[Akalabeth Angel]

So . . the Metoreoum is a heavy gunboat then? The KessRith employ slow ships with heavy shielding and armour, it's designed to combat that fighting style is all. Adding 100 tons for an FTL drive (more like 115 since it'll be a new percentage of the overall weight), what's the point? (most Leviathans only have 1000 ton bays, adding any weight to the Meteorum will mean that most can't carry 'em). Renegade Legion FTL drives aren't for intrasystem travel. Ships use FTL to travel system to system and then move via normal space therein. It's not like freespace where ships launch from a carrier, jump to some other place in the system, and then do their thing, and jump back.

If you don't like the Meteorum as is, then leave it on the KessRith front. It's that simple.

It's not an exaggeration to carry an Escort on a Leviathan, it's just pointless. If an Escort is self-contained, and perfectly capable of flying around on its own, why build another larger ship to carry it? There's no reason for it.

As I said before, only 5 ships can carry anything bigger than 1000 tons. And again, what's the point of it? Why carry a corvette like the Pharetra with 6 fighters when your ship already has 200 fighters in it? Why carry a Cingulum when the Cingulum has an FTL drive to accompany the ship on its own? I think you're confusing Leviathans with Star Destroyers. Star Destroyers are big ships with a bunch of fighters, and a bunch of ground troops, and a bunch of "pre-fab" bases and a bunch of everything a person would need or something like that, according to the Fluff. Basically they do everything that's needed, a little unrealistic. But Leviathans aren't. They're just warships which do the job of destroying other warships. Similarly, Corvettes like the Cingulum are for patrolling areas than are not important enough to warrant a warship, Corvettes like the Pharetra are for bringing a few fighters to some backwater system to mount a quick raid. If you make some jack of all trade ships you've ended up with something that can do nothing well. If you're carrying tanks or troops, you need bays for those ships and you need living quarters for the crews of those transports. But your ship isn't always going to be involved in planetary invasions. When you're not you've suddenly got a lot of space spent on transporting people and materials when you could be carrying more weapons instead.

And yeah, a Leviathan even for a short time could carry a few more tanks or whatever. But really, if a Transport is like a Carrier, then most transports are going to carry what 100-200 or more tanks? Now if you've got 5 transports with a thousand tanks would you rather load your Leviathan with a few transports, to carry 30 more tanks? Or would you rather load it up with some heavy gunboats, to ensure that the transports can do their jobs?

Harpy's a possibility but would have to look at the naming conventions, TOG doesn't seem to use much in the way of mythology for their ship names from what I can tell. But could be wrong. (where the Commonwealth has the Pegasus, etcetera). Though if you model the ship you can name it whatever you like.

[starlord]

Actually, I revised it: I would name it auriga.

Also, I've been thinking a lot regarding the corvette/gunboat question: leaving the meteorum behind is out of the question, and I truly think that the MOD needs an assault corvette. At the very least, make the CW front variant of the meteorum FTL capable even if not carried in leviathans. (It's quite important in my script (campaign 2), and well... remember I'm taking a few liberties anyway, so it's not to be considered as 100% canon , other RL fans could make campaigns involving the "real" meteorum, perhaps on the kessrith front...), I mean, ships get modified all the time :shiva nova (besides, this bugger has a 10% superior broadside than the venatrix: that's going to be a pain!), xerxes maximus, cingulum magnae, and several fighters.

Second, I've been thinking that cingulum and pegasus corvettes are very likely to be used as shuttle craft since they can be accomodated for passenger transport/rescue missions and are not what you would called under armed to counter "normal" threats. The fact that those ships may come and go as they please in a ship to ferry passengers or via T-space, or to be transported in a leviathan (one T-space wake) and THEN to carry out covert missions in the system without enemies detecting it's entry is very attractive. Also, to have a MOD where leviathans are capable of deploying patrol ships as well as fighters will interest quite a lot of persons, you'll see.

Anyway, before talking about that, we should already imagine what the meteorum would be like... We know it's named the shark for some reason (big radiator fins).

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!

[Akalabeth Angel]

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!

     Whether or not the fans drool over the ships depends upon how well I model them, since I'm the only one who's done any actual game-related work. 

[starlord]

Wdboyd and bradd have done also, and besides... things are not over yet!

I'm not starting an idea to let it go to dust then.

[starlord]

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 another thing which might add a good feeling to the universe (it was also part of jacob's star and interceptor before that): the "pushing the powerplant" rule: In short, a fighter has a limited safe thurst through which he can if needed go over (afterburn). this might give him a small edge in combat but if used too much will damage the engine thus reducing the overall safe thurst. I'm woundering if it might be possible in the FS engine to create a player enabled SEXP damaging the engines to an extent when the afterburners are used too much...
IMO, would be great, as umprecedented.

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).

[Jake2447]

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).

You could flag the missile as a bomb.  Then it would be destroyable.

[Akalabeth Angel]

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).

      Eh, I think you're reading a little too much into things. The computer can calculate enough to turn the shields off at the exact moment the shot is passing through the shields.

