[stithe2000]

Alan! Sounds like you have your brain on full throttle! Pretty good stuff... I am fairly familiar with physics myself.... FS2 also has the capability of projectile weaponary as well.... The factors of programming these weapons in the table are pretty simple... For example:
Gargoyle Cannon
Damage: 65; 75
 (Multiplication factor of effects of this weapon)
Armour Damage: 6.5
Shields: 4.0
Sub-System: 1.5
Flags: This option would be used to identify EMP, Shutter, or other effects the weapon may have on a particular ship...

This is a simple weapon that would use map effects, and rgb numbering for the light, glow, and effects you woulf want... Then there would also be flags as well... This complexity of this chart is not just on weapons... But speed factor, armour factor, and in  shield factor! These charts will not only set us creative types straight, but make the game a whole lot more fun... Mr. Bolte Thanx for taking the time to share your knowledge with us, and let us know how it goes to form up a nice little team for this brain storming part of this fun project! If you have any questions on the tables used for FS2 let any of us know, and we will help the best we can... In the mean time, do you have the latest copy of the SCP, and updated files of FS2 (still need the old VP files, but to remedy that soon!)? Let me know, and we cann see bout getting all that to you! Thanx again!

[Singh]

if you need help with .tbl weapons, just give me a holler

[stithe2000]

Thx Singh... Also I am asking for a forum for exclusively FS2 Universes... I have you on the Internal group request if the forum is approved.... I am glad you will be apart of this little adventure!

[stithe2000]

Just an extra note:
Karma
Robo
Alan
I have also asked for you all to be apart of the internal workings of this forum once approved as well! Looking forward to the fun we will make!

[Getter Robo G]

From Carl the Shivan's Borg Torpedo, last year I made about 7-9 ST race torpedos. They work like  a charm as primaries in retail, however in FS open as secondaries it gets, complicated.

Do we have a weapons graphic expert? FSopen handles secondaries weapons kinda , kinky,  and some weapons that worked fine in retail need tweaking. It would be best if someone else looked into this. I just make suggestions and stuff...

[edit] when a proper thread location is made for this subject I will post screens of what I mean...

[stithe2000]

I already have the torps working on what I have already... It is not too bad, but effects may need work.... But as Robo Said when the new area opens we can begin knocking it out!

[Alan Bolte]

Ah, a new hobby. I've been without one for too long. For reference, my e-mail is abolte (at) andrew.cmu.edu. I'm not really all that good at coming up with a lot of data myself, the way individuals like Mike Wong and Curtis Saxton are known for, but I've been following SWvST and a bit of B5 and BSG long enough to have some idea of where to start. My physics knowledge is a bit limited, I am only a first-year engineering student after all! However, I have far more knowledgable aquaintences, so I hope to get some help from them, whether or not I get anyone to help with the mod directly. I'll go make a post or two in another forum.

Okay, weapons sound simple enough to start with. Tell me if I've got this right: Beams do a certain dmg/s, and pulses have a simple dmg amount. Then you have the three factors v. subsystems, shields, and armor. I'm confused about one thing: you seem to have two numbers in the Damage line. What does that mean? Is it any relation to damage decrease with distance, or does FS2 have such a capability?
I'm guessing shields, armor and subsystems just have a simple hitpoint value.
What's Shutter? Is EMP just subsystem-only damage, or is it more complex?

I recall that there were some difficulties getting capship shielding to work - can I get an update on the current situation?

Speed/accel is going to be an interesting issue. The game is geared at low constant velocities in a 60 km cube, so...yeah. That'll take some thinking. Even weapon pulse velocities are affected by this dynamic.

And let's not even start to think about the complexities involved in translating the beam weaponry. FS beams go through FS shields, but you can't automatically say that that means phasers will go through FS shields or that a BFred will go through a ST ships' shielding. Then we have turbolasers, which have been conclusively determined to be lightspeed weapons which fire a visible pulse along the beam while warming up, and increase to full intensity moments later. Then there's phasers, which visibly don't travel at lightspeed. Which reminds me - determining what time period ST we want to use will be an issue - personally, I recommend the Dominion War era as my first instinct. Capabilities are fairly well known, fighters and pure warships are relatively common, and the Galaxies have all been refit so they don't explode on the first sign of danger.

I haven't played FS2 in a while, and my current comp couldn't run the SCP. Not sure it could even run FS2. Again - I know I've read stuff analyzing the FS universe's weapons, armor, etc. - could someone point out where I can find that so that I don't have to go hunting through threads and hyperlinks?

[Ratri]

I just went to the stardestroyer.net and it states that Slave 1(that ship that is piloted by Jango Fett in AOTC and Boba Fett in ESB) is hundreds  of times more powerful than Galaxy class starship.  
Now i'm not about to argue with that statement but that is obviously unapliccable for the game. I'mean are we going to have missions with 100 Galaxys attacking a single X-wing? What about when Star Destroyer decides to show up?

