[Colonol Dekker]

Why'd the scanner cut some lines off the paper?

Nice pic though.

Nice blab with it too.

[headdie]

By the way, I'd like to throw in the fact that I've not yet officially been 'hired' for the project yet...

good point. Welcome to the project how do you fancy the position title of Chief of Concepts?

on a side point I have changed the project to Terran Chronicles to step away from any other professionally released material

[Thaeris]

@ Das Colonol:

I tried editing the image a bit to clean it up. It seems there was some debris on the scanner surface (you can actually see a bit I couldn't edit out on the top engine... due to a lack of Photoshop  ). Due to the nature of pencil sketches, some of the graphite also reflected a bit more than I wanted it to. Thus, I used a photo editing program that came with my camera to darken the image and port it to a smaller-sized file (the original scan was more than 28MB). I used MS Paint to white-out the notebook lines (which were a bit too dark for my liking at this point) and flatten the image... Note it was a quick concept and was a bit too... squat. It looks a bit better in some ways now. Well, I think so at least.

I'm glad you liked my writing. Thank you. 

@ headdie:

Thank you greatly; sounds great. 

[headdie]

Having a major headache with the campaign because the mission files keep corrupting I think due my install finally dieing and I cant re-install it from scratch because some mates managed to kill my disk 1 five or six years ago.  but there we go.

Thaeris

In the mean time I am straitening out an access database I have built up over the months of dreaming this thing up (still needs hours of work to get it to the point where its understandable from an outside perspective) just thought it might help you see where some things are heading.  if you haven't got Access i can convert it to Excel easy enough

[Thaeris]

Sounds good, headdie. I'm not familiar with using Access, but I do have it.

As far as ship design goes, I've come up with some vessels that have turrets mounted at angles which are not straight up or down... I've not committed any serious effort to those yet. Has any way in terms of coding allowed this yet (E?). Last time I checked, this wasn't possible.

[The E]

Sounds good, headdie. I'm not familiar with using Access, but I do have it.

As far as ship design goes, I've come up with some vessels that have turrets mounted at angles which are not straight up or down... I've not committed any serious effort to those yet. Has any way in terms of coding allowed this yet (E?). Last time I checked, this wasn't possible.

If that was supposed to summon me, all I can say is that I have no clue whatsoever.

[Spoon]

As far as ship design goes, I've come up with some vessels that have turrets mounted at angles which are not straight up or down... I've not committed any serious effort to those yet. Has any way in terms of coding allowed this yet (E?). Last time I checked, this wasn't possible.

It's kinda possible actually, depends on how the angle is etc.

[headdie]

I have had a though on the classifications and how Monitor didn't sit well, and i like Man-of-War

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man-of-war

Description

The man-of-war design developed by Sir John Hawkins had three masts, could be up to 200 feet long and could have up to 124 guns: 4 at the front, 8 at the back, and 56 on each side. All these guns required three cannon decks to hold them, one more than any earlier ship. It had a maximum sailing speed of around eight or nine knots.

[Thaeris]

Really? I thought "monitor" sounded pretty neat. I'm curious to know more of your thoughts on the matter.

Class conventions are obviously "universe-specific." Why are cruisers in FS tiny little things often easily dispatched (except for She whom shall not be named...) while a destroyer is a combination battleship/carrier? In real life those parallels don't add up.

And certainly, the naming is a matter of preference and what fits. To me, "man-o-war" just sounds a bit too dated. I could justify "sloop," as there were ASW vessels in the Second World War designated as such. This is despite the fact that sloops, namely "sloops of war," were originally light combat sailing vessels with 2-3 masts. For what I've written to date, sloops are really just a specialized class of frigate, anyway. "Monitor" seems to have an heir of prowess about the title. To me, it suggests a hulking opponent who is not easily fended off by mere barrages. This is an adept comparison to the American Civil War's vessel of the same name... the vessel itself was actually quite important to modern naval architecture. I also have to think of Dune's description of the "monitor"-type vessel in that universe, though it wouldn't quite fit in this one:

MONITOR: a ten-section space warcraft mounting heavy armor and shield protection. It is designed to be separated into its component sections for lift-off and planet-fall.

Big, slow, and tough.  Those are my thoughts on the matter, at least.

[headdie]

I see your point, Monitor stays

[Thaeris]

As far as "Man-o-War" goes, I think that would be a great class name for a battleship, though. 

Right now I'm working on something a bit smaller, though. I hope to have some more detail drawings of it by this weekend. I'm also working on some turret weapons along with it. This should be good...

[headdie]

thinking more than normal bias towards anti capital firepower, a few token fighter and missile defenses but on the flip side can expect to take down a more conventionally armed battleship

[Thaeris]

Well, it seems the 'caps will have to wait a bit longer...  

THIS IS MAH BOOM STICK!

The Kraken Heavy Rocket has been the hardest-hitting weapon for fighters and light bombers for over 25 years. A modular design has allowed the weapon to be continually upgraded over the course of time while the heavy payload and manageable size makes it popular with crews and commanders alike: A squadron of medium fighters can suddenly pose a significant threat to small/medium-sized capitol craft with a Kraken or two mounted on their external weapons racks. Heavy fighters such as the venerable Thunderchief may mount up to three such weapons...

