WIP NEW Stargate based Game Mode [NEED RECRUITS] Long Read

Garry's Mod coding
#1

ORIGINAL POST is here http://sg1-hq.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=11
if you would like to help plz email [EMAIL=“administration@sg1-hq.com”]administration@sg1-hq.com or post on our forums

LONG READ. Required to convay the entire idea.

Lets go from the top. we want to make a new Stargate based Game Mode. but there’s something different about this game mode. The difference between this game mode and others is. this game mode Virtually increases the map space by 100 times. maby more.

The first 4 are Required
The rest is possible and optional

Goals

  1. Increased Map Space
  2. Localised Gravity for ships (Artificial Gravity/Inertial Dampeners)
  3. Provide a new set of custom content to go with the new game mode
  4. Reduce the risk of crashes and RSI due to large numbers of props and entities.
  5. Team Based Gaming (IE Human, Guauld, Tokra, Asgard. the usual)
  6. The ability to start a new faction beginning as the humans once did.
  7. Allow for Upgrading parts due to Scientific Advancement due to time or due to acquired more advanced technology.
    (IE. you start with the most basic hyper drive. your planets scientists research, experiment and advance the technology. or you acquire a more advanced technology through exploration and scanning ships/debris ect)

Goals 1-4 Explained

Goal 1
The idea behind increasing the incredibly limited map space is simply due to the fact for realistic space travel. it would take some time to get from planet to planet. and the planets wouldn’t necessarily be in the exact same place every time due to its orbit. to increase the map size.

How do I suggest I change the size limit of the map? I don’t. I start from scratch and make custom content. and for certain things like ship models. I make a Scale Ship model. but thats for later.

I also Mentioned Planets.

Planets will all utelise the full size of the map. to do this im going to use what i like to call the PHASE method. The way it works is ALL planets are just entities and all exist in the exact same world co-ordinates of 0,0,0. this is due to the fact that those small planets just arn’t large enough. by utelising the full size of the map for larger planets. it enables people to have more realistically scaled ships without the added lag. but thats more onto Idea 3.

The space between planets is just the full size of the map Space is Space. Space dosn’t actually have anthing in it. except Scaled down physical representations of Planets and ships. and some mining asteroids. the reason space is scaled down is to allow for a more realistic travel with scaled representations of everything. without chewing too much into CPU power. these physical representations are purely for that. physical collisions and what not. in space. if a ship collides with another. it will be done with the smaller representations rather than with the full scale ships that the players are going to walk around in.

Goal 2
Localised Gravity
Simply put. if you have a ship flying through space. and your ship moves forward. you will with the ship. (Technecally the ship you are standing in is stationary. this is how it works. the physical representation is what actually moves. all server data is then taken to the client that is relevant. ie. Player position inside ship. objects on the ship. if the object is visible. an exact copy in the exact same state is then taken (Client Side) and renderd as if thats exactly how it is. and as you go onto the same ship as the said player yourself. everything that you did see before. is just physically represented as was the other player from outside the ship. looking into the ship.

already have a working formule and expression for calculating local position. and angle. as well as local velocity and angle velocity and translating that from 1 to the other to make it as seemless as possible.

only forseeable issue are rangers. but that might simply be fixed by redirecting the trace under certain conditions from the ship’s space. to relatively the virtual ship in a planets space. or Spaces scale space. details are to be worked out a bit more in due course. as well as Co-Ordinates for e2ing stuff.

on a final note for Goal 2
Planets are spherical!!!. still some details to be worked out… IE water and some other stuff.

Goal 3
Custom Model Pack to go with the game mode and addon. the reason the Game Mode will require a custom model pack is due to the fact. alot of things like Planets and Ships will require a scale model for all the physics calculatins in space. but just the ships and planets… and I guess fighters too. not for rendering. simply for calculating all the physics and collisions in space as the models will be to scale.

Goal 4
Refering to Goal 3 and Ship Models. unfortunately you won’t be able to… “Build a ship from throwing props together” however if enough deomand is placed on a certain ship. say Enterprise D. we could possibly work out some kind of arrangement to bring in a custom model/'s. the only reason you can’t just slap some props together and call it a ship is due to the fact that it wouldn’t work in space due to the scale model idea. all you can really do to customise your ship is all the interior decorations and arrangements. for instance. you may place the bridge in a completly different location in your ship. you don’t have to place anything anywhere. the idea behind the single Model for a ship is it will allow for more players to have there own ships. but as the ships will be vastly huge it may be possible that teams of players may have to operate a single ship. and as movement will be possible in the stationary model for players to walk around. on the spot tweeking is actualy possible mid flight. except for the movement of the Gyropod

the Gyrpopd will obviously have to be modified as it is the ships main method of prepulsion. it may also have to be the ships artificial gravity generator. due to the fact its tied into prepulsion greatly. and unwelding or removing this mid flight would be a bad idea

