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Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

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Messages - Harmful Mechanic

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811
Mods / Re: [0.6.2a] Blackrock Drive Yards v0.6.6 - Updated!
« on: October 15, 2014, 10:40:32 PM »
I mean, the first priority for the mod will always be to fill whatever new types of content the core game has to offer. But I def. want to wrap some more worldbuilding/expanding the scope of things into that, and that could involve space monsters. It'll be a lot of work though.

Whatever you're up for is fine. The mod as it stands is pretty great.

I also wish I could make that poll multiple-choice..

I voted 'monsters' because my gut feeling is that doing the monsters will drive the creation of new weapons and ships naturally; it offers fun possibilities for specialized utility ships (pseudoflesh harvesters? secure nanomass tankers?). I also feel like, barring some of the possible fill-ins you've mentioned (like a Gale Battery, a large Linear Pulse weapon, or a medium INM turret, etc), the weapons suite is a complete and very generous spread to choose from as-is.

It's also ridiculous amounts of work, too, so if you want to put it off, I understand why.

812
Mods / Re: (0.6.2a) Shadowyards Heavy Industries v0.4.7b
« on: October 08, 2014, 12:43:32 PM »
My gut feeling with the Murti and Deva is that for damaging armor overall, I'm probably better off with Phase Beams and HILs or Autopulse Lasers in those slots. The long recharge time and the HE damage type limit them to use against low-tech ships for me. I do like the shaking, though.

The Deva is hilarious if you manage to get in behind a Dominator or Onslaught; it would be fun to see a Sunder-like SHI hull.

(if I have BRDY installed, I'm using Sunfires and Sunstorms; lower DPS and burst damage, but faster reloading and a higher chance of a really solid hit when shields are down)

The Urumi is decent, but really shines against fighters. I think the new red-orange energy weapons look enormously better than the green of older weapons, BTW; any hope of a general changeover?

I liked the fatter CEPC bolts, but felt the tails were too long. Half values in those fields look pretty good to me, but it's your call;
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Mods / Re: [0.6.2a] Blackrock Drive Yards v0.6.6 - Updated!
« on: October 07, 2014, 05:56:57 PM »
The Silverfish gets a big thumbs-up from me; it's very pretty.

I think you can put 200 quill missiles on a Mantis? It's not what I'd normally associate with missiles, but those universal mounts may be just what you're looking for.

You have a good point. Maybe I should look into it a bit more. Could be right what I want right under my nose.

it's 180/314 (without/with Expanded Missile Racks, assuming you fill every universal slot). Here's what I tried:
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Actually pretty decent in the simulator; you have to lead your target a lot, but even a single volley will put the hurting on anything it connects with.

814
Modding / Re: Spriters judgement thread [non-sprite art allowed]
« on: October 03, 2014, 01:07:17 PM »
Total accident. Forgot to turn that layer off.

Try this:
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815
Modding / Re: Spriters judgement thread [non-sprite art allowed]
« on: October 03, 2014, 12:46:55 PM »
Had a bit, so I cranked out a fighter, a carrier, and some basic weapons.

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Thus far, my shading experiments have come out emergency bad; tinkering continues apace, but I'm back-burnering it.

816
Modding / Re: Spriters judgement thread [non-sprite art allowed]
« on: September 21, 2014, 10:55:36 PM »
@Soren: you're offended and upset, I apologise for that, I was intending to give you some advice to ensure you can produce high quality sprites inline with the styling used by SS and most everyone else.

Do. Don't. Whatever makes you happy. I have no vested interest or expectations. The only other suggestion I would make is not to presume that my post count has any meaning to me either.

Fair enough, and I apologize for misreading your tone. (And I'm totally fine with these being out of line with vanilla SS sprites - I think any renewed shot I take at emulating vanilla depth, shading, etc. should start from the ground up). No harm, no foul.

After some experimentation, I think this is the end of the line, unless I want to get into gradient meshes:
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That seems like an acceptable place to leave off for now and start coding/failing to code things. Plating, surface filth, detailed shading, etc. can wait.

817
Modding / Re: Spriters judgement thread [non-sprite art allowed]
« on: September 20, 2014, 08:22:59 PM »
Started work on a little freight hauling frigate, the Ashnan class, today.  Probably a vaguely similar hauling profile to a hound, though not as fast and likely slightly less combat capable.

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At 200% zoom.

A dumpy little utility ship.
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I also started work on trying to sketch other small utility craft in anticipation of the coming update but those sketches turned out pretty bad.

That's an appealing little tortoise; It might be interesting to give it a single slot, or even none, and make it rely on drones for protection.

Damn I like these little ships; nicely designed.

Why thank you. Still not there, but I'm optimistic. I might have to go in and pull some gradient meshes to get enough depth.

I'm hoping to avoid actual pixel-pushery where possible; not because I don't agree that more depth and detail is needed, but because I want to speed the process of making new sprites up as much as possible, and because it's fun to make Illustrator do the tedious work for me. Right now I have Pixel Preview turned on and I'm experimenting with antennae and streaks of grime and dirt on the hull.

It'll take a nice long time, but hopefully the end result will be more interesting for it.

Let me put it this way, if David Baumgart, a professional digital artist for games, the original author, knew from experience that using illustrator to speed up the process would work - he would. But he doesn't.

And if I were aiming for perfect fidelity to a histogram of the vanilla sprites, that would be of catastrophic importance to me. But I'm not, so it isn't. What gave you the idea that I was? (Also, I'm a different sort of professional, not an amateur. Feel free to make detailed demands! I'll invoice you). I'll grant you that I'm not at the point of an acceptable match with vanilla yet, but I don't imagine I'm far off, either. A wee bit more depth, a splash of color in the highlights and shadows, more and better greebly bits.

