[Discontinued] KNight's Unit Design Thread

o wow did u make that in minecraft? x)

So ... TibSun mod for Supcom / PA ??

TibSun was my first RTS and it was amazing. Mainly played this vs multiple AI to see how long I could keep my base running.

Also modded in a 3rd faction Aquarius. They could only build on water and all their vehicles were modded to be amphibious or hover. Can't tell you how funny having a tank roll out and drown immediately was (during the creation of the mod before I added hover / amphib to anything).

Not really, mostly just coincidence that we all like aspects from TibSun, in general we(mostly me) usually like to really focus on one or 2 primary inspirations for a unit design to really help focus the design. Sometimes things look more like a mash-up than intended, it partially depends on the 'viewer's bias' for example, The Basilisk is primarily inspired by Metal Gear Rex(to the point that most of my files for it are named 'MGQAI_____' and the T1 Hydra was basically a Gekko and was intended to be exclusively built by the Basilisk) but someone who is more familiar with Zoids than the Metal Gear series would see more of a Zoids vibe.

I've always worked to make sure I don't directly copy things, sometimes like with my PA Hailfire looking like the TibSun Hover MRLS it happens that the core design elements fit perfectly with intended Weapons/unit use(Anyone who know of the oooooooold Hailfire[Pre-BlackOps] will really get a kick out of it).

ANYWAYS, I was looking over my Renegade Design, and while certainly cool, I'll prolly have another go at it at some point, in the mean time I whipped up this;




The LongBow Overwatch Gunship

The Basic idea was to have a slow-ish gunship, but give it a big deployable cannon. With the Cannon deployed the LongBow could still move, but at a reduced rate. The Cannon itself would have good range and moderate DPS, but a higher than average RoF.

Or something, who knows in the end! xD

Mike

Just saw this from the gunship thread. Looks awesome!

Visually, I'd prefer to have the gun on the top (or in some way more visible) so that I can see more of the gun when looking at it top-down. Does the gun rotate off the direction of flight, or does it always point straight? If the former, I definitely think it should be more visible.

Normally I don't care if I can pick out a gunship's guns because it generally shoots the direction it is pointing. This one is exceptionally large and important, though, so I feel like it should read better.

The Logistics of mounting a weapon on TOP of a gunship that's supposed to be shooting downwards is awkward at best. Also note that while the weapon itself might not read that well(but when deployed the barrels do stick out ahead of the gunship's nose) but it does have a distinct silhouette when compared to my Renegade gunship(I plan on redoing it but the same general shape will be present) in that the LongBow has 4 equal size thrusters and is overall box shaped when seen from above, whereas the Renegade has 2 Large Front Thrusters and 2 Smaller rear thrusters and more of a triangle ship from above.

Mike

God damn I had not spotted this thread until now... nice work.

Have they been rigged or are you just posing them without?


After the week ends I will have some more free time and will commence busting out some models.

Has anyone from PA mentioned a poly limit they have been sticking to as a rough guide? Guessing it's going to be pretty low.

The dynamic animation of each of those nacelles on the longbow/renegade as it hovers in position and fires would look pretty sexy tbh. Kind of kicks the legs out from under the gunship I was thinking about. It had a Moller Skycar car vibe going on, in my head.

Keep the front page updated with your new shiz, I hate to scroll.


As for the longbow the over under barrels gives it a much more distinct appearance as opposed to going for a side by side type configuration.

They don't have a skeleton or anything, but they're all broken down into the individual objects with rotation points mimicing those that would actually be used, it's the system SupCom uses so after doing things like that for 5+ years it becomes second nature.

Nothing specifically mentioned yet, but yeah I imagine it will be pretty low, I'm under no assumptions that pretty much any of my current models will fit in as far as tri-count, but at least at this stage I have all the really important things like proportions and overall design nailed down, at this point cutting tris is easy. It's also why I have done any texturing yet.

