[Fury]

I would like to suggest creating shivan variants of GTVA primaries with appropriate effects. Like Subach HL-7#Shivan, Prometheus S#Shivan, Lamprey#Shivan, etc. The retail shivan primaries are crappy and shivanizing GTVA primaries would greatly increase shivans tactical capabilities in missions. They would also be pretty much required if player is ever going to fly multiplayer missions as shivans.

[High Max]

;-)

[General Battuta]

*headdesk*

No, High Max, he doesn't mean any of that.

He means creating copies of the Terran/Vasudan weapons with identical table entries but Shivan effects.

[The E]

In essence, the same thing that was done for secondary weapons.

[Aardwolf]

So as far as the 3.2 canon campaigns, this won't change anything, right? Or are there a few odd missions where Shivans use GTA/GTVA primaries?

[The E]

Except for multi, not that I am aware of. However, if I understand Fury's request right, this would create a set of weapons that already have known statistics and capabilities, but with shivanized graphics. Less work for mission designers in terms of balance and all that.

[Droid803]

I think we only need Subach#Shivan and Kayser#Shivan.
Those are the only two primaries the SF Mara (Terrans) can mount. Maybe the Prometheus for FSPort's SF Dragon.

I get the secondary weapons since the Shivans used GTVA secondaries anyway, but this any more is seriously messing with canon. Mods can add their own Shivan primaries based off GTVA weapon stats if they want, no need for them to be in the Mvps IMO.

To use any other primary on Shivan fighters for Multiplayer needs mods anyway.

[Aardwolf]

I think we only need Subach#Shivan and Kayser#Shivan.
Those are the only two primaries the SF Mara (Terrans) can mount. Maybe the Prometheus for FSPort's SF Dragon.

I get the secondary weapons since the Shivans used GTVA secondaries anyway, but this any more is seriously messing with canon. Mods can add their own Shivan primaries based off GTVA weapon stats if they want, no need for them to be in the Mvps IMO.

To use any other primary on Shivan fighters for Multiplayer needs mods anyway.

The Dragon definitely not. It was stated they had to fit it with Terran weaponry.

[Galemp]

FS is balanced such that enemy weapons always do inferior damage; see Shivan weapons, Prometheus R, etc. And we certainly don't need as much diversity in Shivan weaponry as we do in GTVA weapons. I would leave this up to mod designers to implement themselves; unlike secondary weapons, the canonical Shivans always use their own primary weapons and so have no need for new effects.

[asyikarea51]

The thought of Shivan-looking weaponry on GTVA specs when they already have the clear advantage of strafing...



No way. I kinda get a rough idea of what's being suggested but were it up to me I'd still "leave it up to the modder". With those kinds of weapons anyone of moderate skill who constantly complains of the Shivans being too easy would immediately shut up after dying 3 seconds into a mission 20 times in a row, eating a blast from a Dragon firing five Shivanised Kayer shots or similar somesuch (this is greatly exaggerated but you get the idea).

I tried this kind of stuff long ago in a mod that was really a random test playground, similar case, "the Shivan weapons need to look believable from the player point of view" - even on Medium, godmode was practically essential to even start doing anything in the test mission. Though admittedly I didn't do direct copy paste; more towards new "actual" Shivan weapons with specs that put them in direct competition with, or even straight-up superior to GTVA weapons.

The other thing I'm more concerned about with things like this is with mods that use the MediaVPs. That's even more extra entries right there that some mods depending on plot might not even use despite needing MediaVPs for whatever reason. I get the idea with "Shivanising" the missiles (doesn't work for bombs because of the name shown on the target camera e.g. wouldn't Helios#Shivan still show as Helios?), but not so on guns because of balance really.

pls correct me if im wrong in any way, still not 100% sure on how the exe reads the data.

[Kosh]

FS is balanced such that enemy weapons always do inferior damage; see Shivan weapons, Prometheus R, etc. And we certainly don't need as much diversity in Shivan weaponry as we do in GTVA weapons. I would leave this up to mod designers to implement themselves; unlike secondary weapons, the canonical Shivans always use their own primary weapons and so have no need for new effects.

Maybe Shivan primaries suck because that's how they designed them for whatever reason? Shivan fighters typically focus more on  large secondary capacities and swarming their enemies with superior numbers. Certainly makes sense that they would have some sort of deficiency.