Now that all those ideas are out of the way. I also had the idea to also introduce another kind of space. for faster travel through space. Hyperspace. because a ships speed limit in space will be less than equal to the speed of light to scale. otherwise that would be silly. the speed through hyperspace will be much greater. and it will just be another space again like the space between planets. only no planets in this space. and Hyperspace generators can also operate at different input frequencis. which allows for ships to not collide in hyperspace. if 2 ships collide in normal space or hyper space (on the same frequency) they will collide as if they were real models.

and thats the bulk of the idea out of the way.

#2

Okay guys I have this great idea now I need all of you to script it.

If you want people to help you here, you will probably need to elaborate on “how to expand the map size 100 times” beyond having every object at the center of the world’s coordinate space (???). Scaling down everything is possible, but then you have to deal with things like offsets, or other things entirely- if somebody set their entity to spawn 64 units off the ground, when everything is 100 times smaller its going to be 6400 units away off in space. Not to mention the rest of the ideas.

#3

it is all explained quiet clearly. I have an expression that can calculate the relative positions to 1 object. including velocity. and it accurately relocates something from space. or a ship. to a planet or even in the dead of space. the only difference is it will also change the said Phase or group of objects with which it will collide. I am virtually increasing the map size without scaling everything down…

Easiest way to explain it is imagin you have the largest possible map size. then imagin once you get to the edge of the map. you want to keep going. then to virtually get past that limit. you are moved to another server. at the opposite end of the map. continue until you get bored or lost. but instead of going from server to server. its all done within the same server.

my only concern is that the engine will be capible of what I need it to do… but it won’t be able to handle it to the extent I want to do it at.

I should probably state that it dosn’t have to start off as SG… but as a SB type game mode. the SG idea is because a few people seem interested in the idea.

#4

Stop putting the guy down.
At least he explained it instead of just posting “stargate kthx bye”

#5

oh did I mention I have a small e2 prototype working with the formule for angles and what not? id have a video but havn’t had a chance to tweek it to look a bit better.

#6

i posted this for the1 he knows a little more about this and i think he made an e2 for it also it would be better if you replyed on the original post which is here http://sg1-hq.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=11
i will also let him know you guys have replyed to it

#7

oooh thats probably 1 detail THE FORCE left out…
I am The1 :slight_smile: and im checking both threads.

#8

hey i didnt know your facepunch name i forgot to ask lol

#9

This looks pretty much an utopia, you can’t make map bigger than the max size, you could just scale down everything, but that would be pretty buggy.

#10

Players can be scaled easily (as long as they dont go too small, then things will go silly) but as for props, does a Stargate server really NEED all of the props? If this gains enough momentum and enough people join in, it would be possible to recreate a set of models for a 0.5 or 0.2 scale.

In all the SB servers I’ve been in, not once have I seen a ship made out of cargo containers or barrels.

#11

Ok… I already did explain this but… There won’t be any actual prop scaleing at all. the only things that can fly around in space a ships. anything else that makes it into space is just simply removed from existance. unless it has an enertial dampener/artficial gravity. that being the case. it will be replaced with another model. and… you know what… i should probably do something in 3ds max to prove a point that whay i want to do will work

Players won’t actually be scaled at all. players will stay the same size.
Models own’t be scaled at all. what i said was. there will be 3 types of ship models
Full Scale Interior
Full Scale Exterior
1:100 scale exterior (for in space)

On a planet where everything is 1:1 it will use the Full Scale exterior to the Interior model you picked for your ship

When you enter the ship either via noclip THROUGH the hull or just fly in via a bay/walk in via a dock.
you will be relocated to the ful scale Interior. where Client side. determins what objects are relative to the ships exterior model. and repositions Copies of those models client side. only rendering whats inside the ship and whats visible on the outside.

