Lost Dragons - Total Modification Alpha

[Stormforge 37]

Don't let me discourage you though. In the end this is your creation. You have the final say in how things work. I will be giving it a go whatever you decide.

[Macser 776]

A crouch anim to go hull down would be a nice feature. Walk into a ruined building and lie in wait. Or on the far side of an incline. Perhaps even an extended leg pose, for peeking over cover for some sniping.

[HorribleGoat 1473]

Don't let me discourage you though. In the end this is your creation. You have the final say in how things work. I will be giving it a go whatever you decide.

 

Heh no way this is discouraging! I wanted to hear well structured opinions and you delivered and we will definitely consider your points too. Its great to hear from someone with actual experience with how tanks operate.

What nudged us to consider mobility and evasion was this video: 

Interesting concept if nothing else and considering the height problem with a walking tank something like this would definitely make such weapon more usable and that is why we want to find a good believable balance for it and perhaps expand the usual/common mech experience.

We want walkers and regular tanks both have their own roles in our game universe so we will be putting a lot of thought into this.

 

A crouch anim to go hull down would be a nice feature. Walk into a ruined building and lie in wait. Or on the far side of an incline. Perhaps even an extended leg pose, for peeking over cover for some sniping.

Crouching is definitely a feature we will have and we can take advantage of Armas pose system for this. (Since the legs are a man) also side peeking/leaned stepping sideways from cover and back is easily done with Arma mechanics and this is one  place where the firecontrol system comes in handy. If you sidestep around the corner only so that the other side guns are out, you don't have to fire the obscured side into the wall you are behind.

 

[x3kj 1247]

 

What nudged us to consider mobility and evasion was this video:

Evasion might be the wrong term. Moving as unpredictable as possible would be more descriptive. Because evading a projectile 4x the speed of sound at short range is basically impossible with just a little movement.

[Stormforge 37]

Set apart a walker from a tank? Well consider a tank is vulnerable in built up terrain, be it city or mountain. You can easily restrict its movement, and with its vulnerable topside easy to ambush and destroy/disable. Fire Engine, one street over, pumping Poor Man's Napalm and Molotovs is all it would take to stop a tank platoon in the city. Or even collapse a couple of buildings on top of them. Could try to remedy this with controlled short rocket/jet assisted leaps, think Mechwarrior Jump Jets. Road blocked ahead with dragons teeth or a tank ditch? Leap over the obstruction or even entire buildings. Could even be used to cross small bodies of water.

[HorribleGoat 1473]

Evasion might be the wrong term. Moving as unpredictable as possible would be more descriptive. Because evading a projectile 4x the speed of sound at short range is basically impossible with just a little movement.

You are right theres no much anything to do to evade a shot at short range. But thanks to Arma we are not bound to short range combat and I may have forgotten to clarify that part of our concept. The evasive movement we are considering is for longer ranges and we aim altogether to encourage long ranged combat since at short range its just about who happens to fire faster. Hit from a missile - BOOM - youre dead. Good shot from a AP gauss penetrator - boom - youre dead and so on.

So in order to survive, mobility would be a key. At long ranges that is, at short ranges, you'll have to try to take advantage of cover and most importantly not to walk carelessly into conflict zone.

Even if we explain better armor with advanced composite matrials or something like that our goal is to have realisticish health and damage handilng on all vehicles.  

 

Set apart a walker from a tank? Well consider a tank is vulnerable in built up terrain, be it city or mountain. You can easily restrict its movement, and with its vulnerable topside easy to ambush and destroy/disable. Fire Engine, one street over, pumping Poor Man's Napalm and Molotovs is all it would take to stop a tank platoon in the city. Or even collapse a couple of buildings on top of them. Could try to remedy this with controlled short rocket/jet assisted leaps, think Mechwarrior Jump Jets. Road blocked ahead with dragons teeth or a tank ditch? Leap over the obstruction or even entire buildings. Could even be used to cross small bodies of water.

Yes that is one main thing we think sets tanks and walkers apart. Walkers can cross terrain tanks have difficulty with and they trade the lower profile for far better reach around difficult terrain and obstacles that a tank could not cross.

[HorribleGoat 1473]

Evening!

This time I'd like to show something new I've sidetracked to work on.

First testrun of a optical camouflage mechanic

 

Extensive experimenting with Arma materials and shaders has proven The effect we want to produce to be out of our reach due how the materials handle with static objects (where it works) and men and vehicles (where it seems not to work as we intend).
 

This is first testrun on alternative method of applying the effect on moving man with still keeping the silhouette somewhat intact. I dare say with some honing this could provide quite nice optical camouflage effect.

More of my thoughts on the material in use can be found here: https://forums.bistudio.com/topic/191975-optical-camouflage-material-research/

[CrazyCorky 463]

Evening!

This time I'd like to show something new I've sidetracked to work on.

First testrun of a optical camouflage mechanic

*video snip*

 

Extensive experimenting with Arma materials and shaders has proven The effect we want to produce to be out of our reach due how the materials handle with static objects (where it works) and men and vehicles (where it seems not to work as we intend).

