[TopAce]

...an alpha-release mission will be coming out in the next week or two...

(emphasis mine)

You surely mean "demo." Unless you want to incite interest based on a single mission.

[StargateSpankyHam]

Think of it as a prelude to the demo, that way I can get some community feedback and at least slightly polish the seven-mission demo.

Besides, I chose the term 'alpha release' on purpose. There are quite a few changes to gameplay. For one, capital ships are no longer super-slow.

[AndrewofDoom]

Capships not slow? Music to my ears!

* AndrewofDoom likes his VROOM VROOM capships.

[Luis Dias]

So are they as fast as fighters?

[Deadly in a Shadow]

So are they as fast as fighters?

And as maneuverable?

[Luis Dias]

Now that would be funny. Watch that Hecate dodging the missiles!!

[Deadly in a Shadow]

Now that would be funny. Watch that Hecate dodging the missiles!!

Or the Colossus.

[LordPomposity]

Now that would be funny. Watch that Hecate dodging the missiles!!

Or the Colossus.

"Stay away from the beam and you won't get hit!"

"Negative, Command! We'll hold them here, just get the Bastion through!"

[StargateSpankyHam]

No, they're not fast enough to dodge missiles. But you should get your vroom-vroom capship fix.

The new speed scales are as follows:

Supercapitals/Heavy Destroyers: 40-45 m/s
Light Destroyers, Corvettes, Heavy Cruisers: 45-50 m/s
Strike Cruisers and similar ships: 50-55 m/s
Bombers: 65-70 m/s
Assault Fighters: 75-80 m/s
Space Superiority: 85-95 m/s
Interceptors: 100-110 m/s

These are numbers for the GTVA Terrans. Vasudan and Shivan ships are a tiny bit faster.

The Earth-Native Terrans have huge, honkin' destroyers that zoom around at 60 m/s, and a generic, high-tech, multirole fighter that gets up to 105 m/s. They're running antimatter thrusters.

The Paralell-Future Terrans' ships are similarly fast - although they have specialized fighters. Included is a crazy-fast interceptor - 130 m/s base speed.

Also, afterburners have some changes, across all factions/species. They last roughly twice as long, and the recharge rate is slightly less than half that of normal retail FS2. The rate of acceleration (real acceleration in game, not tabled acceleration) is roughly analogous to FS2 retail, but the top speed is much, much higher. Most ships in afterburner can break 300 m/s, but it takes them a little while to get going that fast.

Primary weapon projectile speed has gone up about 20-30%, along with most missiles. The long-range anti-bomber missile for each faction also flies fast enough to hit targets that are afterburning away. Fighters got so fast with extended afterburner burns, they'd actually outrun some slower missiles, just by flying off in a straight line.

Also, on the note of treb-style missiles - they're extremely fun. They fly fast enough that they're usable as a second gun. They don't home in very well on anything except bombers, but they're fast enough you can launch without lock at short range, like a tempest.

[Luis Dias]

Seems fun!

Although I was hoping to see a Hecate making a matrix-style evasion maneuver.

[StargateSpankyHam]

Well, it's time for some new screenshots. First up is a GTVA Terran fleet, including reskinned Orions.



And from a different angle, to demonstrate the new, green engine glows.



Also, two warships...

Spoiler:

...from the future. All the future-warships and their fighters were modeled and textured by Esarai.

Finally, the reskinned Solaris - rather, two of them.

[Deadly in a Shadow]

Hell yeah, the Amaterasu!

And that Orion just looks.....*search for the most suitable word*.....marvelous.
I love the new GTVA style.
The Solaris looks like a berserk-flagship (it looks fancy).

[Satellight]

It's getting better and better !

And I like the change you made to the ships speed. 

However...

Also, on the note of treb-style missiles - they're extremely fun. They fly fast enough that they're usable as a second gun. They don't home in very well on anything except bombers, but they're fast enough you can launch without lock at short range, like a tempest.

I hope it won't kill balance (even if überweapons are übercool).

[LordPomposity]

Nice stuff. Can't wait for the demo. 

The new color scheme goes particularly well on the Orion and Titan. Only complaint is that the normal of the Orion's under-nose turret (seen in the second screenshot) looks pretty unadvisable.

[StargateSpankyHam]

All the (combat) warships look like that too. The Fenris, Leviathan, Hyperion, Aeolus (though it needs work), and the Bellerophon, Diomedes, and Deimos.

Also, the Orion is the version with the extra turrets (plus a few more that I added myself). I'm still resolving issues with the nose turret.

As for the treb-style weapons being mega-tempests - yes, it's pretty satisfying to blow up bombers with them. However, they all take up more cargo space, so they carry fewer rounds - and also, the delay between shots has been upped. The GTVA trebs are the weakest, (and fastest), and can fire once every seven seconds. The Shivan treb is the most powerful, but it is the largest (most fighters cannot carry more than five or six in a single bank), and has the longest fire delay (12 seconds).

Spoiler:

The Solaris-class (in Singularity) is basically Earth's answer to nearly getting whacked by the Lucifer, and cut off from the GTVA. They basically built an a entire armada of superdestroyers, with such extreme system redundancy that they could stand up to Shivan plasma beams reliably. Also with a fifteen-kilometer engagement range, and short-range plasma beams to match. They are dedicated Shivan-killers. Since the Shivans started using their piece of jump-node subversion technology, they didn't just land exploration fleets in Vega - some went straight to Sol.

[Commander Zane]

If it was the up-gunned Orion with even more turrets added than it initially has, it would be TrashMan's model, but it isn't. So what other mod has the original MVP Orion with added turrets?

[Droid803]

I put extra turrets on the Orion for Tides of Darkness, donno if that's the one he used though.
I was just a five minute hackjob in PCS2.

[StargateSpankyHam]

It's Droid's five minute hackjob ToD Orion, as he so elegantly stated.

Make no mistake, that's a really awesome five-minute hackjob. It took me the better part of forty-five minutes to add five more turrets.

Also, Droid, about that large-barrel turret on the underside of the Orion, near the front, in your ToD model...I moved it to where it was facing forward/down, on the nose of the ship - and made duplicates of it, and put them on the sides of the ship. Unfortunately, when they go to shoot, they don't really point or move. It's not a hugely obvious flaw, since those turrets in particular are the beam cannons...but I think I did something wrong, since they don't move.

[Droid803]

Does...the original one move? Cause I recall it being bugged in ToD.

EDIT: I know what's wrong. On the original one, because I was a n00b, I forgot to set the turret arm under "turrets" to turret01-arm. Which explains why it doesn't turn. Make sure the turret arm is set correctly to the correct subobject there in PCS2 and they should work.

Unless they're side-mounted multiparts, where you'll need to add fvecs and uvecs to make them rotate right.

[StargateSpankyHam]

  Holy f***, my haphazard copypaste of turrets left all the turret arms listed as 'turret01-arm' - across four other turrets too.

Also, I think this might be why one of my other turrets (also a copy) was being very wonky in testing. Still, it's far too late to test it tonight.

Anyway, what needs to be done for lateral turrets, precisely? What are these Fvecs and Uvecs you speak of? I also have a forward-facing turret, pointed down at a 45 degree angle, on the nose of the Orion.