can cap ship shields regenerate too? also, I'm afraid I didn't quite get that part about the uneven armour.yes, I am prety sure it does.
Also, one thing: Is it possible to make the big fighter bays of the carriers destroyable? like any other subsystem? This would add a tactical dimension when fighting carriers, as a TOG morkanium destroyer class carrier alone can transport 2 groups of fighters (I think 180 fighters), a xerxes frigate carrier can carry a full wing (360 fighters) while a canis cruiser carrier can carry so much as 3 wings (1080 fighters). However, those ships are weaker in all aspects when confronted to normal destroyers, frigates, cruisers (no spinal mounts and less gun bays to make room for additionnal fighters). So when their big fighter bays are destroyed, you will have loads of fighters off your backs and also easily cripple those ships.
can cap ship shields regenerate too? also, I'm afraid I didn't quite get that part about the uneven armour.
$Name: Fleet Carrier
$Short name: SSuperD
$Species: Shivan
+Tech Description:
XSTR(
"Fleet Carriers serve as the flagships of our battlegroups. Five reactors along the ship power thirteen Heavy Plasma Cannons and a massive shielding system, the only ship larger than an Assault Bomber to possess shields. The Fleet Carrier is equipped with facilities for building and repairing fighters, bombers and sentry guns and can house enough ships for the battlegroup. Only two Fleet Carriers have ever been lost, one disappearing in subspace a long time ago, and another disappearing along with its battlegroup when investigating increased subspace activity with previously unknown signatures. It was later revealed to have been destroyed by the Terrans.", -1)
$end_multi_text
$POF file: capital02.pof
$Detail distance: (0, 5000, 13000, 30000)
$Show damage: NO
$Density: 1
$Damp: 0.2
$Rotdamp: 1.5
$Max Velocity: 0.0, 0.0, 15.0
$Rotation time: 200.0, 200.0, 200.0
$Rear Velocity: 0.0
$Forward accel: 20.0
$Forward decel: 10.0
$Slide accel: 0.0
$Slide decel: 0.0
$Expl inner rad: 100.0
$Expl outer rad: 4000.0
$Expl damage: 1000.0
$Expl blast: 4000.0
$Expl Propagates: YES ;; If set to Yes, then when the ship dies, the explosion propagates through it.
$Shockwave Speed: 600.0 ;; speed shockwave expands at, 0 means no shockwave
$Shockwave Count: 4
$Shockwave model: shockwave_red.pof
$Default PBanks: ()
$Default SBanks: ()
$SBank Capacity: ()
$Shields: 800000 ;; Shields from fsport
$Shield Color: 255 92 92
$Power Output: 100.0
$Max Oclk Speed: 24.0
$Max Weapon Eng: 100.0
$Hitpoints: 800000
$Flags: ( "capital" "big damage" "in tech database" "surface shields" )
$AI Class: Captain
$Afterburner: NO
$Countermeasures: 0
$Scan time: 20000
$EngineSnd: 176 ;; Engine sound of ship
$Closeup_pos: 0.0, 0.0, -3440
$Closeup_zoom: 0.5
$Shield_icon: shield-capital02
$Score: 1000
$Subsystem: turret01,1.0,6.5
$Default PBanks: ( "Heavy Plasma Cannon" )
$Subsystem: turret02,1.0,6.5
$Default PBanks: ( "Heavy Plasma Cannon" )
$Subsystem: turret03,0.5,0.5
$Default PBanks: ( "Heavy Plasma Cannon" )
$Subsystem: turret04,0.5,0.5
$Default PBanks: ( "Heavy Plasma Cannon" )
$Subsystem: turret05,0.5,0.5
$Default SBanks: ( "Shivan Cluster" )
$Subsystem: turret06,0.5,0.5
$Default PBanks: ( "Heavy Plasma Cannon" )
$Subsystem: turret07,0.5,0.5
$Default PBanks: ( "Heavy Plasma Cannon" )
$Subsystem: turret08,0.25,0.5
$Default SBanks: ( "Shivan Cluster" )
$Subsystem: turret09,1.0,6.5
$Default SBanks: ( "Shivan Cluster" )
$Subsystem: turret10,0.25,0.5
$Default SBanks: ( "Shivan Cluster" )
$Subsystem: turret11,0.5,0.5
$Default PBanks: ( "Heavy Plasma Cannon" )
$Subsystem: turret12,0.5,0.5
$Default PBanks: ( "Heavy Plasma Cannon" )
$Subsystem: turret13,0.5,0.5
$Default PBanks: ( "Heavy Plasma Cannon" )
$Subsystem: turret14,0.5,0.5
$Default PBanks: ( "Heavy Plasma Cannon" )
$Subsystem: turret15,0.5,0.5
$Default PBanks: ( "Heavy Plasma Cannon" )
$Subsystem: turret16,0.5,0.5
$Default PBanks: ( "Heavy Plasma Cannon" )
$Subsystem: turret17,0.5,0.5
$Default PBanks: ( "Heavy Plasma Cannon" )
$Subsystem: navigation, 4,0.0
$Subsystem: weapons, 1,0.0
$Subsystem: sensors, 10,0.0
$Subsystem: engine 1, 5,0.0
$Engine Wash: Default1100
$Subsystem: engine 2, 5,0.0
$Engine Wash: Default1100
$Subsystem: communication, 2,0.0
$Subsystem: fighterbay 1, 0,0.0
$Subsystem: fighterbay 2, 0,0.0
$Subsystem: reactor 1, 1.085,0.0
$Subsystem: reactor 2, 1.085,0.0
$Subsystem: reactor 3, 1.085,0.0
$Subsystem: reactor 4, 1.085,0.0
$Subsystem: reactor 5, 1.085,0.0All right, It seems I got 3 of the 4 briefings necessary: I got the 2 fighter briefings and the tank briefing. However, I'm still awaiting the leviathan cap ship briefing to re-organise my campaign. Without it, my work remains stuck.
any suggestions?
