Tholian Web. Possible but need help.

[PMCG99]

a while back i had an idea. An idea for the tholian web mod. In theory it is possible but i need help. people who are very good AI scripters and modders. How the web will work: Tholian ships will eject special probes that will shoot at the closest probe with beam weapons that do heavy damage. the probes will have to be made invincible via Foudation Tech (which i can do). I can design the probes. Better scripters can make the ai files. if you want to help post here. We have room for scripters, betatesters And Experianced Modders. Hopefully this project will be a sucsess! Anybody who helps will be credited in the readme. Also anybody who has any ideas on how to improve it please tell me.

[ACES_HIGH]

I'm not entirely sure this is possible.  for one thing, you would have to figure out how to get the AI to shoot at friendly probes, and maintain fire continuously, and I'm not entirely sure that you can be damaged by intersecting a beam weapon fired at another target in game.  Also you'll need to consider the huge graphical drain this will be with all the beams firing, even for a small net thats dozens of beams.

[PMCG99]

You can be damaged by a beam fired at another target. i know because it has happend to me multiple times. make the probes enemies and modify the AI files so they only fire at other probes. and i have made phasers that fire infinitely. also if the probes were the webspinner's enemy the trapped ship would not try to fire at the web probes. which is cannon because ships in a web cant fire wepons.

[Mario]

Honestly that's not the best approach to do the Tholian Web for various reasons. There was a guy called Mesh IIRC back in '06 or '07 who approached me with an alternate idea. In short make a sphere, alpha channel the textures and voila you've got the web + use the DS9FX wormhole effect. However I never got around in scripting it.

[ACES_HIGH]

You can be damaged by a beam fired at another target. i know because it has happend to me multiple times. make the probes enemies and modify the AI files so they only fire at other probes. and i have made phasers that fire infinitely. also if the probes were the webspinner's enemy the trapped ship would not try to fire at the web probes. which is cannon because ships in a web cant fire wepons.

I don't think you quite understood part one of my points, the probes would not be able to fire at one another if they are all on the same side.  IIRC, AI cannot commit fratricide.  Sov's idea is probably easier.

[Mario]

I don't think you quite understood part one of my points, the probes would not be able to fire at one another if they are all on the same side.  IIRC, AI cannot commit fratricide.  Sov's idea is probably easier.

Yes it can, you just need to tell it what the target group is or pass on to the AI a list of "enemy" names.

[PMCG99]

Honestly that's not the best approach to do the Tholian Web for various reasons. There was a guy called Mesh IIRC back in '06 or '07 who approached me with an alternate idea. In short make a sphere, alpha channel the textures and voila you've got the web + use the DS9FX wormhole effect. However I never got around in scripting it.

Wow! Never thought about that! But I never could figure out how to use the DS9fx Wormhole Scripts. By the way I wanted to use my idea because i thought it would be the most canon approach. :newbie:

[Mario]

Either way will work, however the idea you have might drain the system a bit.

[PMCG99]

Well do u wanna help? You are an extremley good scripter and i would love to have your help.

[Mario]

As a Software Developer free time is a luxury for me. I made an announcement a while back that I don't have time for this anymore.

[PMCG99]

Sorry... I completly understand.

[Bren]

Sovereign has a point about system resources, but I don't think that's insurmountable.

For example, your phaser-ships needn't be probes. You could use those single polygon invisi-ships that screenshot artists use. Lurok91 and I were discussing a similar idea in his Mutara Sector thread. They would be much more resource-friendly.

I think the hardest part is going to be the flocking behaviour, to get them to surround a ship in a geometric formation. If you manage to tackle that, it could probably be adapted and applied to fleet formations, too. It could come in very handy.

One suggestion realting to that is that, to immobilise the target ship, one (let's call them nodes) node is armed not with the thread phasers, but with a weapon similar to the Breen Energy Dampening weapon, it would shoot the target ship every once in a while to keep it from moving. The weapon should be silent and invisible.

I actually think this is a great idea, I think it was had before, but that was a few years ago, and things have since been done in the game that were then thought impossible (wormholes, for instance ;)). The biggest stumbling block, as I say, is the positioning AI.

Unfortunately, I'm not much of a scripter, so I can't help you there.

[Nebula]

I think the hardest part is going to be the flocking behaviour, to get them to surround a ship in a geometric formation. If you manage to tackle that, it could probably be adapted and applied to fleet formations, too. It could come in very handy.

isn't something like this accomplished already by the Nem random phaser fire in KM?

[Bren]

Good point!

[PMCG99]

Sovereign has a point about system resources, but I don't think that's insurmountable.

For example, your phaser-ships needn't be probes. You could use those single polygon invisi-ships that screenshot artists use. Lurok91 and I were discussing a similar idea in his Mutara Sector thread. They would be much more resource-friendly.

I think the hardest part is going to be the flocking behaviour, to get them to surround a ship in a geometric formation. If you manage to tackle that, it could probably be adapted and applied to fleet formations, too. It could come in very handy.

One suggestion realting to that is that, to immobilise the target ship, one (let's call them nodes) node is armed not with the thread phasers, but with a weapon similar to the Breen Energy Dampening weapon, it would shoot the target ship every once in a while to keep it from moving. The weapon should be silent and invisible.

I actually think this is a great idea, I think it was had before, but that was a few years ago, and things have since been done in the game that were then thought impossible (wormholes, for instance ;)). The biggest stumbling block, as I say, is the positioning AI.

Unfortunately, I'm not much of a scripter, so I can't help you there.

Very good! Never thought about that! and single poly nodes would'nt be as much of a drain on a computer!

[Vbeserk]

This can be hard to do but it can work, why you don't make a new AI script what i'm saying is to "grab" the "structure" of the AI script and adapt it to a new AI script one script that could actually do that, i'm not the best with script but this maybe actually work of course that this is super hard to do but with you modelling it to a new script you maybe can put this probe firing thing or like Bren said use that single polygon invisi-ships.
It's okay if this idea just don't work it's just something that went through my mind .

[JimmyB76]

make a new AI script

ya, thats damn near impossible lol

[Vbeserk]

ya, thats damn near impossible lol

But it can work, which better ideas do you have cuz' i think that this tholian web it's a bit crazy ecuse on the download part this should be really heavy.

[JimmyB76]

do you know much about creating a whole new AI for BC?

i hate to point out the obvious, but if this idea wasn't very difficult to create, it would have been done already...  this isnt the first time this idea was brought up in the last 8 years of BC, and it hasnt been done yet because of the extremely difficult and time-consuming process it would be to do - it isnt an easy thing at all...
and only the elite-most scripters could have possibly done it, but it was never taken on for a reason...
actually - a few years back, USS Sovereign almost picked up the project, but because of the major task and other things going on, it wasnt done...  and he is too busy with real life (as mentioned before) to do it now...

[Mario]

But it can work, which better ideas do you have cuz' i think that this tholian web it's a bit crazy ecuse on the download part this should be really heavy.

Well you said that you don't know anything about scripting, didn't you? How possibly then can you claim that it would work?
For a start I do recommend you to go to python.org and download IDLE, download BCSDK from bcfiles and start learning.
Problem with BC's AI system is that it's not very bright or modular. You can make some AI's pretty neat BUT for most of this you'd need a background correction script which corrects the behavior and the positioning of the AI and whatnot. While it is possible it is *very* (to say the least) difficult to achieve.