[Cerbera]

There was talk of a modestly sized, single-deck car ferry last year. It would fit between railway pillars and access all parts of the coastline. GTASA has a car transporting COL surface and the handling can reduce wave movement. It would need suitable locations for loading and unloading. If we got all this together, it could add a dimension of gameplay which wasn't present in GTASA.

Some examples of the thing we have in mind:

• New Zealand car ferry.
• Chilean car ferry.

Drivable ships are quite possible. For example, the Easter Bay Aircraft Carrier mod by NikT of the DRuG Crew:

1024 x 768, 111kB.

I developed the handling and physics setup with them, so you can still use it as a runway:

800 x 600, 115kB.

The main problems with ships are the COL limit and the draw distance. Walk to the ends of the Aircraft Carrier and it goes non-solid because you are so far away from its centre. Ships shorter than this with less interior detail would work fine.

What do other people thing about MISA featuring a large vessel of some sort?

[simzebu]

Cool! I think that's a great idea!

[Cerbera]

I've been talking to TRN about this idea over IRC. He's agreed to set aside Lot 17 on GTI as a ferry port, just in case anything comes of it. I've added real-world pics to the first message.

I'd like it to replace the Dozer or the dump truck, so at least one of the ramps would work. First thing is to do experiments to see if this will even work, though.

Some people I'm going to PM to see if they are interested:

• Picolini
• GTAuron

I don't think it's worth trying to make AI cars interact with it or even have it spawn on boat paths. It would just be for the player.

This post has been edited by Cerbera on Sunday, Feb 4 2007, 19:11

[Mark]

In response to the PM, sure thing I'm game for making the port, probs base if off summin similar to the chain-link ferry near Swanage near Bournemouth.

[Cran.]

What about the Hoverspeed Seacat Ferry that goes from Dover to Calais? I think it would be a cool ferry



Cool idea, i'd love a ferry in MI.

[Blackadder.]

Go for the Win

Cran: It would be cool too!

[Diesel]

QUOTE (Cerbera @ Feb 4 2007, 19:26)

I'd like it to replace the Dozer or the dump truck, so at least one of the ramps would work. First thing is to do experiments to see if this will even work, though.

What? You can't do that. At least, not last time I tried. Changing vehicle types causes all sorts of problems ingame.

[TRN4L]

Diesel, i figured that would be the case. In my mind I'm thinking that (i think someone in IRC mentioned it) we could/should have two ferries, a passenger line and a freight/car line.

[Cerbera]

Diesel: Picolini has done a lot of work with swapping vehicle types around, with some success. I'm not 100% sure if it's possible to do what we want, but it's worth experimenting with.

Cran: The ferry should fit through the railway bridge, even in high seas, so the player can take it everywhere. I don't think those big ones will fit. A downside is that big car ferries can't get close enough to a regular beach to drive straight onto them. With the small, flat car ferries you have a lot more freedom.

TRN: Yeah that was me. I think a fancy passenger ferry as big as we can fit would be a nice in addition to a modestly sized, flat car ferry.

This post has been edited by Cerbera on Monday, Feb 5 2007, 09:40

[Picolini]

Well crap, I'm a bit late on that PM Cerbera, sorry. For some reason I didn't get that "You have a new PM" pop up....

I do like the idea and I'll for sure help out with this, I've taken a month or so break from modding and now I'm ready to go, you guys got me at the right time

As Cerbera said, I've done a lot of testing w/ replacing vehicles with different types. I don't recall how my car to boat experiments turned out, but I'll test some stuff out tonight or tomorrow.

Also, does this boat have the 5K-ish poly limit too? I don't think it should be a problem since the ferry's shape isn't too complex. Just want to make sure.

Also, what's the COL setting you were talking about Cerbera? The car carrying one... how do I set that for the boat?

Oh, and which boat should I replace for this?

[Mark]

As the ferry is to be large, I say a bit more than 5k.

We also need to decide on a name/logo for the company too, so we can both use it.