[stithe2000]

1st: Alan: Beam weapons allow for constant damage for bout 2 to  seconds pending if it is set on Anti-Fighter mode, or big cap mode... In most of the case it will be Anti-fighter mode, for most of the ships we are fond of move pretty close to fighter type movements!
2nd: Ratri: That is why we are having brain stormers work all this out... You see no one knows yet what the exact versus chart would be... The only way we are going to know is if we ask the question... Work on it... Perhaps even ask a few of the original idea creators for some tips to the equavelance of these weapons, speeds, etc!
The only thing I will yield on right now... Is that I believe the Star Wars Universe may be more advanced because of the type of civilizations, and type of technology, and awarness that all species have in the star wars stories... Time, patience,  and brain storming... Now... I dont believe ~yet~ that a single X-Wing, or even Boba Fett ship would be able to take out a Galaxy Class ship... Now as for a star destroyer... Dunno... These are things we are going to have to think out, and actually figure out! Do you have any ideas that might help?

[Alan Bolte]

I know it seems bizzare, but consider this:

In the TNG episode "Pegasus" there is a fairly large asteroid that has been scaled from footage to be around 5 km wide. It's rocky, porous, and hollow. The Enterprise carries a maximum load of 275 photon torpedoes. No need to go into the plot here, but Riker recommends destroying the asteroid, which, given that the objective clearly isn't to erase all trace of the asteroid having ever been there, more likely means breaking it up than it does vaporization. He clearly states:

"I recommend we destroy the asteroid. It would take almost all our photon torpedoes, but it would preclude any possibility of the Pegasus falling into Romulan hands."

Now, consider AOTC. Those bombs dropped by the Slave I that created an odd-looking planar explosion ripped through dozens or hundreds of asteroids, some more than a km wide and quite solid, without slowing down.

Now consider B5. Two 2 MT nuclear bombs killed a Minbari Warcruiser, and those were nowhere near direct hits.

The fact of the matter is, these three examples are about as consistent with the other data as one can reasonably expect from a fictional universe whose authors only care so much about tech continuity. You get your unexplained outlier type examples, and if you want you can build your own version of the universe around that, but I feel that there are reasonable upper and lower bounds we can put on weapons and armor that are consistent with what is most often on screen. In creating a mod or a work of fanfiction you inevitably create your own version of the universe, so we can make it any way we like - but why not strive for similarity?

[Alan Bolte]

As for balance...yeah, that's tough. On the other hand, a squad of TIEs versus an Akira and her fighter complement would not only be fun, but actually somewhat similar to the comparitively unrealistic combat we see in the X-Wing games, where a single X-Wing piloted by a patient human should have no problem against an AI Star Destroyer. Would be more difficult, actually. What happens when an ISD shows up? Well, the same thing that happens in Star Wars when an ISD shows up to anything short of a rebellious sector fleet: pretty lights, then it's all over. That's not hard to balance out, we just don't put an ISD against the Enterprise as a campaign mission. One must not forget the smaller craft from SW: corvettes and frigates should be plenty of fun. Besides, it isn't like we want to fly those, this is FreeSpace! We're here for the fighters!

[stithe2000]

However, the thought is we should have everything figured out actually see this happen IF we put it in as a mission... The fact is we might have an alternate mission line pending where you are in the campaign... Until the physics table is figured out... And hashed betwen at least a dozen people starting with Bolte... We should have our answers... Until then... Are there Versus that should be considered before we start hammering out all the stories? Me... I think the Galaxy Class would put up a good fight, but the ISD does have a heavy aresonal, and armour to boot... However.... Unless the are moving at light speed they tend move a some what slow (note: not as slow as freespace big ships)... I do agree that the Trek Universe has weaker hulls... However, the shields hold out pretty good, and they do have good speed and maneuvering considering the size of the ship.... IF... The Galaxy, or what ever trek ship used good tactics, and speed... They might have a chance... However, we will wait and see what that will be... To be honest... I dont know who would win, but I would like to find out! One of my many reasons for putting this little project together!