I still need a team of programmers.
I allways thought that these weaponbays are ship to ship weapons. If its possible to make one weapon with up to 100 firepoints that are eather firing a small beam at the same time or bolds with a little delay it would be quite some view. Also it would lower the number of weapons on the ship to a quite managable number. The overlord would have about 8 bays and some AA turrets (no number given) and 3 missile launchers.
As for the size. I think that its no problem gamewise to make them 2km long. Its more a matter of you can detail them and paint them so the texture are still looking good. A simple solution would be to scale down everything by the same factor and keep the proportions.
The damage potentials bandied back and forth on the Leviathan scale are huge compared to the Interceptor level. I don't think it would be unheard of to award one-shot kills. The truism, "Safety in numbers" is very much apt when it comes to a fighter attack on a Leviathan. Of course, the lighter the Leviathan in question, the less damage potential it carries. Where a battleship would have a turret factor of 6 in close, a destroyer might have a 2. The weapons are still horrendous to a fighter, but they are much less like a GOD-GUN than are the turrets aboard a battleship.
The single failing to this is that I may be wrong. I have not looked at my games in years. It will late April, early May before I even can think about getting to them.
Ok, I have a couple of simple solutions to some problems. Feel free to chuck 'em out the airlock if they sound too flimsy.
If a hex in Leviathan is 75km, and a typical battleship has an acceleration of 2 per turn, then that equates to 30km/m in accel. There's a real world measurement that you can incorporate into the data displays. The only thing to keep in mind is that the game will have to be able to handle however many different ships with their own acceleration rates.
Bay weapons may only fire in a single direction, requiring the ship be steered for targeting outside the arc the weapons cover. The broadside bays may not fire forward or aft without turning the ship either left or right. The forward and aft bays may not fire into the broadside arcs. They count as a single shot, regardless of how many guns are in the bay. If the bay takes damage, then the firepower is correspondingly reduced until the bay is useless (say three of four glancing strikes or a single direct hit).
The one thing I don't recall seeing mentioned was power allocation. The ships engines have to supply power to more than just thrust and weapons. . . . As an emergency measure, he can divert his life support power into the mix and make a fighting withdrawal with all of his functional weapons fully powered and engines in overthrust. Of course, this may have a detrimental effect on the crew, and if the crew dies of asphyxiation, then all the power in the galaxy is not going to allow that ship to survive.
I like the idea of fighters being able to target specific items on a starship's hull. Sensors, weapons and engines stand out as BIG targets in my mind, with other possibilities easily making the list. If they can take out the engines, then that would qualify as a kill, since the ship would be without power to fight or escape. Taking out the sensors makes weapons targeting and even target detection harder. And, of course, taking down the weapons bays or turrets degrades the ship's firepower. I like the idea of making the hangar bays capable of being destroyed. It also comes to mind that, if possible, the Leviathan ships have two sets of drives. The T-space, and the normal space drives. Damaging one or both may not actually kill the engines. But you could certainly prevent the ship from manuevering or escaping.
I'm thinking of something, especially with winged leviathans like the derrflinger or seneca: If the bays are where I think they are (on the "equatorial line" of the ship), they'll be just over the wings. But this leaves extremely large dead angles in which a ship can tear another in relative safety: Especially the underside of the ships, as the "wings" will obstruct the bays.
Your opinions on the matter?
yup, but we need all the ships from the brief into that MOD: It's a preservation task, remember? Besides, the derrflinger is one of the strongest destroyers available it seems and is capable of limited autonomy while the serpens is a rapid destroyer typically used in a battleship squadron as an anti-fighter platform.
basically, I'm trying to be fair about this, but my definite goal is to make all ships appear (at least one time), and unless when in special occasions, you can forget the renegades using tog ships (however, i did metion special occasions...)
one ship well deployed also is the canis and a cruiser carrier that i'll make up (the cicero).
besides, remember i don't have all the leviathans yet (especially on the renegade side).
Yes still alive, (where have you been last 4 years), anyway Omni was working on a version of the mod independently you understand more (CAP SHIPS) then stopped. Previous to that I started the fighter POV one. GRANTED, fighters in Trek get the short end of the stick but it's canon for the genre that certain factions and lower tech worlds HAVE FIGHTERS! Numerous episodes and Trek games have them since the 70's (Starfleet Battles), 90's (SFC series of games), Invasion (PS1), Shattered Universe (PS2), etc...
Now WHY make a Trek fighter mod? Because I think it will be cool and not totally unfeasible. While I love Klingon Academy and the original Starfleet academy, how fun is it really gonna be to fly diff cap ships all day via joystick when interactionand immersion will be minimal?
So you're the damn Captain,helmsman, navigator,comm officer and engineer all at one on a cap ship in what basicly is a fighter simm? (in ships not even close to scale anyway). If you want to do that might as well pack it in and get the ORIGINAL games that do it the way it should be done and not try a rough and lacking conversion for FS2.
Those games are a blast, but if you don't have cloaking, oversharging of weapons shields, self repair ability, and numerous other interface options in the middle of a battle you would be missing out on a lot of Trek oriented stuff as well as gameplay experience...
Trek Fighters on the other hand, are a lot more similar to FS2 combat (minus the ability to make micro warps and Warp speed attacks, etc) minor stuff that can be easily dismissed.
