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News:

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

Poll

How should the star systems be distributed in the campaign map?

Cluster in the outskirts (current - check screenshot in spoilers)
- 12 (75%)
Spread around the core systems
- 1 (6.3%)
Spread all over the place
- 2 (12.5%)
Other? Leave a comment!
- 1 (6.3%)

Total Members Voted: 16


Pages: 1 [2] 3 4 ... 18

Author Topic: [0.9] Fringe Defence Syndicate v0.11.0 (2019/10/15) - The Murderous Wedges  (Read 211074 times)

Johnny Cocas

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Re: [0.8a] Star Wars: Revived - WIP: Development topic
« Reply #15 on: May 04, 2017, 01:52:02 PM »

Well, I certainly will not make this mod 100% accurate to what the books (or even the movies) say, I certainly will not make 2 kilometer long ships to scale nor will I make ships with so many weapons the player will have fps drops by firing one salvo or just freeze when entering a battle with 5+ ships involved.

And I will also not make a mod that only hardcore/elitist Star Wars fans will appreciate, I want people who only know the Star Wars saga from the movies or only know the name of two ships to enjoy this mod and enjoy the Star Wars inserted in the Starsector world. This should be a "what would it be like if Star Wars happened in Starsector" type of mod and not "lets recreate the Star Wars universe in Starsector, but lets remove all the features that do not fit the story".
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RandomnessInc

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Re: [0.8a] Star Wars: Revived - WIP: Development topic
« Reply #16 on: May 04, 2017, 01:54:31 PM »

lucrehulk?
« Last Edit: May 04, 2017, 01:57:04 PM by joebob1337 »
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Tartiflette

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Re: [0.8a] Star Wars: Revived - WIP: Development topic
« Reply #17 on: May 04, 2017, 01:58:03 PM »

I wholeheartedly agree with that goal.
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Johnny Cocas

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Re: [0.8a] Star Wars: Revived - WIP: Development topic
« Reply #18 on: May 04, 2017, 02:07:59 PM »

lucrehulk?

Ehhhmmm, don't think so... At least not for now... I kinda like the idea of the Trade Federation being "dead" ::)

If I want to add factions just for the sake of having all the factions in the Star Wars history then yes, it will certainly be inserted into the game at some point, but for now I want to stick the mod to the Galactic Empire/Rebel Alliance time period.
Perhaps I could make an optional add-on to add ships from the Clone Wars era? Good idea for the future :)
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borgrel

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Re: [0.8a] Star Wars: Revived - WIP: Development topic
« Reply #19 on: May 04, 2017, 02:12:17 PM »

its relatively easy to balance vs vanilla and still keep the 'lore' intact (except the energy vs kinetic shields thing)

yes, the ships have a huge number of weapons, but those weapons still only fired at a few targets at a time

so rather than mounting 120 turbo laser batteries on one side of the ship, mount 1 turbo laser battery salvo (or a more clever name) which 'fires' 120x4 lasers, etc. using sm med and large u can adjust how many turbo laser batteries are 'part' of the single weapon.

u can even sprite the weapon fire to look like a cloud of lasers, i think it could be fun.
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Johnny Cocas

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Re: [0.8a] Star Wars: Revived - WIP: Development topic
« Reply #20 on: May 04, 2017, 02:24:38 PM »

its relatively easy to balance vs vanilla and still keep the 'lore' intact (except the energy vs kinetic shields thing)

yes, the ships have a huge number of weapons, but those weapons still only fired at a few targets at a time

so rather than mounting 120 turbo laser batteries on one side of the ship, mount 1 turbo laser battery salvo (or a more clever name) which 'fires' 120x4 lasers, etc. using sm med and large u can adjust how many turbo laser batteries are 'part' of the single weapon.

u can even sprite the weapon fire to look like a cloud of lasers, i think it could be fun.

What I see from most Star Wars mods for other games is that they kind of stick to the larger most visible weapon mounts and then add only a couple of "AA" batteries for those smaller laser mounts, so that is what I was thinking about too, although I'd like ships to have a higher-than-vanilla weapon count (not too much though).

That idea is curious and honestly I could make a turret fire 5 shot bursts in 1 second instead of having 5 turrets firing 1 shot per second. The objective is the same but the first option is cleaner.
Having a weapon fire a sprite that represents several different turrets might look a bit weird, but I can try and see how it looks.
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RandomnessInc

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Re: [0.8a] Star Wars: Revived - WIP: Development topic
« Reply #21 on: May 05, 2017, 06:26:03 AM »

lucrehulk?

Ehhhmmm, don't think so... At least not for now... I kinda like the idea of the Trade Federation being "dead" ::)

If I want to add factions just for the sake of having all the factions in the Star Wars history then yes, it will certainly be inserted into the game at some point, but for now I want to stick the mod to the Galactic Empire/Rebel Alliance time period.
Perhaps I could make an optional add-on to add ships from the Clone Wars era? Good idea for the future :)

Actually, iirc, some Lucrehulks made there way thorn get the clone wars and ended up in the rebellion or in pirate hands.
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Johnny Cocas

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Re: [0.8a] Star Wars: Revived - WIP: Development topic
« Reply #22 on: May 05, 2017, 06:31:12 AM »

lucrehulk?

