Imperial Navy

Legolas55 · Post by **Legolas55** » Sun Feb 08, 2004 5:16 pm

TES doesn't do much with the navy and boats. The only boats in the game are stationary. Maybe we could make a branch of the Imperial Legion called the Imperial Navy. The prime places can be that bay that the river that goes through Cyrodil lets out, areas around Summerset Isle, and Hammerfell. Is there any possible way to make a boat that you can actually control with scripting???

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Sun Feb 08, 2004 6:17 pm

No idea about the scripting, but the whole premise for an Imperial Navy sounds really cool. It would add a totally different playing experience if you could get it up & running.

Whatabout set pieces with 2 stationary boats out in the middle of the ocean - 1 with Imperial Navy men boarding a pirate ship. If you stay alive for the duration you recieve payment of 100 gold pieces or something like that.

Your tour of duty with the navy could be a string of setpieces that take place in Imperial docks and fighting enemies of the Empire.

Post by **Haplo** » Sun Feb 08, 2004 7:39 pm

well, thats a problem, because when we have even fifteen NPCs in one small area, it creates major lag, and to man a pirate ship or imperial ship large enough to do sea combat, you'd need 50 at minimum, so that would be over 100 NPCs right there. Maybe ships that are stranded somewhere, or small skiffs and fishing boats

stranded ships could be done with a ship tilted a bit and maybe have just a few people left alive on board, maybe six or seven, and there are sharks in their food supply.

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Sun Feb 08, 2004 8:07 pm

You're not wrong there Haplo.

I suppose you could always come at it from another direction.

Once you join the Imperial Navy you could then report for assignment.

Assignments could come in the form of pirate bases on small islands (1x1 cells) located in remote locations (ie inaccessible unless you actually do the Navy quest). You'd be transported directly to a location on accepting an assignment.

The starting point would be your own ship moored offshore from the small island. The badguys would be spread out inside the base - so no lag.

Objectives could be kill all the pirates/retrieve stolen loot etc..

Once you do what you're supposed to, you talk to the ships captain or whoever & are returned to your home dock.

Thats my 2 cents worth. For what its worth

Legolas55 · Post by **Legolas55** » Sun Feb 08, 2004 8:21 pm

As for scripting, I have two ideas.

This one is much harder, yet would be much cooler. Make three activators on the ship. When you press one, the ship, which is also an activator, and the three controls move its designated way through animation. One for straight, one for left, and one for right. To make it easier, everything that is on the deck of the ship will be disabled when you activate one of the controls. The amount of animation can be in small intervals to allow sharper movement. As for the PC, he will have to keep up with the ship's movement.

This adea is a lot easier. You make something on the ship an activator, and when you activate it, it will give you a big list of choices of where to be transported, but the ship will have to be transported also.

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Sun Feb 08, 2004 11:54 pm

For the second option, you could have a number of identical ships so it looks as if the ship has moved.

STH · Post by **STH** » Mon Feb 09, 2004 1:31 am

why not show a video sequence (like in gothic II) if the ship moves?

let's say you have one or more quests and the video sequence plays when you're on the main quest.

btw, i do not know if you can play video sequences from your harddisk...

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Mon Feb 09, 2004 9:18 am

You can script it so it will play a bink file in a specific scene

Icarus · Post by **Icarus** » Mon Feb 09, 2004 11:14 am

>well, thats a problem, because when we have even >fifteen NPCs in one small area, it creates major lag.

Yeah this made some mods unlplayable. Maybe you could wake up in the middle of the night and get a messagebox saying "you hear a creak, it wakes you up" or some such and you wake up to find assasins on the boat trying to kill the captain or some nobles being transported etc...

Legolas55 · Post by **Legolas55** » Sun Feb 15, 2004 12:20 am

I had an idea about how to make boats move. What if we used the boat mesh and made it a creature? That way, it could always be moving. We could make some kind of animation that just has it tilting or moving a bit. With this, we can make constantly moving boats. This has already been achieved with traveling traders. No matter where you are, they are constantly moving between two points. If you want to download the traveling traders mod, go to here.

[url]http://thelys.free.fr/ghanburighan.htm[/url]

Xerox · Post by **Xerox** » Sun Feb 15, 2004 1:59 am

Yeh legolas, that would be cool, BUT how do you put people on top of the ship?, plus we'd have to script death animations from scratch. As for lag, it could be encompased: if you have 4 people on deck 6 bellow cap in his cabin, etc. it could be done, however-> it will seem like its a drunken brawl ratehr then a naval engagement.

Legolas55 · Post by **Legolas55** » Sun Feb 15, 2004 2:10 am

Well, I'm just talking about a regular ship sailing for now, no battles yet.

Xerox · Post by **Xerox** » Sun Feb 15, 2004 2:39 am

Yeh, I know, but I think your previous idea of having a stationary ship that transports you is better ->its less hasle to implement. the script is going to be a mile long for a contaleble moving ship, the problem being the land colision, TES doesnt recognise land as a 'ground' rather then an visual aid that stops only the player/ creatures, objects still can go through it, so an animal-ship would work here, BUT how would you control it?

