Author Topic: Executor Speculation  (Read 11059 times)

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Offline The E

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Re: Executor Speculation
Well, people interested in working on the Executor aren't on the team, so it's not like it's taking away from the resources. :) It's one of the few ships from OT not yet in FoTG.

Dragon, ships of this size just aren't very useful for mission design purposes. In the context of FS-style gameplay, they're not very interesting to interact with, and given the time that would have to be spent on it to make them look not **** in FS, not a very efficient use of any modellers' time.
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Offline Luis Dias

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Re: Executor Speculation
It could still be useful a model to use as a source for normal mapping for a much much simpler "backgroundish" model...?

 
Re: Executor Speculation
I have this model from the interwebz, is around 35k polies so is manageable, the texturing is horrible, but overall the model I think is quite usable.

lots of grebs in the top area, but they look nice, one of the pro modellers here could tune it I m sure, I can fix what I can in the meantime...

also the disclaimer made it free to use.

[attachment kidnapped by pirates]

 
Re: Executor Speculation
Well, people interested in working on the Executor aren't on the team, so it's not like it's taking away from the resources. :) It's one of the few ships from OT not yet in FoTG.

Dragon, ships of this size just aren't very useful for mission design purposes. In the context of FS-style gameplay, they're not very interesting to interact with, and given the time that would have to be spent on it to make them look not **** in FS, not a very efficient use of any modellers' time.

Hmmm just saying... but aren't those juggernauts from blue planet already like 6km long?
plus if we want to defeat this ship all we have to do is script "if a-wing touches bridge, asplode"

 

Offline Dragon

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Re: Executor Speculation
That's a really nice model. 35k seems reasonable, keep in mind that's without turrets, as far as I can see. Still, I think that's good. Now, the geometry probably needs to be optimized a bit. Make sure it looks good up-close (you're gonna by flying inside this cityscape) and that the greebles more or less make sense. Also, are the hangars modeled?
Dragon, ships of this size just aren't very useful for mission design purposes. In the context of FS-style gameplay, they're not very interesting to interact with, and given the time that would have to be spent on it to make them look not **** in FS, not a very efficient use of any modellers' time.
Well, I'd disagree. That's obviously no ISD, but remember that the new BP destroyers or the Colossus are similarly "not interesting to interact with", by virtue to being so incredibly powerful both against fighters and capships. It would serve a similar purpose to them. It is possible to make the SSD more than just background, and I can see missions where it'd be a centerpiece. I don't think I could pull off epics like Battuta does on the regular basis, but a skilled FREDer could get some mileage out of such a vessel. :) So far, I have a stealth mission in mind, casting the ship as the "setting" of the mission, not background, and an X-W:A style one that would end with a desperate run from the Executor.

 
Re: Executor Speculation
the hangar is... barely modelled I can fix that tho.

about gameplay I always found the problem is that people underpower fighter weapons.

if weapons here behaved say... like in the clone wars series... a single fighter could actually deal true damage to a super capital ship just from the main guns.

if you read lore from star wars actually single fighters were able to damage capital ships just shooting at them, problem is you needed very skilled pilots to not get shot down.

 

Offline The E

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Re: Executor Speculation
And if you read other lore from the SW universe, fighters have no chance in hell to damage capships unless some very unusual circumstances apply.
If I'm just aching this can't go on
I came from chasing dreams to feel alone
There must be changes, miss to feel strong
I really need lifе to touch me
--Evergrey, Where August Mourns

 

Offline swashmebuckle

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Re: Executor Speculation
That mesh really isn't anywhere near the standard set by our ISD-II, and I'm pretty sure that Brand wouldn't accept it for something that was going to be featured up close. Fractalsponge's version looks nice but it also lacks any real texturing and we probably couldn't use it anyway since he doesn't want people to mess with the mesh.

As far as utility goes, yes, there are ways to design a mission around a ginormous ship like Executor, but pretty much any ship smaller than Executor would be more useful in a greater variety of missions. There are some significant gaps in our shipset (Imperials have nothing in between the Dreadnaught and the ISD, and rebels have an even bigger gap with the enormous Home One standing alone).