Yes, the renegades WERE Tog legions, but that was ages ago, and ships have long been decommissioned since. However, perhaps a few TOG ships will appear in renegade ranks, but either during undercover, or much later (campaign 3, 4 and 5). When the renegades fled, most of them lost the equipment they've been trained to use over the years so that alone can explain the fact that there aren't many TOG designed vessels in their ranks. Besides, the TOG knows the capabilities of their ships, but what about those of the custom ships the commonwhealth/renegades fight with? not always, so tactically, it's also a better choice. ;)
question: is it possible to make (on planet missions) soldier legions next to attacking tanks (like a sort of white "cover" on the land representing the infantry)? Like this interceptors could sweep the infantry away along with the tanks with ground missiles. (the cover would "get eaten away" with weapon's fire and blasts and mission directives would be validated when completely destroyed). Is this possible?
Well, I have some bad news. The fighter briefings sold a couple weeks ago. I'll keep my eyes open for other copies. Have you tried Amazon?
I may have a source capable of acquiring the fighter briefings but nothing is certain yet. I'll tell you more as I know.
I'm asking again, I suppose, but Would anybody consider trying to mod a few RL ships?
Wow! that's very impressive: technically it's very close to what I was imagining angel.
Now, in order to avoid overloading the F2s engine with shots, I would see the bays fire their cannons in a sweeping manner (in a 100 bay: 10*10). However, if you say a 100 bay will be 10 10 bays, the damage must registed equally to all of them (in order to be able to destroy the entirety of the 100 bay)
Also, regarding the shields, we will use normal ones: Basically, flicker shields CAN be overpowered too.
Besides, the idea of Fs1 lucifer "beams" is a good idea, however, the beam charge and noises is something I would like to keep with the "pseudo beams", also one thing I loved with real beams is that they scoured the target's armour, while the lucy's didn't do visible damage (just the sexp stipulating the galatea's huul should go down to 32, then to 1 then to 0).
And of course, the fact of having bays being consisted of 10 "mini" bays (careful, there are 25 gun bays), is a good idea, but bays plus spinal mount plus turrets (the missiles will simply be one subsystem spawning missiles aroud the ship): Are we not going to go past the FS engine limit?
About using missiles...give them a homing ability and it would make a greate anime like FX ^_^
I know its not what you want but would still look interesting.
| Boardgame 1:1 4:3 2:1 (hexes to km) 37.5 20 20km 15km 10km 30 15 15 11.25 7.5 22.5 10 10 7.5 5 15 6 6 4.5 3 7.5 3 3 2.25 1.5 |
WCSaga's shields aren't quite as clever as you conjecture... missiles merely do less damage to shields than to hull. If your shield is up, your shield will take the damage (but you probably don't want to get hit by another missile right away).
Nice work AA... I was just about to suggest doing such a thing. For gameplay questions like these, it's often a good idea to just 'get it into the game' and experiment -- forget about pretty looks and proper models until you have the time and support and talent. :) I'm going to go play with it.
Yeah, don't use Modview any more... I think you'll have a lot better success with PCS2 (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,52098.0.html) now that it's at a stable release.
You can have animated muzzle flashes... wonder what a long animation would look like. You could probably have that 'glowing head' effect and make a tiny model to make the actual solid 'missile' invisible. Some tweakage or additional options for properly 'glowing' missile trails might be doable too -- and if not, with luck it'll be easy for me (or someone) to add to the code.
'Charging' non-beam weapons (complete with effects and sounds) has been on the wishlist for quite a while. I'll take a look at it when I have some time but I can't promise anything. I did just think of a possible silly workaround -- have two weapons (per caliber). The first would have the 'charging' sound, a long muzzle flash, and an almost nonexistent look and speed. After a second or two it spawns the second weapon, which has the 'firing' sound (perhaps combined with the 'cooldown' sound) and the fast speed and visible attributes. There may likely be some downsides to this method... we'll have to experiment.
Are there descriptions of what these lasers look like? If not, might I suggest eventually giving different calibers different colors?
How fast are fighters on average? How long should it take them to get between two Leviathans standing off 20km apart?
Hmmn, not quite sure what you mean. Are you talking about ships specifically or fighters as well?Well, I was just talking about fighters. But the same sort of happens for capships and torpedoes. We may yet tweak that... haven't decided whether it's best to HAVE to batter down the shields before a torp launch will be fatal, or the torp actually punches through the shields completely (like some of the canon sources suggest).
I think my computer had some problems playing one of the later missions, the shockwaves would make my Open crash (animated shockwaves I think??).Please let me know your video card type and amount of video memory -- that shockwave issue happens to a few people, and we're trying to come up with something that will work for everyone. Especially because there will tend to be a LOT of shockwaves in some missions in the full release :D
PCS2 doesnt really like my computer. I can run it on a basic level but it crashes if I try to add gunpoints and the like.That is odd. Have you reported this? Normally I'd wonder if it is also video card related, but gunpoints are so simple a concept, one would think they wouldn't be 'hard' to draw. Bug.
zomg I Must Find Gunbuster. That looks AWESOME.
At first I was thinking we wanted a slower 'visible' beam travel like we see in those videos, but then considering the distances they are using vs the distances we'll be using (light-minutes vs kms), it should be just about instant.
That is an awesome effect to try to imitate. Beam weapons really seem like the best solution if they could be made to work with multiple fire points. I'll look into that.
Please let me know your video card type and amount of video memory -- that shockwave issue happens to a few people, and we're trying to come up with something that will work for everyone. Especially because there will tend to be a LOT of shockwaves in some missions in the full release :D
We'll have to try a lot of different speed ideas. Ignoring Freespace terms for a moment... So if the fighters were moving at 2500 m/s, how fast would an average leviathan be moving?