Jacurutu · Post by **Jacurutu** » Tue Feb 17, 2004 4:19 pm

Perhaps there would be a way to make ships that act like armor and move with you (you would, unfortunately, have to be attached to the boat and unequip it; you'd also have to make sure people couldn't put it into their inventory).
Also, quests could include economic negotiations and affiliation with the East Empire Company and the Great Houses. It needn't be purely retrieval of lost goods and killing pirates.

Legolas55 · Post by **Legolas55** » Tue Feb 17, 2004 4:46 pm

Hmm..I don't think so. Not as realistic, and you would still act like a person more than a ship, but it's a clever idea though.

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Tue Feb 17, 2004 4:49 pm

It's not that bad idea. If we could smehow equip the boat (which is two-handed

) we could have a constant water walk on it and hide to char in the boat

Legolas55 · Post by **Legolas55** » Wed Feb 18, 2004 6:07 pm

I don't know. I like the idea of actually being on a boat with a crew and such. If we did do the armor thing, the motion would be unrealistic, the NPC could use it on land, and what would the weight be?

Jacurutu · Post by **Jacurutu** » Thu Feb 19, 2004 10:55 pm

It's just a thought to try and make a controllable boat with the restrictions in the actual Morrowind game. Otherwise, I think that the Imperial Navy would be pretty much restricted to harbors.

The weight would have to be incredible (thousands of pounds), but it would have both "feather" and "water-walking" cast constantly when equiped.

I dunno what to do about a crew and realism . . . that would be tough to work with.

Nairb · Post by **Nairb** » Sun Feb 22, 2004 8:33 pm

try this:
have there be 7 activators
3 invisable walls
3 controls for moving the ship (forward, left, right)
1 boat

the player will be the captain. when he stapes up the control area a invisable wall apears right behind him, to his left, and to his right, like this:
|_|

then when he moves the boat, every one on the deck of the ship (excluding the PC) apears in the interior of the ship. when the the player presses forward, the boat AND the invisable wall behind the playe move forward, then when the boat moves left so do the invisable walls. then later on like 1 hour after the boat stops npcs will come out of the interior.

Jacurutu · Post by **Jacurutu** » Sun Feb 22, 2004 8:35 pm

Hmm, better. It still doesn't allow for interaction with NPCs while sailing or any naval battles, but it is definitely better than my idea.

Nairb · Post by **Nairb** » Sun Feb 22, 2004 8:40 pm

you COULD interact with the crew if next to you you have people in a smilar "U" shaped wall, however, turing around would look pretty baron on the ship if all you see is bare deck and 2 people. so why dont you instead of putting the people inside have them in a box pattern (to prevent them from wandering) in pre-positioned spots.

Jacurutu · Post by **Jacurutu** » Sun Feb 22, 2004 9:02 pm

One problem is that the animation for the boat would look a little bit weird. We'd have to make gradual turns and no side-steps.
The crew idea that you have seems like it would work, but they'd all have to be very close for you to steer the ship and talk to them at the same time. Also, having a crew that just stands around would be a little bit pointless . . . they're supposed to be dealing with the sails and such.

Nairb · Post by **Nairb** » Sun Feb 22, 2004 9:05 pm

well, we could have them walking sideways and backwords, but forwards...

Legolas55 · Post by **Legolas55** » Sun Feb 22, 2004 9:09 pm

[quote="Nairb"]try this:
have there be 7 activators
3 invisable walls
3 controls for moving the ship (forward, left, right)
1 boat
quote]

This was my idea, but there is one problem, how will the activators move with the boat correctly?

Jacurutu · Post by **Jacurutu** » Sun Feb 22, 2004 9:10 pm

Perhaps you could give "orders" from you're steering post and have people do stuff; have all the names of the people on board and have them with their own sets of stuff to do. That would make it a little less static, even though it would probably just be for show . . .

Legolas: yes, that's where the "armor" idea came from. It'll be tough to do either way.

evilgreebo · Post by **evilgreebo** » Tue Feb 24, 2004 8:00 am

I've been thinking about this and I'm now fairly sure I can do it. A real time moving ship is a bit ambitious and although it can be done I'm not sure itÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s worth it.
I was thinking of using static ships and scripts so they only appear when need which teleporter to move you. I've also figured out how to advance time using scripts something which wouldn't happen with the teleport.
This way you can have quests given and travel around. They could be allsorts like moving important people, recovering cargo from sunken ships, find and destroying pirate bases, searching ships, etc.
I have a lot of ideas ideas, I'm quite good with scripts and dialogue, so maybe we should give some thought to forming a navy team?

Nairb · Post by **Nairb** » Tue Feb 24, 2004 8:34 am

Legolas55 wrote:This was my idea, but there is one problem, how will the activators move with the boat correctly?]

well, yo could remodel teh baot to have the invisable wallls tehn when the pc steps up to the controls, wich will also respond to moving, the mesh changes from a static to the remodeled boat.

