Hawkeye Black Labs (whiteboarding thread)

[Saelem Black]

I've decided to jump into modding for terratech. At present I'm a novice (but not a neophyte), so these may take a while to fully build. I wanted to outline blocks I have planned for discussion and to ask for some help from the modding folks. This thread will also serve as a suggestion thread for Black Labs blocks that folks might want to see. If/when these blocks come to fruition, I'll make a separate thread posting the blocks themselves like others have done. In no way are all/any of these blocks promised. Just brainstorming for now.

Black Labs Blocks - I'm leaning into TT lore here, given that I'm referenced in-game as a Hawkeye researcher. These blocks represent the blocks that are developed out of my "lab". They are meant to extend the functionality of hawkeye in line with the airship creations I enjoy building the most. Many of the blocks will be quality of life blocks meant to improve the aesthetic of building with the corp and cut down on the visual block-spam of larger techs. They will also be based out of suggestions I've made in the past which probably won't get implemented. The theme for Black Labs blocks is military near-future space faring. Think the Daedelus/Promethius from Stargate SG1 or the Caldari from Eve Online.

Near term:

• HE Ram Scoop Engine
  • This is basically a linear motion engine, except it's flat and wide (2x2x1) and 3-4x stronger. All hawkeye's stuff is heavy, so it makes sense that an LME style block would lift proportionally more.
• HE Big Daddy Trailer Wheel
  • It's a big daddy wheel with no passive braking. Meant for trailers with large, HE themed wheels. *Should* be relatively easy to make.
• HE Hurricane Prop
  • Imagine the twister prop, but with the outside fairing extended/reshaped slightly so that it visually merges with a neighbor when stacked up in a column (like how the twister props are usually used). This way, it will look like a single, long engine instead of a bunch of individual blocks. I'll boost the power output and price just a hair, also.
• Body blocks
  • There are a few more body blocks I want. It will be a series, but in line with what's already in-game, just a few more options.
• HE HUD Computers
  • I want a speedometer, altimeter, fuel gauge, and power gauge as HE styled blocks with attachment points on all sides to be placed internally.
• HE Armored Window
  • This. Lights up at night like the HE cab.
  • 
• HE Wings
  • I've done a bit of work on wings also. One wing will simply be a flat panel with no motion control on it which blends seamlessly with its neighbors in all directions.
  • A second will be a steep-sloped wing for more aggressive fighter-style jets.
  • A final one will be an angled tailfin. Most military aircraft have aggressively tilted rudder fins.
  • Possibly others
• Small HE engine
  • Don't have details yet, but I'd like something somewhat like the venture zero prop (without that awful windup toy sound).
• Black Labs Hawkeye skin. Inkier black with purple accents.

Long term:

• Weapons
  • Railgun-based weapons. I've requested a big railcannon from Potato, and I'd like to expand to have some mid-sized and naval-gun sized ones as well. I don't know, though weapons seem complicated. We'll see.
  • Aerial bombardment mortar/cannon - right now I frequently use monster mortars mounted underneath my airships for their long projectile life and projectile homing capability. They feel better, more concussive, than the paladin bombs. I want to spend some time to develop this idea.
  • VLS integrated missile launcher
• HE Carrier Engine
  • This is essentially a large, powerful rotor. Think the heli-carrier engines from the MCU. It is ring-shaped with attachment points around the outside. I'll probably try to give it a fiery jet engine effect, too.
• HE Frigate Drive
  • A large engine with a particle effect, similar to the BF Ion drives.

This thread will be updated as new information becomes available.

 

[caljam6164]

noice
sounds good

 

[Helios]

Bless you for the Fortress Corners, and the Armored Window! We could always use more variety and decorative blocks.

Think you can make something to cover up the sides of Warp Armor? The Outside Corner Edge Armor is a perfect match for Medium Warp Armor, but no equivalent for Large or XL Warp Armor.

 

[Saelem Black]

Bless you for the Fortress Corners, and the Armored Window! We could always use more variety and decorative blocks.

