The blinding flash would definitely be important, since the smoke and fire generators would need time to begin to generate adequate amounts of particles in order to look decent. This could probably be done through placing several light sources near the epicenter of the blast (but not begin the smoke and fire that is generating), then setting their values to ridiculously high so they achieve long range and absolutely noxious brightness. They could then fade in a logarithmic fashion to reveal the smoke generating behind them, with new smoke and fire generators also appearing in front of them to help add to the fading light. from here the mushroom can be formed by procedurally triggered smoke and fire particle generators. If you ask me, I'd say the first thing we can work on would be the visual appearance of it, since it can be processed without the laggy reaction elements and therefor dissected easier. From there the shock wave and force can be developed as a separate entity, once again to reduce total lag when bug fixing, then the two processes could be combined into the final product.
I love this. "Dude, there's crazy people in the Naval Warfare forum dev'ing nukes!" So, we dev the mushroom first. I like this idea: work the appearance, then the physics. At detonation, we might have to determine if the struck target was on the ground or in the air. A mid-air shroom might look kinda weird. We can make that determination by calculating if the blast wave would hit the ground, and how hard, which would tell us how much dust & debris should be blown into the air. As far as particle generation goes, I've only spawned particles from nodes on vehicles. Can particles be spawned in mid-air, without requiring the presence of nodes? Even if particles need nodes as "parents", I'm sure we can somehow float some in the space above ground zero. Once we get a good base mushroom, we can even sprinkle a touch of randomness in there so that every mushroom doesn't look exactly alike. Also, I haven't messed with wind, but I'm guessing that wind will naturally cause the mushroom to drift, adding some more realism.
Im almost thinkning that the smoke pattern, and maybe even the shockwave itself, could be determined by the same mechanics in game that tells whether or not an area in game is illuminated by light by seeing if anything is in the way. For instance, a mid-air detonation would use the light mechanics to determine that there is nothing below it, and push downwards farther as a result, this would also add the interesting mechanic of being able to shelter yourself from the blast in say a basement or underpass
Sheltering from the blast... Interesting... That shouldn't be too hard to do. The detonation logic will have to scan for victims in-range of the blast, so it shouldn't be that much harder for the logic to ask "Is there something indestructible between the blast and the victim?" I believe that I've seen some "raycast" functions in my code travels. I think the Phoulkon uses some of those functions to avoid firing at targets that are on the other side of a mountain. That would be quite the Achilles heel if an adversary could get base defenses to waste ammo firing at a mountain, then they can attack the base at their leisure after the ammo is depleted. Speaking of not firing at stuff, another thing I'd like to build is an IFF system for the Phoulkon. Maybe then I can stop accidentally shooting down my own aircraft trying to land on the carrier. Right now I just put the weapon system into manual or semi-auto mode, but I'd like to run in auto mode without fear of fratricide. It would require some kind of challenge/response exchange to "authenticate" legit friends and not be spoofed by foes. Some kind of secret code would be fed to a friendly vehicle equipped with IFF after the vehicle is spawned. Separating the secret code from the vehicle spawn info would prevent an adversary from getting the code just by duplicating a friendly vehicle. So, the secret code can't just be set via sliders in the Tuning menu. It would have to be set later, possibly via the debug console or something. There are probably other potential vulnerabilities that would need to be plugged.