[Picolini]

Ooops, smack me silly and call me a fairy
I asked what vehicle to replace, obviously either the dozer or the Packer. I don't know if either of those are taken but I think the Packer would be a better option. Don't know why, I just think so. I see Cerbera suggested the Dumper, I'll try that one out.

Now... a name for it. I'm guessing we want some funny pun type name...
Ferry in itself is funny, so probably build off of that.

- Merry Ferry Transportation
- Ferry Automotive Gurus (F.A.Gs ), could use any words with an A and G that make sense... best I could think of.

Those were the only two I can think of. I'm going to work on some test later on tonight and see what I can come up with. First I'll see if I can get the Packer to work as a boat. If not then the dozer... and any other vehicle with a movable part to see if it works. I'll let you guys know how it turns out.

This post has been edited by Picolini on Monday, Feb 12 2007, 05:08

[Cran.]

QUOTE (Cerbera @ Feb 5 2007, 20:06)

Cran: The ferry should fit through the railway bridge, even in high seas, so the player can take it everywhere. I don't think those big ones will fit. A downside is that big car ferries can't get close enough to a regular beach to drive straight onto them. With the small, flat car ferries you have a lot more freedom.

Good point. You can't deny that Ferry is über cool, though!

[Picolini]

Bad news guys... I've tried everything I could think of and I can't get a ramp to work on a boat.

I tried
-Packer
-Dumper
-Dozer
-Andromada

Nothing works...

I'll keep thinking but I just don't think it's gonna happen. It seems to be that animation properties hard coded to certain vehicles only work if they are assigned the correct vehicle type in the vehicles.ide. I even tried assigning dozer anims to the packer and that didn't change anything.

Too bad, this would have been a cool mod.

[Mark]

Ah crap...hmmph.

As far as I remember, can't you attach cars to vehicles using the .scm? I'm sure a design without a ramp can be achieved, if a little interesting to drive and load up.

[TRN4L]

what about coding it so a "packer" spawns on top of a boat? and put the "packer" 's door dummy hidden while putting the boats dummy where you'd expect it... two vehicles, and we know there is a COL surface for carrying vehicles.

[Diesel]

QUOTE (TRN4L @ Feb 13 2007, 03:42)

what about coding it so a "packer" spawns on top of a boat? and put the "packer" 's door dummy hidden while putting the boats dummy where you'd expect it... two vehicles, and we know there is a COL surface for carrying vehicles.

What? I don't quite follow you here. It looks to me like you're suggesting you somehow manage to be in both the Packer and the boat at the same time? Huh?

[Cran.]

Someone made a car air carrier a while pack. Search in Vehicles if interested..

[Picolini]

TR4NL's idea actually might kinda work, but it'd take some heavy SCM coding I'm guessing.

If you could some how force the Packer to be morphed to a boat then I think his idea might work. What I would suggest is you first go to the packer entrance, then lower the misc_a part. Then load up your car. Run back to the Packer, cloase the misc_a part. Then you get in the actual boat to drive it. It'd be like two seperate sections for each function of the boat.

I just don't know if the scm is capable of making two vehicles be formed as one. Also the placement would be a bitch too.

I have doubts about that working though, I don't know how having a car permanently stuck to a boat would affect it's handling and stuff.

An easier alternative would just be to have the Ferry ends flush with the dock, like on these ones Balboa Island Ferry.
The only thing is I'd have to not model the openable gates at each end, which would mean the cars would have to either be parked at an angle so they would slide with heavy braking and acceleration, or that COL cerbera was talking about better be nice and sticky in heavy waves and driving forces.

Edit: And the car air carrier Cran. is talking about is the one made by pinky, I'm pretty sure. I think think some one else made one too, but if I remember right it wasn't that good.

Edit 2:
Well, whether or not we can get the ferry to work like we wish it would, I started modeling a ferry today. It's based off the Balboa Island Ferry I posted above, and some parts from the ones Cerbera posted.





What do you guys think? 3,190 tri's.


This post has been edited by Picolini on Tuesday, Feb 13 2007, 21:08

[simzebu]

Oooh! It's Perfect!