I would much rather see modelers spend time on the other Mon Cals, something like a Victory or Venator Star Destroyer, the Immobilizer/Vindicator/Enforcer heavy cruiser family (the Immobilizer would be especially nice for mission design purposes), or any number of other smaller ships.

 

Offline Dragon

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Re: Executor Speculation
Well, the rebels in general seldom use large ships. Though I agree, a VSD and smaller MonCals would be somewhat more useful than the Executor. As for the model, it's currently not anywhere near Brand's standard, but it's a start. I can see it as a "frame", with further details modeled on top of it using detail boxes. That'd improve it's in-game performance. The end result does needs to be around the quality of Fractalsponge's version, with about twice the current polycount (if detail boxes are done right, it'd never be all on screen at the same time). Oh, and an extensively modeler hangar is a must. Damaged subsystem models would be great as well, you could model every necessary subsystem as a separate submodel.
And if you read other lore from the SW universe, fighters have no chance in hell to damage capships unless some very unusual circumstances apply.
This is why SW lore isn't exactly a good reference for anything. :) Fighters go from being able to take down an ISD to cannon fodder, Jedi go from godlike beings to redshirts, stormtroopers are either deadly elite soldiers or pathetic mooks that can't even shoot straight... This is why FoTG emulates the movies and only that. A Corellian Corvette is about the biggest ship you can reliably destroy with a fighter, even big freighters would pose a problem if there were any.

 

Offline swashmebuckle

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Re: Executor Speculation
It's actually probably not a good frame to build off of. There are numerous huge deviations from the filming model (it has the wrong number of engines, the city structure looks like the modeler just made most of the stuff up, etc.) and we don't know if it was built with the efficient techniques that make our large ships run smoothly. Probably better to start from scratch with a clear idea of what the ship is going to be used for.

 

Offline zookeeper

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Re: Executor Speculation
This is a pointless discussion. We know what we want and are aiming for.

If someone was able to make us a functional high-quality SSD, then they'd already know better than anyone in this thread and wouldn't benefit from these two pages of posts at all.

 
Re: Executor Speculation
Snip*
Snip*
This is why SW lore isn't exactly a good reference for anything. :) Fighters go from being able to take down an ISD to cannon fodder, Jedi go from godlike beings to redshirts, stormtroopers are either deadly elite soldiers or pathetic mooks that can't even shoot straight... This is why FoTG emulates the movies and only that. A Corellian Corvette is about the biggest ship you can reliably destroy with a fighter, even big freighters would pose a problem if there were any.


I think balancing using as a reference the Clone wars (the 3d one) would be best, since that way the player can actually do something aside from just shooting other fighters endlessly, the movies were weird the damage and power output of ships is very inconsistent in the movies.

Also that way player skills will become more important and not be just a thing of load out (I hate winning missions just because X load out is op for that mission, trebs anyone?)

and I remember the rebels did use to sort of spam Nebulon B frigates and escort cruisers everywhere... specially in the X-Wing/Tie games


Last this is a good thing to read about the weapons, just to ponder a bit about damage potential of fighters vs capital ships:

http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Tech/Beam/Beam2.html


... if FoTG emulates the movies exclusively... I remember a kid flying a fighter inside a capital ship and blowing it up from hitting a column? O,o ah wait wrong era...

but I do remember a teen destroying a 120km diameter battle station with a single pair of torpedos (light weapons according to SW lore) (that could perform 70k G turns) hitting an unarmored reactor?, and capital ships that become totally useless if their exposed bridge is damaged... the movies consistency is not good at all from a game balance standpoint...