[Ratri]

Ok this is how i think the ships would be like:
Star Trek
 Weapons: -phasers have longer range than turbolasers and    
                  beams from B5 and FS, they are moderatly effective  
                  against hulls and shields, they can also be used
                  against fighters and bombers(of course in game ST
                  ships should have two versions of phasers one for the
                  capital ships and weaker for the fighters)
                  -photon torpedoes are moderatley effective against
                   shields and very effective against hulls, they have
                   limited homing capability
                  -quantum torpedoes are very effective aginst shields
                    extremly effective against hulls, they have no homing
                    capability
 Defenses: -shields are very powerful
                  -hulls are weak(maybe with the SCP help a Hull  
                    Integrity Field subsystem could be made after the  
                    destruction of which hulls of ST ships become very
                    weak or simply make an event in mission that
                    reduces hull strength to 10% after that subsystem is
                    destroyed)
Manuverability: -excellent( I don't know if this would be possible
                          with FS Ai piloting skills)
(this has been written for Federation, other races in star trek shoud be scaled from this, so Klingons, Cardassians, Romulans and Dominion should have similar ship power, the Borg shoud be far more powerful)
Star Wars
  Weapons: -turbolasers have high fire rate and altough weaker
                    than phasers and beams their number on each ship
                    makes them deadly, they are extremley effective
                    against hulls and have limited effectivenes against
                    shields, effectivenes against fighters and bombers is
                    excellent
                  -superlaser: single shot takes down any ship
 Defenses: -shield are weak
                   -hulls are extremly strong(no dependancy on Hull
                    Integrity generator)
 Manuverability: -very poor for Capital ships and excellent for
                            fighters, SW fighters are faster and more
                            manuverable than ST shuttles/fighters

Babylon5
 Now this is a tough one. On one hand we have Younger Races which i don't think could have any chance against ST and SW ships and on the other hand we have First Ones which are extremly powerful. Howerver since this is a game i will try to throw in some balance.

Younger races:
      Weapons: -beams are more effective against hulls than
                         phasers but are almost ineffective against shields
      Defenses: -hulls are moderatley strong but there are no
                        shields
      Manuverability: -poor for capital ships and very good for
                               fighters(between ST and SW fighters)
 
Minbari: between Younger races and First Ones

First Ones:
      Weapons: -beams are stronger than phasers and are equally
                         effective aginst hull and shields
       Defenses: -ultra strong hulls, I'm not sure if they have shields
       Manuverability: -moderate for capital ships(except Shadows
                                which ships are more manuverable than even
                                ST), and excellent for fighters(even better
                                than SW fighter)

Here's a small table of some ships and their power:

                           firepower     defenses     manuverability
Star Destroyer        100               90              15
Galaxy                      35               35              50
Sharlin                      35               10              20
Borg cube               350              250             10
Super SD               1500              650              5
Battlecrab             1100              500             80
8472                     1000              600             60
Death Star        100000           10000              1

[stithe2000]

Sounds like you have had an itch on this subject for a little bit! Glad to have your inputs! However, Bolte is on the right track over comparing using some physics that may help answer the catch all questions... This will take time! However, I agree with most of the stuff you threw out here! I do want to be fair to all, and prove some of this stuff using any resource we have! However, on the same note.. You sound like a good candidate for a beta teser/ chart comparisons person! Interested Ratri? Thanx again for your insights!

[Ratri]

He he... Now that I read through my post again it does have a little "psyho" edge to it. What I tried to say is that real difference between universes should not be in power but in different technologies and approaches to combat. As for beta testing unfortunately I have very little free time on my hands to perform a very detailed testing.

[stithe2000]

That is what we are planning to do! It may takes a bit to get it right, but we will work it all out... However, this project could always use more insights... If you do find anything worth considering that you think we may over look... Let us know... Worse case scenario.. We already have it worked out!

[Alan Bolte]

I realize that what you put out there was more of an example than anything, but it reads a little bit like a rather pointless path to go down: randomness. If we just assign whatever sort of statistics and abilities we want to each side, we end up with fairly generic groups that only visually resemble the Empire, the Federation, etc. We might as well just be making up our own ships and weapons; it would at least be original.

I don't really give a damn who 'wins' or 'loses'. But saying, "let's make this weapon good against shields and long-range, and that one good against armor and rapid-fire, and offset that missile's increased power by making it dumbfire," makes for an entirely uninteresting mod.

I'm currently trying to read through what documentation I can find so that I can come up with rough ideas of how to model the combat of the various universes in this sort of environment. I'm somewhat busy with academics, so I'm afraid my productivity may not be the best.

[Singh]

Originally posted by Alan Bolte
Ah, a new hobby. I've been without one for too long. For reference, my e-mail is abolte (at) andrew.cmu.edu. I'm not really all that good at coming up with a lot of data myself, the way individuals like Mike Wong and Curtis Saxton are known for, but I've been following SWvST and a bit of B5 and BSG long enough to have some idea of where to start. My physics knowledge is a bit limited, I am only a first-year engineering student after all! However, I have far more knowledgable aquaintences, so I hope to get some help from them, whether or not I get anyone to help with the mod directly. I'll go make a post or two in another forum.

