Hard Light Productions Forums

Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The Modding Workshop => Topic started by: sigtau on June 24, 2009, 06:29:02 pm

Title: Shivan support ships.
Post by: sigtau on June 24, 2009, 06:29:02 pm
Never seen one in my life.

How do you guys think the Shivans re-arm--even though they rely more on primary weapons, the bombers have to have some kind of support as well, don't they?
Title: Re: Shivan support ships.
Post by: Droid803 on June 24, 2009, 07:12:39 pm
Well, I was using a pof-edited Azrael...then a reskinned Nepthys for Shivan rearming craft, but canonically, it doesn't seem like they HAVE support ships.
Title: Re: Shivan support ships.
Post by: General Battuta on June 24, 2009, 08:07:36 pm
Shivans rely more on primaries? Since when? A lot of their combatants have real trouble killing without secondaries.

I'd guess that Shivan fighters are all expendable assets and not worth rearming.
Title: Re: Shivan support ships.
Post by: sigtau on June 24, 2009, 09:06:21 pm
http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Shivans

May I direct your attention to the "Technology" section, third paragraph into the section. 

Quote
Shivans seem to depend more on primary weapons than secondaries, as evidenced by their bombers' low payload capacity.
Title: Re: Shivan support ships.
Post by: General Battuta on June 24, 2009, 09:16:56 pm
That's fan-written, my dear sigtau. I'll go edit it out now - it's pretty nonsensical, since Shivan primaries are by no means effective (although they can do okay in massive banks.)

EDIT: Good lord, that article needs an overhaul or a non-canon tag. Between the speculation on Shivan architecture and statements like "it is evident that the Shivans exponentially increase their power between campaigns against other beings", it's riddled with problems.
Title: Re: Shivan support ships.
Post by: 0rph3u5 on June 25, 2009, 01:10:25 am
I'm using a modified Shaitan as fighter salvage-craft in "The Lost Generation" (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/The_Lost_Generation_(campaign))
Title: Re: Shivan support ships.
Post by: Dilmah G on June 25, 2009, 06:56:31 am
Still, has anyone ever seen the NTF call in Support? I'd be very interested to see it :P
Title: Re: Shivan support ships.
Post by: sigtau on June 25, 2009, 08:28:52 am
Someone needs to add support for the enemy to call in their own support ships.  That would make things very interesting
Title: Re: Shivan support ships.
Post by: Qent on June 25, 2009, 09:15:39 am
Still, has anyone ever seen the NTF call in Support? I'd be very interested to see it :P
In "Love the Treason..." the NTF reinforcements came with a support ship, although it was FREDded in, not an actual fighter calling in support.
Title: Re: Shivan support ships.
Post by: Snail on June 25, 2009, 10:38:32 am
That's fan-written, my dear sigtau.
Actually, it's not! (shock horror)

It's an almost direct quote from the FreeSpace 1 Shivan tech database entry for the Dragon. In FS1 it was clear the Shivans favored primary weapons to secondary weapons, at least for the first half of the campaign. Later on the Shivans wisened up to the problem and sent in the Nephilims.
Title: Re: Shivan support ships.
Post by: General Battuta on June 25, 2009, 10:42:56 am
Interesting!

To be fair, it's still from the in-universe perspective of a Terran analyst. I just can't see how it makes sense to say the Shivans favor primaries when their primaries are...well.

That article is still full of rubbish.
Title: Re: Shivan support ships.
Post by: Snail on June 25, 2009, 10:45:25 am
Yeah, I agree.
Title: Re: Shivan support ships.
Post by: Qent on June 25, 2009, 11:00:41 am
The Dragon does have the smallest secondary capacity ever, so it could have been bad intel a wrong assumption on the Terrans' part.

Edit: Actually it's perfectly correct that Dragons have a tiny missile bank.
Title: Re: Shivan support ships.
Post by: Mobius on June 25, 2009, 12:19:54 pm
IMO, there's something in the code that prevents the full implementation of hostile support ships.

I tried to modify the table entries so that hostile units should be able to call in support ships, but nothing happened. I think the code doesn't allow the presence of any support ships other than those called by the player's faction (even in case of treason).

Now that I think of it, it would also be nice to have more than one support ship on the battlefield at the same time. In a plausible environment, a faction would rely on several tankers/rearming craft.
Title: Re: Shivan support ships.
Post by: Aardwolf on June 25, 2009, 02:07:08 pm
Maybe they don't have support ships.

