[StargateSpankyHam]

I figured it was time for a plot brainstorm, since the actual 'modding' portion of my mod is winding down, and the 'fredding' portion will soon begin. The only plot-stuff I have figured out so far is that there will be a third Shivan incursion, and some Terran interlopers from the future.

Firstly, the GTVA is going to have access to ETAK technology, though communication between Shivans and the GTVA is quite rare. At best, some Shivans show a mild, jaded interest in the GTVA. At worst, they trace the signal and shock-warp straight at its origin, usually in something with a lot of forward firepower.

The campaign itself will take place some eight or nine years after the Capella Incursion, during which, Shivan activity in GTVA space has been present, though rare. This is so that the Terrans and Vasudans have time to recover from the Capella Incursion, and design a few new ships.

The steady increase in Shivan activity leads the GTVI to begin studying the Shivans further. With data recovered from the NTF Iceni, they formulate a plan to study the Shivans further. At this point, the player will fly as squadron leader of the 70th Blue Lions (maybe the same person from retail FS2, depending on supernova survival).

Most inconveniently, the Shivan warships all have Lucifer-style shields, and Shivan fighters rely far more on technological superiority, rather than numerical superiority. Gameplay-wise, this makes reconfigured bombs and bombers the weapon of choice against Shivan warships, rather than beam weapons.

They learn that Capella was a suitable star for the Shivans to artificialy collapse into a black hole - and use it to open a temporary wormhole to their core worlds. Capella is, in essence, the Shivan beachhead.

Some other cool things that will get implemented: Player-fliable Shivan fighters. Also, the future-terran fighters are player-flyable, with their own (to be designed) weaponry. The campaign will have multiple endings available; four at the very least, perhaps more. There may also be a War in Heaven 'The Blade Itself' style mission where the player commands a large warship.

This will be a character driven campaign - and there will be persistent Shivan characters. The player is going to get to play as a total of three different characters over the course of the campaign (Yes, all Terran.)

More when I'm not quite so incredibly, face-keyboardingly tired. Oh, and how does one use those little spoiler-hiders in posts? I'd rather not give away anything hugely profound.

But...what would you like to see in such a mod? Any ideas floating around out there? Comments/suggestions/constructive critiscism always welcome

[headdie]

Looks reasonable enough apart from

"the Shivan warships all have Lucifer-style shields, and Shivan fighters rely far more on technological superiority, rather than numerical superiority. Gameplay-wise, this makes reconfigured bombs and bombers the weapon of choice against Shivan warships, rather than beam weapons."

iirc the GTVA developed beams to counter the threat of encountering future sheath shielded warships like the Lucifer because bombs and blobs were ineffective against the lucifer's shields.  If you want the player to be able to hit shivan warships with such a shield then the easiest solution would be to give the player small beams.  Fighter beams have been workable in FSO for quite a while now, prior to the 3.6.12 development cycle iirc.

But yes the premise looks workable and it would be interesting to see where it goes

[Colonol Dekker]

MOAR CUTSCENES!!

[-Norbert-]

As far as I know, it wasn't initially intentional for beams to pierce shields in FS2. But rather than track down and squish the bug, they adapted the stats and turned the bug into a feature.
In FS2 the GTVA simply used beams because they have a far greater damage output than any blob, not because they expected another Lucifer.

While fighter shields are pierced by AAA beams, there is no indication whatsoever in canon that a Lucifer type shield can be pierced by beams.
For a bomb being able to bypass the shields you could argue it's equiped with a device that simulates whatever condition is deactivating shields in subspace in a very small area around itself, or that they have a miniture jumpdrive allowing them a tiny jump of a few cm, from just outside the shield to just inside it.

[StargateSpankyHam]

My apologies, I should have been a bit more specific about the shielded warships, beams, and bombs...

Gameplay-wise, beams don't go through shields anymore, due to the 'no pierce shields' flag. The GTVA modified their bombs to do very high shield damage (through a strong electromagnetic pulse and a far more strrongly ionized wave of plasma), and as such, can take down a shield quadrant on a destroyer with ease, and still do significant damage to the hull. This was largely done as a return to FS1-style gameplay - back when bombers were the main source of anti-warship firepower.