My suggestion for a friendly fire avoidance system would be to use the vehicle designations that cars use to determine whether or not they are police vehicles. For instance, you could create 2 versions of each carrier part, one identifying as police, and the other as civilian (or some modified version of that) and include in the firing system something along the lines of If (enemytype == vehicletype) { firing = false } Else { firing = true }
The problem that I would run into would be that some of the folks I play with are very sneaky. They would totally select my vehicle during gameplay and clone it, giving them a vehicle that appears as friendly because it has the same parts. These yahoos are creative role-players too. They'd explain away the fact they have a duplicate vehicle by saying they've been "doing some espionage", got the secrets and built their own copy. Being an immersive role-player myself, I would have to accept their explanation as plausible. This is partially how the Soviets got their first nuke: they did some spy stuff. However, with a code-based approach, there would be a Lua file that initializes a variable to 0 when the IFF-equipped vehicle is first spawned. Of course, 0 would never be used as a legit IFF code. After spawn, a function in the IFF module will be called with The Secret Code: "setSecretCode(19283746)" or something like that. The code is stashed in a variable. When a CIWS is considering a target, it queries the target and waits a very short period of time for a reply. If no reply or an incorrect reply is received, the target is attacked. If the correct reply is received, the CIWS selects a different target. Since the code is 0 at spawn, it makes it more difficult to spoof the IFF system, but probably not impossible. It just means some effort will have to be expended to do a spoof. I just thought of another problem... What if a friendly vehicle is between the CIWS and a foe? Will the CIWS hold fire because there's a friendly in the way, or will it fire at the foe through the friendly? From the CIWS' perspective, it's just firing at the foe. Hmmm... tricky...
Hmm, you might be able to spoof something like that using a mechanic similar to the bus display screen, where you can input custom text for your identification code
Yeah, we just need some way of entering a code after spawn. ...and it's not like a lot of effort will need to be put into making the IFF system unspoofable. We don't need to go insane and get into timestamps, message IDs and cryptography. We only need to make spoofing require just enough effort to be not fun. It is a game after all. However, there are brainiacs out in the world that thrive on academic stuff like this. For those folks, the harder the spoof, the greater the thrill. In roleplay terms, the brainiacs would be the people doing code-breaking & stuff for a BeamNG.intelligence agency.
It could probably be done through something similar to the bus display controller mod where you can change text on a whim, or even through a very specific paint code
I just thought of another thing we need: a custom naval base object; not a vehicle, but a non-physics object (or set of objects), like the port in Italy, that can be placed on the terrain via the World Editor as a custom object class (or classes). It would be cool to even make some of the base buildings destructible. The destructible buildings will probably have to be separate spawnable objects, like the CrashHard shed. I started thinking about a custom naval base when I started exploring the other islands in Italy. There's a lot of area to hide an enemy base out there. One team can defend the main island in Italy, and the other team can attack from the custom base, and the Italian forces don't know where it is. The opposing team can place it anywhere on any of the other islands. Italy already has an airport which would be the Italian air force base, and the port would be their naval base. The custom base would have a fully-illuminated airstrip (because landing lights are supercool), a port with multiple piers, a variety of different buildings, and some roads around all of it. Oh, there's so much cool stuff I want to build! I guess here's my BeamNG.navy to-do list, maybe in this order (low-hanging fruit first): Build STOL conversions for B-25 and AN-12 for naval aviation. STOL is an easy conversion, and I've already done it twice: STOLide & STOL-262. The B-25 & AN-12 might become "BriSTOL-25" & "ANSTOL-12". Operating bombers and other large aircraft from a carrier is insane, which is why @SmokeyDokey and I think it's a good idea and want to try. Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle carrier-launched some bombers in WWII (The Doolittle Raid). We're confident can do it too. I'm going to break the BeamNG.navy budget by crashing a lot of planes and sinking a lot of carriers in the process, and a bomber carrier might be huge, but we'll get it done. I just hope the Admiralty doesn't get too pissed. I'd like to get this done first so that @SmokeyDokey and anybody else interested can begin their training. Flying a "winged truck" at low speed is going to be a challenge and will require lots of practice. Adjustable, illuminated glide slope indicator for aircraft carriers. It might be required for large STOL aircraft. This would be simple, narrow-beam spot lights with their angles adjusted to change color when viewed at different angles. The glide slope will be adjustable for different aircraft, and whether the carrier is moving or not. Build Phoulkon IFF system. Build set of custom flag skins for the Flat Top Barge mod. These skins would paint the image of a flag on the deck of a barge. This would make it easier to identify friends or hostile carriers and other ships during combat. Don't bomb your own carriers! I'll arrange it so that the deck texture is a PNG or other easily editable texture so that the player can edit the PNG to be whatever flag they want. You can devise your own flag! Upgrade existing weapon systems to nuclear-capable Phoulkon missiles ME262 missiles & bombs (maybe the rockets too) Adapt CrashHard Explosive barrels for use as depth charges Build custom naval base object class(es). Adapt Phoulkon weapon system for use on submarines. Build custom nuke types: B-25 bomb(s) Ballistic missiles that will follow a parabolic trajectory. SLBMs Other types Cruise missiles that follow terrain. (Yeah, let's get ambitious!) Eventually, I'd like to build a true CATOBAR aircraft carrier with aircraft. Nimitz class (has 4 elevators) F/A-18 Other aircraft later (F-14, F-4, F-yes!) I got a lot of work to do, but some (hopefully) cool stuff is coming. If anybody else wants to build some of this stuff, feel free!