Back in Freespace terms now. The idea of a capship being able to accelerate up to rather high speeds is cool, unique, AND maybe doable. With the right combination of high$Damp (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Ships.tbl#.24Damp:), $Forward accel and $Forward decel numbers in ships.tbl entries, as well as $use newtonian dampening (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Ai_profiles.tbl#.24use_newtonian_dampening:) in ai_profiles.tbl .
WCSaga dealt with a different speed/distance 'scale' than Freespace by using an entry in hud_gauges.tbl called $Length Unit Multiplier: . That way the higher visible numbers fit Wing Commander 'canon' while still remaining viable distances/speeds in FreeSpace's engine. Perhaps something similar could be used here.
Regarding bay lasers colors, I think that we should keep the "basic" laser colour (orange/yellow), as other weapons like the epc and npc (exclusive fighter weaponry) are blue or green, etc...
Yes, you may be right: We can vary the lasers colours, but stick to the red/orange/gold colour types: Blue or green or elso would confuse the player in thinking the ships have long range EPC or NPC canons.
Knowing that jacob doesn't stick with full neutonian momentum, I suggest we drop the idea.Note that I was not suggesting a full newtonian system... it is much harder to learn and execute properly, at least for fighter combat. But I do think a 'pseudo-newtonian' method (meaning, just a lot more momentum than regular WWII in space) would be interesting to consider for at least the Leviathans. Especially because nobody else has done that yet. Granted, I haven't fought anything bigger than a fighter in Jacob's Star yet so I don't know how they behave there... but as AA says, we don't have to limit ourselves to an old game engine. It's good for inspiration and a start...
Uh, that's the problem. I don't have a video card . . it's just the basic built in thing.Try GPU-Z (http://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/) for video related stuff (even though you may not have a 'video card' you've obviously got something integrated in there [and this btw is partly to blame why PC gaming is dying out. Dell couldn't have included even a $20 card?!]). Then there's CPU-Z (http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php) for the rest of the important specs.
Does anyone know is there a command I can do which'll tell me what my computer's specs are? Like in a printout on the screen? I just got some computer from Dell via my parents so not really sure what it's got in it (aside from two processors supposidely).
About the Gunbuster scene. I think what makes the lasers go in a curve is the gravitiy of the planet. It is possible while the effect was overdone in the anime...as everything mostly is in these films.
Still it was nice to see someone payin a little attention to these kind of details. Also don't you think that the main ship in Ep3 looks very much like the ones from Renegade?
Won't suprise me if FASA copied the design. They did that with Battletech, another game universe they have created.
Try GPU-Z for video related stuff (even though you may not have a 'video card' you've obviously got something integrated in there [and this btw is partly to blame why PC gaming is dying out. Dell couldn't have included even a $20 card?!]). Then there's CPU-Z for the rest of the important specs.
Dawn of War is awesome -- I love the 40k universe and they really nailed the 'atmosphere'/general feeling. Painkiller I wasn't impressed with, but I guess I prefer the more realistic style of FPS to the ultrafast twitch-kill-everything.
Also, remember that question I asked regarding altering weapon's destructive power during a mission? Is it possible, say, for someone flying a cheeta to be notified by command that they are to capture one of the prised TOG ctwp fighters once the fight is over and the 2 last ones are fleeing. Can command "reprogram" your weapons (lasers) to make minimal damage and higher subsystem damage during mission?
Exelion-like ships seen in 1984's (Macross:DYRL?) The female Meltron ships.
Also, I think the correct procedure for NON pcs2 users is:
1.) After all .cob modeling is done/oriented, turrets, etc. open in PCS1 and convert to .pof
2.) Add thrusters and points, add dock point/paths, and save
3.) MV to more easily position thruster points, add guns and missiles, fix turret points, add/import shield if not done earlier, save model
4.) open in pcs1 for glow points (optional) Cause MV strips them.
Lastly you MIGHT find this useful (if not then ignore). You can make an image of multiple beams firing from one turret. Especially if you texture the single turre to have multiple holes or emitter points.
Yes, there are sexps to change the specific weapons on a given craft, and also ones to change the entire ship type. In the latter case this is unreliable (and like you say, resets the missile loadout) but at least you don't have to do a completely new mission.QuoteAlso, remember that question I asked regarding altering weapon's destructive power during a mission? Is it possible, say, for someone flying a cheeta to be notified by command that they are to capture one of the prised TOG ctwp fighters once the fight is over and the 2 last ones are fleeing. Can command "reprogram" your weapons (lasers) to make minimal damage and higher subsystem damage during mission?
Eh, don't know about that one. Though I wonder if the FREDer could simply cut to another mission, and like use persistent variables for the fighter's hull and give the player a new fighter with the downgraded weapons?? (rather than Redalert which would keep the same weapons) Unless there's some sort of sexp where the FRED can change the weapons on a given craft? In the first case, I don't know about the remaining missile loadout though.
Though the question then becomes, why would the lasers do more subsystem damage? Hmmn . . you know Particle Cannons in battletech are often thought to have some sort of EMP effect. Maybe a subsystem disrupter would be based upon a EPC instead???
That's the last of it, WE HAVE THE LEVIATHANS!!!
Ok AA so go run GPU-Z and tell me your results please... or did it just error "unknown architecture"?
I think I've got the last maps I can locate: They give us very interesting info regarding the yolentrov and the rift counties (we already have finor, shannedam and keserdal). Unfortunately, it looks as though we wil have nothing more (aside perhaps from a few references in the briefings like "new dogger bank").
Here are the pages: http://members.tripod.com/~Rintel/Data/Campaign3a.htm
and here: http://members.tripod.com/~Rintel/Data/mapst2.htm
That's about all the material we can scavenge.