This means that being close to an armed, exploding bomb is a really bad idea - and to make bomb interception still work, their warheads only arm once they get within a hundred meters of the target. Shockwave size has gone down too.

Beams don't work very well on Shivan warships, because of their shields. They aren't particularly strong, but they do recharge very quickly. This is done to avoid a slow grind to attrition against an enemy shield, while Shivan beams tear apart GTVA vessels.

Another cool addition is the EMP missile, reconfigured to be a heavy anti-shield missile, in much the same fashion as a heavy bomb (without the nuclear fusion or antimatter warhead). This weapon gives virtually any fighter the ability to take down Shivan shields - so in this regard, the Shivans are still just as sensitive to surgical disarmament strikes. This also means that warship-to-warship combat is still viable, though dependent on fighters keeping Shivan shields down. Even better, just about any fighter can carry the EMP missiles.

The Shivans are also intricately familiar with shielded warships - and they have fighter weaponry built to counter it as well. This is quite useful - as stated above, the player does get to fly the Shivans' own technology against them.

However, I'm still undecided about fighter beams piercing shields. Presently, the only truly shield-piercing weapon is a Shivan FTL railgun. No-shield-penetrating fighterbeams means that warships can't slowly win via attrition once bombers get within range.

Plot-wise, there's a pretty cool piece of technology the Shivans use for transit, outside of the conventional bounds of subspace nodes:

Spoiler:

A subspace gate, capable of establishing an artificial, temporary link to another gate, or to an endpoint of a jump node, or even to a selected point out in empty space. They have one of these in Capella. Technology derived from Ancient Knossos portals. (It's a Shivan reskin.)

Oh...and there will be cutscenes. And a teaser trailer coming out sometime, maybe in the next few days.

[-Norbert-]

Sound like a very interresting concept for sure.
I take it the shield will be so close to the surface that fighters can't fly under them to hit the subsystems unimpeded. While it is fun in WoD to do that, it doesn't sound like it would fit well together with specialized shield piercing weapons (what's the point of them if you can just fly under the shield).

[headdie]

Sound like a very interresting concept for sure.
I take it the shield will be so close to the surface that fighters can't fly under them to hit the subsystems unimpeded. While it is fun in WoD to do that, it doesn't sound like it would fit well together with specialized shield piercing weapons (what's the point of them if you can just fly under the shield).

surface shield flag would allow you to shield a capship without adding a shield mesh and stop fighters sneaking inside the barrier

[StargateSpankyHam]

Surface shields for the win. Makes things enormously simple.

I guess it's a conformal shield, generated a few millimeters above the hull.

[General Battuta]

Huh, you still don't get any hit effects with those though do you?

[StargateSpankyHam]

Unfortunately, no...no special effects...

...Unless you know a way to make some, hopefully?

[Thaeris]

Hmmm... I do think of Komet's hull sparking effect when a projectile hits the hull. Forgive my ignorance, but did that effect ever get implemented?

[JCDNWarrior]

I saw the SSD Diablo using an effect that seems to be what you're looking for. Load it up and test, should give that effect, like the shielding system is absorbing hits.

[StargateSpankyHam]

SSD Diablo is a superdestroyer with a full shield mesh.

However...what is this hull sparkling effect you speak of?

[Thaeris]

I don't know too much about it other than the fact that it was one of the features built into Komet's Japanese localization of FS2. To further that statement, I've never been entirely sure of all the changes and enhancements he made for the project (note however, that it's not too different in appearance to retail FS), or how many of those features got implemented into FSO's codebase. Similar questions might be asked about the Minbari Project. Note that both of these projects are, to the best of my knowledge, forks from the original FS2 source code. That said, certain features are or were quite difficult to implement.

[-Norbert-]

The Minbari project definatly was on it's own branch in the past, due to the code they added for the full newtonian physics and the HUD elements necessary for it.
I think I remember a discussion about a possible merge of their code with the FSO branch, with the idea being called off because of too many difficulties for too little benefit, but I'm not 100% sure about that last part.

[StargateSpankyHam]

Cool though special shield effects would be...most of the large capship weapons now generate cool-looking effects on impact, all on their own.

Anyway...I've bumped into a little issue: I want Vasudan characters, but I cannot come up with any decent names for them. The player is going to be flying with the Vasudans for at least a few missions. Any ideas?