When the ship moves into space the model is swapped from the full scale model to the 1:100 scale model of the same ship. its at this point just walking out of a bay is an incredibly bad idea unless I figure out a way to fix that. but noclipping outside a ship will only be disasterus if you venture off too far.

so as you can see with my original explination in the FIRST post about having a Custom set of models. I had made it Quiet clear that I would not be scaleing anything. just using Scale models…

And THATS how you not only Make stationary planets that actually move through space. but its ALSO how you increase the size of the map WITHOUT actually making a map larger than physically possible…

Unlike all the idiots who just blirt out “Can’t be done” “isn’t going to work” “lol fag gtfo” I have actually carefully thought everything out. and it is possible

@Towerofpower
yeah players can be scaled. but actually trying to steer clear of doing that. and it is possible :slight_smile:
and yeah only idiots build ships out of containers and barrels. but what im doing reduces the risk of hitting prop limits. thats why Im going to invest alot of my time coming up with a set of models to work with this. that and fewer props actually prevents other problems from arising :slight_smile:

#12

@111111111111

I do have some concerns about your theory. Not criticisms but concerns:

To my understanding, you propose to render a virtual game world around the interior of a ship that only exists client side. I’m only relatively new to GMod LUA but is that even possible?

Noclipping through ships that will teleport you inside a ship, I can predict that to get a bit tricky for ships of exotic shapes (the Belistner, lots of cavities). Does the entity:Touch() hook get pulled when a noclipper touches something? Docks and airlocks, I can definitely see those working out. A simple Entity:Use() and BAM, teleported.

One of my largest concerns is moving planets. I can see this method working for a single player but moving planets for >1 players? Won’t that create some confusion and randomly moving planets for players that aren’t moving at all? Also, if the traditional model of planets is held (a hollow atmosphere shell with a semi-circle planet in the middle), won’t that make the planet move but leave any ships within it behind? Or are you going to have a planet plane behind the skybox and teleport ships and players there?

Speaking of traditional planet methods, it is currently possible to see outside the planets atmosphere. My concern is that when a ship goes from 1:1 to 1:100, won’t that look a bit silly visibly going from massive to tiny? If you’re using the “behind the skybox” method, please ignore this paragraph.

So yea, I’m not critiquing, I’m just hoping you could clarify a couple of points I’m a bit cloudy on.

[editline]19th January 2011[/editline]

Also, don’t want to sound pretentious but please change your avatar. Raging at a board with a Justin Bieber avatar doesn’t help your cause…

Looking back at your posts you appear to know your stuff but the Bieber avatar… I’m having a hard time taking you seriously. Just putting it out there.

#13

Not once in my entire time being here have I ever seen any thread of this sort take off.

It seems even if you’re professional and you have a lot of work done, you’re still on your own.

justinboggs, I don’t mean to be rude, but you’re going to have absolute 0 luck in your endeavors with this take on your actions.

In short, you’re on your own, start working.

[editline]18th January 2011[/editline]

Do you even know how to script anything you’ve said above?

[editline]18th January 2011[/editline]

e2 doesn’t mean a thing here at all.

#14

@towerofpower256
Your Second Paragraph.

uhh how can I explain. its kind of similar to some1 elses idea on the wiremod forums. forget his name. but say your in a fightr bay of the ship looking out. and your ships within the atmosphere of a planet… and within this atmosphere. just infront of the bay outside the ship. there’s a box or a sphere.

As your on the ship you can walk around in without problems. you don’t actually see whats outside. but to get past this. so you can see whats outside and what’s not.

Client side. a model is placed there and renderd to represent the box or sphere outside the ship that you should be able to see. but can’t because you arn’t on that ship. your on the interier which is centered on the map.

your second paragraph

the diffrence between the interior and exterior is the model orientations will have to be exactly the same. even for the scaled down model. relatively speaking. if you were going to noclip INTO the ship and this is where corridores and things don’t actually matter.

InteriorModel:toWorld(ExteriorModel:toLocal(PlayerNPosition))
if you look at ExteriorModel:toLocal. its getting local co-ordinates to where the player is. then its delocalising them to the InteriorModel. so if you noclip in through the front of th ship. you end up in the Interior in the centre of the map in the exact same location.

your Fourth paragraph

there are 2 classes of planets. the virtual gravity calculated moving around a star rather slowly (for use in space with ship travel) which don’t necessarily have to exist as an entity.
Larger planet that you actually walk on when your ship gets close enough in space to the… well… Fake planet.

What you walk on. at all times is stationary.

They will also be spherical because when ever i try to land a ship on a planet. because i use more advanced methods of ship movement where my ship aligns its self to a certain angle with pitch yaw and roll. spherical planets will be benificial for anyone who experiencs the same problem. and this also provides. virtually a much larger space to fly through. with more realistic times between planets. where its minutes opposed to seconds which will allow people to do stuff while traveling.

also if you are on a planet. and the ship is outside the atmosphere. but still within visual range of the planet. the scale difference won’t be noticed. because within planets client side. the full scale model will be used relatively to the planet that the smaller scale model is in relation to the fake planet.

the thing you have to remember with this is… Like time. its all relative.