Both are impossible right NOW... ;) but it's something I'm thinking about how to do (someday). WCSaga also wants uneven armor/shields.
Question: in Interceptor, was there a difference between 'armor' and 'hull', i.e. you only started taking system damage when the armor of a particular side was punched through?
Interesting: can you give me more info on the kraken designs? Are there some of them we didn't see already?
Also, Those limits might give us some hard time...
Limits successfully destroyed. Returning to base :D
oh wait: I got it wrongly: Remember I proposed something regarding those bays: Take a 100 bay, I sort of anticipated it would not fire all 100 guns at a ship at once :D I proposed a pattern like this: cannon 1 fires, cannon 2 fires... cannon 20 fires/cannon 1 stops, cannon 21 fires/cannon 2 stops...
We'll just have to modify the pattern in order for cannon 1 to stop firing when cannon 10 fires, and so on. It could still be very impressive.
Wow: A freighter in RL: That's not something you see every day: I think we'll take those referrences (who knows, some things like the raptor carrier (could be a cruiser carrier to equal the TOG cicero). I don't know what the republic ccould do though (but who knows), the gav'rosk could serve in case someone wants to create a kess'rith front campaign (a lot of kess'rith ships we have no idea of). On the other hand, what's a tender?
Very interesting: Perhaps the republic will appear as a test design in the later stages.
In the meanwhile, there is still the bay problem: Would my solution work or not?
Yes, that's what I meant!
But won't this pose problems with the most powerful broadside ships? (venatrix, dreadnaught super ship, and now the republic)? You told me those were going over the turret limit (If we take the 10 turret bay model). Unless it is possible to make a 20 bay turret model with your same 10 fire pattern: cannon 11 fires/cannon 1 stops, 12 fires/2 stops, etc...
would be an idea! just remind me what is the nova shiva variant? did I miss something? The only thing in reconds I know capable of outstanding a shiva( TOG wise) is the illustris.
Sorry, I don't seem to have access to the file: Are you a member yourself? If so, could you get the file for me please?
thank you!
Right, news again!
I have been carefully studying the leviathans (at least some of them: I'm not finished yet) and I'm able after comparing mass, type, and weaponry, to provide hypothetical dimensions: Also, I was able to determine which ships would appear in campaign 1 (shannedam county) and in campaign 2 (gilpin/hibbing counties) after checking deployment of the vessels.
For instance, I'd give the moltke/moltke A the biggest armour rating regarding the destroyer class.
Sorry, I meant TOG destroyer class.
Besides, I read the moltke and the moltke A were quite well used. They didn't strike me as an average destroyer like the fulgur...
I'm in the process of doing so (I've cast my die on blender). I'll try to send you something at one point. I recon one of the best models to start with (as it's "relatively simple") would be the bumblebee renegade fighter.
Also, what do you think of my "ship campaign distribution"? I took several things into account (mostly deployment and game balance), I think it should be relatively fine.
Angel, after reviewing the moltke, I can actually see that it is an endurant destroyer who packs quite a punch (more than the dochendal) and who is quite prised for it: It seems after that admiral rode the prototype it gained fame everywhere (very unlike the fulgur, for instance). Also, it can deploy thor satellites. I think the briefs describes it as quite capable, not as average: It is considered to share the same popularity of the serpens (very successful).
You guys should check out the max number of weapoins targeting a ship. If you really want to do huge broadsides, it could be a problem. On standard difficulty, only four turrets from one ship can attack an enemy at a time. Here's a link about the issue http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,53021.0.html. i think there is a fix on page three.
Ouch! i wasn't aware of this (even if I knew that the broadsides would be stressing freespace to the limit). It's lucky the SCP guys were able to tweak it at all. I guess we'll have to wait next release to see the extent of REAL beam battles.
On a side note, I've started with the dolphin blender tutorial, but unfortunately, I have a problem handling out my lattices. I think I'll pull through though.
I'll keep you updated.
I simply followed tutorials, but if you have a workaround, please do tell :nod:
could you point me out to those freespace tutorials? Also, what do you know about truespace? Is it free? (if the tutorials were made for truespace and it turns out to be free, then I might leave blender to choose it instead: might save time).
Thanks! I'll try this out! great info.
I'd keep it to only the 10 bays to have anti fighter capability (besides, it'll add one more rush to the game mechanics). However, there'd be no sense in firing the heavy 37.5/20 broadsides of a shiva against fighters (for the reasons angel covered).
Besides, in the case of the transports you have presented (turret-less). This'll be the only ship's defense against interceptors.
Angel, could you please when you can upload the drawing of the angel corvette? Also regarding the interceptor docs, might you have the pic of the corsair?
do you know how to take screenshots in dosbox or should i type?
do you know how to take screenshots in dosbox or should i type?
Eh, can't you just hit "printscreen" (located typically above the "INSERT" key) and then paste that image into MS Paint or whatever else you got. (photoshop, etcetera). Maqking sure the image size is big enough for your screen resolution of course.
I think I can guess that one (turrets or subsystems)... :drevil:Oh, I wouldn't be too surprised, once the pilot file code overhaul is in place, that this would become possible too. Still, we've got a bit of a wait...
I'll re-update my entire centurion folder (I made lots of changes due to interest recently) in a day or two.
Thank you so much: I think we've got everything me possibly need as far as info and docs are concerned now.
I'll send the tank pics to macave to see what he thinks of them.
Whoops! Forgot the .zip in the URL:
Use this one:
http://www.goodsects.com/Centurion.zip (http://www.goodsects.com/Centurion.zip)
Actually, I don't need any help at all doing all the programming for a game such as this, my limitation is graphics.
Basically, the ships/fighters for anything space related.
