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Changing power of dropship thrusters
http://45.55.195.193/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=25697		 Page 1 of 2
Author:  NikolaiLev [ Fri Sep 30, 2011 11:49 am ]
Post subject:  Changing power of dropship thrusters
Hi. I've been dabbling in modding lately, and have a cursory knowledge of how stuff works in .ini files. What I haven't been able to figure out is how the power, min/max velocities and acceleration works in dropship thrusters. About all I've figured out is in rockets, particlecounts affect the thrust but I haven't been able to recreate this with dropships.

I'm trying to mod the Transport which seems similar in function to the base Dropship, but I can't find a single variable related to thrust or velocity. It'd help if someone could just explain how Craft thrusters work; I couldn't find that information in search nor on the wiki.

Thanks!
Author:  Duh102 [ Fri Sep 30, 2011 2:20 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Changing power of dropship thrusters
Dropship and rocket thrusters get their thrust from the amount and weight of particles being ejected from them, so if you can find their emission definitions and modify them, you modify their power.

For instance, for the Drop Ship mk1 defined in Base.rte/Actors/Dropships/DropShips.ini, the only emission defined is this:
Code:
   AddEmission = Emission
      EmittedParticle = MOPixel
         CopyOf = Jet Air Blast
      Spread = 0.25
      MaxVelocity = 40
      MinVelocity = 30
....
   ParticlesPerMinute = 2600
   MinThrottleRange = 1.0
   MaxThrottleRange = 0.3

The PPM rating is how many of those particles are ejected per minute, and the two Throttle values control a multiplier applied to the PPM when the dropship attempts to sink or rise.
Author:  NikolaiLev [ Fri Sep 30, 2011 9:50 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Changing power of dropship thrusters
Thanks a bunch for the speedy response. However, I'm afraid this doesn't really help in my case. The Transport lacks a Jet Air Blast emission, in fact the only emission on the engine is a Dust Blast, modifying which has no effect on the ship's thrust capability.

The problem being, I feel the transport is too weak and can only manage carrying 2-3 soldiers. I wanted to improve that, since the base Dropship handles 5 geared up Ronin soldiers like a champ. The Transport sinks like a tank.

I tried just adding a Jet Air Blast to the dropship, it just explodes upon spawn. I've tried other things like changing the Dust Blast particlesperminute values, but nothing has worked.

Thanks again.
Author:  Gotcha! [ Fri Sep 30, 2011 10:16 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Changing power of dropship thrusters
You'll either need to drastically increase the particles per minute in this Dust Blast, like Duh said (try doubling it), or look for the Dust Blast MOPixel that's somewhere in that mod.
When found, edit the mass of the MOPixel to something higher.

The Transport lacks a Jet Air Blast emission, in fact the only emission on the engine is a Dust Blast

The Jet Air Blast is just the presetname for the vanilla drop ship's engine emission. A presetname can be named to anything, in this case: Dust Blast.
Author:  Duh102 [ Fri Sep 30, 2011 10:39 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Changing power of dropship thrusters
To be perfectly clear, you can either make yourself a new particle, defining it above where you use it, like so:
Code:
AddEffect = MOPixel
   CopyOf = Jet Air Blast
   PresetName = WhateverYouWant
   Mass = MoreThanJetAirBlast

obviously replacing WhateverYouWant and MoreThanJetAirBlast with your intended values.
Or you can use the same code right in the body of the AddEmission block, using it just the same:
Code:
   AddEmission = Emission
      EmittedParticle = MOPixel
         CopyOf = Jet Air Blast
         Mass = MoreThanJetAirBlast
      Spread = 0.25
      MaxVelocity = 40
      MinVelocity = 30
Author:  NikolaiLev [ Fri Sep 30, 2011 11:10 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Changing power of dropship thrusters
From what I can tell, the Dust Blast emission is purely aesthetic, controlling the dust when the transport is close to the ground. Increasing the PPM simply makes the game lag when it approaches the ground but has no effect on thrust power. I even tried making a new "Dust Blast A" defined in transport.ini, increasing the mass and velocity of the particle, with no luck. There's no MOPixel used anywhere in the .ini. I can't get a grasp as to how this thing stays afloat!