#15

i just copied the post for the1 i was on fp when he posted it on my forums and told him i would post it because i was already logged in…

#16

I’m not going to lie, I skipped over a lot of this thread. Looks like you have a good idea of what you want to do.

But I’m just wondering, is this going to be purely Deathmatching with rounds and timers and stuff like that? Or will it be more of a roleplay, where you have the freedom to be something else, like an Engineer that makes traps for battle or something like that? Or roleplay as a Battle Overseer from another planet?

#17

well first we just want to get the concept of an infinitely larger battle field working first. then as things progress. and if that works i don’t doubt for a second that things will progress :slight_smile:

uhh it will be a mix of RP, Mining, Scientific Development and advancements based on the types of members you have on your teams.

for the SG idea there will be base teams to start off with. with the option to creat a new team that will start off at the Earth Human level of technology and advance from there. just in a different place on a differnt planet. each teams spawn planet is that teams home world

otherwise for those who want to do there own thing. and have enough advancements and resources to do so. can DM all they want in the dead of space. not sure what will be done about AI but some ideas are in the works. but as I have already said. we just want to get the idea of infinitely larger planets and space to work first before we try to do anything else

The whole idea for this wasn’t to create a specific environment (IE Stargate RP)
The Main idea is just to provid a larger environmnt for players to freely move around in without having to worry about hitting a planet the wrong way. and without getting to the edge of the map after only 10 seconds of travel through space. and having your ship destroyed simply because you ran into a wall that by all rights shouldn’t exist…

#18

Well you need to bear in mind that as the realistic number of players on the server goes, you probably wouldn’t have more than 20-25 people on the server at a VERY good time of day. In experience I’ve found the funnest servers about 10-15, below that it is usually quite dull, above that it’s usually quite laggy and often difficult to manage.

More commonly you’d probably have < 10 players on the server all the time.

Secondly, you have to consider, what do you want your player base to do mostly in the game? It sounds like you want a spread of players doing separate things. That means you probably need to make the boring things the most rewarding (although, not overstepping it), and the funnest things the least rewarding.

If you make PVP’ing in space very fun, and at the same time you make a lot of money for upgrades and stuff by doing it, more so than mining or scientific development or RP. Then everybody will just PVP and there won’t be any interesting stuff going on besides the PVP.

I guess it’s all about balance.

#19

yeah. all things Im taking into consideration. the whole idea of having a variety of different ship models. at different sizes. but all single prop is to eliminate lag due to a large number of props. in doing this it should allow alot of people to be on the server at a time. say 64? the max? people are on. it dosn’t mean there have to be 64 ships with functioning weapons and life support. it can mean 6 teams of roughly 10 people all working together to develope a single ship.

the whole idea of making the ship models themselves single props. with 3 different classes as explaind before. any interior decorating, wiring and LS. will be stationary. frozen. and not clogging up net traffic with uselss information.

everything you apply to the interior model. won’t be moving. it will be stationary if solidly welded. exceptions will be decorated moving parts. (IE some1 thinks its cool to put a reactor on a wheel to spin it around or something). Once something’s welded. and you have the Gyro turned on. everything is relocated. reoriented and frozen. thus eliminating the lag problems as much as possible. the only moving physics object through the real world should be the copy Exterior ship model.

even though modifying a ship’s shape is incredibly restricted. you are virtually free to place what ever you want on the inside. and outside of the ship in the way of weapons. at first it may seem odd as people usually build alone with the few exceptions. but it would allow for a different game experience…

as for Life supporting up a fighter.
I have also come to the conclusion that it may be a good idea to make fighters programmable to a point. but life support automatically built in to them. refueling from team ships in fighter bays. larger ships will require more and more complex systems in order to be habitable and flyable.

also the fact that you should by all rights be able to walk in a ship if I can actually get this to work. it would also allow for players to manage there ships mid battle on the fly while the pilot controls the ship’s movement.

Say a ship is taking more damage than what was first thought. 1 of the ships team members can divert power going to other systms to strengthen shields. or put more energy into weapons for a quicker victory.

as previously experienced. player movement within a ship hasn’t been the easiest of things to accomplish. and people try to cram too many controls into 1 player.which usually dosn’t work. in doing this all I am really trying to accomplish is allow for if not a better gaming experience, atleast a different more original experience.

edit
by all rights. it should be possible for players to have a small flete of ships. excluding life support and allowing for some kind of remot control. players should be able to make a number of ships controlled remotely either via a main ship or from the home world. as the player won’t be on the ship. the ship won’t be as complex. again. less lag for battles.

Limitless possibilitys would make for a fun game experience even if a server never gets over 10 people.

#20

Nothing to see here except ideas. This isn’t a WIP, it’s a request. Moving to Requests.