[Nohiki]

BoE's are good, but only if they are nicely FREDded. And how many abandoned  Colossi? You know, a Colossus has a crew of over thirty-thousand (according to the wiki) members.

could be altered w/o hesitation in a mod, totally if they are from the future. As seen in PI, where the Saturn looked just like the Hades but only had crew of 1200. Also, 30k crew members is full crew, including pilots and a LOT of marines - skeleton crew might as well be several hundred people

[StargateSpankyHam]

You know what's better than a cluster of screenshots? A demo.

In the coming few days, I will be releasing a very short, single-mission demo - largely to get feedback from the community in the way of mod development and FREDing. This way, I'll be able to vastly improve future releases.

Spoiler:

The demo mission presented will be the player's retreat to (and subsequent defense of) the GTD Obsidian. The destroyer's subspace navigation control suite was destroyed in a sneak-attack, and the player must defend the Obsidian from bomber attacks while the crew works out a solution. They manage to bypass the navigation systems by calling in an AWACS vessel to relay jump data to them.

The Shivans, however, are not stupid. They quickly sortie an attack force to destroy the AWACS ship - though in failing to do that in time, they deploy a destroyer powerful enough to engage the Raynor before it can jump - specifically, a Lucifer. The Obsidian shunts power from its weaponry to charge its drives faster. The player has to buy enough time for such an escape, by destroying the Lucifer's plasma beam cannons.

There are two possible victory scenarios: once the Obsidian's drives are charged, they will retreat to safety. Or, if the player does very well at defending the Obsidian, and neutralizing the Lucifer's plasma beams, the Obsidian will re-engage its own plasma beams after the drive charges, and do battle with the Lucifer.

The complexity of the mission seemed to lend itself to an alpha-release demo. Plus, I'm hoping to learn a lot about polishing missions, since this one will be so complex.

[Nohiki]

If those are really plasma beams then they better have sufficient kinetic effect What, classic photons not enough for you?

[StargateSpankyHam]

Gotta remember, a photon beam is really a laser (albeit in FS2, they would be really, really big ones). Still, look at modern-day lasers - you see a point of light at the 'impact point' of the laser, and perhaps a faint glow of the barrel. The only way to see the beam itself is to be staring straight down it - which really isn't advisable in FS2. In the movies, to get the cool laser-pointer beam effect, they must introduce a very foggy or dusty environment, that way the particles scatter the light of the laser, and allow the beam to be visible.

Even in clean atmosphere, laser beams are virtually invisible. In the vacuum of space, there would be even less material to scatter the beam.

Besides, discharging several hundred kilograms of plasma, at roughly 50,000 kelvin (for most GTVA beams), at close to the speed of light...it just sounds slightly cooler than 'it shoots light'. And if memory serves correct, beams have a strong kinetic effect against fighters, do they not? This just means that the density of the plasma beam is sort of low - which in my opinion, is good, since it doesn't require more than two or three salvoes worth of plasma for an SGreen to weigh more than a whole Fenris.

Call it an upgrade, if you will.

[SypheDMar]

I don't think single-mission demos get played a lot. Just throwing that out there.

[-Norbert-]

And if memory serves correct, beams have a strong kinetic effect against fighters, do they not?

There would also be the intro of FS2, were the Orion is pushed away untill the moment the beam punches completely through.

[Nohiki]

Yeah but not actually in the game. I!m just saying that it would look osm if you actually got the lucifer pushing the raynor around  Just a lil bit, but do

[-Norbert-]

While it would be cool, I imagine it would be very hard to balance. Something that can push another destroyer just a little bit might well shoot a smaller ship hundreds of meters away, unless there is some way to make the kinetic force either proportional or class dependant.

[Snail]

It is class dependent insofar as it is controlled by $Mass settings.

[-Norbert-]

So it is possible, but still a lot of work to balance. Especially if you add into it scripted battles.

[StargateSpankyHam]

I think I'll stick with the low-density, ultra-high-temperature plasma beams; sufficient to whack fighters and bombers around. Otherwise, I'd end up with the problem of cruisers getting shoved around at insane speeds by the juggernaut-grade beams (BFRed, BFGreen, BFVas).

Also, the single-mission-release demo is actually going to be a demo to the seven-mission demo later on, largely because I have limited FRED experience. It's really going to be more of an alpha-release teaser mission.

