Aerial Travel & Combat

[Legacy_Rolo Kipp]

               < Taking... >

I have in mind a whole new level for NwN1. The Skies.

Purpose: To expand the NwN world to a new dimension and to provide alternate, faster means of travel.

Travel:
To enable aerial travel would require both new/modified tilesets and a topology aware transition system like my proposed Regional Mod (but I can see other ways to implement it, also).

The first consideration is scale.
Flyers travel faster, much faster than ground transport.
Also, the more "common" transports (airships, dragons, ornithopters) are large enough to present difficulties at the scale of the default NwN tilesets. 

So the first thing to do would be to build a set of default tilesets at 1/10th scale. Those 10m tiles now represent: (edit 50m, heh) 100m and an area represents a much larger area. Trees are shrubs and buldings tiny.

Second, we make a set of alternate appearances. 
Those that fly are 1/5th scale and are given heights above their aurorabase that clear most objects on the ground, and blocking walkmesh is removed (it's function being performed by triggers for groundlings). (Edit: Note, the exaggerated relative scale of flyers is intentional)

Those on the ground are at 1/10th scale (far below) and move far more slowly.
(I have in mind a multi-player system that would be terribly tricky, but would link a tiny groundling avatar in the Aerial map with a full size avatar on the ground map. Aerial creatures would link in the other direction to shadows on the ground in the ground map that would be tagetable for ranged weapons.)

An aerial map would represent a builder-defined array of ground maps.
(Edit: That is, the aerial map acts like an overland map linking multiple ground maps in a certain topology)
If a flyer lands, he transitions to the proper ground map. When he takes off, he transitions to the proper coordinates of the aerial map. And some ground maps (like the floating Castle Black) are only accessible from the aerial map.


Combat:
By manipulating the alternate appearances for tiny perspace & hitdist, melee combat becomes far more optional in the air and ranged weapons rule.

Large blocking objects like clouds could be immortal plot creatures (with tiny perspace)that would be impossible to target through (you'd keep targeting the cloud which would ignore you). But once the target was acquired, you could continue to fire (with penalties?) blind.

If have just touched upon the storm of thoughts blowing through my mind. 
What do you think? 
How could it be improved? 
How could it become reality?

Think it would be worth it?


< ...flight >
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Rolo Kipp, 08 juillet 2012 - 06:47 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_henesua]

               interesting... so you have an alternate overland area or set of areas that are at different scale, and points of interest, adventure locations etc... are full scale? Fliers can fly high, and ground travelers walk along the ground.

I think for the first attempt at this you should avoid the attempt to create mini clones of creatures/players on the ground. Simply have full scale areas for ground based travel. And fliers can't interact with creatures/players on the ground unless they land.

That way the focus can be on creating the assets for the sky tileset. Once the tile art is generated, phase 2 can begin with the creative script solution, and generation of mini-appearances.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Rolo Kipp]

               <nodding...>

Yes! Exactly! And the vague idea I have of linked avatars in multiplayer mode is also quite back-burner.

The main interest I have in this is  the different mode of travel and the utility to the players of an (expensive) alternate short-cut method that is a bit more immersive than teleports & gates and opens up new encounter possibilities for DMs.

Edit: One of the intriguing bits is that alternate appearances can have such different stats... without affecting the player's stats directly. Shorter reach/hit distance, faster speed, different size scaling (in aerial combat a pegasus knight might be tiny compared to a dragon knight, though both are human, the *mount* sets the scale...

<...vigorously>
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Rolo Kipp, 22 septembre 2012 - 06:13 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Bannor Bloodfist]

               You forget that we are locked with a single "Z" level.  So, flying around would mean being able to see the ground close enough to avoid obstacles, buildings, non-walk areas and other wise, your flying creature would pop up and down as they flew across buildings, trees that allowed walking etc, or would bump up against walls that have a wok plane that is set to "2".

Your idea of 1/5 scale just can't fix that.  Most especially tied to a ground avatar.  In NWN the character/creature MUST be tied to the ground.  Just like there is no walk over/walk under bridges, the wok gets in the way.

This is something that has been requested multiple times over the years and no one has found a way to disconnect an object from the woks.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_ShadowM]

               Well in the flying system I was going to make later, you want to make sure the height is high enough that melee is not possible from people on the ground but animation to fly down and attack is possible, this will make bows more useful and other ranged attacks and change up the fighting. The height must match so aerial melee is possible. You have to consider other flying methods also like all naturally flying NPC would have to have copy models at the new height and you could use custom 2da to match up ground and fly appearances. Similar to my NPC mounted system that need it custom 2da still. Onspawn would set the data. Custom function to toggle fly/non-flying. PC Mounted flying would require a lot of work with phenos. Travel if you using a world mini map would not be to hard with what we have already made. Give custom feat toggle for landing/take off check you x y coordinates on overland map for area to load when you land. If you wanted you to just leave it as is and make a tileset that just have clouds for aerial combat. It be a lot of work but would be very cool '>

Like Bannor Bloodfist said wok / walkmesh would still be a issue.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par ShadowM, 08 juillet 2012 - 05:57 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Rolo Kipp]

               <renewing his...>

Bannor Bloodfist wrote...

You forget that we are locked with a single "Z" level.  So, flying around would mean being able to see the ground close enough to avoid obstacles, buildings, non-walk areas and other wise, your flying creature would pop up and down as they flew across buildings, trees that allowed walking etc, or would bump up against walls that have a wok plane that is set to "2".....