Like I said before, I tried creating an MOPixel using the Dropship's Jet Air Blast code, and even tried to scale down the numbers. It still instantly explodes.
Author:  Duh102 [ Fri Sep 30, 2011 11:16 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Changing power of dropship thrusters
Does the emitter, perhaps, have a "CopyOf =" line at the beginning?
Author:  Gotcha! [ Fri Sep 30, 2011 11:33 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Changing power of dropship thrusters
The Dust Blast is what you're looking for. I just downloaded the mod and checked to be sure.
Also, I don't think this is the right ship to practice with. The two engines are not aligned symmetrically and are probably functional through lua to make the thing stay up in the air.

You can try increasing the Dust Blast mass:
Code:
AddEffect = MOSRotating
   PresetName = Dust Blast
   Mass = 0.01


and you need to set PushesEmitter = 0 to PushesEmitter = 1 under the engine in the transport.ini.
Then watch in terror as the ship behaves crazily since, as I said, the engines are not symmetrical and also really close to one another. It'll probably start spinning and crashing.
Author:  NikolaiLev [ Fri Sep 30, 2011 11:50 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Changing power of dropship thrusters
Yes, Duh, it's a CopyOf Dust Blast which is defined in gunship.ini, a craft that uses a similar (or outright identical) engine.

I'm not trying to use this ship for practice. I just want to modify it for personal use without bothering the creator about it (though I might have to do just that.)

What I don't understand is, you say Dust Blast is what I'm looking for, yet if PushesEmitter = 0 wouldn't that imply dust blast ISN'T what's used for propellant?
Author:  Roast Veg [ Fri Sep 30, 2011 11:55 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Changing power of dropship thrusters
No, in this case a Lua script is.
Author:  NikolaiLev [ Sat Oct 01, 2011 2:25 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Changing power of dropship thrusters
I looked over the Lua script and couldn't figure out what was responsible for the thruster. All I could see was controlling aiming, firing, flipping, opening the door and AI behavior.

I would really appreciate if someone could tell me what in the Lua script controlled lift, and how to change values to do what I intended.

Thanks again for all the help so far!
Author:  Duh102 [ Sat Oct 01, 2011 2:37 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Changing power of dropship thrusters
This section starting with this bit
Code:
-- Lift
      local Lft = Vector(0, 0)
      if self.Ctrl:IsState(Controller.MOVE_UP) then

Change the magnitudes referenced from the power array, though be careful, the thrust values in there also control level-adjustments so increasing them too much might make the ship flip around.
Author:  NikolaiLev [ Sat Oct 01, 2011 6:31 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Changing power of dropship thrusters
I actually tried modifying the magnitudes there. Doing so basically disabled the thrusters. I think changing the magnitude will require learning Lua, so I'm pretty boned for the moment. :\ Oh well..

Image

Photobucket did something to the .gif, but anyway, have this. It's what happened when I did this:

Code:
      -- Lift
      local Lft = Vector(0, 0)
      if self.Ctrl:IsState(Controller.MOVE_UP) then
         Lft:SetMagnitude(power[4])
      elseif self.Ctrl:IsState(Controller.MOVE_DOWN) then
         Lft:SetMagnitude(power[5])
      else
         Lft:SetMagnitude(power[7])
      end


I have no clue how this block of code works. The wiki has no info on SetMagnitude, either.
Author:  Gotcha! [ Sat Oct 01, 2011 4:34 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Changing power of dropship thrusters
Well, at least you took the words Drop Ship to an entirely new level. *thumbs up*
Author:  Duh102 [ Sat Oct 01, 2011 4:45 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Changing power of dropship thrusters
SetMagnitude is merely changing the length of a vector, but not it's direction.

Also, try putting in hard values there, the array in that code is a bit weird in that the values are not increasing in magnitude but arranged in an order that made sense to the author.
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