[Black Wolf]

It looks to me like you've got a fairly coherent fleet, from a purely visual "Look at the pretty models" perspective. And, don't et me wrong, I do like looking at pretty models But what 'm most interested in are, well, two (closely related0 things. Firstly, what's the status of the tables? Have the weapons been balanced? Are the capships turreted, and do the turrets work effectively? And, of course, all this dovetails into the only question that I'm really interested in - are you FREDding yet?

[Deckard]

Another question by public demand here at my end.

Are going to be any viper cockpit into this incoming R1 Game-War-Head?.

Thanks,

[Lt.Cannonfodder]

Remember that mk2 cockpit shown in some BtRL videos? That's my model and it's going to make an appearance in R1. Someone just needs to texture it before we can take any pretty screenshots with it.

[Shade]

Firstly, what's the status of the tables?

Most things have working tables that are close to where we want them. Things are still being tweaked though as we find problems with the balance of one thing or another.

Have the weapons been balanced?

By and large, yes. But again, tweaks are still happening as we come across things during testing.

Are the capships turreted, and do the turrets work effectively?

They are and they do. In fact, some of the ships are downright ****ing scary to go up against. You really Do Not want to stray into a Battlestar's firing solution

And, of course, all this dovetails into the only question that I'm really interested in - are you FREDding yet?

Oh yes. We already have a fairly complete (and ever-growing) set of multiplayer missions, as well as flyable WIPs for most main campaign missions.

[IceFire]

RE: Battlestar's/Basestars defenses...how difficult are they to deal with?  How screwed is the player if they go up against such a vessel...with support?  Or in other words whats the balance between fighters and capital ships and how do each of them fit into each others roles.

Back when I was balancing The Babylon Project I tried to stay with Babylon 5's method that capital ships were powerful against each other but fighters were necessary so that a capital ship wasn't picked apart piece by piece by attacking fighters.  So your capital ship needed that screen otherwise the enemy fighters could just walk on in.  From watching BSG...I suspect the philosophy is very much the same.  Otherwise...why bother launching Vipers at all right?

So I'm curious how are you guys making those roles fit together?

[Shade]

We're doing much the same really. Capital ships of similar sizes are very effective against each other, but less so against fighters. That said, Battlestars in particular have some nasty anti-fighter tricks up their sleeve as well as a very impressive flak barrage that you *have* to avoid if you want to attack them, though this has limited coverage. On the flipside, Basestars are almost defenseless without their legions of Raiders, but pack some extremely powerful ship-to-ship missiles that let them decimate enemy warships at a distance.

I'd say that up close a Battlestar has a clear edge over a Basestar as the combination of its flak barrage and main batteries will simply tear it apart, but at long ranges it's the other way around. Larger Battlestars such as the Mercury class might fare better at long ranges, though, due to their main battery firepower being able to match that of the Basestars.

As for fighters, they are very important in all engagements but, unless they are equipped with nukes, are not ideally suited to the task of actually destroying Battlestar-sized targets. Fighter guns do very little damage to Battlestar-level ship armour. However, even without nukes they can make a critical difference by intercepting warheads, taking out important turrets/subsystems, preventing the enemy fighters from doing the same, or even taking out smaller supporting warships that aren't as thick skinned as a Battlestar.

[Ramjet]

Shame on me for never actually playing the original FS games (I do own them but found that by the time I bought them out the bargain bin, graphics seemed so dates I never got into it...) ... so I'm going to show some ignorance here and my sincere lack of knowledge of the FS engine and ask if there will be subsystems on battlestars and basestars which may effect how a player would handle these cap ships in missions? ie perhaps targetting engines will slow a cap ship down and stop them from jumping out (may be a mission parameter) or generators which may stop a section of weapons control for a period of time till an auto-repair is completed and guns/missles come back online?

[newman]

There will definitely be targetable, destroyable subsystems.
How will their destruction affect a vessel will depend on how that vessel is tabled.
If a ship has a destroyable FTL, then destroying this system should effectively prevent
it from jumping out, for example. Now which ships will have what subsystems,
that's another question that's probably best left for the release

[Fish]

I'm playing through the original FS1 campaign right now 

It's a FreeSpace staple to kill capships by subsystem destruction. Depending on your priorities, you take out the engines to prevent it jumping out, destroy the communications to prevent it calling in reinforcements, destroy the weapons system to make targeting you inaccurate, then pick off the turrets. If the hull remains by this point, just kill it by slow attrition!

Although there are some missions where you can achieve the bonus objective of capturing an enemy ship by disabling it on your own initiative, sometimes it's just fun to disable capships and see if it messes up the mission's scripted events

[karajorma]

And Fish hereby gets added to the list of players who do stuff us FREDders hate.

Seriously though anticipating that a player might decide to do something like that is an important part of good mission design. There are so many ways a player can screw up a mission either deliberately or by accident that it requires a lot of work to make sure that they can't do it.

[Fish]

It's one thing to pick on capships in FS1, but entirely another to do anything jerk-like in the BtRL demo! I'm too busy struggling with those damn zippy Raiders to mess anything up. The FREDing in that makes retails FreeSpace look very linear...

[karajorma]

That's cause we knew people like you would try to break it and I myself have a lot of experience in trying to break other people's missions.

[IceFire]

We're doing much the same really. Capital ships of similar sizes are very effective against each other, but less so against fighters. That said, Battlestars in particular have some nasty anti-fighter tricks up their sleeve as well as a very impressive flak barrage that you *have* to avoid if you want to attack them, though this has limited coverage. On the flipside, Basestars are almost defenseless without their legions of Raiders, but pack some extremely powerful ship-to-ship missiles that let them decimate enemy warships at a distance.

I'd say that up close a Battlestar has a clear edge over a Basestar as the combination of its flak barrage and main batteries will simply tear it apart, but at long ranges it's the other way around. Larger Battlestars such as the Mercury class might fare better at long ranges, though, due to their main battery firepower being able to match that of the Basestars.

As for fighters, they are very important in all engagements but, unless they are equipped with nukes, are not ideally suited to the task of actually destroying Battlestar-sized targets. Fighter guns do very little damage to Battlestar-level ship armour. However, even without nukes they can make a critical difference by intercepting warheads, taking out important turrets/subsystems, preventing the enemy fighters from doing the same, or even taking out smaller supporting warships that aren't as thick skinned as a Battlestar.

Sounds excellent Shade. Thanks for the answer!  Seems like there will be a very good balance between what the player can and can't be expected to do and then of course the rest falls to the actual mission designer.  Sounds good...look forward to seeing it in action

[FUBAR-BDHR]

That's cause we knew people like you would try to break it and I myself have a lot of experience in trying to break other people's missions.

And to some of us breaking things just comes naturally. 

[karajorma]

You probably should be upgraded to Trouble Magnet actually.

[Something]

Will there be any new video uploaded soon to show off the advances you have made? Because while looking at the amazing screenshots is great, I like explosions!

[Shade]

Being worked on We need a few other things finished and put into the game besides the explosions, so no ETA on it, but you'll get your video eventually.

[Something]

Can we have it on Monday? That's me birthday

[newman]

Yes you can have it on monday. Just not this one.

[Something]

I can wait, I'm good at waiting.