      It's like airplanes right. Airplanes don't have to turn off their propeller to shoot their gun. Rather the gun is synchronized to fire when the propellor won't be in the way. It's the same with flicker shields. Or it should be, depending on the fluff.

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).

       As the other guy said you could turn them into bombs but then I think every turret would fire at them. instead of just the safeguard one. Of course, if the ship doesn't have a turret that won't be a problem. But then other ships like the Glaidus would get the benefit of safeguard without the system itself. I don't know if you can program turrets to not target missiles or not.

         

[starlord]

nice. and what about the pushing the plant rule? could this be done?

[Akalabeth Angel]

nice. and what about the pushing the plant rule? could this be done?

           Hmmn, well that can be done with sex-ps and variables most likely. One can probably set it up such that if player's speed exceeds certain value for certain amount of time there's a percentage chance that the engine will take damage?

           But where do you get the whole engine taking damage thing? Looking at Interceptor I only noticed that ships which go too fast have the chance of going out of control which is due to pilot error rather than engine failure.

[Akalabeth Angel]

       I've been playing Wing Commander a bit (WCSaga) and thought the finite amount of afterburner is actually a pretty cool idea. I have to look more into the Interceptor side of things, of how things work . . but having an afterburner which is more of a fuel reserve than a capability of the engine is kind of a cooler concept on some levels.

[starlord]

Hmm. Perhaps this comes from the interceptor video game then?

http://www.4shared.com/file/42976825/be248817/rl_interceptor.html?dirPwdVerified=380ccc6c

I'm sure I saw it there.

It's also used in jacob.

[starlord]

Please do forgive me: the link is here:

http://www.4shared.com/file/55704667/15f64ace/interceptor20game20manual1.html?dirPwdVerified=380ccc6c

page 11. I'm sure this'll interest you.

best regards.

[Akalabeth Angel]

      Ah I see it is in theboardgame as well, I obviously missed it the first time around.
      Hmmn, I guess fighters don't really have afterburners. Thing is, the way the rule is now, depending on the thrust of the fighter they can increase their own thrust up to a potential increase of 5. The percentage chance that the engine will take damage is dependent upon how much they increase by.

     The problem I see with that however, is two fold. First, better AI uses their afterburners. They use them a lot.  Setting this up with sex-ps would be a pain in the butt for even one ship. I'm not sure about every ship in mission. The only viable alternative is possibly setting something up via scripting but not sure if that's possible or not. If it is possible, there's a few problems:


1. Better AI would actually be worse because they'll continually use their afterburners and eventually burn out their engines.

2. If you restrict the "engine shorting" to the player craft only, then every other craft in the game will have an advantage over the player and the player will get pissed off and rightly so. (ie "How come I can blow my engine using my afterburner but no one else ever does? The computer's a cheater!").

3. Alternatively, every single player-flyable ships has a player-only version which includes an afterburner whereas the computer's ships do not. This gives the player the advantage of having an afterburner but also the possibility of it shorting out. Given the fact this would literally double the number of entries for fighters in the ships.tbl, it seems like a bad idea. It would also be very hard to enforce unless all missions were "scramble missions" (ie the player doesn't chose his craft and loadout), which, if they were, the player would probably get ticked off because chosing the loadout is an important part of the game, especially for Renegade legion.  At least, in terms of missile loadout anyway. Weaponry is conversely quite limited per each craft.

 
       That's my thoughts anyway. Not sure if anyone has a better idea.

[starlord]

Hmm, we will have to think this up.

Can we actually script the length of use of afterburners for enemy ships?

[Al Tarket]

looking for a finite amount of fuel.. hope this is what your looking for..

Code: [Select]

$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

[starlord]

No, I mean the levels of afterburn they use in usual, or does it not vary independently to the ship's AI?

[Akalabeth Angel]

No, I mean the levels of afterburn they use in usual, or does it not vary independently to the ship's AI?

     AI determines whether they use it or not. I don't think there's any time dependent variable beyond how much fuel their afterburner has. But the rules just determine the frequency or conditions of them using it, such that on lower levels the AI never uses it, and on higher levels they always do.

[starlord]

Hey, I just thought about something to balance the game regarding this rule:

-leave the enemies with "natural"FS afterburn able to run out with time but to regenerate.
-Give the player potentially unlimited afterburn, BUT with engine damage occurring if used fore more than say, 5 seconds or something like it.

Could this be scripped to the player's ship only?

[Topgun]

probably. ask in the scripting board if you want.

[starlord]

The all mighty "wmcoolman"    has given his verdict:

Those "danger" afterburners are very much possible, and if applied to the player only (which they are), easy to do without scripting:

1) Make toggle using keypress triggers, or if this is just for the player, just make it conditional on being the player (eg "$Ship: Alpha 1" if player is always alpha 1)
2) When toggle is enabled, alter afterburner acceleration stats in ship.Physics
3) When AfterburnerFuelLeft < AfterburnerFuelMax, apply damage to engines and reset AfterburnerFuelLeft to AfterburnerFuelMax