Request: animating ship components!

from GalCiv2 Forums
Ship design is perhaps my favourite element of GalCiv2. I can't count how many hours I've spent in the designer making cool new ships. However, the ships are all pretty static... what would really bring them to life is animated components!

The simplest form of this would be components that are constantly playing an idle animation, such as a conponent that constantly rotates or oscillates. I believe Kryo was pushing for these at some point. However, I'd like to go a step beyond this. Some other ship components that would be FAR too much fun to play with:

*Components that play an animation only upon entering a battle. Components that extend, retract, or rotate a set amount would be perfect for exposing hidden weapon compartments... or locking S-foils into attack position!
*Turret components would also be a ton of fun. By turrets, I mean that these components would aim at whatever target the ship is shooting at... the application is pretty obvious!
*While this might fall under the "idle" animations bit, an update to the coloured lights that are currently in the jewelry so that they blink on and off would also give more life to the ships.

Just THINKING about the possibilities for ships made with these components is making me giddy. This would be the perfect extension to one of the most rewarding and cool features of the game!
11,545 views 20 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Okay, I can't be the only one who thinks this would be a riot to play around with...
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I just don't think anyone is going to get their hopes up right away on that. That is a lot of coding changes and addtitions.

Thats said, please, please can we have this feature?
Start11 - Customize the Start Menu and Taskbar in Windows 10/11.
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Wasn't Kryo doing rotating hard points for KHSM? Or that didn't work? Or was i dreaming?
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I recall that he was playing around with animated hulls, and got those working. He WANTED to do stuff with animated components, but that would require code changes to work.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Yep. Unfortunately the code seems to have gone the opposite direction from what I was hoping it would with DA (i.e., last I checked ALL animation had been disabled, so not even the tests I did would work any more).
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Ouch. I guess it's a bit much to hope for, then, given all the other stuff that's likely to have everyone's attention...
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Could we *please* leave such things *out* of a strategy game?

While it might look nifty the first few times, it's just going to be a resource-hog once the novelty is gone.
(And given that GalCiv2 already is pushing against the 2Gb limit, hogs are *bad*!)
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Yea, that ship editor is really something. That alone makes the game stand out above others. Otherwise, I don't have a real strong opinion on animated ship components. I just wanted to say how much I've always enjoyed the ship editor. If I were to to have a request regarding that, it would be for expanding the already large collection of non-functional components and hulls, animated or not.

Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The animations would be cool. But since not everybody has a good computer and this game is pretty big (in bytes) anyway, my battles would just end up running slow and a lot of people with bad comp's would just skip them so they don't have to wait an hour to finish a battle.

YES, it would be really cool, but not practical.
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top


YES, it would be really cool, but not practical.
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[X] Disable Animations

Problem solved for computers that can't handle it.

Seriously though, this would be really nice.

Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
ME WANT ANIMATIONS! GIVE ME NOW!

jk   seriously tho, this would be cool.
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
While this might seem nice, it would ultimately hog resources.

Instead, if possible, once everything essential and important is taken care of, I'd like to see truly distinctive styles for each race. Although each race is given their own style, with their own distinctive ships, all of the races have a set base to work from that ultimately renders the user-created ships appearing identical despite being created for, say, Arcean versus Terran.

Only if it's truly possible though. I can understand how difficult it can be coming up with enough distinctive hulls and pieces and so on...I'd have a hugely tough time at it myself just coming up with one individual set of a few pieces, let alone the gigantic groups you guys have created.
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I would settle for weapons simply firing in the right direction. In other words if you have a photon torpedo launcher facing forwards, the missile should appear in front of it and then zoom off to its target. At the moment missiles appear behind the launcher and then seek their target. I realise that looks aren't everything especially when the combat viewer is not necessarily indicative of actual battle manoeuvres, however a launcher that looks like it fires forwards actually firing rearwards doesn't look cool.

I think that some subtle animations such as a buildup glow for beam weapons would also be a nice touch.
Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Yeah, when a gun is facing forward and it shoots towards an enemy at your left side, it's just not cool. :/

Commander: do we have a lock on the enemy?
sergeant: Yes, sir!
Commander: Then fire!
Sergeant: Anti-matter torpedo's are away sir!

BOOOOM!!!

Captain: Sir!
Commander: What is it?
Captain: we've lost all support fighters and two frigates!
Commander: how's that possible?!?!
Sergeant:um... sir?
Commander: What!?!?!?
Sergeant: we were facing the wrong way when we opened fire.......
Commander: sh*t!

Reply #15 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It happens with all weapons. Beams fire out the back. Missiles fly out of the back of their launchers. Mass drivers are the worst. They fly out of the back of guns, miss their target on screen, yet still explode and deal damage.

I think that some subtle animations such as a buildup glow for beam weapons would also be a nice touch.
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It already exists for the Psyonic Beam. An orange glow appears around the beam-gun, then an orange rope-like beam fires, twists into a semi-spiral upon hitting the target, and then the spiral explodes.
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Components that animate only in the combat viewer would be the best. Like enter combat, a ship's beam launcher lights up and extends on a robotic arm, pointing towards it's target. Another ship's turns it's guns off of safe mode, and turrets spin, gunports open and a barrel extends out of the turret, leading it's target to counteract evasive maneuvers. For missile weapons, a little sensor-type 'eyeball' on the launcher should point at the target and keep 'looking' at it to guide the missile until it's own homing system takes over.

However, idle animations should only be visible at maximum zoom. Otherwise, they would take too much memory to be feasible.
Reply #16 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Funny you guys should bring this up....

With Brad pushing back the release to make more time for tech tree balancing, we were actually going to use the extra time to put in the 'Rotating Components' feature into the ship designer. I think this was actually going to be a suprise to both you guys and Brad, but what the hell...hopefully it was still a suprise.

Also in the works is a 'Favorites' list, where you can set jewelry as one of your top picks and have it appear in it's own list (to cut down on clutter).

Of course it all depends on how much time we have, but it's something we're shooting for.

I'll also ask about the rotating weapon components in battle....we'll see what we can do 

 

Reply #17 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The animations would be cool. But since not everybody has a good computer and this game is pretty big (in bytes) anyway, my battles would just end up running slow and a lot of people with bad comp's would just skip them so they don't have to wait an hour to finish a battle.

YES, it would be really cool, but not practical.
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Agreed 100%

If I had a quadcore w/the best 8800 etc.. yeah, I wouldn't mind having this feature, but for most, it's not going to be practical.


For GalCivIII - no doubt, it had better be in there!
It would be a VERY interesting feature though.
Reply #18 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
GOD I love Stardock. You guys rock. I really can't wait to play with this.

Is this going to be something we'll see in the betas, or will it be one of those treats for the final release?
Reply #19 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Maybe we could have the option of rotating hard points of jewelry. Like if I want my Laser V to point foward no matter what. However, on the same ship I have the mass drivers set to track the enemy. Maybe you could even have parts of a ship that rotate an entire side of a ship!
Reply #20 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
maybe you could have ships that Actually try to turn around before firing right after their first pass.