The naval base could probably be itself several parts that can be assembled in a strategic manner, that being, airstrip and building placements, dock placements, all that jazz, to allow for different invasions depending on base layouts, with some buildings being needed for others to work (control tower for airstrip, hangar for planes, fuel for airstrips and naval ports, barracks for all, etc). The practice of testing and modifying layouts in order to vary the battles
BeamNG.Navy has no budget. We just tax the BeamNG.Citizens with BeamNG.Taxes, so crash away! Seriously though, I can see this becoming insanely cool, and the BriSTOL and ANSTOL-12 are going to be flat-out bonkers! But jeez, seems to be a lot for one person to handle (not saying it isn't possible). If I can help in a way that doesn't involve modeling, just ask
Good idea. We'll make modular base pieces that can be placed as the base commander sees fit. I haven't tried it yet, but it seems that roads can just be "spray painted" on the map, so the main parts of the base can be placed, then roads strung between them. If you or anybody else wants to start messing with standalone smoke and fire generation, we can have some 'splosion effects worked out by the time I catch up. Then we can incorporate the effects into an actual weapon for a test shot. We can tune these effects and start adding more. Anywhere anybody can help would be awesome. The CATOBAR carrier and aircraft would definitely be well into the future. I'll have to master lots of things to pull that off. There are several other modders that I would love to help with this stuff because they've done complex mods before and are good at it. I'll try to recruit them (beg for help) when it's time.
Here's something neat: How to fake a helicarrier in multiplayer: Start a BeamMP server with the following mods: Flat Top Barge (with naval modifications found in this thread), any STOL aircraft, the Flood mod. One of the players (the carrier player) spawns barges and assembles a carrier with them. The other players spawn STOL aircraft to operate from the carrier. The carrier player increases the flood level on their machine to the desired "flight" altitude of the "helicarrier". Since that player spawned the barges, the barges will obey the water level on that player's machine. The other players see the carrier fly because the water level is normal on their machines, but the barge "mirror objects" on their machines follow the barges on the carrier player's machine. All this and the aircraft can still land on it.
Definitely. I'd love to get some YouTube-able footage. We could record some physics replays, then each player can place some cameras and use the replays to generate footage. We can even exchange footage and each of us can cut together a film. We can post our films on YouTube and link to each other's film. We can enjoy the variety of each player's take on events. ...and one more thing about the the fake helicarrier described above: If the carrier sinks in the water on the carrier player's machine, it will appear to be knocked out of the sky on the other players' machines. Also, since there's no fuel tank on the barges, they won't burn. However, the Fire mod could probably be used to help show a helicarrier going down in flames. Just activate the fire after getting hit by a missile or bomb.
Oooh... I think I'm going to put together a BeamNG.navy "recruitment" video to attract more people to the Naval Warfare forum. "The BeamNG.navy wants you!" Hmmm... With respect to theme/tone/flavor, I'm wondering if I should go for: WWII-era "news reel" wartime footage, complete with voiceover, or... "Monster Truck Rally": Just set everything on fire and tell everybody to "BE THERE!" & get ready to blow stuff up...
