[Tolwyn]

Originally posted by gevatter Lars
Sabre and Crossbow looking good...new textures has to be done, but for the models they look great. Special the Sabre whitch is one of my favorite WC2 fighters.

this task has been already completed... in fact most of Confed ships are now done (wc3/4 era). I think we'll see more WC2 fighters very soon...

[gevatter Lars]

Mh seams as if I am not up-to-date....

[Lynx]

Ok guys, here's another WC2 ship. It's the Fralthra class cruiser of the Kilrathi Empire.

[IceFire]

So now all we need is the Concordia, properly balanced Anti-Matter Cannons and a nice Phase Transit cannon.  OOHH YEAH!

[Tolwyn]

we have the Concordia in the game, although it is buggy, some of the faces are not highlighted properly... we are going to fix that though. Since you are on of our new beta testers you will see the game in its full glory VERy soon

[Lynx]

Here's the last Kilrathi fighter from WC3 for now...Prince Thrakhat's personal fighter, the Bloodfang Mk II :



A limited production variant of Prince Thrakhath's personal fighter, the Bloodfang super fighter is the most feared space superiority fighter the Kilrathi possess. While the Kilrathi Vaktoth heavy fighter already outclassed the Terran Thunderbolt VII in terms of raw power, the Bloodfang could make any other fighter in space look like an underpowered pregnant space pig. Only the most elite of the Drakhai Imperial Guard pilots are allowed to fly this fighter. Only the newest Confederation Excalibur fighter has any chance of winning against a Bloodfang.

[gevatter Lars]

I don't know how many times I have said this..Lynx your textures are exelent...what would we do without you.

[IceFire]

Very nice!  Packs a real punch too...those 3 Plasma and 2 Tachyon are nasty! Took me out completely the first time I went up against him, of course I figured the Exaliburs firepower would blow right through him but it was tough too.

Question on the capital ships.  I assume they all have sheild geometry and in-turn torpedoes use the "pierce" tag so that they go through and do the damage while fighters have to pick away at the outside?

[psych]

Bloodfangs had 2 plasma cannons and 2 tachyon cannons.

[Lynx]

Yeah,true; but it's interesting that the original textures had three gun openings in the wing for the plasma cannons. looks like the Origin people drew the textures and changed the weaponry after they finished them.


@Icefire: As far as I know shield meshes don't work proerly on capships; the game crashes after a certain number of hits to the shields or somthing like that, and it looks like the FS engine can't handle very much hits at the shield mesh at the same time or something like that, i don't really know exactly why this stuff doesn't work. Right now we have virtual shields; the ship has shields but no shied mesh

[gevatter Lars]

@Icefire

If you know a way to make mesh-shield that work and are not that bubble-shields then I beg you do it. We had ones shieldmeshes, but it crashed the game over and over...I haven't found anything wrong with the shields...ask Tolwyn, maybe he knows more.
We also had a good hit-anis for the shields (my opinion).

[IceFire]

@The Bloodfang gun issue: I specifically remember that all stats for it were incorrectly stated in manuals and strategy guides and that there were 5 guns on the ship.  I even used to have a screen shot proving it.  Sadly no longer.  So if someone can grab a screenie of that moment....
Note: I'm the ultimate WC ship trivia buff.  I used to even be able to remember the mass of the Ralari for the WC1 copy protection.   of time I spent (I was also much younger) using the view system to watch ships and having memorized the sounds and graphics used could tell exactly what weapons were being used.  Like on the Sorthak and the Bloodfang, whose stats were never reliable in the manuals or anywhere else.  CIC's ship database I commend on the massive effort, but some of the stuff is incorrect so don't swear by it..

@the Shield issue: I wasn't sure if you guys were able to make a shield mesh or not.  I guess that would be ideal...not sure if any of the new enhancements to the source code have fixed that issue.   The other possibility is to make the hulls REALLY tough and the torpedoes, anti-matter guns, and other capital ship killing weapons very strong to boot (since these weapons don't fire at fighters the balance should be preserved).  Then you start working with fractions of a percentage point for the turret hitpoints but very doable.

