Possible solution for multi-turret tanks

[General Barron]

Just an idea on how to make multi-turret/gunner tanks and ground vehicles work. Obviously this can be done via a setpos/setdir loop with ships, but the problem is, with ground vehicles, their pitch changes according to the terrain, so this doesn't work well with them. So I'm thinking: how about using setvelocity instead?

Lets say, for example, you were to make a MG that can rotate separate from the turret of a tank. Could you model/configure that MG to actually "touch" the ground (invisibly), and thus be able to "roll" with the tank? The idea would then be, you have a constant setdir/setvelocity loop that just "rolls" the turret wherever the tank goes. Thus, when the tank rolls up a slope, the turret also tilts, since the turret is "rolling" as well.

That's the short of it, I guess. I suppose the idea rests on a bunch of "unknowns" for me though, that is, whether or not you could actually model a turret to work in this way. Or has a better way been found to work this problem? Just some thoughs.

[gandalf the white]

and if the tank makes a jump?

With the diffrence in mass, etc, the behaviour etc of the turrents cant be thesame.

unlike boats, tanks move FAR more, so it wouln't look pretty either way

[ag_smith]

Well, somebody could give it a try, sounds promising...

[Soul_Assassin]

u also forget that the tank will tilt as soon as it will touch a slope while the "rolling turret" will only tilt when it touches it. Thus it appears to be straight on a tilted tank til about half the tank is on the hill.

[Big Dawg KS]

There is no sensable way to do it, it wouldn't match up right and, setvelocity will ignore the bumpyness of the terrian, another problem would be that the MG wouldn't follow the tank if the pitch of the tank changed irrelevent to the ground, for example, jumps, and getting bounced around by explosions, etc... Also, there would be no way to make it follow the turret, you would have to mount it on the exact axis of the turret, or else when the turret moves, your MG is floating somewhere else.

[AKK]

I think your slant is appropriate barron

there are collision problems of course through the geometry lod.

what I have been trying is to "mimic" the atributes of the main res lods of the "main" model, with faceless vertexes and applying the same geometry. therefore essentially creating an "invisible" vehicle exept for the "2nd" weapon" but I think the main funcionality problem with this is that there must be an "attendant" ai for this approach to work and AI does not like to be in the same ([x,y,z]) place as another AI.

but it is a logicall approach

you would have to also keep all the pionts in the same place as the "main" model. IE memory,Res etc

[Offtime]

i know how to do it !!!!


but i will tell you when ofp2 is out

[General Barron]

I think AKK has explained it better than I have. Basically you would need an invisible "vehicle" under the turret that was the same shape as the normal vehicle. That would eliminate the problem that gandalf and Soul_Assassin are talking about. I would think that setting the mass of this turret to be equal to the "real" vehicle would prevent problems when going off of jumps. There might be problems with when the tank is hit by a explosion, but this might be solvable via a hit eventhandler and some good-ol setpos. I forgot about the rotation of the turret, but this idea isn't specifically tied to MG's on top of tank turrets.

[philcommando]

lol@offtime...that may be a long wait.

One possible way that i tested:-

In 02, set the model of your attaching vehicle to >properties>on surface.

Once u attached the vehicle, the attaching vehicle will follow every turn and height of the terrain.
Only drawback is that the entire model will always remain 90 degree angle even if the slope is 45 degree - so i guess it would be best to use only small parts as attaching vehicle.

would love to hear another way, though i heard the mapfact team has a terrain following script that make choppers fly NOE - neck of earth - at the given height.

[oyman]

sa8gecko did it over at the ofpec forums awhile ago

right click save target as