So what if they can't rearm in-mission? Get in, do your job, and get out. It's not as though Shivan fighters aren't designed for survivability, and aren't expected to rendezvous with a carrier of some sort after a sortie.

Note: Shivan fightercraft definitely are capable of surviving battles--as long as you play on a high enough difficulty.
Title: Re: Shivan support ships.
Post by: Snail on June 25, 2009, 02:08:14 pm
Note: Shivan fightercraft definitely are capable of surviving battles--as long as you play on a high enough difficulty.
Yeah, the Shivans just have no qualms about sacrificing them.
Title: Re: Shivan support ships.
Post by: General Battuta on June 25, 2009, 02:17:08 pm
Insane is the way to play.
Title: Re: Shivan support ships.
Post by: headdie on June 25, 2009, 02:40:33 pm
not really an insane thing when you think about it. 

1) in the real world, currently we are only able to refuel craft in the air, maybe the Shivans didn't bother researching down this line.

2) support craft from their size i would suggest are as carrier dependent as the fighters they service so removing them could probably allow for an additional fighter squadron to be based on a destroyer

3) shivans from their first engagement in Ross 128 to the final battle seem to prefer fast attack tactics with fast fighters, powerful bombers (how many rearms would it take a wing SB Seraphim to kill an unprotected destroyer?) and cruiser support in these rapid situations a rearm ship would probably be a liability

4) relating to my first point the Shivans could have a blind side to re-arm tactics at the same time consider us Terrans stupid for not considering other tactics, remember the Shivans are really old as a race if the ancients are to be belived
Title: Re: Shivan support ships.
Post by: sigtau on June 25, 2009, 11:51:29 pm
That's fan-written, my dear sigtau.
Actually, it's not! (shock horror)

It's an almost direct quote from the FreeSpace 1 Shivan tech database entry for the Dragon. In FS1 it was clear the Shivans favored primary weapons to secondary weapons, at least for the first half of the campaign. Later on the Shivans wisened up to the problem and sent in the Nephilims.

I was *just* about to post about that, but you beat me to it.  :ick:
Title: Re: Shivan support ships.
Post by: Nuke on June 26, 2009, 03:19:04 pm
i think it would be kinda fun to fight a battle with attrition, prevent the enemy from reloading their guns and you can guickly turn a loosing battle into a turkey shoot.
Title: Re: Shivan support ships.
Post by: sigtau on June 26, 2009, 05:36:02 pm
Perhaps someone could POF mod a custom Shivan bomber and make it a support ship?
Title: Re: Shivan support ships.
Post by: Droid803 on June 26, 2009, 07:18:25 pm
We have pof-edited ships for Shivan support ships already.
I have a POF-edited Azrael. Want that?
I also have a reskinned Nepythysys (that looks better than the SS Cosmic on FSMods).
Title: Re: Shivan support ships.
Post by: Dilmah G on June 26, 2009, 09:38:05 pm
i think it would be kinda fun to fight a battle with attrition, prevent the enemy from reloading their guns and you can guickly turn a loosing battle into a turkey shoot.
Yeah, if anyone has the expertise I'd pay to see it in a mod :P
Title: Re: Shivan support ships.
Post by: Aardwolf on June 27, 2009, 07:34:59 am
So, enemies really can't use support ships? Or did you just mean they can't summon them like friendly wingmen/players can?

That makes me think... it would be neat if you could have support ships in TvT multi games...
Title: Re: Shivan support ships.
Post by: sigtau on June 27, 2009, 09:54:31 am
Makes me wonder if we should code an SCP-only feature for the enemy being able to call in a support ship, and whichever ship calls in support will use its race (Terran, Vasudan, Shivan) to determine what kind of ship can be called in.
Title: Re: Shivan support ships.
Post by: Droid803 on June 27, 2009, 09:54:37 pm
Well when your side calls in a support ship, it is already the race of the ship that called it.
Title: Re: Shivan support ships.
Post by: Mad Bomber on June 28, 2009, 01:20:39 am
Out of curiosity, what happens if a race has more than one support ship flagged for it in the TBLs? (like, Centaur and Hygeia)
Title: Re: Shivan support ships.
Post by: Droid803 on June 28, 2009, 12:14:27 pm
The first one listed comes in.
To make the second one appear, you need to use SEXP in the mission to set support ship.