How are the turrets on WC2 ships going to be done?  Lots of long range inaccurate flak and a couple of turrets for antimatter guns?

Also another good point, check out the one source modification that creates a new skybox so you can paint a big texture on it.  If they get that working bug free and performance equivalent, you guys may want to use that system to do nebulas and star backgrounds - create more WCish backgrounds ala WC4 cutscenes or WCP in-game.

[Ace]

Originally posted by IceFire
So now all we need is the Concordia, properly balanced Anti-Matter Cannons and a nice Phase Transit cannon.  OOHH YEAH!

*starts drooling at the thought of a PTC in action*

I can't wait to see a Crossbow, it's one of my favorite ships ever

[Tolwyn]

Originally posted by IceFire
@the Shield issue: I wasn't sure if you guys were able to make a shield mesh or not.  I guess that would be ideal...not sure if any of the new enhancements to the source code have fixed that issue.   The other possibility is to make the hulls REALLY tough and the torpedoes, anti-matter guns, and other capital ship killing weapons very strong to boot (since these weapons don't fire at fighters the balance should be preserved).  Then you start working with fractions of a percentage point for the turret hitpoints but very doable..

right now shields are disabled in the missions via FRED, I might however add virtual shields to the tbl, although it will look kinda strange. It will however add balance to the mission, otherwise even light fighters can knock out a, let me say, Kilrathi corvette. Torpedos are supposed to knock out a shield while hitting it. I have heard however that piercing tag has been added by the Source Code team, making shield penetrating weapons available.

Originally posted by IceFire
How are the turrets on WC2 ships going to be done?  Lots of long range inaccurate flak and a couple of turrets for antimatter guns?

since the campaign tooks place during WC3/4 time line older ships have newer armamament, although they may still carry flak weapons.

one example would be the TCS CVS-69 Armagedon, a Confederation-class dreadnought...

The TCS Armageddon, sister-ship to the recently destroyed TCS Concordia, is the last of the Confederation-class dreadnoughts. She was commissioned in 2665, and seen numerous action during the Enigma Campaign. During her first three years on the front, she has taken countless battle damage from both Kilrathi attack and side effects from firing her Phase Transit Cannon. She was drydocked in the Tamayo System’s shipyards for a complete reactor replacement when the False Peace was signed. Besides being refitted with a new reactor, the Armageddon’s been refitted with a new variety of defensive laser turrets in place of her flak batteries. Her keel-mounted phase transit cannon was retired and rendered inoperable. The TCS Armageddon was pressed into service a month after the Battle of Terra and because she is one of ConFleet’s few modern carriers left, she is permanently stationed in the Sol System to defend Earth. She currently serves as the flagship of the 1st Terran Confederate Battle Fleet.

[IceFire]

Ok, I got that....but in theory we should be able to re-table/re-arm WC1/2 vessels at a later date with their old weapons...and there shouldn't be any changes we'd need to make to the models for that to work yesno?

[psych]

FRED has a feature where you can change the individual weapons on a capship turrets. If worse comes to worse, you can just edit it from here if you want to make a purely retro WC2 style mission.

[Tolwyn]

exactly, but in any case: we'll have to release several packages of the root vp, which will only include individual tables and missions.  All other data remains the same.

[IceFire]

Originally posted by psych
FRED has a feature where you can change the individual weapons on a capship turrets. If worse comes to worse, you can just edit it from here if you want to make a purely retro WC2 style mission.

Yes yes, well seeing as I've been using FRED for a very very very long time I knew that.  My question was more in reference to the models themselves and if the number of turrets were available for us or if they had been specifically designed with lasers in-mind.

A more complicated question than it seemed.  Sorry for the confusion.

[Tolwyn]

yes, you can easily change that... we are using generic turrets.

[Tolwyn]

here is the proof

fresh from Starman's shipsyard: ships of the mighty Kilrathi Empire: