MikeyPI

Instead of being a total smartass I think I will actually put in my thoughts on the topic of new things vs. redoing the old. New units and vehicles serve a point if they improve the mod, if they don't there isnt much point in em but to say no more of anything is stupid, the LA MOD existing rides are fine for the most part the way they are. Very few of the vehicles are out of date to the point of being a fault to the mod. Lastly, the Models that currently exist in the game are pretty detailled as they are, if they were cubes with wheels I would say I agree they deserve to be updated. Most of those which need to be updated or phased out are having the things done to them which they require, for the most part the majority are perfectly acceptable.

You are not familiar with marketing, bigger numbers make people happy instead of giving them two for one, give them three for one, even though you've done very little if anything to improve the quality of the product, people believe it is better due to the quantity not quality :1046275747_biggthumpup:

what the LA mod adds to the gameplay in toys it still has in necessities anyway so the water pumpers with hoses works rather well, I did that mission with 4 of them flanking the plane and a 5th to roam, then sent other vehicles to the airport terminal entrance to go deal with the internal fires, a ladder to deal with the people stuck in the plane for that aspect of the mission, there is still another task you need to do but you'll figure that part out if ya have not failled already due to it.

Considering that most of the mod makers are otherwise engaged at the moment in mods that are not even first release I am not sure I see the point of gathering up ideas for mods when most people are not really all that interested in making the mods, the few that do are tied up with other mods.

Thankye for clarifying what I meant, saved me some time :1046275747_biggthumpup:

Right now I am not doing anything else untill more opinions come in, the LAPD lightbar is the only one I did at this time, I even just slapped it on top of the slicktop car as you can tell..

Hybrid Norwegian Elkhound and Wolfhound so I guess that makes him a Norwegian Wolfhound? :1046276313_Up_to_something:

Here is a Code3 MX 7000 Lightbar on the LAPD Slicktop for testing purposes, the rotators on the upper tier are animated and this bar has the ability to turn the animation on and off when the lights go out :1046275747_biggthumpup: Thanks to Hoppah for the helping out with the script that makes this possible and the cursed alpha that did not cooperate with me.

The FBI included in 1.6 have in essence what is plain clothes but is not really, it is a standard windbreaker that they tend to wear around on scenes... The concept of a Plainclothes cop probrably would not change anything because of the fact the game recognizes a cop as a cop, as was said previously. To change the negotiator may be possible, but in my opinion the cop still has to show his true colors in real life enevitably, you can't just run around arresting people without notifying them of who you are so it'd be cheating if it were possible to make a wolf in sheep's clothing cop. It's just my opinion I grant, I don't enjoy most of the cop missions but even I don't wanna cheat THAT bad :1046276313_Up_to_something:

The theory behind animating is rather simple but the actual details are where you can and probrably will fail at, the screenshots required will hopefully make it easier to understand, unfortunately those who natively speak a language would be ideal to re-write the tutorials for each respective language since simple grammar errors may cause the whole process to be lost in translation.

I just used the rotator gumball light because it was simple enough for the test of the concept, a purely arbitrary choice in all honesty. I do not know if I will bother to make the lightbars in the game 3D with the tint due to the fact that it can add to the poly count rather severely if the bar is detailled enough. Right now I am otherwise disposed so I cannot make the lights for you, which is why I left instructions on how to make the process work yourself.

.V3O is the actual file extension of the model files, people here commonly use a program called Zmodeler 2 to import and export the files. .DDS is the texture format used in this game, again you need to export the file out of the .DDS format.

The dog idea has been presented before yes, and no, it is not a stupid idea it is just a difficult one. The doggie that is in the game is not exactly a trained hunter, he more or less wanders aimlessly till he runs into a target, unless a way is found to make him zone in on a target and add an animation to him (to bite) he would not look right. That is why it has been ignored and people refuse to try it, the dog in the game does not like to eat people for dinner and the dog that everyone is thinking to use doesnt want to bite (nobody thought of the rabid dog that loves to have your people for dinner I am willing to bet). That dog does not have a harness, but if you could associate it with a cop it would be the most likely if you could alter the script and make the rabid dog attack on demand, which is still a hurdle.

A good trick to finding cars in the water is to select the water like you would select your units, if a car is present in the water you will highlight it and see it's life bar pop up on the screen, this gives away the presence of a vehicle in the water telling you that you'll need to use a diver and a salvage crane to pluck the car out of the water.... Useful on any mission where you believe a vehicle ended up in the water.

:1046276313_Up_to_something: Thanks Hoppah for throwing on the alpha since my program hates alphas, I managed to test a theory that I figured may work for Emergency that may add a new addition to the complexity of the models... I made a Tinted Glass Light that you can see on my truck below in the picture. The theory is simple, build a light bar's inner guts (led lenses, rotators, whatever, the deck to hold them). build the glass, attatch the glass so that it is the but make sure the first thing in vertices is the inner guts and you'll have a tinted lightbar or light :1046275747_biggthumpup: Who would've figured this would work for this game but sure enough it did.