 

Offline jr2

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Re: Executor Speculation
Dunno if you can model damage when you are dealing with Force-Sensitive / capable pilots...  They will know RIGHT where to strike and when and with what.  ;)

 

Offline Dragon

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Re: Executor Speculation
Of course you can. May the SEXPs be with you. :) Anything involving ships that big has to be scripted anyway, FSO AI simply can't cope with handling something this big. That said, it doesn't need to move much, either.
I think balancing using as a reference the Clone wars (the 3d one) would be best, since that way the player can actually do something aside from just shooting other fighters endlessly, the movies were weird the damage and power output of ships is very inconsistent in the movies.
Except that few ships from Clone Wars are gonna appear in FoTG. Different eras, different technology. You might've been able to do more damage with a fighter then, but by the time Galactic Civil War rolls around, it's became much harder. Imperials ditched heavy strikecraft almost completely, Rebels didn't, but their technology is inferior, and Imperial capships have gotten stronger. Missile and mass driver weapons have almost disappeared, pretty much being only fielded on dedicated bombers. The movies are the only source that is any good for that era. In the future, perhaps, if FoTG goes in that direction, Clone Wars stuff could be made.

 

Offline swashmebuckle

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Re: Executor Speculation
Actually, a lot of our ships come from the Clone Wars period or earlier. Off the top of my head, the Dreadnaught, Carrack, Corellian Corvette, Marauder Corvette, Z-95 Headhunter, and Cloakshape fighter all all pre-Clone Wars designs.

 

Offline Dragon

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Re: Executor Speculation
Well, technically right, but they hardly resemble their Clone Wars incarnations. CloakShape doesn't even exist in the original config by the time of FoTG (not that an unmodified CloakShape was ever a particularly common sight), ditto for Dreadnoughts (both Rebels and Empire gave them extensive refits, the only remaining originals were the Katana fleet). Z-95 and Marauders were also greatly updated to keep up with tech progression, they're very different from ones seen in Clone Wars-era material. The CR-90 (which is the CRCV model we have) is a very late-war design, though shares a lot of similarities with earlier CR-70. Carracks might've remained in late-Clone Wars era config, but this particular class didn't really appear in neither cartoons nor prequel movies. The only "genuine" CW ship in FoTG right now is the N1, which seems to be in it's "Royal Naboo" configuration from Ep.1.

It's a similar situation to Y-Wing, actually. You wouldn't call it a Clone Wars-era ship, yet early Y-Ws did fight in Clone Wars. It's just more visible in that case. If we wanted to do anything from Clone Wars, new models would've been needed for almost everything, and new tables for those few ships that did keep their looks.

 

Offline CountBuggula

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Re: Executor Speculation
I do get the idea you're getting at - for example there's a huge difference between an F-16A and a block 60 F-16E.  It wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility to include different versions of the same vehicles with unique stats, but that adds additional setup and balancing work.  It could certainly be possible to do a campaign set in the clone wars time period using that sort of method, but that's nowhere near the scope of what we're looking at for the mod at this point.  Maybe down the road if this mod becomes popular enough and retains enough support, but I don't see it happening otherwise.

 

Offline Dragon

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Re: Executor Speculation
The Clone Wars-era FoTG would probably be best done as a separate mod, or interact with FoTG like FSPort with FS2. That way, Clone Wars might be balanced separately, and we'd avoid "ship bloat" and running into various limits. And yeah, that's a far-off concept. Whatever CW ships we see in FoTG are GCW-era refits/mods, though ships like N1 and Lucrehulk (which was used by early Rebels) would probably change little. Still, it'd be easier that way, and would also allow us to depict two radically different battlefields. Space combat was very different during Clone Wars than in the Galactic Civil War, and this should show.

 
 

Offline CountBuggula

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*coughs violently*

http://www.xwaupgrade.com/phpBB3008/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=11323

*scarpers*


Haha!  Ok, you caught me.  I wasn't actually trying to keep anything from you guys, but I tend to try not to post things here before they're certain.  For your convenience, I'll show you what the Executor looks like in game.

GIANT DISCLAIMER!
This is not going to be an actual combat ship.  It's intended to be a set-piece used in the background, and there will be no way to actually approach it close up.  There's just no easy way we've been able to come up with to balance it, and even if we did the model itself doesn't have the kind of close-up detail we'd require.