Ehhhmmm, don't think so... At least not for now... I kinda like the idea of the Trade Federation being "dead" ::)

If I want to add factions just for the sake of having all the factions in the Star Wars history then yes, it will certainly be inserted into the game at some point, but for now I want to stick the mod to the Galactic Empire/Rebel Alliance time period.
Perhaps I could make an optional add-on to add ships from the Clone Wars era? Good idea for the future :)

Actually, iirc, some Lucrehulks made there way thorn get the clone wars and ended up in the rebellion or in pirate hands.

Yes, but that is also true to the Providence and Venators, they were still used after the Clone Wars and during the rule of the empire, just like many more ships. They were uncommon though, and that is why you also said "some" Lucrehulks, just like I also say "some" Venators were used by the Galactic Empire, but everybody associates all those ships to the Clone Wars era.
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coyote.j.p.m

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Re: [0.8a] Star Wars: Revived - WIP: Development topic
« Reply #23 on: May 05, 2017, 07:41:19 AM »

As someone who spent a while implementing a Star Wars mod for personal use for the last version, my approach has always been to attempt to blend the look and feel of Star Wars with the look and feel of Starsector. Personally, I enjoy the gameplay mechanics of the base game, and as a result when I'm modding I find it best to preserve that gameplay by making sure that all of my ships adhere to the generally accepted modding guidelines (posted at the top of this forum). Of course, the game is heavily modifiable, and to each their own style of doing so. I've just found that it is most interesting to fit the theme of Star Wars into Starsector without adhering too closely to things like scale or numbers.

The difficulty that I've always run into is that I'm a coder, not an artist, and as a result I have to rely on cutting out sprites from various sources and slapping weapon mount ports onto them, while tweaking things like color levels, contrast and brightness to attempt to achieve a look that is consistent with Starsector without going too far away from Star Wars.
One thing that I always felt made things seem more Star Wars-y: make sure your turbolaser sprites recoil. It's not hard, and it's very satisfying seeing them do it (even if it's not 300 at once).

That being said, here is a dropbox link to a zipped archive of all of the ship sprites that I was using:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/mcoatzh6ib8xz1a/ships.rar?dl=0
I'm only really happy with a small number of them. But if you feel like you could use any, feel free.
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Johnny Cocas

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Re: [0.8a] Star Wars: Revived - WIP: Development topic
« Reply #24 on: May 05, 2017, 08:52:29 AM »

As someone who spent a while implementing a Star Wars mod for personal use for the last version, my approach has always been to attempt to blend the look and feel of Star Wars with the look and feel of Starsector. Personally, I enjoy the gameplay mechanics of the base game, and as a result when I'm modding I find it best to preserve that gameplay by making sure that all of my ships adhere to the generally accepted modding guidelines (posted at the top of this forum). Of course, the game is heavily modifiable, and to each their own style of doing so. I've just found that it is most interesting to fit the theme of Star Wars into Starsector without adhering too closely to things like scale or numbers.

The difficulty that I've always run into is that I'm a coder, not an artist, and as a result I have to rely on cutting out sprites from various sources and slapping weapon mount ports onto them, while tweaking things like color levels, contrast and brightness to attempt to achieve a look that is consistent with Starsector without going too far away from Star Wars.
One thing that I always felt made things seem more Star Wars-y: make sure your turbolaser sprites recoil. It's not hard, and it's very satisfying seeing them do it (even if it's not 300 at once).

That being said, here is a dropbox link to a zipped archive of all of the ship sprites that I was using:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/mcoatzh6ib8xz1a/ships.rar?dl=0
I'm only really happy with a small number of them. But if you feel like you could use any, feel free.

Looks like you are reading through my mind :P

Unfortunately that is not the path Nexus wanted to take... From the emails we have exchanged lately and from what I've seen so far in his files he wanted to make a total conversion mod and adapt Starsector to the Star Wars universe, making ships as close to the "reality" as possible. His mod was already replacing the Hegemony and Pirate factions so I can only guess he really did plan on removing all others as well (pretty much total conversion...).

Right now I see two paths I can follow:
- Make a Total Conversion mod, which would fulfil Nexus' and all hardcore Star Wars fans' wishes;
- Make a faction mod with properly balanced ships and weapons, which would appeal to the general community and to me as the mod maker.