You can't totally alter the game's engine at all so the limit of what may be done lies in scripting complicated things to occur within the limitations of the existing engine, as you can guess that means possibly an infinite timetable to figure out if something can work and to make it work. So vehicles are added and other visual changes, in1.6 however, there were also new additions in features so you really can't complain about that.... Missions can take a great deal of time and quite honestly due to how they rely on scripting they really can make up a single update for one mission alone... I am not a scripter at all, I can modify someone else's sometimes and even I can see half the things people want are impossible or downright a waste of time... Hoppah tends to stay in the realm of possible rather than wasting months trying to do things that people want that either won't work or will be problematic, I just feel like modders can't win here everyone wants 50,000 things, make up your minds either you want new things or you want the mod to stop for a year to make missions or a stupid script that does something only useful for two seconds.

Ok I will respond to the idea of a TEC/Engineer base, it really is not much of a priority however useful it may be at times you rarely need anything other than towtrucks. The idea with the doors opening to recieve the vehicle simply won't work due to the fact that the wrecker is animated now and the bed will attempt to slide down. The US drawbridges tend to work one of two ways: Some split down the center line of the gap and open on either end, others lift directly vertically, the single sided ones are still around (primarilly railway bridges) but that is an older design for the US that has pretty much been obsoleted for the much more friendly and stable means. Trying to lift a bridge on one side requires a great deal more leverage, however I think he was speaking of the concept of a drawbridge, not necessarilly that one he showed, I think that was just an example. Further parking for the police vehicles is an option, but not for 1.6, chances are something will be done to resolve the issue of lack of accessability for the heavier police vehicles that you may use more commonly, obviously we are not going to make teh FBI MCV on the map off the start, nor vehicles like it. The idea of a police unmarked van honestly while easilly done just is not something we need, especially considering the FBI just gained an SUV, maybe the LA SWAT will pickup a SUV of their own but I do not know about that one considering there are already a ton of vehicles, how many more do we really need? Any further vehicles are likely to be updates to older ones and/or new features for ones. The idea of a floodlight has been brought up either towable or on the vehicle it's self, untill I see something decent on a real LA utility vehicle from their local gov I see no reason why it would be useful, the trailer idea again does not serve much of a purpose especially with as bad as the trailers can behave at times.. In short, I shot down some of the ideas yes, but some of them may get done, may not, they just are not priority items since they are more improvements than necessity items that will drastically change the game. Let's face it, the freeplay map is not that huge so it is a pain to have to call in some of these vehicles but if you find a place to park it you may keep it out indefinately.

For a nice change of pace let's try practical suggestions that might actually be useful to gameplay.

I would'nt mind seeing the LA Aqueducts! :1046275747_biggthumpup: Could not resist... :1046276313_Up_to_something: Seriously, if you think you have a practical idea that will evolve the gameplay and/or the overall feel then it is worth contributing.... If you are just shooting ideas out for the sake of airing them you may want to get a notebook to keep your ideas in that way it saves alot of frustration from having to say that it is either impossible or of no use to this mod, perhaps more.

I am one of the few people that will use the fireboat online with all it's excessive slowness and the horrible habit of getting stuck everywhere.... The boat was designed for maps with huge waterways, the game's freeplay map does not have waterways large enough for the boat to really come into play much unfortunately. What would likely happen is that fatty would get stuck somewhere then you would have a boat deployed that you cannot retrieve or move anymore (not necessarilly a bad thing considering I do it online all the time so it can reach 2-3 places where fires occur) but if you care about your budget you won't get it back ever again because it ends up stuck in tight places too easilly... I really believe the boat was designed more for a gimmick than actually being used extensively outside of a mission or two. As for the bridge idea, while a cool looking toy, I really do not think it would effect the gameplay enough to warrent the work needed to ensure that it would play right, not to mention the fact that it would probrably destroy vehicle pathing having that bridge move up and down all the time. Where a train just cruises on by and is gone the bridge would litterally be missing temporarilly as it raised up. A drawbridge is something that you would expect to find on a mission map, not on a freeplay one really.

I appreciate the support, but quite honestly my models would just be models without Hoppah doing the much more difficult scripting work to permit them to have the cool features they have. Not to mention all the hard work he's put in prior to my assistance with a few of the models in the mod... The LA Mod was doing quite well before I showed up :1046275747_biggthumpup:

Indeed it has, and it isnt that you couldnt model a shotgun, it's that you can't really make a shotgun shoot buck. :1046275873_shakehead: People want a shotgun but they don't get that it will essentially obsolete the MP5 and the Handgun because let's face it, if you have something more powerful you don't have to aim, you'll use it far more often than the other two items that work. The Shotgun has been shot down more than once yet it persists.

With all due respect to those who want a BMW or another type of bike, I had to build that one and animate the rider (not totally pleased with the animation but it'll do).... It was a nightmare to put it mildly to build the bike, perhaps in a decade I may consider doing a BMW, but I would not hold your breath on it.. The bike's animations were added not so much to resolve issues, more because we could add them :1046275747_biggthumpup: The prototype is the same so the lights can stay on now on it, there shouldnt be any more issues with bugs with the bike I hope. We have done alot this go round so I hope ya'll are happy and will understand that in all honesty there is plenty in 1.6 and whatever else is added probrably is not gonna be easy to pick these days since there is already alot in the mod...

The problem is how a shotgun works, this has been discussed too many times.... Hoppah does not want to add one since it really does not add much to the game, realistically there would be no difference between a shotgun and a handgun to the game, yes he could up the damage inflicted but that would make the MP5 obsolete, thus no longer special.

what is matroschka? I've never heard of this.