The current iteration of the Kraken is a sizeable weapon to say the least. Measuring four meters in length and having a maximum diameter (including the length of the atmosheric stabalizers) of 1.3 meters, the Kraken needs a large host to get into battle. The Kraken is classified as a 'rocket' due to the simple fact that it is unguided, though it does posses stabalizer gyros which keep it going in the direction in which it was launched. The weapon is capable of hitting very distant targets, though the aim of the pilot must be very good indeed to achieve this. The pilot must also be confident that his target will not attempt evasive maneuvers. Upon impact, the Kraken's nuclear shaped-charge warhead will focus a savage blast directly into the target's hull; results are permanent, to say the least...

I've started a "cut-scene" grade model of this project on the grounds that I've finished detail drawings for the project. I hope you like it.  


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[headdie]

good stuff, that concept sketch is great and the model works for me, i like the written bit wasn't sure about using anti-cap rockets but it would be more fitting in story (Terrans at the starting point of the project being a young and not especially advanced group, kind of keeping up enough with the neighbors so as to not get creamed).  Looks like I will need to tweak the ACX-3X series weapons though the ACX-4X series i think will remain guided as they are special issue advanced torpedoes (improved damage and a quick re hash of the back story so the guidance is the new first gen system designed for anti-warship missiles/torpedoes)

about that background file I was on about, to save problems with distributing to yourself then others when they come along I have created a developer only section of the TC forum with a link to the hosted file so if you want to sign up i can quickly set the permissions up for you to get to it

F.Y.I.

ACX - Anti Capital weapon the X depends on if it is capital launched (M - Missile) or fighter/bomber launched (T - Torpedo)

In an attempt to distinguish between missiles and torpedoes a Missile is designed to operate between ships in the same category (Fighter/Bomber - Fighter/Bomber , Capship - Capship) and a torpedo operates solely from fighters against capships

[stuart133]

Wow, glad I stumbled onto this topic, this looks pretty cool.

Also would it not do this project a lot of good if it got its own badge and board?
Just saying that it might help.

[Spoon]

I'm following this thread with interest.
Just because.

*goes back to silent lurking*

[headdie]

Knowing myself i want to get some momentum behind the project before seeking greater exposure on the forum, certainly want to have a concept campaign available, though that has temporarily stalled as my install of FS2 seems to be merrily corrupting mission files every now and again causing FS to fall over and die and i need to get a new copy as my old disks have died

[stuart133]

Ok, fair enough.
Oh and also I may be able to lend my limited modelling ability to help with this project if you need it. While I can't do this right now ask me again in about 4 months maybe?

Hope this all goes well.

[headdie]

If I can get this to go anything like as planned then there will be many more than one campaign and in most of them there will be new enemies. 

For example

Campaign 1 for an ice beaker and simplicity is the Terran Navy against a few violently competing Terran operated criminal organizations during the players first tour out of training.

Campaign 2 the player will find themselves in a renewed border skirmish against a semi-established foe

and so on.  As each new opponent turns up there will be new ships, weapons and effects needed which means modelers will be required, depending on the status of the team there could well be a position available

[Thaeris]

I suppose I've been guessing about weapons for a while. Hence the Kraken...

As weapons relate to gameplay, and gameplay corrolates directly with game physics... and as of this point, as we have no real coders, anything final will sort of have to wait. Still, one must try. 

As far as rockets go, here's what I've had in mind:

-Light rockets: Fighter-to-fighter/anti-subsystem weapons. Sort of like your Tempest of FS2/FSO.

-Medium rockets: Unlike light rockets, which may be carried in vast quantities, medium rockets are the size of your average missile; thus you'll not mount as many. You might use these when making a run on a hostile turret/ship engines, etc.

-Heavy rockets: Bombs with engines. The Kraken would be a good example...

Note that all rockets are unguided... except for the fact that they might mount proximity fuses, etc., to detonate about a target (think flak)... or have stabalizer gyros which keep the weapon from accidentally straying off course.

Bombs would be interesting to see. As most of the mod's fighters will be aerospace fighters, atmospheric missions would be a neat addition to the project. With advancements in FSO's atmospheric flight model/Nuke's experiments, we might be able to make atmospheric flight more believable than a good DOS-era flight sim, while due to FS being FS, flight would be smooth and crisp regardless. Bombs are unpowered, thus if you launch them in space, they'll only go as fast as your fighter/bomber at the time of launch... and they'll only fly along your last straight flight vector. You'll also need to avoid flying into your own bomb.

Missiles and torps are the norm for space combat, aside from rockets and guns, of course. A fighter-to-fighter missile might be anywhere from 3-5 meters in length (which is realistic) while typically having a rather skinny diameter... though I suppose a 1-2 meter short-range swarm missile wouldn't be uncalled for. As I've not designed any yet, I won't go on about missiles too much, though they'll come in all shapes and sizes. You'll see everything from dogfight missiles to heavy, long-range weapons to anti-shipping missiles... and even rather large weapons of the type only capships and large bombers will be able to throw about.

Torpedoes are mainly limited to bombers and capships... though I suppose fighters might be able to mount light torpedoes. Capship torpedoes... I precieve will be a scary affair. I've concieved a few which will be anywhere form 20-30 meters in length  that will reach a rather high terminal velocity before impact. You'll see smaller ships using these to compensate for a lack of significant artillery (torpedo boats, sloops, frigates, destroyers, corvettes), though larger types will certainly be happy to throw them about as well. I'd like to think that capship battles will be rather savage affairs.