Ground stuff is even harder, if I had good tanks and terrain I could make it in 2D fairly easily.
3D on the other hand, while the base code isn't that much harder, I am not very good at making all the cool effects like missiles arcing through the sky, laser beams, or explosions, but using TV/VB.NET I can do the other stuff pretty well.
My problem with mods that completely change the universe of the original game, is that they never really feel "complete" and always feel more of a "hack". Take the battletech mod for C&C Generals for example, *excellent* mod, but it really doesn't capture battletech very well (though I'd love to have all the models!).
The dropteam game could pretty easily do centurion, but I found the engine quite lacking as far as interface went and at times was jerky enough to be annoyingly unplayable (and the rest of the time it was like 60fps, go figure)
I would think the best interceptor mod would be one of the wing commander games, but I don't think those were ever moddable. WC3 was the last game that got me really "riled up", though some like COD4 came kinda close.
My problem with mods that completely change the universe of the original game, is that they never really feel "complete" and always feel more of a "hack". Take the battletech mod for C&C Generals for example, *excellent* mod, but it really doesn't capture battletech very well (though I'd love to have all the models!).I mostly agree. Fortunately, the difference between them and us, however, is we have the source code. With the right talent, this can go way beyond mere 'modding'.
a few words: Campaign 1, CTWP, cone lasers, capture immediately! ;7
Whoa, what are cone lasers? What would they look like? How MUCH of a cone?
It is not fully operational, I'm still testing it. ;) It's taking a bit of tweaking to make sure the math is right.
I'll ignore the cone laser concept for now. If/when we get armor implemented, we could make it a weapon that perhaps does damage to armor and not hull. Or maybe vice versa, I dunno.
Use the shield as the armor and just turn off regenerate
isn't there a way to do that?
Currently, armor exists as something else entirely (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Armor.tbl). I'm hoping to expand this to behave as you'd expect -- in theory, armor could be made to behave just like a second set of non-regenerating shields. However it's a lot of work and I'm in the middle of a few things, so I haven't got anywhere past the looking through the code to see what would need to be changed. Perhaps someone else might take it up... but if not, I may tackle it in a couple months.
I'm starting to wounder if it might not be possible (provided some people are interested) to do a sort of test bed mission (not using any special features such as uneven armour or autopilot). I've made the dialogs for campaign 1 mission 1: To test it out, we would need a cheeta, a launcea, a verutum, a spiculum and a cingulum.
Could we start with this or is it too soon? I've notified our friends at the starshatter community of the idea.
All right then. :D
Good news everyone!
Wanderer has been working on some turret code (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,53318.msg1091515.html#msg1091515) and has made it so beams will fire out of multiple firepoints at once. It's not committed yet, but it works in his posted test build. Lots of interesting options to try!
Yes: it seems starshattermods is having a few problems at the moment.
The model is quite good, the only thing I can see is the fulgur normally has a double top fin (not single as in the model). I'll have to notify this.
Really nice, angel: Indeed it's the saxum and it's huge under portion. I always woundered how this fighter could land. :p
What do you think would work as a texture? We don't have much info regarding fighters colorwise. I remember seeing a few in jacob where they mostly were grey with shades of red (TOG) and grey/tellow/blue (RL).
Also, regarding the leviathans, I'm thinking of making them pearly white with glistening windows, a bit like star destroyers and TOS battlestars/basestars as they correspond to an 80s kind esthetics where ships are supposed to make you gape in wounder BOTH esthethically and capably.
Regarding the ships, what you may see on the counters might be "nude" ships: For instance, the 12 primary interceptors (RL and TOG) pictures show internal systems (not the case with the later models). those colors you see may be the component's colours without the painting.
Anyway, jacob screenies are here: http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/renegade-the-battle-for-jacobs-star/screenshots
As for the leviathans, I Think it would be good to stay with the "star wars/battlestar" textures type. Leviathans are old ships, they should IMO correspond to a kind of 80s estethics, and the small shiny windows might provide a sense of scale. But we have time to discuss this, as blue-grayish is quite nice also.
Actually, despite appearing like this in the holospace preview, the petal will be blue/yellow/green when you fly it ingame. :confused:
Perhaps the colors vary accorting to the units (or legions).
I think there is a texture replacement function in FRED. So if a ship has different texturemaps you could exchange them when building the mission.
I mentioned this in the Renegade Legion Yahoo Group, but I think it would be nice for the player to choose the primary, secondary, and trim colors ala Dawn of War or MechCommander2. I don't know if Frespace supports that level of mucking around with custom colors, but it would be nice if it could be done. Similarly, perhaps something could be done with the decals so that RL or CommonWealth units could be choosen with specific color schemes and squadron symbols.
One thing kinda dumb in my opinion about Freespace 2 is that even though it was a "civil war", the bad guys still had bad guy tech and the good guys had good guy tech. NTF was all Herc1s, Lokis, . .. that other light bomber, Orions etcetera. And the good guys were Herc 2s, Perseus, Hecates, etcetera. Easy for the player to understand . . .but kinda dumb. Especially since the Loki and the light bomber were solely bad guys in Silent Threat as well.
A lot of persons attempted at modelling the shiva.I think every Renegade Legion fan that has some 3D skills at some point does a version of the Shiva. I know that I have. :-)
So, it is plausible that the FS2 civil war could have some isolation in fighter and ship classes. Of course, a more realisitic view would take into account where the manfacturing sites for their units are located. What that means with regard to scripting a RL campaign is that a Renegade Legion unit might start out with 100% TOG units but as fighters are lost, they have to be replaced with Commonwealth units. Artistically, RL units might look more patchwork that TOG or CW units as well since they have to depend more on repairing damaged sub systems rather than replacing them.
