Tactical Display Mod...a new idea...

from Sins Forums

Okay I've made this suggestion a couple of times in other sub forums, but I'm interested to know what anyone thinks of it, and also how much work it would be!  Okay so here's the deal: I was thinking how a lot of RTS games can be thought of as virtual representations of the battle-area to give the commander more control.  In real life, however, would this kind of commander interface really be as effects heavy?

So, how about a purely 'functional' version of Sins.  Same gameplay, same ships, same everything really but flat shading, vivid colours, almost like Tron (I love Tron I do).  A very cold and detached display of the action, almost like "Defcon: Everybody Dies".  Starbase blows up - you get a sort of expanding 'blip' that fades out to nothingness, and on with the fight.  You could still have a bloom effect, a) to make things look not TOO shitty and b) to simulate the holographic nature of the tactical display.

This - presumably - would also have the added advantage of making Sins SUPER playable on just about any machine, regardless of specs.

How easy/hard would this be to implement?  Is it even a good idea?  I think there is a way that it could still be made to look 'cool'...but be a lot more functional, more compatible with a wider range of specs, and...yeah.  That's about it really.

Naff idea?

modding
5,800 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

I'm shooting from the hip because I havent tried making a mod anything like this (tho I love DEFCON). Seems like if you set the model draw distances to like 0.0001 and then really flesh out the icons and icon distances, you'll get sort of what you're looking for. But animating the icons even at the most basic level? I don't think there's a way to do that right now. Also you'd have to make weapon projectiles actual units so they'd get icons - which is doable but very tricky and awkward (you'd have to make your ships spawn the weapon-units and then program the weapon-units to self-destruct against their targets).

Interesting idea - reminds me of the effect you got zooming out all the way in Homeworld 2, where you felt like you were standing on the bridge of the mothership looking at a 3D map of the battlefield. I honestly prefer the cinematic look of the current sins but your mod could be pretty cool if you can overcome the massive technical difficulties.

Good luck!

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

Yeah the zoomed out view in Homeworld 2 was cool!  Although you couldn't tell what anything was, but they were on to a good idea.

See I was thinking it could still be kept 3D, but perhaps stripping away the extra detail geometry, removing reflection and bump mapping, and reducing it to very vivid 'block' shading.  The current draw distance and point at which they become strategic icons could be kept the same.

As for projectiles I'm not sure how that'd work.  Perhaps use the existing system but replace the 'sprites' or however they draw weapon effects with more simplistic graphic, perhaps do away with shield effects and impact 'splashes'.

Truth be told...I'm not a modder at all.  I just kind of have this idea in my head of an entirely different look and feel for Sins...I guess I was just gauging interest in the idea and getting a sense of whether or not it was possible.

I would like to get into modding though. Time to get reading I reckon...

Offworld Trading Company
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

Not difficult at all. You can have the "holographic" feel established by simply replacing every ship mesh with an inivisible dummy object which would have the existing weapon and ability points kept as original with an aditional flare particle point set up dead center which would be linked to the actual old ship mesh, but this time as a particle effect, with uniform color texture, heavy illumination and bloom and partial transparency. You can even go so far as to paint the entire ship with the team color, so you get an appropriately coloured holographic model ingame.

Technically, this is a very simple process, requires no modelling skills, some copy/pasting in notepad and only basic texture work - in fact you could use the same three-texture set for virtually everything.

Dig in man. The idea is novel, and definitely doable.

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

Wouldn't that technically kill the Jump radar?

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top

I don't see how, since it would be a purely visual mod.

Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top

ManShooter that sounds very very neat, perhaps i could learn from you? I was thinking more along the lines of dropping all the color choices in the game settings and trying to get the "gray/black" feel to it, somewhat along the lines of XFighter, where the ships look almost realistic, but this is just my guess as to what Chimpspanner is shooting for. But i think visually it would lend a certainly "New" look to Sins.

-Teal

p.s.  Do you mean like stripping out the cl and da textures for the meshes and leaving only the normals?

I have a teeny tiny eentsie weensie bit of experience with that , haha, was in the meshes and did it trying to figure out how to do something else.  :)