Fighter recovery

[skydiver]

Hi all

Is it possible to recover a figher who's pilots have died and is left floating around unable to dock with mother ship.

[Eclipse]

Launch a shuttle to tow it.

[Wolferz]

Your SC will dock with the CC while towing another craft, but will leave the towed craft sitting in space. You must use the CC to tow the fighter. Once the tractor beam is locked on, you will be prompted to recover the FC.

Be careful of hostiles in the area when performing a recovery operation, since your shields will be down while using the TB.

[Gomez]

Yeah...learning that one the hard way in BC3000AD (just got it)...Never really needed it in BCM Demo...Strange that. Damn Fighters and Shuttles are expensive to replace...

[Cmdr Nova]

You know, if you tell a shuttle to tow a military carrier (the huge water ones), it comes right out of the water, and floats right up! Lol, right after that, my shuttle hit the water, and floated there, waiting to sink.

But the carrier was still towed behind it, and slightly under the shuttle like usual, which meant that the carrier was under water as well...........

Glitch.....

Well, keep up the work, SC, and I love the E2 Demo! Even though it's so much smaller that the full version, there's so much new stuff to do...

[ 07-21-2001: Message edited by: Cmdr Nova ]

[Supreme Cmdr]

...and why is that a glitch? Who said that you couldn't do it? The shuttle is designed to float (have you actually read the VCF?). Just because I didn't add a flag to prevent the towing of naval objects, doesn't mean you can't do it. sheesh

[Cmdr Nova]

I meant that you CAN tow the naval objects.

But the glitch is that when if the AI-Controlled shuttle tows an object then hits the water, the tractor beam is still active, and the shuttle still floats there, disabled, while the towed object remains in the tow positon, behind and slightly under it. In the water, that meant the towed object was under the surface of the water, but not sinking, like the trigger would have made it do.

I only tested it with the naval objects, so it just might be isolated to those naval ships only.

[Supreme Cmdr]

Yeah, and?

[Rico Jansen]

I guess Cmdr Nova's point is, is that towing the naval craft removes it's buoyancy. The shuttle is drifting on the water surface as if nothing happend, where as the craft would be pushed down by the almighty shuttle's (fixed angle) tractorbeam despite it's (supposed) buoyancy.

But he probably forget's it's a game and not a naval (newtonian physics) simulation. Archemedes' Law does not aply here.

[Menchise]

If you think that's strange, I used the CC's tractor beam on the Insurgent carrier and we went on a trip over dry land at 30,000 feet. When I released the tractor beam, I expected the carrier to free fall at high speed and smash into the ground. Instead, the carrier free fell at a not-so-high speed and went 'through' the land, gradually sinking underground without damage.

[Cmdr Nova]

My point was that any 'trigger' for hitting the water surface, and making the object start sinking, didn't work on a towed naval ship, when it touched water, so it ended up continuing to be towed underwater, while the shuttle towing it was disabled and sank, like it was supposed to.

I might post a screenshot of it, if I get the time.

quote:

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Posted By Menchise:

When I released the tractor beam, I expected the carrier to free fall at high speed and smash into the ground. Instead, the carrier free fell at a not-so-high speed and went 'through' the land, gradually sinking underground without damage.

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It would be cool to watch it explode, upon impact, even without the realistic physics. Yep, I didn't gripe about the physics, it was that the trigger wasn't activating. I'm completely happy here! (Although there are some other small gripes with the controls. I'll post in the appropriate forum if I find one.)

[ 07-23-2001: Message edited by: Cmdr Nova ]

[Supreme Cmdr]

quote:

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My point was that any 'trigger' for hitting the water surface, and making the object start sinking, didn't work on a towed naval ship, when it touched water, so it ended up continuing to be towed underwater, while the shuttle towing it was disabled and sank, like it was supposed to.

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Trigger? What trigger? This is similar to your other post in the dev forum, for which I am still awaiting verification.

There is no trigger

Whats happening is as I explained, I didn't add a flag to prevent it from being towed. Period. Anyone with access to GBS, knows what the heck I'm talking about. Since most of you don't, WHY are even discussing this - even AFTER I already explained it?

As for it dropping to the ground under gravity. Again, the naval crafts do not have the flag which indicates that they are affected by gravity. If they did, when towed, they'd drop to the surface.

And you get one guess as to why that flag wasn't added, either.

OK

To prevent the pre-requisitite foolish guesses, the answer is that : if it cannot be towed, then you can't move it - if you can't move it, you can't drop it. If you can't tow it, to move it, then to drop it....it doesn't need the gravity flag.

Hopefully this ends THAT discussion

As for the shuttle. Its buoyancy has nothing to do with the object its towing.

[ 07-23-2001: Message edited by: Supreme Cmdr ]

[Cmdr Nova]

Understood, sir.

[Eclipse]

quote:

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Originally posted by Supreme Cmdr:

if it cannot be towed, then you can't move it - if you can't move it, you can't drop it. If you can't tow it, to move it, then to drop it....it doesn't need the gravity flag.

[ 07-23-2001: Message edited by: Supreme Cmdr ]

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My head hurts now.

[Menchise]

Mine too.

[Cmdr Nova]

Uh, SC and I were talking about the Naval Carriers, and towing them/dropping them to the ground. If you didn't understand the text above, then listen up. Naval carriers can't be towed (after this Demo release).

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But, I figured out the shuttle towing, hit water thing, where the towed object was under water. See this image for preivew. Note that I am on the water's surface; my cheap ATI Rage vid card doesn't display the water correctly, as in the water reflects way too much.

This was in the first mission.

1. Launch fighter from the BC.

2. Launch my AE in a shuttle.

3. Tow the fighter from orbit, to the planet (FarStar).

4. Hit the water.

My shuttle floated, with little (if no) damage, and I still towed the fighter. Notice that when towing, that the towed object is towed behind, and slightly under the shuttle. While floating, that meant that the fighter being towed didn't sink.

When I let off the tractor beam, though, the fighter was disabled, and sank, as usual.