Carroballista

[Medusa0]

Gentlemen (and ladies), behold!

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I was able to create an approximation of Rome Total War: Barbarian Invasion's Carriage Ballista from Bwian's Chariot resource.

Since it is based on the elephant artillery unit, it does not have the ability to skirmish, nor could the turret rotate, making it a lot less powerful than its original incarnation.

As this is meant as a refined add-on to Bwian's chariot, please follow his directions via his thread. This include some updated skeleton texts for the chariot with basic movement and death sound effects. Unit cards not included.

(This was originally meant to be a discussion thread for implementing the unit, since it was completed, a mod could move it to either the resource section, released mod section, or wherever appropriate)

[paleologos]

I always wondered about that.
Too bad the piece can only soot at one direction.
Good to know I am not the only one that still makes models for non fantasy mods.

[Medusa0]

Too bad the piece can only soot at one direction.

The only way that I know to let them shoot in other directions is to code them as normal elephants, but I have yet to find a way to get the soldiers to rotate their bodies completely rather than just their torsos. Image below shows the other way:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The riders will only turn their torsos toward the target for a few seconds when acquiring a new target, before snapping back to their default, forward facing position. After the initial turn, they will not turn around at all, but shoot back/side-ward without actually looking at the target. I do not know if there are any ways to correct this issue, having tried things from using these lines from cavalry skeletons:

in_awareness    135.0
in_zone            135.0
in_centre        45.0

To removing the "fixed rotation" -fr in that particular animation, without success.

[paleologos]

I know next to nothing about animations.
Did you study how these things are animated in R:BI?

[Medusa0]

Did you study how these things are animated in R:BI?

Checking back with BI, these carts were basically modified chariots, with no defined skeleton besides the parametres set in descr_mount.txt. It was also split into three models, one for the wheeled carriage, one for the stand (the turret), and the last for the artillery piece itself.

Unfortunately, like chariots, the required mount class "scorpion_cart" was removed in M2TW, so we could no longer get the exact unit back. The closest approximation to a rotating turret would be to make the turret and artillery a part of the soldier model, and then applying the appropriate animation set. Still, the lack of skirmish mode make them extremely weak for the stock AI as it has a tendency of charging them into melee.

Hopefully someone with more experience with elephant classes could shine some light on these issues.

BTW, I have tinkered with some of the chariot codes to make their behaviour a little bit more believable (altered attack animation in melee so the horses do not jump three metres into the air, and collision box for clipping issues):

For descr_skeleton.txt:

anim		attack_mid_low_1		data/animations/fs_chariot/med_elephant_run.CAS					-fr	-if:12, -evt:data/animations/fs_horse/fs_horse_run.evt
anim		attack_mid_centre_1		data/animations/fs_chariot/med_elephant_run.CAS					-fr	-if:12,	-evt:data/animations/fs_horse/fs_horse_run.evt
anim		attack_mid_high_1		data/animations/fs_chariot/med_elephant_run.CAS					-fr	-if:12, -evt:data/animations/fs_horse/fs_horse_run.evt

For descr_mount.

radius				3.08	; 3                    ; was 5.5
x_radius			1.8	; 1.3
y_offset			1.0	; 0
height				2.5
mass				20
banner_height			1
bouyancy_offset			3
water_trail_effect		elephant_water_trail
root_node_height		1.0	;was 2.84
attack_delay			1
dead_radius			2.5
tusk_z				3.5	; 3.0
tusk_radius			2.0

[paleologos]

...
Unfortunately, like chariots, the required mount class "scorpion_cart" was removed in M2TW, so we could no longer get the exact unit back.
...

I thought it was possible to add classes to the game -though it is more like a vague impression.
This is banzai's war wagon:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

To be honest I have not tried it in game.
I suspect it was made for a mod about the hussite wars.
Maybe something along these lines.

[rafmc1989]

There was as well in Bellum Crucis, together with the Gulay Gorod of Rus-Kiev and Novgorod...

Hehe, what to say, they were working yes, but the outcome was kinda disfunctional... The men inside the wagon were shooting (at least), whereas the Gulay in form of a ballista was shooting fire (nice to see, but...)

Don't know about those models, maybe too much for MII.

[Autyre_Saad]

That is an awesome piece ! What part did you do yourself, the ballista ?

[Medusa0]

That is an awesome piece ! What part did you do yourself, the ballista ?

Technically, the model was done by the Creative Assembly, this is a port of a unit from an older title modified to work with M2TW.

[leo.civil.uefs]

As we can see in the picture of the first post, the weak point of this is the animation of the pilot, as if he was riding on the elephant neck.

I've been mnessing with this for a unit Im creating.

It is possible to change the animation for the pilot se he just stands with normal movements?

[Vladyvid]

I would suggest completely removing the driver, cause he is not looking good there.

+rep regardless

edit: just noticed this is an old topic....

[leo.civil.uefs]

I would suggest completely removing the driver, cause he is not looking good there.

+rep regardless

edit: just noticed this is an old topic....

I believe that in order to have a gunner back there in the ballista, this specific animation must be used; its the animation from vanilla med2, for cannon elehants. This animation is a complete set with gunner and driver, you can't set it apart.

A solution is to set the heigh of the driver to so low that he would not show up. He would still be there but under the ground. But this way the chariot would have no driver, unless you assume that guy can drive and fire the ballista at the same time.

[Vladyvid]

How about if you lets say mask the driver with transparent texture, and add a static figure of a driver holding reins next to the gunner? I dont think the driver needs to be animated if all he does is holding the reins. I understand that this is a simplification, but i only suggest it as an alternative.

[leo.civil.uefs]

You can Olly use 1 model/texture for the entire crew

[Medusa0]

I believe that in order to have a gunner back there in the ballista, this specific animation must be used; its the animation from vanilla med2, for cannon elehants. This animation is a complete set with gunner and driver, you can't set it apart.

A solution is to set the heigh of the driver to so low that he would not show up. He would still be there but under the ground. But this way the chariot would have no driver, unless you assume that guy can drive and fire the ballista at the same time.

This is correct, the unit is simply a modification of the basic "elephant chariot". I have made the driver visible not only to have it appear similar to that of the one in Barbarian Invasion, but hiding the driver below ground may introduce a drowning bug, where the unit will instantly die if placed near an impassable body of water in pre-battle deployment.