[StargateSpankyHam]

...I found the ANIbuilder, while fooling around inside Mixael's ANI tools. While it doesn't start up automatically...it's simple enough to start manually.

It now works flawlessly. It is only a matter of making more icons in photoshop, and isolating which frames correspond to which states (because apparently, my greyed-out frame does not correspond to "Can't put that gun on this fighter").

Expect some screenshots and images in the coming days.

[StargateSpankyHam]

Alright, here are the first frames of the .ani's presently implemented for four of the Shivan weapons:


The Plasma Pulse, a light dogfighting weapon, roughly analogous to the GTVA's Subach HL-7. It fires extremely rapidly, and is the only Shivan weapon that is truly energy-efficient, and capable of sustained fire.


The Plasma Scythe, a heavy, mid-to-long range dogfighting weapon. 'Standard' armament on most Shivan interceptors and space superiority fighters. Far greater damage output than any primary weapon the GTVA has, but the huge energy demands make sustained firing impossible.


The Plasma Nova, preferred weapon of Shivan heavy assault fighters. Projectiles are slow-moving and devestating, and the energy demand per shot is astronomical. Not really a viable dogfighting weapon, except for hunting very slow and large bombers. These allow heavy assault fighters to participate in the same style of shock-assault tactics that Shivan warships can.


The Infrared Laser, a fighter-mounted dogfighting beam weapon. Better as a sniping weapon at long range, since keeping the beam on target at shorter ranges is...troublesome. Very energy hungry, as is the case with almost all Shivan weapons, with equally high damage output to match.

...And so you can see those weapon icons in-game:

[mjn.mixael]

If you have the skill, you should consider making models for these. You can use them as the select animation if you POF them. Would be just a bit of polish so that you don't have a Lamprey ANI standing in for some Shivan weapon.

[Droid803]

How did you make these?
Spriteart?

[Commander Zane]

I'm more concerned about exactly how powerful the weapons are.
46 / 34 damage? The Maxim is 8 / 1 (That's Retail by the way) and it blows apart ships with drained shields like they're made of paper.

Though this is because what the loadout screen says isn't necessarily what they actually do.

[Droid803]

maybe he changed the scale to actually represent damage per hit or damage per second.
those were horrendously arbitrary anyway.

[StargateSpankyHam]

Hmmm, arbitrary values in retail?! This is unacceptable!

To-do: Go back and make proper, non-arbitrary weapon damage values.

The 34 shield / 46 armor damage was computed off of the numbers for the Subach HL-7's per-shot table damage to indicated damage ratio. All of the Shivan primary weapons are freakishly powerful (except the Plasma Pulse). That 34/46 damage comes at the cost of a whopping 9.5 energy consumed per shot. To put it in perspective, the Mara has 70 max weapon energy. The Basilisk has 115.

While it's theoretically possible to one-shot-kill a GTVA interceptor with the Plasma Nova, the projectiles fly so slowly that it's only truly useful against cruisers, freighters, transports, and the like. Unless attacking an Ursa or Seraphim within 200 meters, it's useless in a dogfight.

I made the actual icons themselves in Photoshop (with the DDS plugin), and got the proper colors by using the color picker on a screenshot of one of the retail icon .ani files. After making four frames, I simply turned them into a .ani file with Mixael's ANI tools.

Models would be awesome. But, I know nothing about modeling...so, is anyone here offering to model the weapons? I was planning to make some very rudimenary .ani files - nothing as intricate as the retail versions though. That would be a trip to photoshop hell.

I'll likely start another thread in the modding section, for perhaps recruiting a modeler.

[StargateSpankyHam]

Today, I was browsing the user-made ships section, and found something I'd apparently overlooked - a ship that would make a nice addition to the Shivan fleet, once reskinned.

Behold, the Akrotiri reskin!

[Rodo]

can't say I like it, sorry.

[starlord]

I must say, that this one doesn't look shivan: the shiamaak would be by far a better choice! Should you wish to expand the fleet while keeping the shiamaak also, then consider the diablo or the iblis... or even the old vinashaak or armritaya!

[-Norbert-]

If the engine was on the other end of the ships maybe. Shivan ships need to have their tentacles facting forward.

[Droid803]

Yeah...

If the engine was on the other end of the ships maybe. Shivan ships need to have their tentacles facting forward.

^that

[Rodo]

If the engine was on the other end of the ships maybe. Shivan ships need to have their tentacles facting forward.

but only in this particular case, and only because the front is rounded.
Molochs have spikes facing backwards.

[-Norbert-]

Right... I forgot about the Moloch, the proverbial exception from the rule (among capships anyway).

[StargateSpankyHam]

Meh, guess I was just bored.

Now that I look at it while I'm fully awake...it's just sort of mediocre.

[bigchunk1]

I think it looks interesting, but I seem to like everything that's new and different these days. There's quite a lot of grey all over, which takes away from the Shivanness. Maybe it's not a good angle of it.

That claw thing in the back looks pretty Shivan.

[Commander Zane]

I would like to see how the Vishnan Sacred Keeper looks with this model and new textures.

[Droid803]

thats no sacred keeper.
its an akrotiri.

sacred keeper is a speicific retexture of the akrotiri. this too is a retexture of the akrotiri.

:<

[Commander Zane]

I know the Sacred Keeper is a retextured Akrotiri.

[Firstdragon34]

Overall, this campaign is going be awesome. I wish I could do something like this!