Think you can make something to cover up the sides of Warp Armor? The Outside Corner Edge Armor is a perfect match for Medium Warp Armor, but no equivalent for Large or XL Warp Armor.

Yes, good call. That shouldn't be too difficult. I'll add it to the list.

 

[Saelem Black]

5.5.2020 Priorities (mostly in order)

• Requested body blocks
• Cascade Turbine Nose Fairing (basically will make the front of a column look like a jet intake)
• Small red blinking lights
• Red light strips
• M, L, and XL armored sloped windows
• Big Daddy Trailer Wheel
• VLS Missile
• Autocannon railgun
• Naval railcannon
• Triple naval railcannon
• Bombardment mortar (probably also railgun based)
• Medium/Large Landing Gear Wheel
• Small propeller
• Medium gimballed Rotor/propeller
• Compact medium rotor (A Hawkeye LME, basically)
• Helicarrier rotor (maybe gimballed if it works properly)
• Black Labs Custom Skin

Wing blocks are on indefinite hold until wing code gets fixed in TTMM.

 

[General Douglas]

VLS Missile FTW!

 

[YaYYeeT]

I suggest that you make a dual barrel quick-firing gun that is mid-range(in terms of price and unlock level) and has damage about 1.5x that of the 3-pound cannon and slightly larger splash radius at half the height of the megaton.

 

[Saelem Black]

This next project might take me a little while, but I wanted to throw out a preview. Please let me know your thoughts!

These are 0-directional shields. They block your own weapons as well due to limitations with how modded shields work. So instead, the goal is to only shield where you actually need it. These shields are small, very cheap, and consume very little power. This is the smallest variant, and I can easily see this as a 5-6 block set of different sizes and angles of shields.

 

[General Douglas]

Awesome!

 

[YaYYeeT]

This next project might take me a little while, but I wanted to throw out a preview. Please let me know your thoughts!

These are 0-directional shields. They block your own weapons as well due to limitations with how modded shields work. So instead, the goal is to only shield where you actually need it. These shields are small, very cheap, and consume very little power. This is the smallest variant, and I can easily see this as a 5-6 block set of different sizes and angles of shields.

View attachment 32451

I've wanted those for so long!

 

[Saelem Black]

Update on Hardlight shields:



Development issues/decisions (please feel free to weigh in).

1. These shields are intended to be stronger, but more limited in placement than regular bubble shields. What I had intended was that they are supposed to block your own projectiles, but offer explosive protection in exchange. I was hoping to leverage the behavior of the R&D test chamber's signs (they simply delete projectiles) for this purpose. However, after extensive testing, I was not able to recreate the projectile-deleting behavior. Other expert modders have offered some insight, but at present, it's not working.

2. A big issue with these is the number of different panels required to shield a tech effectively. Right now, I have two, a small and medium flat shield. I am also planning corner and sloped variants. However, I don't yet know how many, what angles, and what sizes all these need to be. I don't want this set to be 20 shields.

3. What do the emitters look like? Right now, I just have an armor-panel shaped emitter. Good for some places on exteriors, but bad for techs dominated by corner or sloped blocks. The alternative is to use a proper cube-shaped emitter (like the existing shields), but then there's the even/odd width building issue.

4. Color/visual effect. As it turns out, the shield materials/textures in vanilla are designed only to show up at the edges of the sphere. This looks visually clean and eliminates visual noise. However, they work poorly for flat panel shields, making the shield look like very clear glass. The fix to this is as I have shown, to use a transparent glowing material. However, this can look very noisy if there's a lot of panels on a tech.

5. What shape should the colliders have? This is the actual barrier that blocks damage. if the barrier is only where the glowing panel is, it may feel as if bullets can sneak through at corners very easily. I addressed this with a collider which actually is more like a box between the glowing face and the emitter, however, that might make it more difficult to build "holes" in the shield for weapons to shoot through.

All of these things need answers eventually, so lots of work to do on these.