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1636

Mods / Re: Blackrock Drive Yards - First version release!

« on: August 31, 2012, 05:44:30 AM »

Finally made some time to play this last night, and can't really add anything much other than has already been said. [...]

Valuable feedback though, I concur on many points you raised, and I have some ideas already for upcoming changes.

Also I felt the variants on the Gondactylus were a bit sub-optimal. Not sure the bank of 3 vulcans is a sensible choice (one alone would provide decent PD and still cover the same general area, freeing up the other two points for perhaps a different role) and 3 autocannons (as opposed to 3 dual autocannons) would be significantly more flux efficient with perhaps a small drop in effectiveness, giving 6 OP to play with elsewhere.

Well, feel free to post some alternative variants if you can make them work. In my experience, 3x duals with the ammo feeder active just made my Gonoes unable to keep their flux in check in a straight firefight, and the vulcans make the ship basically immune to missiles while providing some of the most ridiculous anti-hull damage in the game. Not only that, but they eat drones and fighters alive. That's the thinking behind the kit, at least.

Also, just as an aside, it was your Dugong that gave me the inspiration to make an asymmetrical ship.

To be honest I had difficulties coming up with good fits for the ship because of how erratically the AI is prone to acting if it gets too much room for interpretation.

Also, for some weird reason the Metagame shipmaker arcalane built for us doesn't seem to want to accept my white background.
Makes me kinda sad, so I've had to make do with substandard wine-red.

Are you sure you saved it as a .bmp? I dont think Shipmaker will accept anything else for backgrounds.

1637

Mods / Re: Blackrock Drive Yards - First version release!

« on: August 30, 2012, 01:32:56 PM »

Is that a BSF Metagame 1 loadout I see there on your ship?
(I used to participate in that too, as guilee186)

Damn, I didn't know there were still people around who remember that. All the stuff we did out of love for that game... (and all the huge bloated projects that died before they could take off)

Piroton/guilee, go read the tutorials in the sticky! That's basically what I did, then I downloaded Trylobot's ship editor and messed around with it until it worked. And if you're going to clean up BSF screenshots in photoshop, make sure you set a pure white background first so its easy for photoshop/gimp to select and remove it.

1638

Mods / Re: Blackrock Drive Yards - First version release!

« on: August 29, 2012, 12:30:02 PM »

Also, how did you manage to get the sprites to work properly? I can't seem to get mine right ._.

Haha, thanks! Its cool to put all the ships I made back then to use. What do you mean by sprites? Are we talking Battleships Forever here, or implementing ships in Starfarer?

Meanwhile:

I actually have two huge Blackrock ships from my BSF days, but I decided to implement this one first because it has a better layout for putting down hardpoints.

As for the other one:


(Guest starring the ship that would become the Scarab)

1639

Mods / Re: Blackrock Drive Yards - First version release!

« on: August 29, 2012, 05:30:53 AM »

Ah man, YOU GUYS! I'm so glad you like it.

The Squall Cannons are basically supposed to to be Ballistic AM Blaster-esque weapons. I have half-considered building them into the Desdinova at one point in order to skip the balance concerns resulting from letting any ship equip them. But what Alex said is very true, too, I could simply have made them Medium with more OP cost. They are a last-minute addition to the mod, though, and as such they lack a lot of polish. Gonna have to take a look at them again.

Either they will be Medium guns with much more flux cost, and I will give the Desdinova two forward-firing built-in versions with less flux cost, or I'll rebalance the whole thing. Open to suggestions too!

The cruiser (? flagship in first mission) is great, too - love the Antimatter Lance, and pairing it with the Lucifer system is a fun thing to try to get to work right. I didn't quite manage, but it seems like if you do, the results would be quite worth it.

It feels like hitting a homerun, basically.

It's nice to see my ancient sprites in there, especially since they've been put to good use

Dude, they're great. I owe a lot to those sprites!

As for the campaign and the station not selling ships, I really haven't done much in that department yet. It'll come, though.

1640

Mods / Re: Blackrock Drive Yards - First version release!

« on: August 28, 2012, 06:10:24 PM »

Thanks for the feedback! It's so cool to finally hear what people think about all the spreadsheet nerdery I've been doing.