 

This is first testrun on alternative method of applying the effect on moving man with still keeping the silhouette somewhat intact. I dare say with some honing this could provide quite nice optical camouflage effect.

More of my thoughts on the material in use can be found here: https://forums.bistudio.com/topic/191975-optical-camouflage-material-research/

 

Dude that's awesome!

[bad benson 1733]

great effort! you should try using another normal map though to get a more pronounced light bending effect rather than this grainy noisy effect from the vanilla exhaust effect. that could also make this easier to spot at distance when the cloaked person is moving and thus make it more balanced that way.

 

just some thoughts. keep it up!

[HorribleGoat 1473]

great effort! you should try using another normal map though to get a more pronounced light bending effect rather than this grainy noisy effect from the vanilla exhaust effect. that could also make this easier to spot at distance when the cloaked person is moving and thus make it more balanced that way.

 

just some thoughts. keep it up!

The effect is more prominent in "reality" I think, the video packing eats a lot out of it since it is just noice to it. It will be tweaked though rest assured!

[HorribleGoat 1473]

DunDunDUUUUn! Im on vacation! :D

Its MODDING TIME!  :m: 

Been piecing the walker stuff together and thought to ask would you guys see the torso turning as part of the aiming with mouse, or would there be benefit from separate turret turning controls so that the turret could be set to certain direction and then precise aiming would be done with the mouse? We've decided to make all walkers have 360 turning turrets and thus this question.

[HorribleGoat 1473]

Summer holiday greetings!
 

Quick wip sneakpeek on the Gunship cockpit I've put together!
 

The light green interior represents the full awareness screen walls of the sealed cabin and there are some gauges and screens and spaces for switches and keyboards.
 

The overall design may change after I've tested how well it works in game and If there arises a need for more gauges or screens etc..

[tasksoldier121 80]

Looks interesting, and fresh. Also congrats for the R&D on the optical camo!

[HorribleGoat 1473]

Looks interesting, and fresh. Also congrats for the R&D on the optical camo!

Thank you! It felt pretty good to get the effect to work like that. Could be better of course, but it works pretty well!

We got loads of stuff cooking and heres another peek at whats on the table:

Now that the walker weapon system works, we've had some discussion on the walker usability and put down couple features all of them should have.

 

First of all we're changing the crew from 3 to 2 at least for the walkers of this size as the weapons can now be controlled by single operator.

 

Second thing is that to increase the overall viability we ruled down that all walkers should have 360 torso turning. Except maybe in special cases, but thats a different matter.

 

This affects the design of the WK-209 slightly as It was first designed as kind of frontal assault vehicle and the shape of the torso does clip in to the legs way too much if the torso is turned to the side and the torso is shaped so to accomodate the 3-man crew.

Now that the crew can be cut down to 2 the design is much easier to change for the 360 turning. Due to the nature how the walkers are built by knifing Arma engine there will be some clipping, but with little redesign we can minimize it.

[HorribleGoat 1473]

Got the new 2 man crew version (V5) ready for texture edits and to test how the updated torso behaves when animated, I put together a power up/down animation for it.
 

Idea is to keep it as low as possible for easier crew entrance. With couple of steps it stands up and is ready to go.
 

Also got an epiphany how to keep the man-legs wandering off while there is no crew to control them. We can set the powered down stance to either unconscious or even dead and just use script to heal it when the pilot takes control.
No need to start messing around with the AI behavior. This would also apply to when pilot dies or jumps out while the walker is standing up. We can make transition from active/controlled idle standing to non-controlled/static unconscious/dead standing animation.

 

Again one problem solved! \o/

 

[CyclonicTuna 87]

This mod is really shaping up to be somethign special. Keep it up fellas!

[Valken 622]

Just wanted to show my support here and noticed the Apex update has created the need for an update. Lots of RPT errors when running this mod under DEV version.

 

Would love to see a compatibility patch before any major update to keep us playing. 

 

That optical camo test looks amazing. You should do a variant to create a new black oil symbiotic alien adversary ala XCom from the E3 Trailer:

 

 

 

[HorribleGoat 1473]

This mod is really shaping up to be somethign special. Keep it up fellas!

 

Thank you! Things are slowly, but surely shaping up! :3 

 

Just wanted to show my support here and noticed the Apex update has created the need for an update. Lots of RPT errors when running this mod under DEV version.

 

Would love to see a compatibility patch before any major update to keep us playing. 

 

That optical camo test looks amazing. You should do a variant to create a new black oil symbiotic alien adversary ala XCom from the E3 Trailer:

 

Thanks Valken! There's been lots to fix since the last release and new stuff as well aaand of course the multiple redesign passes on just about everything. :D

It has happened that just as we've updated some old stuff with new configs the next release of A3 breaks them again. :D I think right now they've been quite stable though, so thats a good sign!

Don't know if Arma could handle such a creature xD Looking very cool though!