Yup, the system SupCom had wasn't very complex, but it really went a long way to making the gunships look fantastic.

Only thing missing at this stage is the LongBow, I only update the front page as things get "completed" so I've got quite a few WIPs tucked away through the thread. I usually update the first post when I've got 3 ready to post and make a post noting it so they don't get missed too easily.

Also makes it tuck away much nicer.

Mike

How does it tuck away?

If I were doing it I would have have it move/slide backwards down it's belly then rotate into it's rear backwards. So when it deploys it has and upside-down scorpion tail vibe type vibe.

I'm interested in how you have done it.

The only slides are the Barrels, everything else is just rotations;



Mike

cunning... also looks halfway to being a tank like that as well.

Aloha! Doing some late night modeling here in Honolulu and finished this one up, been sitting on the idea for awhile and it's only recently that I've been able to figure out some of the design for this one.

Anyways, I present the Thunderbolt!

Design for Ground Support, the Thunderbolt fires a salvo of 6 Air-to-Ground missiles at medium range.

Mike

BRRRRRRRRT (although the missiles do add a lot to the model, seems a waste to make a sci-fi A-10 that uses missiles instead of BRRRRRRRRT).

Believe me, it hurts me more than you, but that's part of being a responsible designer, knowing that no matter th awesome epic idea you have, sometimes you need to do things differently. I could go on and on and on about the countless ideas we have to cut and trim for countless BlackOps units, even to the point that there are lots of ideas that never made it off the ground.

Even then, while the GAU-8A is certainly a well known feature, it's far from the only one and arguably not even the most functionally important. It's durability is practically the stuff of legends when it comes to aircraft, it can fly with only a single engine, half the tail and 1.5 wings intact, among countless other safety/durability features. Beyond that, the payload it can carry is similarly out of this world considering the lower overall speed it operates at and still manages a high level of maneuverability despite that lower speed.

When approaching such capabilities from an RTS unit perspective(particularly a SupCom/TA-esqe RTS) you really need to consider what makes the cut, but throw in too much and you get an awkward unit to use that has lots of overlap with other units potentially. The Best way to look at this is like the Corsair from SupCom:FA, it's technically a bomber, but it has some unique advantages that it can exploit, in particular that you can fire the missiles and bank away(ideally from farther away that a regular bomber could drop bombs) allowing it to deal damage without having to commit itself to flying over larger amounts of AA, of course that could have effects on damage and what not, but it's areas like this that you need to leave wiggle room within your concepts because when you get all these complex interactions between units and different layers it can be difficult if not impossible to try and predict everything before hand.

Also personally I feel a GAU-8A type weapon is a better fit for a Gunship type unit as opposed to a plane due to the logistics of getting a unit to properly aim at a ground unit, where-as a Gunship you can mount it on a pseudo-turret(only need pitch as the Gunship naturally handles yaw)

Mike

i love the gunships, i guess i like them all but those gunships.. MM MMM

Back again, earlier I mentioned I was gonna re-work my Original Gunship design.......and I did!





Same Basic Idea as Before, a Missile Gunship that fires off a small salvo of AOE Missiles.

Also a little bonus, something I've just started on and is still very much WIP;



Mike

Also a little bonus, something I've just started on and is still very much WIP;



Mike


A Disruptor?!
Or that would be too obvious, wouldn't it?
It's just something that looks like a disruptor...

Is that my disruptor tank? If so ... Excellent :twisted:

I take it you never played FA with the BlackOps Special Weapons Mod then;


EDIT: Also forgot to mention that I've updated the first post with new units and updaged the Renegade Pic and Link.

Mike

And that's where you are very mistaken
I'm in love with the disruptor. I usually build a dozen of them and let them have their fun obliterating the enemy's base in a matter of seconds (ah, the memories...)

So thanks to Raevn, I can finally get a look at some PA unit Meshes;



So that means I can do my models to be in a more PA style, so I might do that for a few and see how it goes.

Mike