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1

Blog Posts / Re: The Trouble With Greebles

« on: August 01, 2015, 08:11:49 AM »

I think I'd take a little issue with the shapes that the #3 eagle suggests, before anything on the new design. The oval-like shapes feel a little tacked on.
Meaning it still kinda looks greebly.
But removing the greebles is still nice- I think the issue with a lot of ship design is more visible between, say, the old star wars trilogy and the prequel trilogy.
A lot of the initial trilogy's ships had greebles and uneven surfaces and looked far too busy, with cannons for, say, the death star being boxes tacked ontop of an extremely greebly landscape- so they vanished into it.
On the other hand, the clone cruisers, specifically the carriers featured in the prequel trilogy.. are a lot more smooth, and they have contrast colours.
The turrets are generally in even spaces along the surface/top side. With the bridge/shield generator elevated. They're mostly white exceft for the hangar bay door which slides open being highlighted in red.
It's simple, it's just greebly enough to draw attention and it's mostly smooth and you see clearly when the hangar bays open.
So it's a step in the right direction but from your own words tacking on the little half-shapes kind of retains a greeblyness that I, personally, don't think should be there considering most of the ship is so angular/straightened vectors. Two of the forward guns on the newest eagle look a bit tacked on compared to previously- Like they've been glued into place on a model after it's been finished like some kind of afterthought.
On the other hand it's a lot easier to see what the ship is, what it does, what guns point where when mounted- so it's a good progression even if it might not suit everyone's taste. On the upside of this, the ship also now looks like a complete piece where the hull itself is concerned, the middle forward section no longer looks as out of place as it might have.

Other than that I have no complaints- this could be a very good thing especially for a few of the phase ships out there because some of the larger ones I find I have problems seeing the turrets on, for instance.
The apogee could possibly also use some streamlining. For a supposedly high-tech ship it looks somewhat greebly compared to the other ones.

Keep up the good work!

2

Suggestions / Re: Attack its weak point for massive damage

« on: July 15, 2015, 08:36:25 AM »

So something just struck me, But don't we already have a variant of weakpoints?
I mean it's not something like obvious or very tactic or game changing.

But take ships like the falcon, where there's hardly any coverage backwards and the shield doesn't cover the rear.
Or the conquest where the shield is poor, covers less than one side of the ship and there's a lack of forward and backward facing guns- unless you intend to add on some really energy-eating mining blasters forwards (that still don't kind of hit things right infront of it).
Or more asymmetric ships like the apogee that's got a little wonky angles.

It's not something huge but technically there are different ways to deal with ship X and ship Y, I think. So correct me if I'm wrong but it's sort of already in the game?

3

Suggestions / Re: Attack its weak point for massive damage

« on: July 15, 2015, 08:18:53 AM »

On a complete sidenote: I find it funny that a community is criticized for being supportive of fairness/balance.

It's funny how reactionary and obsessed with balance this community is. Anytime someone suggests adding any variety to vanilla...

A well made game is fair and balanced??
I fail to see the issue with that. 

Variety comes in many forms, arbitrary damage points aren't really a good way to add variety, it actually subtracts from it.

4

Mods / Re: [0.65.2a] Starsector+ Vanilla Enhancement Mod 2.8.1

« on: July 14, 2015, 01:35:12 PM »

Update: SCY's incompatibility with the mayorate seems to have been fixed.
I'm no longer getting fatal errors on making fresh campaign.

5

Mods / Re: [0.65.2a] Scy V0.95 Maintenance patch (14/07/2015)

« on: July 14, 2015, 01:34:12 PM »

Everything appears to check out.
Game isn't throwing any more fatal errors at me from loading a fresh campaign.
Even with other factions.

Sorry again for the inconvenience and thanks for the fine work.

6

Lore, Fan Media & Fiction / Re: The Lore Corner

« on: July 14, 2015, 11:08:54 AM »

Yeah alright, just making sure so we don't get narrative conflicts. Thank you!