I tried this kind of stuff long ago in a mod that was really a random test playground, similar case, "the Shivan weapons need to look believable from the player point of view" - even on Medium, godmode was practically essential to even start doing anything in the test mission. Though admittedly I didn't do direct copy paste; more towards new "actual" Shivan weapons with specs that put them in direct competition with, or even straight-up superior to GTVA weapons.

Someone did make a couple missions a while back where you get to play as a Shivan, which includes using canon Shivan primaries. From what I remember it was a much different experience because even though they do a respectable amount of damage their refire rates are awfully slow.

[Aardwolf]

Bah. I'm still hoping that someone will properly UV and convert my Shivan Countermeasure for the next mediavps release...

[TopAce]

I don't think he wants the canon missions to be played with these variants, but if someone uploaded this "Shivan upgrade" to FSMods, it would help new campaigns that want to create a "Shivans are equally devastating" atmosphere. Of course they can extract the tables and go table each weapon they need, but it'd save time, not to mention new effects will be provided.

[Qent]

This sounds great... but I don't see how it could fit in the Media VPs. There are no canon missions that could use it, because (unlike the MVP secondaries) it would change balance quite a bit. And if no missions are using it, then why have it in the MVPs? I'm pretty sure the Terran Mara uses Terran primaries like the captured Dragon.

[Fury]

Purpose of including these shivan variants of GTVA weapons is not to use them in the main FS2 campaign, but to provide fredders a standardized set of decent shivan primary weapons akin to secondaries. The only thing that needs some effort is to create effects. Copying table entries requires little effort in itself.

Mediavps is something that almost everyone use. It's about only thing you can count on as far as dependencies go. So having assets that benefit fredders in mediavps is hardly something to shrug off, even if said assets are not utilized in FS2 campaign.

Mediavps is in unique position and I would hate to see our modding devolve into a variation of DLL hell. But to a degree it already has. In my opinion FS1 ships and weapons from FSPort should be moved into mediavps simply because it would increase usable assets for fredders without having to make a campaign into a full fledged mod, or use FSPort as dependency and get HUD, interface and what have you override FS2/mediavps ones.

[asyikarea51]

Don't feel like inserting wall-of-texts again, but I will say my opinion of this is mixed...

Pros and cons on both sides of the table.

[General Battuta]

It'd be cool to have said effects, but I'm not 100% sure they're appropriate for the MediaVPs.

[Solatar]

Purpose of including these shivan variants of GTVA weapons is not to use them in the main FS2 campaign, but to provide fredders a standardized set of decent shivan primary weapons akin to secondaries. The only thing that needs some effort is to create effects. Copying table entries requires little effort in itself.

Mediavps is something that almost everyone use. It's about only thing you can count on as far as dependencies go. So having assets that benefit fredders in mediavps is hardly something to shrug off, even if said assets are not utilized in FS2 campaign.

Mediavps is in unique position and I would hate to see our modding devolve into a variation of DLL hell. But to a degree it already has. In my opinion FS1 ships and weapons from FSPort should be moved into mediavps simply because it would increase usable assets for fredders without having to make a campaign into a full fledged mod, or use FSPort as dependency and get HUD, interface and what have you override FS2/mediavps ones.

I really like the concept of including some "standard" additional assets, however they should be VERY selectively chosen.  If you're not careful, you could seriously bloat the mediavps; the solution to which would be to let you download the mediavp 'extras' separately, which would moot the point.

Hi-quality extras in the mediavps would be nice though; maybe FS1 ships with good FS2 style art (different from the Port stuff, which is amazing in its own right).

[Droid803]

I feel the use of the tables themselves to fredders would be limited at best. (and a complete waste of effort and hard disk space 99% of the time).
I certainly don't oppose someone creating the effects, but their inclusion in the mediavps and their associated tables just feel like too limited an application.

For the most part, you can balance missions properly using the canon shivan primaries. If I don't want to use those, I'd prefer to make my own tables for shivan weapons instead of just using shivan copies of GTVA  weapons, to be honest.

Bottom line: If you're going to add this, might as well go around and add Stratcomm's terran ships to the mediavps too, I mean, enough mods use those and standardizing is good right? (lolno)

[terran_emperor]

When I saw the title, I considered mentioning that there were Unique Shivan Primary weapons made for the SCP. Then I read the thread (that rhymes ) and realised that wasnt what you meant