I am now waiting for an answer from Nexus after I told him that I did not want to follow the first path, and if he does not agree with me taking the mod into a different direction I will either let the mod die for good or go rogue and continue the mod as I see fit, and honestly, I do not want to have to choose either option... :-\

Thanks for the tip recoil about recoil, I'll need to make a note so I won't forget ::)
The ship sprites don't look bad but I was thinking about having the weapon mounts as they appear in the sprites, meaning that in the Star Destroyers the visible turrets would have a visible turret port while all the others would be set to "invisible" (for example the lateral turrets we can't see from above). Nevertheless, thanks for sharing your content :)
*snatches fighter sprites* ::)
« Last Edit: May 05, 2017, 09:10:15 AM by joaonunes »
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Tartiflette

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Re: [0.8a] Star Wars: Revived - WIP: Development topic
« Reply #25 on: May 05, 2017, 09:09:03 AM »

You know, given the work involved in re-adapting Nexus' mod to starsector plus the update to 0.8, I'd say you'd be better off starting from scratch anyway. The only thing that you'd really miss are the sprites, but StarWars ships are not the hardest thing to find on the internet right?

(On the other hand, going "rogue" and continuing his mod without proper authorization is a good way to see your work nuked real fast)
« Last Edit: May 05, 2017, 09:10:39 AM by Tartiflette »
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Johnny Cocas

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Re: [0.8a] Star Wars: Revived - WIP: Development topic
« Reply #26 on: May 05, 2017, 09:16:22 AM »

You know, given the work involved in re-adapting Nexus' mod to starsector plus the update to 0.8, I'd say you'd be better off starting from scratch anyway. The only thing that you'd really miss are the sprites, but StarWars ships are not the hardest thing to find on the internet right?

(On the other hand, going "rogue" and continuing his mod without proper authorization is a good way to see your work nuked real fast)

The only sprites I could use from his work would be the ones for the tie fighters/bombers and the allegiance star destroyer, for pretty much every other ship I have found better alternatives.

In terms of code the stuff that would disappear if I dumped his work would be the hull mods and ship systems, everything campaign related I have already deleted and written my own, and already started writting some code for sector generation (found some neat maps of some planets that might work :P).
All the ship configurations and stats would need to be redone anyways if I wanted to take my own path, so no problems there...

Guess I will wait for his answer first before taking any "major" decision while I continue to work on a proper campaign integration.
« Last Edit: May 05, 2017, 09:19:10 AM by joaonunes »
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Johnny Cocas

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Re: [0.8a] Star Wars: Rebalanced - WIP: Development topic
« Reply #27 on: May 06, 2017, 08:18:35 AM »

I have a green flag to make this mod as I see fit while using the original mod's assets. It seems that the original idea was to have two versions of the mod:
- One that is balanced with vanilla;
- One that is lore friendly (hence the name "project laser spam");

Nexus has decided to start with the lore friendly version, so I will start working on the balanced version instead.
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joe130794

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Re: [0.8a] Star Wars: Revived - WIP: Development topic
« Reply #28 on: May 06, 2017, 12:21:48 PM »

There could always be an option when starting a character for what time span you would like. Either republic/seperatists.    Empire/Rebellion.
I personally prefer the republic timeline. Some of the larger ships may be a bit weird too with circular shields. I'm not sure if you could work around it to maybe give them a more oval shape or something.  Definately going to be watching for when this is playable.   :)
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Johnny Cocas

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Re: [0.8a] Star Wars: Revived - WIP: Development topic
« Reply #29 on: May 06, 2017, 02:08:17 PM »

Like I said before, I plan on adding the factions form the Clone Wars at some point, and it can either be as an optional download or like you said, a choice the player can make at the start of the game. This is definitely something to discuss in the future ;)

About the shields... I can see some options:
- The ships could have very inneficient 360ยบ shields (inneficient for balance and because shields seem to go down in seconds in the movies anyways xD), so they would cover the whole ship like in the movies but the player can't really rely on them to prevent hull damage;
- Omni-shields with very fast deploy rates and small radius for both nations;
- Frontal shields with an anchor point that would make the edges be exactly aligned with the back edges of the Imperial Star Destroyers, for an idea of continuity while leaving the entire rear vulnerable. Every faction needs to have a weakspot anyways so... The rebels on the other hand have more "traditional" ship designs (except, for example, the Liberty Star Cruiser), so the angle of the shields could be slightly higher with some shield efficiency or even raise speed adjustments for balance. Or...
- ...The empire would have frontal shields and the Rebels would have omni-shields.
So I guess I'll have to make some kind of poll to see what the public would prefer to see.

No matter what I decide about the shields, the Imperial ships would be well armored and quite slow while the Rebel ones would have less armor and be more agile, so overall the Rebels are weaker in terms of durability but will have the speed advantage (gotta put those blockade runners to good use ;D).

In terms of armor balance both factions will have high amounts of armor because the shields are quite weak and/or small. The rebels will have low-tech levels of armor while the imperials will become the faction with the highest armor values of all the existing factions, forcing all nations to either use energy or explosive weapons or numeric superiority. Armor won't last forever and the player can't rely on the shields to prevent armor/hull damage like they would on a high-tech ship, plus there is a reason they mostly use lasers in Star Wars :P

Lore wise (ingame) this would be a cool idea... The factions from Star Wars came to SS with highly advanced weaponry, mostly energy based, but kept the big amounts of armor from their past, not having developed good shields yet...
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