[Valken 622]

Oh you don't have to make the oil slime... I was thinking more of the humanoid form with the black ooze effect from the eyes, mouth and nose and they would act as possessed humans adversaries. It can be a bio weapon dropped from the larger ships onto civilians that would  "turn" them into hostiles. Add your optical camo effect with black color and highlight parts of their head and walla... space zombies... :D

 

I believe the inspiration was from the original X-Files TV Series about the black oil alien symbiotic.

 

Also regarding the walker controls, I actually tried the other Walker mod Wanzers and its clunky. I know it is supposed to be a sim and not arcade but it is hard to maneuver, track and fire at the targets unless there is an computer to assist shots with one player controls.

 

I figure by 2035+ we should have way better and more sensitive computer assisted controls to have real time performance in any walker.

 

May I suggest a "smaller" walker to offset the large clunky walker if possible such as this:

 

 

We get some armor with better speed and agility. This is much more usable than a slow walking tank.

 

Good to hear of all of the updates. Let us know if you need "testers"! :D

 

 

 

 

.

 

 

[haleks 8212]

Small walkers in Arma3? Man, that would be awesome - and extremely fun!

[Macser 776]

These types of addons could be accommodated by less restrictions in the man class. That and some kind of globalised physics. Where a unit/vehicle interacts with the environment based on it's weight rather than it's class. Again, like melee, that's not something that would detract from the milsim experience. It may even have dividends for more "realistic" projects. :)

[HorribleGoat 1473]

Hahaa! Did not know MGS had such a vehicle! xD Its little silly.. but still there is something to it too. :D

Our walkers are far more maneuverable than straight tank class based ones, more challenging is to actually make them feel clunky enough to have that robotic feel to them.

As Macser said though, the man class has some restrictions and the animation system is a lot to handle, so our initial moveset is quite glitchy with all kinds of wonky stuff going on.. And im afraid it will be that also in the next release, otherwise it would take forever to properly polish it as Im still learning how the animations go form one to another and how to get the translate between each other as they should. Im sure we will eventually smooth it out though, and its not terrible as is.. Just stuff like this every now and then... :D

Also there is the "small" thing issue of size since the man class .rtm animation is supposed to move about man sized unit around and it does have some issues with the 9 meters tall robot. :D Not that it gets stuck, but more like it walks over and through just about everything. :D

[HorribleGoat 1473]

The new powerup/powerdown animation inspired me to explore the field entry of the WK-209. In hangar/base environment these things would have entry gantries for easy and fast boarding, but on field there might not be such luxuries.

For such occasions I included retracting step ladders for both crew members and something to hold on on the top.

[x3kj 1247]

Our walkers are far more maneuverable than straight tank class based ones, more challenging is to actually make them feel clunky enough to have that robotic feel to them.

Making the speed of animation slower would give it a heavier feel . The walk right now looks goofy due to how fast it animates and the somewhat small step length.

 

http://media.moddb.com/cache/images/mods/1/26/25069/thumb_620x2000/LoDR_Gunship_Cockpit_WIP_01.png

why does it have an artificial horizon? Also, the analog gauges look a bit out of place to me for an extremely futuristic robot. It would be more in character imo to add another multipurpose screen and make it show the gauges on that (like on the A3 A-10frankenstein) instead of the analog ones. Has the added benefit that you can hide it easily for all sorts of shenanigans (e.g. more RTT displays, or a different set of gauges altogether, damage indicator,... )

 

 

It can be a bio weapon dropped from the larger ships onto civilians that would  "turn" them into hostiles. Add your optical camo effect with black color and highlight parts of their head and walla... space zombies...

*yawn* i take soldiers in cool armor and robots over the 64178385th <insert whatever> zombie mod. thanks.

[HorribleGoat 1473]

Making the speed of animation slower would give it a heavier feel . The walk right now looks goofy due to how fast it animates and the somewhat small step length.

 

why does it have an artificial horizon? Also, the analog gauges look a bit out of place to me for an extremely futuristic robot. It would be more in character imo to add another multipurpose screen and make it show the gauges on that (like on the A3 A-10frankenstein) instead of the analog ones. Has the added benefit that you can hide it easily for all sorts of shenanigans (e.g. more RTT displays, or a different set of gauges altogether, damage indicator,... )

 

*yawn* i take soldiers in cool armor and robots over the 64178385th <insert whatever> zombie mod. thanks.

Slower step would also mean slower speed. Slower speed is DEATH! :D

But yes I'll have to look into that and experiment with it. Maybe rework the walk sequence or slow it down and make new faster/longer stride run/fast move animation. The whole walker thing is still in very experimental stage.

The gunship cockpit is first wip mockup to get a feel for it. The gauges could go digital for sure its all still in the open. My initial though was that maybe there should be some analog instruments too if all else for some reason fails. Since the whole cockpit relies on hightech solutions that idea might be redundant though. Might just put a set of displays in their place. Thanks for the input!

We're trying to find something else to do than zombie hunting for sure. The AI enemies we're planning will mostly consist of old AI driven war droids and such, that roam the old battlefield fighting their never ending war. But their role is more to spice things up a bit. Alien wildlife we might work on at some point, but we aim to keep the main focus on the race to claim the Dragon.