7

Lore, Fan Media & Fiction / Re: The Lore Corner

« on: July 14, 2015, 10:11:07 AM »

Since I'm lazy and not up for trawling all 17 pages here, but since it's also a good thread for it I have one/two questions.
First up I understand implants/partial cybernetic enhancement seems to be a thing but would like confirmation.
If yes: Would there be room for genetic modification in certain circles (meaning if there was some of this in the pre-collapse, someone lucky may have managed to keep some of the tools for it)?
I kind of want to know in case I write some of my transhumanist garbage fanfiction for this setting.
Like not nesseccarily that they're still modifying people but that there'd be a few projects here and there left over and available as.. loot.

8

Suggestions / Re: Attack its weak point for massive damage

« on: July 14, 2015, 10:03:47 AM »

Every egoshooter with a head shot mechanic has this... and its fun.

I wouldn't call this an ego shooter, though xD

Also those are very specifically multiplayer games, most of the time.
So again, not sure if this is the gametype for it.

9

Discussions / Re: Rate the Avatar of the Person Above You

« on: July 14, 2015, 09:58:21 AM »

7.5/10 Can't tell if it's snakes or horns just looking at it.

Edit: Actually it's a picture/fan-art of Nimmel from the webcomic Dominic Deegan: oracle for hire, in case you were wondering, Ahne. It's old and has since been completed (the comic, I mean).

10

Mods / Re: [0.65.2a] Starsector+ Vanilla Enhancement Mod 2.8.1

« on: July 14, 2015, 08:27:02 AM »

Ah well that was what I thought was up at first but I am not that good at coding. I suppose the fact that they're both doing it creating the issue?
It seems we've sort of figured it out, Tartiflette says he's working on a workaround if I read his message correctly.

Hopefully we should see a fix soon that at least allows them both to run together.
Seems there's a couple of lines/strings that are unused leftovers that should no longer be there.

Thank you for clearing that up though.

Edit: I'd try to fix it myself but as you can tell I have problems troubleshooting in the first place since neither mods are code I've worked on myself. xP

11

Suggestions / Re: Attack its weak point for massive damage

« on: July 14, 2015, 08:03:18 AM »

This would make combat so wonky and has no use, mechanically other than making you aim slightly more on one spot which you're already doing cause of how armor works in this game.
The only games that really pull this off are games like freespace. Because it's not about the weak point, it's disabling systems so that the ship you're targeting is less effective. Which is more defensive than offensive and not  a requirement outside of specific objectives.

And part of the reason it works in that old game specifically is because it's about fighter combat and simulated scenarios, where disabling X on target and then defending it until it's captured/taken away is part of the overall plot/the whole scenario is designed around it.
It'd take away from the overall "fun" of this kind of game if you're "restricted" in a sense to shooting at the equivalent of a big glowing box on a giant enemy crab.

Targeting specific points on a thing as a mechanic is more sensible for something like arcade games or full 3d games where a lot of model itself shifts and/or moves.
It could make sense for specific enemy types in missions outside of the campaign where you could get a better damage output by firing into the big charging laser that opens up but again that's more part of the arcade aspect.

This is, as other people have said, not the game for it. If specifically because it's a strategy game more than it is a space flight sim or "side scroller".

Besides, AI issues or not would you rather Alex worked on a redundant, purely optional mechanic rather than the game the fractal softworks team wants to make. Time spent on things we don't need subtract from the things that are required/compliment what's already in the game/things that make the game more fun than something niche and extremely specific (and in my opinion a little weird. We have games like Axelay made in 1992 if you want to do this particular thing, other examples include r-type and major stryker. you know, one ship with a ridiculous arsenal vs many. See also: the bullet hell genre).

If anything this kind of thing belongs in a very specific challenge mode and all the feasibility aside, I think it'd just subtract from the overall game design if you had arbitrary weakpoints (other than places the shield doesn't cover, which is technically a version of this we already have).