Hey, what are those stations? Are those the mythical "fort oasis" class kannic has been promoting in his modified briefs?
Semi-technical modelling questions, the two latest models that I've seen have some pretty high polygon counts for a realtime game with potential for lots of units in the air. I know these are LOD0 models, but I'm curious as to how many levels of detail FS2 supports and what are the polygon bugets for each level?
Actually, I intend to continue the jacob's star story, however, if finished, Knowing the fact that the RL universe is so vast, I guess everyone good at fredding may try their own ideas: An "enlightment" campaign like the one you suggested might be very interesting, as well as a kessrith or true TOG one (on the kessrith or comm front). Also, I guess it could be possible to recreate the human Vs Kessrith-ssora war, up to the original trajan uprising finally culminating up to the heroic flight of constantin and his soon to become renegades. :)
I read in a previous post that you can via script make a ship vulnerable or invulnerable. Cool, so the first question is can you do that in the middle of a game? Next question, when a ship is hit, can we determine which facing it comes in from? (Specifically the left, right, fore, and aft quadrants or perhaps a bearing for cap ships.) Final question, does the script allow you to roll random numbers and check the results?
Universal ablative armor I can live with, but the ablative shields that have been proposed is a poor compromise (in my humble opinion.) Even without the bearing data, it might be possible to create 360 degree flicker shields. I can also see linking them with a sub system on the fighter to simulate a shield generator critical hit.
I believe the ablative shields is something Starlord (who's idea this mod is in the first place) thought would be not-bad because basically that's what Jacob's Star did and I get the impression that Jacob's Star is Starlord's first and perhaps (only??) experience with Renegade Legion.Jacob's Star is not a bad thing unto itself, but if you didn't come in from the board game or SSI's first RL:INT game, you would not be aware of what compromises were made in order to make it more like Wing Commander. (Again, not a bad thing since WC was all the rage at that time.)
But yeah, having actual flicker shields would be pretty cool and unique.It would certainly put some fear and loathing into the game when you come across a Fluttering Petal or Gladius. :-)
Back to scripts, I was reading through the wiki and it does mention some hooks for weapon and collision events. So, the scripting question remains open for me. I might have to hunt down a Lau/FS2 scripting guru and see what they say about the possibility of modelling flicker shields.
Hmmn, well I'm at work right now and know jack-all about scripting but you could try posting your ideas in the scripting sub board. I believe that's where all the knowledgable types like to hang out.Done.
Flicker shields might be a bit problematic when it comes to ships though . . I mean I don't know how intensive those calculations are going to be, but when you've got like Veratum(?) and a Shiva Nova with 200+ guns per side blasting into eachother that'll be a lot of computations potentially.I don't think the burden would be that heavy, the logic is fairly straight forward:
Some weapons (HGMDCs, spinal mounts) are described as able to penetrate leviathan shielding.
Also, no matter the flicker rate, I've read somewhere that multiple heavy shots/missile impacts CAN overpower the shield even when flicker is on (Don't remember where I've read it though).
What's interesting is that such a script would free up normal shields. Perhaps they can be used as RL directional ablative 'armor'? I'm hopeful that the game engine can simulate more of the RL universe flavor than previously thought. I'm sure that there would be a fair amount of tweaking and game balancing that would need to be done to give it the right feel. But, knowing is half of the battle.
News: Brad is attempting to model the overlord on starshattermods. There's a small way to go, but he's progressing nicely!
Thanks for your most constructive and helpful comments for improving my models. Maybe in the future instead of being casually dismissive, you could be a bit more specific in telling me exactly what needs to be added to bring the models up to your high standards. Just let me know, and I'll be happy to give it a try. I'm just learning, as of 2 weeks ago I didn't know the first thing about 3d modelling. I didn't even know what program to use. So it's really great that after spending money for a 3d modelling program and spending countless hours learning how to use it only to have to read wonderful comments like this.Don't get discouraged and don't worry about it - for someone who's around two weeks into modelling and has already UVed and textured it, you're lightyears ahead of most people. :)
First of all, this Brad guy is interested in preserving the Renegade Legions in any game engine whether it be starshatter or Freespace2 or something else. I'm also interested in learing how to do 3d Modelling, so I thought this project was a natural place to start after being introduced to it by Starlord. Thanks for your most constructive and helpful comments for improving my models. Maybe in the future instead of being casually dismissive, you could be a bit more specific in telling me exactly what needs to be added to bring the models up to your high standards. Just let me know, and I'll be happy to give it a try. I'm just learning, as of 2 weeks ago I didn't know the first thing about 3d modelling. I didn't even know what program to use. So it's really great that after spending money for a 3d modelling program and spending countless hours learning how to use it only to have to read wonderful comments like this. I would also not be so dismissive of Starshatter, because the scenario you just described would easily be possible in that game engine.
Now, as for the rest of your latest post, now we are getting somewhere. This was constructive for sure, because I didn't even realize before you told me that those tails were mismatched. I am using Milkshape to make my models, and I do in fact build one side first, and then mirror it as you suggested. I must not have had the one face poly selected on the tail when I duplicated it and mirrored to create the other half.
I think you guys could realy use some normalmaps to keep the polycount low.
I think a basic shape with a good normalmap could give you much more, concidering the number of bays you need, then even a midpoly bay could give you.
However, we have to be careful: newton like inertia is known to render a game difficult (XF5700 mantis) especially with non assisted firing.
I know what you are going to say, and I know it's not a real referrence point, but jacob was freespace like in game mechanics (not newtonian). Are we sure newtonian flight is part of RL? (I mean, sure there's drag, but there is drag in freespace and WC also actually).
