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+--- Thread: A suggestion for decals/ship customization (/showthread.php?tid=11873)
A suggestion for decals/ship customization - J-Kent - 09-07-2008
I was looking at how equipment is mounted in the config files, contemplating IDs and looking at how Freelaner supports transparency textures.
This did a very dangerous thing. It started me thinking.
Decals. It would be cool to have decals for ships.
They would be mounted equipment, a square model, thin, the logo as the texture, with a transparent background, mounted almost flush with the hull.
They would be unloosable like shields or IDs.
There could be classes to define size, EG a starflier might have a class 1 decal, a battleship a class 10 biggie.
This would prevent oversized decals being stuck on small ships.
Multiple mounts would allow multiple decals, say for the dagger a left wing and right wing mount.
There would be both faction/house decals, and generic decals.
So I could have, say, a dagger with a Lane Hacker decal on the right wing and a flaming eagle on the left.
Decals from factions or houses would require a high rep with them to purchase, possibly even full rep, and the generic decals would be sold in unique and varied locations, (with, say, three standard generics sold at every base for convinience) with maybe some very special ones in almost impossible to reach places. as a sort of achievement to get.
Some ships, like capships, would come with their hous or faction decal standard, most others would come with no decal.
(this would require removal of symbols from textures in some cases, but those symbols would give a good ref point for the location of the new decals)
Nomad ships would have no decal mount(s)
Stations could have decal mounts too, and stations/NPC ships would feature them in their loadouts based on faction.
no more generic all the same looking starfliers for Ageira and Xenos alike :cool:
So, for example, Liberty Naval, LPI, or LSF decals could only be purchased at places where those IDs are sold, and if you have max rep wth them.
A basic liberty house decal could be bought if youre decently well up with liberty forces/corporations.
This would require the creation of a great deal of symbols, both generic and specific, and could even mayhaps be the subject of a contest or contests.
(IE a liberty symbol wouldnt be enough, you now have to have the traditional liberty star, then variants for the LPI, LN, and LSF)
Also or alternately, player clans could submit the logo, or multiple logo variants, for their corresponding NPC faction.
So.. what does everyone think? :D
A suggestion for decals/ship customization - Dopamino - 09-07-2008
Igiss said nothing that requires new hardpoints, but if it weren't for that I'd back it.
A suggestion for decals/ship customization - J-Kent - 09-07-2008
Meh, well, it was an idea.
If I could learn, Id do it myself since Im capable of the graphics and eqiupment config part, just not hardpointing/modeling.
though all thats needed are 3 to 6 sizes of flat plates.
Im considering buying milkshape anyhow, and If I do Ill be doing much more than just decals.
Ive always wanted house/faction specific station designs.......
A suggestion for decals/ship customization - Orin - 09-07-2008
I love the idea. Further customization would only further RP usage and encourage new players that this is something *cool* and not PvP related.
In case of a petition for Igiss' approval...
I fully support this idea.
And welcome to Discovery, Silik.
A suggestion for decals/ship customization - SigCorps - 09-07-2008
Wow...that is a realy good idea. Maybe not in this next release...but something for the future.
A suggestion for decals/ship customization - J-Kent - 09-07-2008
Many Thanks for the support and the welcome!
Ive been immensly impressed so far, and I hope to be around for a while.
Well, if Igiss said no hardpoint work, I wont nag, but Id still love comments, especially incase Im ever capable of doing the work myself...
And PvP is good, but only in balance with everything else, and only in the confines of the story.
My thinking was that if many of these ships are accesible to a bevy of factions, they, and each individual pilot, are going to do some sort of customization....
I actually had three or four other equipment/hardpoint based customization ideas, but if new hardpoint material is a no no......
Think, for example, if armor upgrades actually added extra visual plating to a hull....
Or, imagine you could get customization modules for capships that would add bits and pieces to the outsides in various configurations....
Or say faciton/ship specific upgrades.
The LH, and OC use the dagger, stilleto, etc series of border wolds craft, what if each of the factions that make heavy use of them had a customization module for the series (one that would fit all the fighters since the shape is so similar) that you could only get if you had max rep with them that would significantly alter the ships outer appearance and boost certain attributes of it based on the factions unique abilites.
This would only go for factions using ships not unique to them. IE liberty wouldnt have a customization packet for their ships, nor would anyone.
But each house would have a packet for the utility vehicles/generic transports to make them look semi-house specific.
another system that could be integrated with the NPC equipment configs to result in more unique NPCs across factions.
A suggestion for decals/ship customization - bearlee89 - 09-07-2008
DAMN YOU!!!
You stole my idea.... I was just sayin' to my buds in vent the other night that it would be pretty nifty if we could have Semi-custom logos/decals to put on our ships like the one on the body of the slipstream ya know?
Grrrr...
A suggestion for decals/ship customization - J-Kent - 09-07-2008
Yeah, the one on the slipstream is pretty nice...
And sorry, no itentions of stealing anyones ideas here, just being creative. *shrugs*
A suggestion for decals/ship customization - Linkus - 09-07-2008
This has been brought up before in the past and shot down unfortunately:(
Issue is that if you were to modify the hardpoints of a ship already in the mod, it would cause a few big problems. (Player wipe comes to mind but unsure)
A suggestion for decals/ship customization - J-Kent - 09-07-2008
Well it depends, see we wouldnt be touching the pre-existing hardpoints, so already equipped equipment would remain unaffected, you would just be recieving new empty points on which to mount a new type of equipment.
No clue if that fact helps, but Im just guessing based on my fiddling with files...