The Omega Project: Development Thread

[Storm Grunt]

-Thanks Guy's-

I'm very happy to report that Kingpin was happy with the way the attack animation turned out so, I have finished making the missing frames for all the Flc's of Ripptides Bandit Hovertank. I have tested the unit in game and it works fine. I'm just waiting for Kingpin to send the rest of the units now.

In the meantime here is a preview of all the Bandit Flc's fidget/default(run)/fortify/attack/death....

And an in game shot....

 

[odintheking]

Dude, that TIE Fighter thing kicks ass. Major ass. So, any wondersplashes you need that I can help with?

 

[DJ Bonebraker]

I kind of hate to say it, but based on the data I gathered from the X-wing series of games, the F-14 could whup the TIE figthers, especially in atmospheric combat (Tie fighters have too much drag, even the official Star Wars tech manuals say so), not to mention that the TIEs top speed is about Mach 1 (I timed how long it took to travel 1 KM in TIE Fighter (the game) at a TIE fighter's top speed, and it came out to about Mach 1), which is half that of the F-14.....
The only advantage they have is space flight capabilities and unlimited ammo (lasers), but 1 burst from the 2mm vulcan cannons on a Tomcat would shred a TIE (any of them except the TIE Avenger and TIE Defender.... They have shields)..

But that's a cool pic, nonetheless.

Gad I'm such a Star Wars nerd.......

 

[T.A JONES]

Hey Storm Grunt! Its getting better and better!
Ya, Solid work in reeling Kingpin to your corner,.His arsanal in units,and expertise just guaranteed your mods success. Hope he throws in both( although you got SH## covered Im sure )

Still, Hope to see you two collaborating in more ways on this project. Be good to see him return to form with a new power duo featuring Storm.
Ripps 'beaut bots' got ya rolling out sweet with this showcase. All the power's to ya

Hey, really we go back all three of us. Remember the 'Aqua Assault thread' so, after recalling that fiasco You gotta respect KINGPIN CLASS you know what I mean? ; I kinda miss seeing his modding, on pedia and bug spraying,especially, he dosn't miss a thing. Now he's handing over the Mechs that were awarded soley to him at the time of Ripptides Retirment. Now, put in place in you mod, this sacred bond links you to greatest of the greats! The Balancer Reloaded!! You must be so proud!

Anyway, Sorry man, just had to plug the the best mod Ive ever played while saying whats up, while I had the chance. say Keep up the front lines in innovation man. Your doing a hella good job.

 

[Storm Grunt]

@ Odin - I haven't really given much thought to Wonders. I was clearing out some old images from my hard drive when i cam across that one. I cant even remember where I got it from, and I wish I could too see if there were anymore like that. I know I'd like to have wonders that have to do with the Mechwarrior clans to auto-produce the ultra expensive Mech units, other than that throw some ideas at me and I'll tell you what I like.

@ Hikaro - That was before the discovery of Nitrofuel on Omega which the Tie fighter engine and airframe can handle But the great increase in Lbs of thrust is too great for old world jet aircraft.

@ T.A. Jones - Thanks for the compliments. I am deeply Grateful to Kingpin for his generosity regarding the units. I Don't know if you will see much more involvement than that from him though. He hasn't expressed any desire to get more involved than that and I don't want to push the subject....

 

[Storm Grunt]

I'm pleased to announce that Kingpin has sent me the next three Ripptide battletech units to work on. I took a look at the storyboards and it's the same problem as the hover tank(last seven frames of each flc are blank) so it shouldn't be hard to fix just time consuming. For the next couple of weeks I'll be focused on working on these units to get them back to Kingpin as quickly as possible, so all my other little side projects are gonna be on hold for now.

Here are Pedia shots of the next 3 previously unreleased units that will go into the Omega Project.

.......Blood Asp................................................................Blackhawk...............................................................Bushwhacker

 

[Quinzy]

wow! those look great!

 

[Stormrage]

I wanna see those in action!

 

[DJ Bonebraker]

Ahh, the bushwacker.. Takes me back to my Mechwarrior IV days. My tricked-out customized bushwacker with jet packs, Clanner heavy laser turrets and heavy guided missile pods could actually go 1 on 1 with just about any mech in the game, even the big bruisers. The only problem I had was that despite having Heavy heat sinks out the wazoo, my lasers would still overheat the reactor in the middle of a battle with one of the gargantuans..... Ahhh, the memories.