On another note, how many destroyers could the GTVA build within roughly a decade? What starship-building capabilities did they have in the Capella era? The GTD Hecate (especially the modified version, with extra beams and upgraded armor) caught on very well with the GTVA security council, as did the Hatshepsut - so they've been churning them out as quickly as they can manage.

They also have a handful of 'new' destroyers - the Vasudans get the Apophis (forward plasma beam artillery via single BFVas), and the Pharaoh (enormously, massively, over-armored carrier). The Terrans get the Titan (of course, a carrier ship, but fast, agile, and with great forward firepower), and the Raynor (omnidirectional beamrape platform with massive armor).

Now, using the reference in BP: WiH as a guide - when one character said (referring to a Hecate): "I can't believe the Tevs have two dozen of these." And this is from the Terran-side of the BP-verse, which pretty much suffered the economic apocalypse after Capella. Add in the few Orions left over, and a seldom few Titans and Raynors...and it's quite possible that the Terrans had about 30 destroyers.

Without that catastrophic Terran-side economic meltdown, is it possible that the Terrans could be running 100+ destroyers? I'm a bit concerned that having four Raynors, even under these circumstances, might be too many - they're exceptionally rare and expensive.

[Nohiki]

While it would be cool, I imagine it would be very hard to balance. Something that can push another destroyer just a little bit might well shoot a smaller ship hundreds of meters away, unless there is some way to make the kinetic force either proportional or class dependant.

Is how far is your fighter propelled really the first thing you are going to worry about when you get hit by Lucifer!s main gun? I think you!re pretty much done. As for bigger ships, i!m talking 5m/s tops for destroyer, it doesn!t need to be huge effect, just to make it slow / change course.

[StargateSpankyHam]

One of my modified LReds does 800 damage per cycle (I believe there are 5.5 cycles per second, or something like that?). It's possible for a very heavily armored bomber, with a full shield quadrant facing the beam (since beams no longer skewer shields), to survive one cycle of the beam, and get knocked out of the way - albeit, with heavy damage. Best attempted in a Seraphim, since they have extraordinarily thick shields and armor after my string of .tbl edits.

Warning: Exposure to LRed may cause severe injury or death.

[DarthWang]

I freakin' love the Shiamak. Almost as much as the Gargant.

[NeonShivan]

Now now Darkmatter dont spoil these young people!

[StargateSpankyHam]

Perhaps...they need spoiled

Also, I just got hired IRL. Singularity is still in development, though I likely won't have days where I can dedicate several hours on end to working on content.

[StargateSpankyHam]

Update time!

Firstly, I've redone all the beam weapons. Originally, I had everything (even Shivan) designated as slash-type beams - but with certain dedicated beam-spam warships (Raynor, Lucifer, Kismat, etc,) it quickly turned into a slashy, beamy mess. More like sweeping plasma vomit. The new beam weapons are direct-fire, like many of the FS2 beams. Compared to their originals, the new ones have a very short beam lifetime, usually around a second or so for Terran and Vasudan beams.

Coming up next: that red glow effect that the beam cannons have - it's going to be made more transparent, that way there isn't insane color/brightness washout from it with direct-fire beams.

On the downside, I am resolving a minor issue with the all-new anti-fighter beams (which, thanks to a bit of creative tabling by me, look like pulsed plasma beams). The center of the beam is bright, but the edges around it are solid, opaque black. Not so noticable when firing through empty space - but the same cannot be said when they shoot through, say, a huge, glowing explosion in the background.

[-Norbert-]

Did you ever try how it would look of you make the opposit of those anti-fighter beams, a black core with colored glow?
I think such a beam would look really scary and threatening.

[FreeSpaceFreak]

On the downside, I am resolving a minor issue with the all-new anti-fighter beams (which, thanks to a bit of creative tabling by me, look like pulsed plasma beams). The center of the beam is bright, but the edges around it are solid, opaque black. Not so noticable when firing through empty space - but the same cannot be said when they shoot through, say, a huge, glowing explosion in the background.

You have an alpha channel on your beam maps. You're not using it, but FSO is. Remove the alpha channel, and all will be well.

[StargateSpankyHam]

...Okay, how do I go about removing the alpha channel?

Also, I'm glad to report that Singularity is still in development, and an alpha-release mission will be coming out in the next week or two. I finally found the FRED 2 tutorial online, which has really gone a long way in explaining the events editor.