SEV shipset instructions?

[Q]

I still don't understand how directional damage in combination with armor/outer/inner hull compartment works:
if the ship has lost all armor in the front but still has armor on the sides and rear what will be destroyed by the next hit in the front?

[Kana]

Captain Kwok said:
Introducing weapon arcs makes for a difficult balancing act among shipsets.

I guess that is a problem, if its tied into the shipsets as apposed to the components...

As for balancing...not many problems in SFB due to arcs, it just makes certain ships more interesting to battle with than others...

[Phoenix-D]

Q said:
I still don't understand how directional damage in combination with armor/outer/inner hull compartment works:
if the ship has lost all armor in the front but still has armor on the sides and rear what will be destroyed by the next hit in the front?

One of the internal components in the front, in the Outer Hull.

[Q]

Phoenix-D said:

One of the internal components in the front, in the Outer Hull.

Doesn't this make (strategic) combat quite unpredictable and ship design complicated?
If all enemy fire comes from one side (as often the case) your ship is soon destroyed unless the AI reacts clever enough and turns the ship around to cover the weakend side. In Starfury the AI could not handle this situation well.

[Ed Kolis]

Yeah, I was thinking that if there's no firing arcs, then why even bother with the slot-based layout and directional damage? Seems like a lot of work to put shipset designers through for little or no gain, having to design the slot layouts for all their ships...
Though, Kwok, are you *sure* there are no firing arcs? The Terran_Ships_XFileClasses.txt that Aaron posted in the shipset specs referred to them... are those lines just ignored or something?
Code:

---

Number Of Firing Points                              := 6

Firing Point 1 X                                     := 112.319191

Firing Point 1 Y                                     := 413.506592

Firing Point 1 Z                                     := 27.873138

Firing Point 1 Arc Start                             := 315

Firing Point 1 Arc End                               := 45

---

[Fyron]

That is purely for animations; it defines the starting point on the model for the beam/missile/whatever.

[Kana]

It may make things more complicated, but it will bring some new dimensions to the game, especially if we can convince the AI to be smart enought to realize that there is a hole in their defense that they have to protect...

[Captain Kwok]

Ships in battles with several ships will tend to be equally hit on all sides unless there is a special circumstance, ie fleeing etc.

[henk brouwer]

Work on my shipset is progressing slowly, I've got 6 models finished and UV-mapped, still need to texture them and get all the renders and slot layouts done.

Anyhow I've got another question. The following screenshot has crab-like Amonkrie troops in it:
http://www.captainkwok.net/images/se5-screen12.jpg
I guess these have some kind of walking animation, I however could not find any references to animation other than simple rotation in the text files on Malfador's site. Is animation supported?
Also, how would the Amonkrie troops survive on a gas giant world?

[Captain Kwok]

There are no animations for vehicles.