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Author Topic: [0.8.1a] The Nomads, v1.4.11-rc2  (Read 368729 times)

MShadowy

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Re: The Nomads (0.8.1) [NOT 0.6a COMPATIBLE]
« Reply #225 on: September 30, 2013, 06:40:20 AM »

She's the Nomad mothership, if memory serves.  She doesn't actually have what you could consider a fleet role, rather she is essentially just a city in space.
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Trylobot

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Re: The Nomads (0.8.1) [NOT 0.6a COMPATIBLE]
« Reply #226 on: September 30, 2013, 08:03:57 AM »

damage on the spining ring won't move along the ring (so it will look a bit strange)
   I haven't actually seen any damage appear on the ring itself. It may be due to the fact that the entire ring is a decorative weapon, but it's never shown any actual damage. The rest of the ship will, which is pretty much what I wanted anyways.
   As for the AI, it doesn't actually have any turrets! Its only weapon is the squadron of 50 Gecko drones it can deploy, but they are forced not to roam, they remain in a tight orbit so they are strictly for defense. And their AI is instanced per drone, so there's really no issues there either.

It's pretty cool ship. However what will be its role in the fleet? We got the Gila Monster as carrier/point-defense platform and the Sandstorm as a Brawler. I am thinking of some kind of freighter/tanker hybrid because of the tanks fuels/crates strapped to it. But then what's that big circle-bridge thingy?
   Good questions, and fair to ask. The role of ship isn't a strategic one beyond the above-average storage capacity it has. Freighter/Tanker combo is probably most accurate, although it also has a Repair Gantry. But the reason for why that is, and what the circle-bridge really is has to do with the lore of the faction.

   It's meant to be a really old ship that's been repaired again and again, and fitted with whatever spare parts that happened to be lying around. The rotating ring is actually the remains of an ancient pre-travel-drive space station, that was essentially rigged with engines after the fact so that it could move about. The artificial gravity only works on certain areas of the ship, but on the station itself gravity is supplied the old-fashioned way: centripetal force. Hence the spinning. And the size of the thing? Well it's larger than most current ships, but far smaller than a modern space station. The station itself has also been subject to abuse, and is patched together as well.

She's the Nomad mothership, if memory serves.  She doesn't actually have what you could consider a fleet role, rather she is essentially just a city in space.
   Got it in one.
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Uomoz

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Re: The Nomads (0.8.1) [NOT 0.6a COMPATIBLE]
« Reply #227 on: September 30, 2013, 08:14:00 AM »

Quarians!
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Trylobot

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Re: The Nomads (0.8.1) [NOT 0.6a COMPATIBLE]
« Reply #228 on: September 30, 2013, 09:43:33 AM »



I've never denied that The Nomads were inspired by Bioware's Quarians, of the Mass Effect universe. They are a fantastic creation. If you look at pictures of the Migrant Fleet, you'll see a lot of similar design elements between the Oasis and their Flotilla ships.

Nomads also borrows from Frank Herbert's classic Dune series, though not in the conventional ways; it's more of a borrowing of spirit than of any actual concrete designs.

And there are elements inspired by Star Trek as well; who can forget the cube-greebling of everyone's favourite bad guys, the Borg? Expert greeblers, those guys.
« Last Edit: September 30, 2013, 09:48:04 AM by Trylobot »
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Trylobot

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Re: The Nomads (0.8.1) [NOT 0.6a COMPATIBLE]
« Reply #229 on: September 30, 2013, 03:13:31 PM »

TO DO:
(Not all of these will appear in the next release, but this is the 1.0 plans. There'll be an interim release for compatibility with 0.6a sooner than 1.0)

Spoiler

Thorn (new ship)
  * alternate name ideas: (none)
  * frigate-class
  * new hullmod: Dead Man's Switch Auto-Scuttle Device
    * internal graviton generator
     * generator connected to internal, armoured flux capacitor array
      * activates on "dead-man's switch" (whenever ship becomes Hulk in a battle)
      * increases mass dramatically
    * burn drive also activates on dead-man's switch
      * causes the hulk's engines to activate (different color)
      * continuously rotates the hulk to face the direction of the nearest hostile ship (non-fighter, non-missile)
      * ridiculous acceleration
    * after pre-set amount of time, ship detonates
    * will not activate if ship explodes due to friendly fire, asteroid impact, or if there no suitable targets within pre-set range

