to make them as one big .mod to show a battlefield.

[Panzergranate]

On the mines, I included a bridge because it represents the computer core in SFB robot devices. it is a pretty simple shiplist addition.

I suppose a mine with a Shuttle Bay and a Cluster Pack would also be effective.

Whatever mine type you decide on, you juck use the \models\puck\xmn.mod stock mine model in the game.

In FMSE just deploy your deivous creations wherever you want.

The thing is a debris cloud would consist of hundredds of mainly smaller chunks and a few larger items that were too tough to be smashed up when the Warp Core went bang.

[Don Karnage]

or a ship that drift to the dust cloud after a battle like the constellation after it was damage by the planet killer.

[Panzergranate]

Yes, perhaps a derelict starship surrounded by a cloud of its own debris held in place by the ship's mass (gravitational attaction).

However, something well mullahed as seen in DS9 and TNG, where in the former, that Cradassian ship(s) couldn't even be recognised as what they were as they were just a giant cloud of debris with no recogniseable parts.

[Don Karnage]

also if there was kinda radiation from the warp core like a ion cloud that will damage you're ship if you get near it.

[Panzergranate]

How exactly does the Star radiation cloud work and how could it be attached to another object or monster??

A debris cloud with radiation would be nice.