Need Advice

[Macgeoghagen]

If this inspires a fan fiction, it will have to be a childrens' story. I will write it.

[Macgeoghagen]

LEGO group is against using their software to make game objects. If you have the weapons pack with lego weapon icons, it will soon be superseded by another weapons pack with different artwork.

[Atarlost]

Lego bricks are patented, not copyrighted. You should be able to, if you want the lego look, get the dimensions off the patents and build LEGO brick-like objects in another 3d modeler. This would get you around the software license. IANAL but I think the patent should only protect physical bricks, otherwise graphics libraries would have to pay license fees to Melitta since I'm sure the original for the Utah Teapot was protected by a design patent as well.

Of course this would be a great deal of work which probably defeats the whole point of using the LEGO look in the first place.

The other workaround, which is also a great deal of work, but of a different kind, is to use actual physical bricks photographed against a bluescreen.

[Curudan]

Try using either LeoCAD or any of the software here. All of that software allow you to create 3d objects using plastic bricks, but none of them are directly "LEGO", and there isn't anything wrong with using any of them to make images for your Transcendence mods.

[Ttech]

It also took them quite a while to respond, there are indeed some open source ones, I don't even think or know if Lego still develops their lego cad software.

[Macgeoghagen]

I found a suite of programs called Ldraw which have a very permissive license agreement. I will learn how to build with the software and then re-do my lego ship.

[Ttech]

I found a suite of programs called Ldraw which have a very permissive license agreement. I will learn how to build with the software and then re-do my lego ship.

Good luck.

[Macgeoghagen]

Though I am not on chat, I am still busy. I'm on a business trip. I have made a few ships of various types. I have a fighter, an armed freighter, a recon ship, and a military style transport. Now for some questions.

Is there demand for an item that would give you ship another device slot when installed?

Is there demand for a long range sensor cluster that would allow the player to map all stations in system without using up the ROM cards?

Is there demand for an extra fuel storage tank that would allow the player to go longer between fill-ups?

Is there demand for different types of exhaust patterns? Not sure if I could make them look good, but I can try.

[Drako Slyith]

The fuel one and the device slot may not be possible. The scanner is relatively easy but nearly impossible to balance. You could use an overlay for the exhaust, so that may work. I'm not sure if it's possible to overwrite data in game that is defined in a shipclass. Good ideas though, I'd love to see them work.

[Aury]

Though I am not on chat, I am still busy. I'm on a business trip. I have made a few ships of various types. I have a fighter, an armed freighter, a recon ship, and a military style transport. Now for some questions.

Is there demand for an item that would give you ship another device slot when installed?

Is there demand for a long range sensor cluster that would allow the player to map all stations in system without using up the ROM cards?

Is there demand for an extra fuel storage tank that would allow the player to go longer between fill-ups?

Is there demand for different types of exhaust patterns? Not sure if I could make them look good, but I can try.

1) This would have to be done at some great penalty; its rather unbalanced as-is. It has been tried before though.
2) That would likely be unbalanced. Perhaps extended range detection to the scope of the LRS? Its not OP because you can do the same thing with a targeting rom. In fact if it were not for the annoying scarcity of targeting roms, it would make a nice early-game device. Maybe one going to 200ls could be a late-game variant.
3) I don't think thats possible without some major gimmicky coding. Theoretically it could be done though. It would not work right with the interface though.

[Prophet]

1)made one
2)made one
3)made one
4)haven't made one

Adding device slots is WAY OP. There is no way to balance it, don't try. You can include it in a mod but please mark it as a godmod if you release it.

I have devices in VUI that auto scan stations at range. IT is very handy and can be balanced with cost, availability, power usage, device slot usage, etc.

Extra fuel capacity is nice, especially because it doesn't have any mass, like fuel rods do. (oddly enough)

Exhaust is tricky because of the game's perspective. Recolouring the existing exhausts would be fairly simple compared to rendering a new sprite sheet and trying to get the placement exactly right.

So basically, 2 and 3 are great ideas, #1 is unbalancing and #4 is very difficult to do well.

[Aury]

Hmm, I didn't see number 4
Anyways, the 4th is doable; I've done it a few times, but it really needs to be done on a ship by ship basis and it would practically double TSB in size (ATM it is currently 67MB in size)

[Macgeoghagen]

I can see how being able to add device slots could be seen as a godmod. After giving it some thought, There may be a way to introduce limitations. possible limitations:
1) expense. make device slot expensive to buy and install.
2) mass. make the device slot add to the mass of the ship
3) space. make the device slot take up cargo space.

What if I were to make all my lego ships bare bones at the start of the game? with 1 device slot, tiny cargo hold, and tiny reactor. Then the player would have the added challenge of having to find not only devices to make his ship better, but the slots to put them in.

[RPC]

That would be awesome if you start as a 4 (2x8) blocks, like:

Code: Select all

  ||
 ||=||

then you find Lego pieces ether in store or lying around the system and add them using an overlay system or something similar (maybe have 3 evolutions of each ship?).

[Macgeoghagen]

Thats a cool idea. maybe when I am a lot better at xml I'll try it.
Also, does anyone here use POV ray to render your models?