I'm just predicting that your ships are going to look somewhat jarringly different from vanilla, and that is not a good thing for any gameplay experience.

Again, if the goal were to perfectly replicate existing work, I'd be picking a different method. Obviously! I have a Wacom tablet right here, and I've seen the relevant blog posts. But I'm curious whether it's possible to get reasonably close, to the point where it's not obvious to a casual observer, using nothing but vector artwork. (And given the stable of tools I haven't used yet, I'd say the chances are good).

Look, I can tell from your post count that this matters to you. And ultimately, you're going to be disappointed, because there's always going to be a gap between what you think my goals ought to be, and what my goals actually are. It's very likely that I will decide they're good enough at a point that drives you crazy, and you're welcome to never play the nonexistent mod that I haven't made yet that doesn't use them on that basis. Everybody wins.

818
Modding / Re: Spriters judgement thread [non-sprite art allowed]
« on: September 20, 2014, 02:24:36 PM »
@Soren: it's a good start but a lot of work to get them to fit the vanilla theme, and fitting the vanilla look is fairly important. Overall the design is ok, and is interesting enough. You've laid down the foundation but you've got many days of work in PhotoShop with pixel pushing to give them a greater detail and apparent size using various techniques and sub-pixel editing.

I'm hoping to avoid actual pixel-pushery where possible; not because I don't agree that more depth and detail is needed, but because I want to speed the process of making new sprites up as much as possible, and because it's fun to make Illustrator do the tedious work for me. Right now I have Pixel Preview turned on and I'm experimenting with antennae and streaks of grime and dirt on the hull.

It'll take a nice long time, but hopefully the end result will be more interesting for it.

819
Modding / Re: Spriters judgement thread [non-sprite art allowed]
« on: September 20, 2014, 11:18:12 AM »
Thanks guys. There will definitely be more; once I nail down the style I need to slap together a two-deck carrier and a fighter, at least.

The concept, such as it is, is flexible midtech armed-courier ships, weak offensively, but hard to disable and fast. With trade coming up, it seemed like a good time to design some ships around dedicated blockade-running.

Helmut: Thanks for the feedback! I agree on most points; the black outlines are a holdover from when all the ships were roughly 25% smaller. I'm not sure about the texture; I was thinking of adding surface grime and discolored panels here and there, but largely keeping the smooth armored surface (hoping to keep as much inside Illustrator as possible, to preserve scalability). We'll see what works! Tinkering proceeds apace:
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Also, if anyone's interested, I can put together a pack of just the slot sockets for others to use; I'm itching to do a few sets of them.

820
Modding / Re: Spriters judgement thread [non-sprite art allowed]
« on: September 19, 2014, 10:51:17 PM »
Okay, junk on the chopping block:
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100% Illustrator, and it's almost, almost, enough to do satisfying ships by itself.

Just to head off the obvious:
- Yes, they're missing antennae, windows, and other fine detail. Clearly going to have to do those pixel-by-pixel in Photoshop.
- All the ship surfaces are way too clean. I'm still deciding on hull textures, grime level, etc. But I'm throwing up the tidy versions for feedback first.

No mod for these yet. I'm hoping that by putting up some sprites, I'll feel motived to learn the engine. Or you guys will yell at me, that works too.

821
Mods / Re: [0.6.2a] Blackrock Drive Yards v0.6.6 - Updated!
« on: September 14, 2014, 08:42:41 PM »
Yeah, with the Sunstorm (which I'm loving so far) filling the role of burst/shock large HE, having the Squall Battery deliver a more metered fire is nice.

- New Ferrogun sprite is delightful, but doesn't read quite as clearly as the old - perhaps a slightly thicker barrel between the recoiling sleeves?
- Quills are becoming one of my favorite weapons - they're excellent in shield-suppression. The pod version makes an especially nice support weapon on a Scorpion.
- All the PDE weapons are more challenging to use now, but feel much more satisfying when you manage to snipe some exposed hull past the edge of a shield.
- The last few revisions have really upped my appreciation for the Volley Gun. That thing is beastly and wrong, and I love it.

822
Mods / Re: (0.6.2a) Shadowyards Heavy Industries v0.4.4
« on: May 13, 2014, 04:55:02 PM »
I'm getting an error when I try to enter the game; existing characters won't load and new characters crash the game after the skill screen. Anyone else having this issue?

Curious, it's definitely working fine on my end.  Could you include the crash log so I can hopefully figure out what the deal is?

Weirdly, I redownloaded and it seems to be working fine now. Never mind!

823
Mods / Re: (0.6.2a) Shadowyards Heavy Industries v0.4.4
« on: May 11, 2014, 11:07:40 PM »
I'm getting an error when I try to enter the game; existing characters won't load and new characters crash the game after the skill screen. Anyone else having this issue?

824
I typically use Robberflies to stiffen point-capping fighter forces, actually. They're a good low-cost screening unit, and if you need to, you can install a shield generator on them.

EDIT: and now that I've had a chance to play with the new version, Dart SRMs turn Robberflies into fighter-mincing machines.

825
Mods / Re: [0.6.1a] Blackrock Drive Yards v0.5
« on: February 06, 2014, 06:33:42 PM »
Absolutely loving this mod so far. The dev versions are just whetting my appetite for more.

Also, seconding the love for the Gonodactylus! That thing is a fantastic flagship, good for zipping around the battlefield and taking potshots at every unshielded surface you see. Shrimpin' ain't easy, but it's ridiculously fun.

If you're planning any more ships, I'd like to humbly request a Voidspear-armed bomber. They're a great support missile, and while the Squilla is a perfectly adequate torpedo bomber, it would be nice to have something better rigged for pursuit (and void-beast hunting).

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