I didn't forget it :-) It is key to the reason I divorced Aerial maps from ground and one of the reasons for the scaling. Aerial maps will have a flat (or tied to base terrain) wokmesh that is *not* blocked or bumpy. Flyers would have the model above, and the aurorabase (as we know) glued to the ground. But a river/wall/canyon/house will *not* be blocking terrain on the aerial map and flyers will pass over them all. 

I can't give a true 3D ability to flying, but we can certainly work on the *illusion" of winging across the veldt.

Handling the triggers to perform the blocking function and trying to figure out pathfinding for groud-pounders is a different (and post-poned) kettle of fish. Not *completely* necessary for the first phase :-P

<...membership in the flatearth society>
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Bannor Bloodfist]

               If I remember correctly, Thrikreen had a version of this type of thing, or at least was involved in the discussion thereof.

Don't think it actually made it to the vault though it was several years back, so finding the thread would be a pain.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Rolo Kipp]

               <head...>

ShadowM wrote...

Well in the flying system I was going to make later, you want to make sure the height is high enough that melee is not possible from people on the ground but animation to fly down and attack is possible, this will make bows more useful and other ranged attacks and change up the fighting. The height must match so aerial melee is possible. You have to consider other flying methods also like all naturally flying NPC would have to have copy models at the new height and you could use custom 2da to match up ground and fly appearances. Similar to my NPC mounted system that need it custom 2da still. Onspawn would set the data. Custom function to toggle fly/non-flying. PC Mounted flying would require a lot of work with phenos.

Actually, I think it would require only a modification of the mounted pheno - flying mounted pheno - that would change only the distance of the rootdummy above the base.

Most of the custom height/attack things you are talking about would be automagically changed when the creatures/players are transformed onEnter to an aerial map to the scaled down flying appearances, which have height and animations built in as well as changes to hitdist, perspace, speed, etc. 

Not saying I have all (or even very many) of the answers, but I think this is doable and I think it's worth pursuing.

Travel if you using a world mini map would not be to hard with what we have already made. Give custom feat toggle for landing/take off check you x y coordinates on overland map for area to load when you land. If you wanted you to just leave it as is and make a tileset that just have clouds for aerial combat. It be a lot of work but would be very cool '>...

That's one of the tilesets I want ;-) And it ties in with the bubble-dimension travel that OTR (and you) are playing with ;-)

<...down and running>
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Rolo Kipp, 22 septembre 2012 - 06:16 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_OldTimeRadio]

               I think it's one of the best ideas, ever.



"Psst!...10,10,10,204.8...20,20,10,204.8...50,50,10,204.8...10,10,10,409.6"


               
               

               

                     Modifié par OldTimeRadio, 08 juillet 2012 - 06:34 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Rolo Kipp]

               <rummaging around...>

I did come across Andarian's post here (halfway down). Not finding anything on ThriKreen, though... :-P


<...in fibber mcgee's attic>
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Rolo Kipp, 08 juillet 2012 - 06:50 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Bannor Bloodfist]

               It truly may have been something being discussed/built during his DLA days, and thus may have been a private effort type of thing.

it is definitely something that has been attempted.  Also check for discussions on area maps, as I think that may have been where the discussion was held, but I just can't remember.  Too many years, too many great ideas that never fully made it out to fruition.

Darkness Over Daggerford had some special type of map, and that may have been where the idea was discussed more fully.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Rolo Kipp]

               <tossing scrolls about...>

Bannor Bloodfist wrote...
It truly may have been something being discussed/built during his DLA days, and thus may have been a private effort type of thing.

And I saw somewhere recently someone had archived the DLA forums... need that link again ;-P

it is definitely something that has been attempted.  Also check for discussions on area maps, as I think that may have been where the discussion was held, but I just can't remember.  Too many years, too many great ideas that never fully made it out to fruition.

And only recently have things like new beam effects, open-faced helms and texture-changing become possible... :-)
I'm pretty optimistic, at the moment :-)

Darkness Over Daggerford had some special type of map, and that may have been where the idea was discussed more fully.

Yes. I've played with it quite a bit and intend to produce a dynamic mapping system (one of these days) that is a hybrid of the DODf worldmap and Tarot's map-tiles. It'll draw from a library of area miniatures to build the map around the player for small-scale movement, based on the topology of the module defined by the builder but only showing areas visited or adjacent to areas visited (or areas learned of through rumors/tales/research, with opportunity for errors incorporated).

The concept is in fact related to the Aerial Map idea. :-)

<...with wild abandon>
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_NWN_baba yaga]

               I had that flying concept from thrikreen some years ago. Since it´s his own personal project I can only say it had dragons in it. They flew (or I as the dragon) all over the areamap on different height levels and I could cast flamestrikes...but I lost it btw.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par NWN_baba yaga, 08 juillet 2012 - 07:34 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_s e n]

               Six has a nice looking world map made for his module, can't remember how it was based but i had a look at some youtube vid and was impressed! Im sure he can tell you more about that (if that wasnt a secret '>)

i also made a world map with 2d texture and some 3d feature all merged in a big group. you can check if you want here http://nwvault.ign.c...d.php?id=151499
the fact is such maps need a lot of work and are absolutely custom, to be that nice. need 1 high res texture, and a lot of patience. sure flying mounts would have its app in such a feature, like Bannor said its a lot more hard to implement such thing in areas with wok obstacles. but i see a good application for specific non pw modules, with the tweak of existing tilesets to make all the terrain walkable, and having the pheno flying VERY high above ground, higher than the highest point of the tileset. good for flying dragons battles.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_virusman]

               On an unrelated note '>

(just playing with Z-coordinate, there are no plans for a release)
               
               

               

                     Modifié par virusman, 09 juillet 2012 - 04:35 .