As for the bad shield ratios, consider it a designed weakness. Blackrock ships have several inherent strengths that I had to find a way to counterbalance. I had this post laid out as a draft for some time, and now is a good time to put it out here.

• + They're fast. This one was the toughest to balance, because if a ship can always pick its fights, it often only fights when it has an advantage.
  + They have a lot of damage output, and often strong burst damage. They also have a TON of Ordance Points. Have you tried customizing the Nevermore yet?
  + Their flux stats are quite respectable, only falling short of certain Tri-Tachyon ships.
  + They mix Energy and Ballistic weapons, allowing a lot of flexibility in damage type and damage delivery. In addition, they have the flux stats to use the more advanced Ballistic weapons freely, compared to Core Epoch or Hegemony ships.
  + Because of speed and firepower, Blackrock ships mop the floor with enemy frigates and fighters.

• - They are fragile. With the exception of the Gonodactylus and Revenant, Blackrock ships don't have good armor or hull integrity. You should be constantly moving.
  - The aforementioned bad shield ratios. This is to put emphasis on speed and positioning (HIT AND RUN) and to ensure that you can't simply outmuscle Tri-Tachyon and Hegemony ships all the time. The only Blackrock ship with a good ratio is the Gonodactylus, because its shield is so narrow.
  - A combination of the above factors makes it hard for Blackrock ships to win in a straight up slugfest. Even though the Nevermore has amazing frontal firepower, never send it head-on against an Aurora, Dominator etc. You will get overloaded.
  - Slightly high FP costs across the board.

Both the Tri-Tachyon and Hegemony missions are designed to be quite hard though, so if you want a good score, you'll have to put in an effort

In the Hegemony mission, you'll also have to place your Revenant well and protect it so you can keep repairing your fighters. If you don't have any ships to distract the HMS Rajah with, there's no way you can hurt it. But the goddamn Desdie can OUTRUN missiles. I've activated the burners and just done a U-turn towards the enemy with all the missiles still trailing me, and then taken out his engines, only to vent just in time and soak the missiles with my shield. _{I almost got my ship blown up because I kept doing tiny fistpumps and cocking my head back to hiss "yesssss" through my teeth}

1641

Mods / Re: Blackrock Drive Yards

« on: August 28, 2012, 01:18:45 PM »

<removed nonexistent DL link>
Features three missions - A challenging one, a hard one, and a random one that lets you play around with the ships.
Also features a rudimentary campaign implementation thanks to Uomoz - very much a work in progress.[/center]

Tear into the missions, boys, and post some recounts of your meanest Nevermore snipes!

1642

Mods / Re: Fantasy Farer - "The Trogre Wars" - (0.6a)

« on: August 28, 2012, 06:09:04 AM »

This is so cute. I love it! Tell me if you need a hand with fantasy-esque spell sound effects for magic and such when that time comes.

1643

Mods / Re: Blackrock Drive Yards

« on: August 27, 2012, 03:08:42 PM »

Thanks a lot! You have encouraged me to try to get a release out fast.

EDIT: Alex answered this one, and it isn't currently possible. Said he'd put it on his todo list. Does anyone know if you can make a MIRV produce a sound effect when the second stage of the missile fires? fireSoundOne and fireSoundTwo seem to have zero effect.

1644

Mods / Re: Blackrock Drive Yards

« on: August 27, 2012, 10:18:37 AM »

Cool, I'll double check that. As for the missions, I'm working on them! I've been doing balance at the same time, which also takes time. I currently have a rather challenging one where you have to kill an Onslaught, a Venture and an Enforcer plus escorts with two Desdinova, a Revenant, and two wings of Locusts. Took me quite a few tries to get it down, had to play around with refitting my Desdie a lot.

The other one is a slugfest between some tri-tachs and a fairly sized BRDY fleet, where you flagship a Nevermore. Landing your AM Lance shots is pretty important in order to win it.

If people aren't too fussy about the polish on things, I can probably have a download up pretty shortly.

1645

Mods / Re: Blackrock Drive Yards

« on: August 27, 2012, 09:50:55 AM »

BIRDY never dies!