Legolas55 · Post by **Legolas55** » Tue Feb 24, 2004 8:56 am

You don't necessarily need barriers on the ship, so you could make the boat an activator. When you press the space bar when looking at the boat, all other objects on the boat will disappear and a message window will come up, asking you if you want the boat to go forward, left, or right. This way, the boat moves, and the PC must move if they are coming close to an edge. There can be another option in the message with a stop. When it is activated, everything on the deck of the boat comes back. Also, instead of scripting an exact distance for the boat to go when it moves in one of its three directions, we can use variables that would have it move in that direction until another one is activated.

Although I am not very good at writing scripts, I will try this out and see if I can make it work good.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Tue Mar 02, 2004 2:48 pm

I have made a script and longboat what is an activator and I even got it moving, but script isn't working very well and when you press forward in messagebox the ship dissappears and I don't know where it goes. Another problem is that if you want that the script is working you have to put the boat as it would always be at the same position and then you can see it even at the map. Then when you press forward on messagebox and the boat goes somewhere, it is still at the same position on the map.

_____________________________________________________

I'm sorry if I have bad english. I still have problems even I have studiet it for 8 years.[/u]

Post by **Haplo** » Wed Mar 03, 2004 12:55 am

well, it is possible to play a movie for each boat ride you take, but it would mean an incredible amount of work for us, not to mention adding about 50 megs of space(we're talking over 100 movies here, each at least 30-45 seconds long).

God Father · Post by **God Father** » Fri Nov 19, 2004 10:29 pm

how about when your on the boat, you stay inside for a set time, until arrival on your mission. A few interiors so you can fit more npc's in. It could be activated when you go into the ship and talk to the captain below deck, he'll say he'll send someone to set the sails. Then just wait out the trip. And for something to keep your character in, is when you try and go outside while the ship is (sailing), have door unopenable, and a message, Violent Storm or something.

Zalzidrax · Post by **Zalzidrax** » Fri Nov 19, 2004 10:53 pm

Movies are just frosting. Why bother having the player have to sit around during the trip? Just make it a scripted fast travel type thing. If you happen to run into pirates (random chance or quest) you are just teleported to the middle of the ocean to do battle, or to an island hideout. At any rate, you wouldn't need to script too much ship moving, though i'm pretty sure that's already been done. How does the fishing academy mod's script work?

Stalker · Post by **Stalker** » Fri Nov 19, 2004 10:53 pm

So every time you take a boat there's a violet storm outside ?

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Sat Nov 20, 2004 12:37 am

I have played a mod with a contollable boat that you can live in. It's called Fishing Academy and it is made by MadMax, you can find it on Morrowind Summit if your interested.

God Father · Post by **God Father** » Sat Nov 20, 2004 8:09 pm

not just a storm, but other things, stuck, crate moved on top, someone blocking the way, or to pass the time, just sleep or something. i like the idea of the fast travel and chance of pirates.

Lord Elias · Post by **Lord Elias** » Fri Nov 26, 2004 6:01 pm

I had exactly the same idea while ago http://www.tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?p=88019&highlight=#88019[[/url]and it has already been discused before I wrote it.Fishing academy mod works just fine(maybe we could ask MadMax to borrow his script).Good idea.But its hardly become realistic.

Psyborg · Post by **Psyborg** » Fri Nov 26, 2004 6:23 pm

Well, here's my idea. It's kind of been said before, but I like to hear myself talk, so:

Everytime you get in a boat, you must go to the lower decks to check in with the captain or whatnot. Then, for one various reason or another, you can't get back up. For instance: the captain, feeling you're a great guy, allows you to put various ingredients in the stew instead of swabbing the floor. Then, disappointed in the stew, he sends you to your quarters to try and come up with a better recipe, and locks you in with some cookbooks. Or: some moron stacked crates in the way of the door. Or: there's a violent storm. Or: the door is stuck. Or: the captain just hates you. No biggie, he just doesn't want you going up on the deck and falling off, because you're such a klutz.

Anyway, so the only way you ever get on deck is in predetermined places, where pirates attack, your ship scrapes against something underwater and you start sinking (accomplished by that amazing interior rising water script), and you can go up on the deck to fight pirates or leap off the ship, or whatnot. Otherwise, it's below-deck for you, matie.

So there's really no one-stop solution, and I doubt we could make it so you could control the ship with any success.

...yup.

Psyborg out.

Stalker · Post by **Stalker** » Fri Nov 26, 2004 7:15 pm

Actually it's much better not to do it at all than to do it in such a lame way.

Psyborg · Post by **Psyborg** » Sat Nov 27, 2004 6:46 pm

Yyyyyeahhhh... I suppose you're right. Sorry. Most of my ideas have been lame lately.

Vernon · Post by **Vernon** » Sun Nov 28, 2004 3:01 am

In the Isle of Tusar mod there is a pirate attack in one of the missions. All of the crew are sent below deck to 'the galleons,' then hey presto there is a pirate attack. Pretty lame, though. If TR is about rebuilding Tamriel in the way Bethesda did, they wouldn't have done it this way.

Tamriel Rebuilt

Imperial Navy

Imperial Navy

Ship travel