Death Bloom (new ship)
  * strike craft comparable to vanilla Hyperion
  * new, unique energy-based strike weapon (name not finalized)
    * name ideas:
      * Thermal Lance
      * Solar Lance
      * Solar Forge Lance
      * Solar Crucible
      * Thermal Crucible
    * will have unique multi-frame chargeup sprite animation that covers most of the ship
      remember the TA/Core avatar you created on dA? like that
  * and three ultralight masers for PD

Flycatcher (new ship)
  * light carrier, destroyer-class
  * 1 flight deck
  * offensive dual-drone system (sturdy drones kind of like the Tempest's Terminator)
  
Rattlesnake (new ship)
  * cruiser-class
  * armament somewhere between Sandstorm and Komodo

Komodo Mk.II (new ship)
  * based on Komodo
  * heavier armor
  * sprite should depict armor as steel/iron banding around the armor plates
  * with armoured engine mounts
  * slower movement and maneuverability, but higher flux and an additional weapon slot, higher ord.pts.

Campaign Mode
  * create binary system Nur @ 18000,-900
  * spawn Nomad armada in Nur with sufficient supplies, fuel and crew
  * enable dev mode and watch for accidents.
    * scout fleets > more supplies
    * colony fleet > less crew
  * navigation logic:
    1. upon creation, armada will be in Nur; immediately head for the nearest hyperspace beacon and jump
    2. armada (small group of separate fleets) flies in orbital formation around a VIP fleet (Oasis/colony fleet)
    3. choose a hyperspace destination which is in range, given current fuel consumption of all fleets
    4. fly to that destination and enter the system
    5. choose a series of waypoints from a pool of waypoints generated for that system upon entering it; scan for planets and stations
    6. visit them in turn, and then fly to a random hyperspace jump point
    7. choose another hyperspace destination and repeat
    8. if the flagship/VIP fleet (Oasis fleet) is destroyed or the Oasis itself is lost, scatter remaining fleets and whatnot
  * resource sharing logic:
    * if, for any given fleet in the armada, the fleet is low on any required resource (supplies/fuel/crew) then attempt to borrow the needed amount from all other fleets equally (many-to-one on-demand sharing)
   * if the armada is critically low on any one resource, take a detour
     * insert a navigation destination into the current sequence, path to the nearest station
     * once there, refill all the resources for all fleets back to optimal levels (50% of storage capacity)
   * Oasis-specific abilities that apply to the Campaign only
    * Oasis will produce Supplies at a constant rate (rate will be enough to cover usage of an average-sized armada when it is all at Max CR; will not cover combat usage or rates while repairing, so can run out
    * Oasis will also produce Green Crew at a constant rate (a low rate) if the current colony_fleet's total crew is between a predetermined Min and Max, as a function of the maximum capacity of the Oasis ship.
    * all campaign-level Oasis abilities will apply regardless of whether the owning fleet is the player's or not.
   
Gila Monster
  * playtest the Gila Monster changes further, play both with and against it as battleships, cruisers (heavy+light) and destroyers

[close]
« Last Edit: October 01, 2013, 05:19:42 PM by Trylobot »
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Uomoz

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Re: The Nomads (0.8.1) [NOT 0.6a COMPATIBLE]
« Reply #230 on: September 30, 2013, 03:23:03 PM »

Ohboy. So much upcoming great stuff.
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HELMUT

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Re: The Nomads (0.8.1) [NOT 0.6a COMPATIBLE]
« Reply #231 on: September 30, 2013, 03:54:09 PM »

Yep, lot of interesting stuffs you're gonna do there.

For the names, i like Flycatcher and Rattlesnake.
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Trylobot

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Re: The Nomads (0.8.1) [NOT 0.6a COMPATIBLE]
« Reply #232 on: October 01, 2013, 12:36:24 AM »

Here's a GifCam of the armada controller script in action:

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Hyph_K31

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Re: The Nomads (0.8.1) [NOT 0.6a COMPATIBLE]
« Reply #233 on: October 01, 2013, 12:51:28 AM »

Oh boy. The Thorn sounds like a tonne of fun.

