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Author Topic: How might I go about creating a kamikaze hull?  (Read 1857 times)

Danku-Chan

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How might I go about creating a kamikaze hull?
« on: January 09, 2020, 07:58:48 PM »

I've never modded Starsector before, but as it turns out there's no kamikaze mods from what I can see. So I took it upon myself to make one, my only question is how I might make my ship actually blow up on demand, and make it do enough damage to be worthwhile. I already have the sprites and stuff down, it's just this part that's out of my reach at the moment.
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Kulverstukass

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Re: How might I go about creating a kamikaze hull?
« Reply #1 on: January 09, 2020, 09:33:49 PM »

You may wanna be interested in this
http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=8007.0

Ship of your interest is top-right in a "family photo", the thing it's launches is all about one-way-ticket and massive AOE damage.
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Buckle up for broken english vocabulary, comrade!

AxleMC131

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Re: How might I go about creating a kamikaze hull?
« Reply #2 on: January 09, 2020, 10:27:42 PM »

You may wanna be interested in this
http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=8007.0

Hehe, beat me to it. ;)

All you really need for a super-basic "kamikaze ship" is a ship system that causes damage to the ship using it when activated, enough to destroy it immediately, and the resulting blast would hopefully damage other ships nearby.

Word of warning though: If you've never tried modding before, don't forget to take things one step at a time. Ship systems - especially wacky things like kamikaze systems (GOOD ONES I mean, not hackjobs that barely work) - are tricky to do well and balanced, BUT they can be very cool if done right. I strongly recommend putting in the effort to make a quality effect.

(An alternative reference you can use is the Kamikaze Talon from my own mod, Disassemble Reassemble - click the speedy ship below - but it's quite a different way of doing it.)
« Last Edit: January 09, 2020, 10:30:26 PM by AxleMC131 »
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Danku-Chan

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Re: How might I go about creating a kamikaze hull?
« Reply #3 on: January 09, 2020, 10:56:34 PM »

You may wanna be interested in this
http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=8007.0

Ship of your interest is top-right in a "family photo", the thing it's launches is all about one-way-ticket and massive AOE damage.

Thanks for the help, still seems to be some kinks in there I can't seem to work out, but that's probably just because it's 1am and I've been working on this all evening.
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Danku-Chan

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Re: How might I go about creating a kamikaze hull?
« Reply #4 on: January 09, 2020, 11:52:45 PM »

You may wanna be interested in this
http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=8007.0

Hehe, beat me to it. ;)

All you really need for a super-basic "kamikaze ship" is a ship system that causes damage to the ship using it when activated, enough to destroy it immediately, and the resulting blast would hopefully damage other ships nearby.

Word of warning though: If you've never tried modding before, don't forget to take things one step at a time. Ship systems - especially wacky things like kamikaze systems (GOOD ONES I mean, not hackjobs that barely work) - are tricky to do well and balanced, BUT they can be very cool if done right. I strongly recommend putting in the effort to make a quality effect.

(An alternative reference you can use is the Kamikaze Talon from my own mod, Disassemble Reassemble - click the speedy ship below - but it's quite a different way of doing it.)

Your talons were actually my inspiration for doing this! I thought I had read somewhere that doing a real kamikaze ship wouldn't be possible for some reason, but seeing that gave me a bit of hope.

Question, do you think I might be able to manipulate the size of the explosion, like how you get different explosion sizes for frigates, destroyers, cruisers, and capitals? That ship system sounds like it'd be pretty easy to implement, it's really just making the ships have enough bang (in a literal sense) for your buck, because if all I can do is make it normally explode nearby, you might as well just take a ship and drive it into a fleet without the mod here at all.
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Danku-Chan

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Re: How might I go about creating a kamikaze hull?
« Reply #5 on: January 10, 2020, 11:18:34 AM »

So I think I've managed to figure out how I could get something relatively basic working. If I can make a hullmod that increases the size of the explosion on death (which I SHOULD be able to do, because there's a reduced explosion hullmod) and then make a ship system that instakills the ship, I should be able to get the kind of result I want. Only problem here is that I haven't got a clue how to make a hullmod nor a ship system...
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AxleMC131

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Re: How might I go about creating a kamikaze hull?
« Reply #6 on: January 10, 2020, 01:00:43 PM »

Take a look at the vanilla hullmods and ship systems first. Your first port of call for reference material should always be vanilla files. Unfortunately I don't have the time right now to provide a full tutorial on either, but take a look around, pretty sure there are tutorials out there. And of course there's the Unofficial Starsector Discord (chaotic as it now is) to ask for help within.
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Danku-Chan

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Re: How might I go about creating a kamikaze hull?
« Reply #7 on: January 10, 2020, 01:28:18 PM »

Take a look at the vanilla hullmods and ship systems first. Your first port of call for reference material should always be vanilla files. Unfortunately I don't have the time right now to provide a full tutorial on either, but take a look around, pretty sure there are tutorials out there. And of course there's the Unofficial Starsector Discord (chaotic as it now is) to ask for help within.

I think I was able to make the hullmod (I was at least able to put it on the ship in the ship editor). I'll take a look at the discord, where could I get a link?
I based most of the early stuff off of Vayra's tutorial, but they haven't included making hullmods and ship systems yet.
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AxleMC131

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Re: How might I go about creating a kamikaze hull?
« Reply #8 on: January 10, 2020, 01:43:44 PM »

http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=11488.0 <-- It's a bit of a mess last time I looked, but there should be plenty of people online in the modding channel who can help out.

I will say, the hardest bit for this concept will be an AI for the ship system. But if you're making a unique ship then you can always omit one entirely, at least for now, and add one later when you're more confident with coding.

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