 

[Stormrage]

I`m a Mad Cat person myself MK II if possible

 

[carmen510]

I'm speachless for once.

 

[Storm Grunt]

Thanks for the comments guy's.
Hikaro I miss the mechwarrior days too, I had the original and 2, in fact I think I'm going to go dig out the cd and see if it will play under XP for inspiration and then try to dissect the game for graphics and sounds .
There are a lot of original mechwarrior sound effects with all the ripptide units from the mechwarrior games, but some of them don't sync up too well. I'll see if I can tweak them and dig up some more.
This mod is going to be heavy on Mechwarrior/Battletech material. They will be the ultimate battlefield weapons to have, sort of like battleships on land. One whole age(3rd) will focus on mech technology. I'm going to do some cut and paste alternate attacks with conventional weapons and energy weapons which will give each mech unit platform several realistic upgrade levels depending on research and resources.

I'm right there with you Stormrage. The madcat/timberwolf was always my favorite too. I loved to fire off those twin racks of missiles and switch to the missile cam to watch them close in on the target then impact...Yeesssssss

 

[Storm Grunt]

I completed the repairs to the Blood Asp mech today and tested it in game and it works fine. I will come back to this unit later and give it an alternate autocannon and missile attack.

Here's the preview:

And in game screenie:

 

[Stormrage]

Holy Crap! Its amazing!

 

[DJ Bonebraker]

This might seem like some nit-picking, buyt I'd cut the lasers off so that they both disappeared at the same spot , rather than like it is now, since, from my experience, the current version looks wierd in game (it looks like one laser beam is longer than the other).

For an example of what I'm saying it should look like, go to my entry in the unit artist's library, and go to either the Tesla Tank or Imperial Sky Armor thread and look carefully at their attack A animations.

 

[Storm Grunt]

I see what you mean Hikaro. Cutting the lasers off evenly on this unit may make it worse though. Your Tesla tank has a bigger frame and the beams are centered into the corner of the frame. The frame of the Blood asp is only 125x125 even though the unit itself is much larger and the beams are spread a lot further apart, so to make them even I would have to cut a huge amount out of the nearest beams and I just don't think that would look right either.

It takes me about a week to complete each unit with what little time I have to work on them each day and Kingpin told me that after these three there are still about 12 more units to do, so I can't spend too much time trying to alter all 120 frames of one flc right now to perfect it. Once I get all the units at least working and see what the mech unit line is going to look like and figure out the different Mech weapons upgrade paths I'm going to use, then I'll come back to this unit to do the alt attacks and I may even take the beams out entirely and just do SRM, Autocannon, PPC, Gauss rifle on this one.

Thanks for the feedback and tips Hikaro.

 

[DJ Bonebraker]

I understand what you're saying.... Now, you know the reason why I render all my units in what some people would consider ridiculously large frame sizes... I want to make sure that any visible projectile or beam weapon attacks look good in game, and not squashed in any way.... Which reminds me. I'm seriously thinking about going back and re-doing the Makou Cannon from the FF mod, with enlarging the frame to 200x200 being the first priority, and fixing some of the texture issues and animations as well.

 

[Stormrage]

I just designed a psichotic mech , but it would require mebbe a year of precise c`n`p work. Picture to follow shortly.

Here it is, along with a suggestion for a Dragonling, Dragonsteed, Flaming Ostridge, whatever

 

[Storm Grunt]

That is an awesome looking mech you have created there Rageman! So, what are you waiting for get to work It's not just gonna C&P itself together you know...oh wait..thats your line.

Maybe LMR could pull something like that off. I tried to C&P a tank turret onto the lower body of the Raven Mech but after several hours of pixel by pixel blending I found myself in a vegetative state staring into the laser of my wireless mouse with drool running out of the corner of my mouth.

 

[Stormrage]

I ended up like that when I just tried to remove the horns from Rob`s Iceni chicks...

Can a specific animation be asigned to the say, bombard animation? And another one to a def. bomb?

LMR! is also making me a MIDAS bomb, you might know it if you played Front Mission 3 for Playstation. Its a cool energy weapon, like a clean nuke. Check it out at the 40k thread (its not for that mod), you might like it. Its not yet finished, tho.