Balance issues are probably my biggest concerns with this.
Freelancer is a good example of a game where this is technically -hidden power-.
Missiles and mines in freelancer, being the only explosive weapons, didn't account for some ships having more 'parts' than others. if you hit a ship straight in the middle with one, the amount of extra models attached to the basic frames like wings, would increase the hull damage taken. meaning a 1200 damage missile could teal uptowards 10,000 on the heaviest/clunkiest ship. which would more or less one-shot it. which the game probably wasn't intending you to do.

Hope that puts this into perspective for you.

12

General Discussion / Re: Localisation volunteers?

« on: July 14, 2015, 07:36:49 AM »

If it's korean or another of of the more east/northeastern asian languages I can understand that.
Moreso because languages like Korean and Japanese are fairly phonetically handled- what you see (In roman letters) is often what you get.

Norwegian is a lot like that but actual norwegians *** up their own language more than foreigners do.
Like Bronze/Bronse is pronounced with your average buzzing S in norwegian "sz/z" (Like Z. Zack. Or at a far stretch, the same sound as 'Cell' for some.) But most of us manage to make it worse and pronounce it with the very specific "sje/skje" sound which makes it sound completely different.
The worst contender is for this malpractice is competition "konkurranse" becomes, via pronounciation "konkurranskje" Which is not only wrong but like unnessecarrily awkward.

Norwegians are bad at their own language.
Which is probably why we have two completely different written languages.

13

Mods / Re: [0.65.2a] Scy V0.95 Maintenance patch (14/07/2015)

« on: July 14, 2015, 07:13:31 AM »

Poke, got a bit of Trouble writing fast, currently on phone. As you may have noticed on the time it took to write the message on the mayorate thread. Will be home again soon. Also updated Java cause I thought it may have been that but no dice. xD

Edit: Alright, now home.
I only have rudimentary coding skills (meaning I usually understand what's in a code but it takes me forever to make anything at all without a reference point. what a dunce, right?) But if you need any help I'll have a gander.

14

General Discussion / Re: Localisation volunteers?

« on: July 14, 2015, 06:14:43 AM »

I can do Norwegian, and sort of the other two scandinavian languages for starters.
I could take a shot at Czech, as well, since the other half of my family lives there.

Learned German, aside from English, in school.

Speak a few other languages but I don't feel confident enough to work with those past basic conversation/asking for directions.

So I could take a shot at some translation if you have need of it, but I'll probably not keep track of this thread so you may have to send me a message. (Usually you'd be hard pressed to find Norwegians who don't speak passable English though)

As a side note for Gothars, or well, anyone who wants to do translation: Translating names is best done by picking something that fits rather than a literal conversion- if you're going to do it.
This is really only relevant for names that have no equivalent of course. Often you can leave the name be and it's fine.
But an example that actually made the name better was the made up word for wizard-football in Harry Potter.
Quidditch.
It became "rumpeldunk" in the Norwegian translation which rolled off the tongue of us norwegians much better.
In Danish they kept Quidditch as it was and it kind of sounded a little awkward hearing danish people try to pronounce the word?
Though that's just the example for words that have no real equivalent in said language.

For instance a ship like the Odyssey could probably pass a translation fine if you do it directly.
Something like the Conquest may require some tweaking. Some languages might be better off having it translated off of Conqueror rather than the Conquest form of the word.
Whereas the Apogee- unless this is actually something your language would have trouble pronouncing, can be kept as it is- if your language would have trouble with it though, suggest finding some other thing you can naming it after. Sputnik, perhaps. (iirc these both have to do with space travel)

Hope this gives you some pointers for things that are perfectly possible within the realm of translation.

15

Mods / Re: [0.65.2a] Starsector+ Vanilla Enhancement Mod 2.8.1

« on: July 14, 2015, 05:54:45 AM »

So yeah just in case this hasn't been mentioned yet: it would seem that -because- the mayorate messes with hegemony files, you cannot run mayorate and SCY at the same time.
SCY spawning code throws you a fatal error on making a new campaign thanks to this.
So I guess until the mayorate stops being "slightly out of date" recommend people use only one or the other.