Repurposed from a never-popular class of mining vessel built by Blackrock before it began specializing in military hulls, the Gonodactylus-class Destroyer is a nasty brute that chews through the enemy with its cannon batteries, only to turn around and show them its other, equally ugly cheek when they begin venting.

Featuring a built-in Hammerclaw Impact Bolter originally used to break up asteroids, the Gonodactylus can put self-propelled solid tungsten slugs deep inside enemy hulls when their defenses are down. This has given the oddly-shaped destroyer quite a menacing reputation, and Blackrock prides themselves on being able to turn practical equipment into deadly weapons of war in a time where resources and good engineering work are both scarce.

The only problem with this thing is that the AI hates it and keeps crashing it into asteroids and other hulls, and doesn't really ever turn around to use the other side's weapon when it should. At least it knows which broadside is the most powerful.

I might have to resort to giving it a built-in weapon with a less prohibitive flux cost or something to entice the AI to use it. And if I give it any weapon with too long range (even a harpoon MRM), it begins behaving like a fire support ship and is, generally, quite useless for it.

Anyway, if I can't ever get it to work as an assault vessel, I'm just giving up and mirroring the arm with 4 gun hardpoints so I can turn it into a dedicated point defense vessel or something. The AI REALLY dislikes asymmetry.

Another question I have regarding this: The Revenant does not register as a carrier for use with "rally carrier group" in the fleet UI, even though it has a flight deck. Likewise, I can't get any Desdinova kit to register as a "strike" vessel. Is it possible to hard-code the game into recognizing this?

1646

Mods / Re: Blackrock Drive Yards

« on: August 26, 2012, 11:55:01 AM »

Still figuring it out, really. So far the idea is oversized weapons/downsized defense, but as for the ship system, right now it just has Active Flares.

1647

Mods / Re: Blackrock Drive Yards

« on: August 26, 2012, 09:19:08 AM »

Currently setting up some missions, while balancing the ships to match up well against vanilla opposition.

So far, here are the Blackrock ship systems:
Desdinova: Arcjet Burner - after the first time you see a Desdie ram into a wolf at 350 speed, then shotgunning the poor frig in the face with its Squall Cannons at it spins out of control overloaded from the impact, you will never want to deploy any other destroyer, ever again.

Nevermore: Lucifer Generator - Overload the Nevermore's complex generator system for 3 seconds, locking the steering thrusters and main engines, disabling shields, and giving double energy weapon damage for a short duration. Generally speaking, this system has hard synergy with the built-in Antimatter Lance, and lets you truly put out the hurt on ships if you are skilled at aiming and anticipating enemy movement. See a frig that's close to overloading? Pop that sucker! (provided you are a true baller)

Revenant: Barracuda Drones - Heavy combat drones that excel at destroying overloaded vessels. Featuring two light mortars and a vulcan, these aggressive drones can tear through armor and hull, but are not especially good against shielded fighters, or at destroying missiles. They are also unshielded and only have a thin armor coat to protect themselves.

1648

Modding / Modifying Ship Systems

« on: August 25, 2012, 11:20:45 AM »

How much is currently possible?

Say, if I wanted to make a High Energy Focus-esque system that is inverted, powering the shields at the expense of being able to use weapons?

Or, to put the bar a bit lower, just make a High Energy Focus that has a stronger effect?

I don't really know how to treat the .class files, although modifying the .java files seem more straight-forward.

1649

Mods / Re: Blackrock Drive Yards

« on: August 24, 2012, 07:58:52 AM »

Thanks to help I recieved from DAT Uomoz, a campaign integration is underway. Right now I'm implementing the Revenant-class Support Cruiser and the two fighters, and after that, I'm going to make a few missions and a campaign integration, and put up a download, so I can begin balancing the faction a bit more.



Revelicious!

Also, medikohl, I think that guy meant SA as in "somethingawful", where I first posted that ship before registering here. I might be wrong though.

1650

General Discussion / Re: Phasing and Whatnot

« on: August 23, 2012, 06:25:56 PM »

A speed bonus while phased would be kinda fun.