Is there away to turn the map into an asteroid field instead of merely having an asteroid belt?
Nope. All you can do is rotate and move the belt.
Well poopies.
Actually I think it might be possible. It’s a long time since I coded it, but there is all this cleverness in there for supporting background objects such as planets, that move in parallax. It is possible to do this with any sprite object. It thus. may be possible using the ‘terrain’ settings in a scenario to do it.
I’m not 100% sure 
So I would need to code each individual asteroid, like a planet on the terrain mapping thread?
By coincidence, I’ve been working on a couple of scenarios using the terrain feature. Not a planet, but a space station. They don’t use parallax, but I did use the si (z-index). The terrain is a great feature of GSB because it gives you razor sharp images at large sizes. A regular sprite degrades quite a bit at sizes over 500 (as far as I could figure out).
I also tried the terrain feature to mask the arrival of a fleet, as in “target the Reavers! Target everyone! Somebody fire!”
My mod (Independents Mod 3.0, linked in another thread) used a large dds file that sometimes doesn’t load correctly (but usually okay… on my system). It’s amazing what this game code can do.
Would love for someone to take this a step further and develop a planet that moves with zoom. Besides looking very cool, might open up a few scenario options.
Is the terrain only in Campaign mode or regular scenarios?
Its part of the game engine, so both. Described here:
viewtopic.php?f=23&t=4691&p=29083&hilit=backdrop#p29074
I’ve tried downloading the mod, but my rar opener says there is nothing to open. Do you mind posting a sample of the scenario code?
By building an asteroid field image would and using the terrain feature would the ships still “interact” with the asteroids as they do with the current asteroid belts, or are they simply flying above them?
hmmm… nothing wrong with the archive, you just download and unzip. What can I say.
Did you click the link I posted above? Cliffski wrote a detailed explanation of the terrain function and usage.
YES…I know how to follow a link. I also know how to download and unzip a file. HOWEVER, as stated, my un-rar utility doesn’t like your file and says there is nothing there to unzip. So I asked for sample code, but hey if it’s a state secret don’t worry about it, I’ll figure it out.
Anyone else have an idea about asteroid interaction if I make a big image of an asteroid field and terrain it in? Will the ships interact with them/move to avoid them or just fly over?
lol… dude, I’m trying to tell you, the state secret is in Cliffski’s post. It’s just one line of code you add to your scenario file… like he says.
If you have made a field similar to this
Using the link Laws provided:
You can use it as a background by using a line of code like this:
[terrain]
0 = 1024,1024,1.0,ground.jpg,0,0,0,1.0,1.0,2048,2048,1,0
(for full details on how it works, follow the link posted above)
The ships will fly over it . .
Excellent!!! And change the parallax to 3.0, ships fly under it. Other variables? I wonder what happens if you mix multiple terrain files?