Gimme.
« Last Edit: October 01, 2013, 10:27:15 AM by Hyph_K31 »
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"GEDUNE, stop venting in front of your classmates!"

Gotcha!

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Re: The Nomads (0.8.1) [NOT 0.6a COMPATIBLE]
« Reply #234 on: October 01, 2013, 05:44:27 AM »

Wait, I am sincerely not hoping you'll be sending THAT kind of fleets after people. ^_^'''
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Shoat

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Re: The Nomads (0.8.1) [NOT 0.6a COMPATIBLE]
« Reply #235 on: October 01, 2013, 11:12:46 AM »

Wait, I am sincerely not hoping you'll be sending THAT kind of fleets after people. ^_^'''


Well, those wandering fleets have to be at least as dangerous as flying right into a hostile faction's core territory, so it's quite fitting.
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Cosmitz

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Re: The Nomads (0.8.1) [NOT 0.6a COMPATIBLE]
« Reply #236 on: October 01, 2013, 02:34:46 PM »

That armada controller script can do so much good and introduce so many tactics in map-movement. Imagine trying to get a fleet small enough 'through the defences' to strike at the center command fleet direct, or causing 'breaches' in the defences. Really opens up a world of possibilities and add actual gameplay to the map versus 'get more burn then enemies, win'.
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Erick Doe

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Re: The Nomads (0.8.1) [NOT 0.6a COMPATIBLE]
« Reply #237 on: October 01, 2013, 03:12:57 PM »

I think the Oasis is a wonderful design. So different looking from your earlier ships, but still fitting the theme of the Nomads. It is also giving me a strong Dune and Homeworld vibe (which is a good thing!). I'm glad you've picked up on this mod again.
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Trylobot

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Re: The Nomads (0.8.1) [NOT 0.6a COMPATIBLE]
« Reply #238 on: October 01, 2013, 03:23:13 PM »

That armada controller script can do so much good and introduce so many tactics in map-movement. [...]
  I'm glad you think so. I've written the script that deals with this logic in a reusable way; it's entirely agnostic of the fact that it's being used by my faction. Once it's matured a bit and gone through some actual play, I'll probably get in touch with LazyWizard and see if he wants to include it in his distros. A lot of mods already take his lib as a dependency so it might be a good place for it rather than releasing it standalone.

   To illustrate, here's an example call to where I construct the script instance from my sector gen file:

Code: java
GenericWaypointArmadaController nomad_armada_spawner_script =
new GenericWaypointArmadaController(
"nomads", // faction
"colonyFleet", // VIP fleet
sector, // global sector api
system,  // system wherein armada should initially spawn
8, // escort_fleet_count
new String[]{ "scout", "longRangeScout", "battleGroup", "royalGuard", "jihadFleet" }, // escort_fleet_composition_pool
new float[] {  0.250f,  0.250f,           0.200f,        0.175f,       0.125f      }, // escort_fleet_composition_weights
GenericWaypointArmadaController.ESCORT_ORBIT, // escort formation type
300.0f, // escort_formation_separation_distance (applies to all formations
2, // waypoint_per_trip_minimum
4, // waypoint_per_trip_maximum
2, // waypoint_idle_time_days
12 // out_of_sector_time_days
);
system.addScript( nomad_armada_spawner_script );
« Last Edit: October 01, 2013, 07:25:25 PM by Trylobot »
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Uomoz

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Re: The Nomads (0.8.1) [NOT 0.6a COMPATIBLE]
« Reply #239 on: October 01, 2013, 04:32:20 PM »

Wow its actually similar to what I made!

Code: java
public UomozBaseSpawnPoint(
  SectorAPI sector, LocationAPI location,
  float daysInterval, int maxFleets, SectorEntityToken anchor,
  String faction, String rnd_faction_fleet, String fleet_name, String fleetType,
  int minFP, int maxFP, Map variants,
  String [] capitals, String [] cruisers, String [] destroyers, String [] frigates, String [] wings, String [] specials,
  String baseship,
  float CS_chance, float C_chance, float D_chance, float W_chance, float S_chance,
  int minAP, int maxAP, String A_focus1, String A_focus2, String A_focus3 )
{
« Last Edit: October 01, 2013, 07:27:02 PM by Trylobot »
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