Okay, weapons sound simple enough to start with. Tell me if I've got this right: Beams do a certain dmg/s, and pulses have a simple dmg amount. Then you have the three factors v. subsystems, shields, and armor. I'm confused about one thing: you seem to have two numbers in the Damage line. What does that mean? Is it any relation to damage decrease with distance, or does FS2 have such a capability?
I'm guessing shields, armor and subsystems just have a simple hitpoint value.
What's Shutter? Is EMP just subsystem-only damage, or is it more complex?

I recall that there were some difficulties getting capship shielding to work - can I get an update on the current situation?

Speed/accel is going to be an interesting issue. The game is geared at low constant velocities in a 60 km cube, so...yeah. That'll take some thinking. Even weapon pulse velocities are affected by this dynamic.

And let's not even start to think about the complexities involved in translating the beam weaponry. FS beams go through FS shields, but you can't automatically say that that means phasers will go through FS shields or that a BFred will go through a ST ships' shielding. Then we have turbolasers, which have been conclusively determined to be lightspeed weapons which fire a visible pulse along the beam while warming up, and increase to full intensity moments later. Then there's phasers, which visibly don't travel at lightspeed. Which reminds me - determining what time period ST we want to use will be an issue - personally, I recommend the Dominion War era as my first instinct. Capabilities are fairly well known, fighters and pure warships are relatively common, and the Galaxies have all been refit so they don't explode on the first sign of danger.

I haven't played FS2 in a while, and my current comp couldn't run the SCP. Not sure it could even run FS2. Again - I know I've read stuff analyzing the FS universe's weapons, armor, etc. - could someone point out where I can find that so that I don't have to go hunting through threads and hyperlinks?

All could be fixed using the SCP and .tbl entries.

Currently there is an option where you can have beams pierce shields or not, and if the missions are designed carefully, you can have it such that the problem is never actually encountered.

[Singh]

Originally posted by Alan Bolte
I realize that what you put out there was more of an example than anything, but it reads a little bit like a rather pointless path to go down: randomness. If we just assign whatever sort of statistics and abilities we want to each side, we end up with fairly generic groups that only visually resemble the Empire, the Federation, etc. We might as well just be making up our own ships and weapons; it would at least be original.

I don't really give a damn who 'wins' or 'loses'. But saying, "let's make this weapon good against shields and long-range, and that one good against armor and rapid-fire, and offset that missile's increased power by making it dumbfire," makes for an entirely uninteresting mod.

I'm currently trying to read through what documentation I can find so that I can come up with rough ideas of how to model the combat of the various universes in this sort of environment. I'm somewhat busy with academics, so I'm afraid my productivity may not be the best.

All true. But some sort of consensus needs to be reached.

Fortunately, the .tbl entries are flexible, meaning we can use them to create realistic weapons for each universe. Lasers can be made to behave and look like beam turrets if you wish to use an afterburner trail after it, and Flak turrets do have their own use too (although I wish muzzleflash could be used on other types of guns too). Actual application of these weapons will depend on the story and the missions we are designing.

Perhaps it would be better to have several campaigns instead of one? We can create one campaign per universe, which is based on that PoV only. Each campaign will lead that universe upto a certain point, at which time we switch to a second campaign which leads a different universe upto the same point, describing the actions and perspectives behind each (not to mention give a lot of oppurtunity for nice space battles between each species) but all culminating to a point where all the races are present in a titanic and epic battle to save their own worlds against a common enemy!

(read: something that will make the battle of endor look like notihng)

Oh; if you have the bandwidth to spare, I'd suggest looking at alpha5.mpg over at the video archives on spacebattles.com, as it shows a nice and intense battle when it comes to B5 vs star trek.

[stithe2000]

Well.... As this story/ campaign reveals things... It will show what is going... The several campaigns, and stories will then eventually spin of what is started here... I agree everyone has their own PoV on these matters... However, we need a base line to fall back on... All we know right now is what we have seen in series, movies, and what we think it should be... After we have these charts, and a reference guide showing where and how we got this info can we then start tweaking to our liking... However, can you direct us to sold references? I am hitting the library/ book store today to help on this matter... Once all this is done then we can hash all this out when beta testing begins! Until then, lets give the subject  a break for a bit... I do like the different aspect idea for the campaign... I laid out the time line in which I have everything at the beginning... I also have certain plots that I would like to see in this as well... However, we need a good strong base story line with a dozen or so little plots going on, and we also need alternate story lines for objectives that are not satisfied (big if/then ideas).... From the stories we can base the missions off of, and then tactition them to become truely awsome missions... With the missions though comes the discussion of weapon, shield, armour, and enginw tech questions... Thus, with all good things takes a bit of time, and love! Lets see what stories we can muster up from the time line I gave earlier... Then once the stories (alternates too) are done... We all take a chance to read them... Brain storm a bit more, tweak them, and then move on to the mission making... Hopefully by then... The tech chart will be near a complete stage where can get basic missions underway... Hmmmm.... I think we have a game plan! Anyone else have any thoughts on this?