Well I am not good at explaining but here is a small article about normalmapping
No problem ^_^
There are two ways of doing normalmaps that I know of.
First is that you create a highpoly model and use it to create the normalmap from its geometrie and then apply this to a lowpoly model. That is what they have done in the image.
Second way is that you create it by hand. From my experiance and depending on what you do it takes some practice but could give some quite interesting results.
Ask DaBrain for help. He knows quite a lot about it and also creates some very good looking maps.
Yeah, the 23 files are the movies that got ripped out.
The error in the screenshot has nothing to do with that error -- it's because the game thinks you don't have a CD-ROM drive :lol:
Mount ANY cd and it'll work. to save you time, type "mount e G:\ -t cdrom" , where G:\ is your cd-rom drive (or you can even do a folder on your hard drive instead!)
no MSCDEX?
Yeah, the 23 files are the movies that got ripped out.
The error in the screenshot has nothing to do with that error -- it's because the game thinks you don't have a CD-ROM drive :lol:
Mount ANY cd and it'll work. to save you time, type "mount e G:\ -t cdrom" , where G:\ is your cd-rom drive (or you can even do a folder on your hard drive instead!)
Grrrr, I got Jacob's star for a few bucks off eBay or someplace but I can't get the damn game to run. I get the same error where it apparently can't find the CD rom but even though I mount the drive the damn thing still doesn't play. SOOOOO aggravating. Same error that this guy got: http://img169.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dosboxscreensl5.png (http://img169.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dosboxscreensl5.png)
Do you know what the deal is Backlash??
Here's my freaking config;s autoexec stuff (created using DOG), dunno why it wouldn't work:
mount a d:\ -t cdrom -usecd 0
mount y c:\games\
Y:
cd/
cd renegade
call RENEGADE.BAT
EDIT - though I had fatal error #26, maybe it's different.
i never got it to play either
i think i need to reconfig dosbox settings to allow/enable XMS memory? not sure which setting right now
but i cant save the dosbox config file! it gave me some "directory not found" sh*t when i tried to save (even though i can browse to that directory)
if you get it working, it would be great to know how
Do you know what the deal is Backlash??This looks very close. I have a hunch: perhaps try changing the first line to "mount d d:\ -t cdrom -usecd 0"
Here's my freaking config;s autoexec stuff (created using DOG), dunno why it wouldn't work:
mount a d:\ -t cdrom -usecd 0
mount y c:\games\
Y:
cd/
cd renegade
call RENEGADE.BAT
i never got it to play eitherDunno why the directory not found would happen. "dosbox.conf" is a simple text file. Try opening it with Notepad or something else simple.
i think i need to reconfig dosbox settings to allow/enable XMS memory? not sure which setting right now
but i cant save the dosbox config file! it gave me some "directory not found" sh*t when i tried to save (even though i can browse to that directory)
This looks very close. I have a hunch: perhaps try changing the first line to "mount d d:\ -t cdrom -usecd 0"
A: was historically considered the floppy drive so the game might not be even considering drive letters less than C.
I tried the mount d already but didn't try -usecd 0. think I used -iotcl whatever the hell that does.
Still working on it, but it seems I'm going to have to stop during july: I've got a study report to fill in in UK. I'll be gone during a month.
Well actually, I remember having deleted my efforts 3 times in blender, because t was quite frustrating to mess up the mesh and not correct it:
Also, wdboyd of starshatter has requested the use of the saxum and Idis models: i think he would like to see how they handle in the game: Might it be possible for you to give them angel?
Wow, that's great looking angel. Here's the TOG's smallest carrier :lol:
Also, sorry if I'm wrong, but if there's one turret only, how can it protect it's underside from fighters?
True that this is the way I see it: the cingulum is much more potent against interceptors, despite being a small corvette. And then again, it could be paired with a meteorum assault corvette...
Also, I'm woundering, do you plan to animate the launch doors? Is this only possible?
Also IIRC, any light to med fighters with the 130 ton restriction can be fitted into pharetras, and also pharetras can be carried on some leviathans (leviathan carrying pharetra carriers carrying fighters). Actually, some designs can even host up to escorts (cataphractus) while able to host the 3 corvette types (pharetra, meteorum, cingulum) and 2 gunboats (adscriptius, adscriptius-M).
Also, IIRC, the war transport we need is the carrus (unless I'm wrong). The patrol ships present in this MOD will make fans drool: you'll see! ;7
Also there's the safeguard problem: first of all, can we make missiles destroyable by gun fire? If so, can we create a small turret (on missiles or patrol ships) able to shoot at missiles only? (that would be the safeguard).
On another side: I've noticed several things:
First, flicker shields I have seen are supposed to be off when the fighter is firing, as when it's on, nothing can fire out. This basically means the flicker shield should be deactivated when the player fires (very interesting strategically speaking: this means the player should choose when to favour protection or attack: on things like a head on engagement, the choice might be hard).
Also there's the safeguard problem: first of all, can we make missiles destroyable by gun fire? If so, can we create a small turret (on missiles or patrol ships) able to shoot at missiles only? (that would be the safeguard).
nice. and what about the pushing the plant rule? could this be done?
$Afterburner: YES
+Aburn Max Vel: 0.0, 0.0, 150.0
+Aburn For accel: 0.7
+Aburn Fuel: 300.0
+Aburn Burn Rate: 50.0
+Aburn Rec Rate: 0.0
No, I mean the levels of afterburn they use in usual, or does it not vary independently to the ship's AI?
the enmity destroyer lives ;7
This mod's not dead yet.
Here's a Renegade Destroyer, WIP
(http://knossos.firenebula.com/temporary/renegade/enmity02.jpg)
Looks nice
I really like it