Purpose of fast_ghost.ini file?

The fast_ghost.ini file located in sims/ships/player/ is a mystery to me. Here's it's contents:
<font color="navy">
<font face="Courier New">
; (c) 1999 Particle Systems Ltd. All Rights Reserved
; old_corvette.ini
; Template for the classic IWAR corvette
; Revision control information:
; $Header: /iwar2/resource/sims/ships/player/fast_ghost.ini 1 21/08/00 8:42p Martyn $


[Class]
name=icShip

[Properties]
; The name of the object
name="Ghost"

;the threat rating 'points value' of the hull
threat=0

; ** Damage model properties
hit_points=420000000
armour=52

;Sim type (ship class)
type="T_Corvette"

;docking port priority
docking_priority=900000

; Sim radius in metres
;radius=0.01

width=80
height=70
length=120

;Maximum linear speeds as a vector (m/s)
speed=(3000000,3000000,10000000)

;Maximum linear acceleration as a vector (m/s/s)
acceleration=(7500000, 7500000, 15000000)

;Maximum angular rotation (deg/s)
yaw_rate=120
roll_rate=120
pitch_rate=120

;Maximum angular acceleration (deg/s/s)
yaw_accel=120
roll_accel=120
pitch_accel=120

; Applied in free flight to the max angular speed
angular_speed_boost=1.5

;brightness for the sensors to spot
brightness=0.0
min_brightness=0.0
</font id="Courier New">
</font id="navy">
Does anyone know the purpose of this file?

• The sensor brightness keeps it from ever appearing on the contact list.
• The maximum speeds and acceleration values allow it to keep up with anything in the game.
• The docking_priority seems to indicate it cannot be moved by another craft.
• It has an astounding hit point value - I'd guess it's supposed to take damage but must not die before (what?) the player ship?.
• It mounts no systems and should not be capable of flight.

Somewhere (oh so long ago) I seem to recall the vague memory that this object had to be parented to the player ship for some reason. But I can't seem to find anything with a search...

Any ideas? (read: anyone with a better memory than I? )

It has no avatar and would be invisible. During the movie sequence of the Dante mission perhaps? Where the player swoops through the fleet and then encounters Maas and carrier?

Once upon a time there was a mission; that didn't make it into the game.

IIRC Steven once commented on this several years ago. I also seem to remember a very old walk-through (for Beta testing) that had a mission description with an invisible adversary.

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Originally posted by GrandpaTrout
During the movie sequence of the Dante mission perhaps? Where the player swoops through the fleet and then encounters Maas and carrier?

Possibly... it'd probably make a good dolly control object.

Sure seems a kludgey way to handle that though. Why call it the fast_ghost? Why not call it master_dolly_object or something like that?

Major Tom, you did a lot of work with RT cutscenes... would this make a good control object for those?

Originally posted by Major Tom
Once upon a time there was a mission; that didn't make it into the game.

IIRC Steven once commented on this several years ago. I also seem to remember a very old walk-through (for Beta testing) that had a mission description with an invisible adversary.

Not to disagree (since I, myself, don't have a clue ), but then why would it be set up the way it is? Extrodinary hit points, no avatar, etc., etc. And why would it be located in the player portion of the ships folder?


I'm going to do some further combing of the archives tonight. I'm almost certain something was said about it (somewhere, sometime...). Hope it wasn't on the INA.

Thanks guys.

Well, I believe I found what I was thinking of... It was you, Major Tom.

From i-war2.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1151 where you were working with the Epic Intro.

Originally posted long, long ago by Major Tom
I know about the primary and secondary focus options. I need something a bit different though. You can't make a dolly fly around so I'm using one of the scene ships that's closing in on another and attached the dolly to it.
I didn't want to make a special 'ghost ship' for that purpose only.

That's funny.

I'd assume that's why there is also a ghost.ini file too (with normal ship speeds). The fast_ghost for very quick/agile camera shots. The regular ghost.ini for standard-speed shots.

Would you gentlemen call this mystery solved?

Originally posted by Shane

Major Tom, you did a lot of work with RT cutscenes... would this make a good control object for those?

you can move the dollies about freely, assign speeds and vectors etc. You can attach a dolly to ship but I don't think an invisible ship would be neccessary for that cutscene.

IIRC The mission with the ghost ship was with a ship called the "Vladimir" which was supposed to take place near the destroyed Haven Station. The ship was to be hard to find (you could only find it by observing the drones it dispatched when they returned to refuel at the mother ship and I assume the brightness was controlled dynamically by pog during the mission.)
As a reward after the mission you were to recieve the Marauder "encoding device". There is actually a .ini file in the resource folder for that device, but as I remember the use of it has also always been a mystery too.

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