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Author Topic: [0.95a] Shadowyards Reconstruction Authority 0.9.5-rc4(4/12/21)  (Read 1115360 times)

MShadowy

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Re: (0.54.1a) Shadowyards Heavy Industries v0.3.2c
« Reply #135 on: March 18, 2013, 06:08:38 PM »

Hm... I could actually really see that with the old plasma cannon implementation - back when it was a charge-up weapon, rather than the current three-shot burst.  (Hold down fire to charge; projectile gets bigger over time, fires when you release or when it reaches maximum size.)

Unfortunately, I didn't save that ancient copy of Starfarer (yes, it was Starfarer back then, too) - so I'm not sure how to implement such a thing.

Hmmm... well, damn, that probably would have been helpful, at least to figure out the visual effects.

That was me :D.

And I appreciate it!  Anyway!

So, the weapons.  There are going to be two (2) built-in special weapons in the next release.  One is attached to the Shamash, and the other the Elysium, as already stated.

The special armament for the Shamash is actually fairly simple in function; it is essentially a big gun.  The vessels primary armament essentially shunts energy from it's its phase core and shoots it at someone the captain is angry with.  This tends to be somewhat unpleasant for whatever is on the receiving end as the phasic bolt does not interact nicely with physical matter; the bolt tends to lose cohesion after a fairly short time though.

The Elysiums main gun operates on broadly similar principles but with a far more sophisticated implementation.  When fired, a waveform is produced and projected towards the target.  The waveform itself is hardly damaging, however upon impact it splinters into what are generally described visually as "sparks."  These are actually tiny and highly unstable phase singularities; if possible I would like to make it so that they are "sticky" in regards to shields but otherwise pass through solid matter.  In any case, being unstable, the singularities collapse in fairly short order (between 3 and 6 seconds), causing catastrophic damage to any ship unfortunate enough to be under them.

The sparks should not have a predictable spread, traveling in random and randomly changing directions, and at not entirely consistent speeds; it should be dangerous to use this weapon at close ranges.

As far as animations go, for the Shamash it would be fairly simple; a golden bolt of energy, electrical arcs and such when firing and then a brief period spent kind of wavery as if partly out of phase.

For the Elysium the process would have a staged animation sequence.

Spoiler
Stage 0:  The default stage.  Simply a beam of energy passing through the open middle of the ship, with occasional energy pulses communicating between the conical/dome-like structures.

Stage 1:  Pre-firing sequence.  The energy beam grows in intensity; the forward part of the giant impractical radiator spines glows.

Stage 2:  Firing sequence.  Energy beam intensity spikes; the forward part of the ship produces a bright flash as the waveform is emmited.

Stage 3:  Post firing:  Radiator spikes vent a flux fog from the "teeth" of the radiator, ending after a second or so.  Energy beam is weak an intermittent, before reestablishing itself and returning to stage 0, indicating the weapon is ready to fire again.
[close]

Decided to spoil the animation sequence because its the actual weapon effect that seems more important to be commented upon; I'm a bit worried such a fancy attack might prove a little... overpowered even in concept.
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MShadowy

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Re: (0.54.1a) Shadowyards Heavy Industries v0.3.2c
« Reply #136 on: March 20, 2013, 10:29:40 AM »

Alrighty.  Sprites are ready.  After thinking about it for a while I decided to put off making the Inanna, as I've already quite a bit to worry about in terms of balancing and no doubt it'll simply delay this release.  Anyway, I put the Shamash through a moderate revision after deciding her hull was perhaps a bit too broad.  100 pixels across seemed a bit much, so I kinda clipped her wings, but I think the resulting aggressive shape suits her more, while still keeping the horrifying mask aesthetic.

I was also going to ask the forums opinion on whether the Elysium should have the metallic bits or not but frankly looking at them side by side I have to say metal bits looks rather better; the contrast makes it just pop so much more.



Time to get these babies in game.
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Wyvern

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Re: (0.54.1a) Shadowyards Heavy Industries v0.3.2c
« Reply #137 on: March 20, 2013, 10:50:28 AM »

If anything, I'd say the Elysium could use a bit more metal bits... or possibly just some circular engine glows set along that rear drive-shaft sort of area?  Something - it's a large section that still has low contrast.
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MShadowy

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Re: (0.54.1a) Shadowyards Heavy Industries v0.3.2c
« Reply #138 on: March 20, 2013, 11:50:47 AM »

If anything, I'd say the Elysium could use a bit more metal bits... or possibly just some circular engine glows set along that rear drive-shaft sort of area?  Something - it's a large section that still has low contrast.

Hmmm... yeah, you're right.  I'll add some more metallic bits as well as some blue glowies where it seems appropriate.

Edit:  Alrighty.  Added more contrasting bits to the Elysium; hopefully it will be enough.  Also, I now have both ships flying around in game:

Spoiler


[close]

Neither are ready yet, though.  I've kludged together a built in weapon for the Shamash from the heavy blaster but it needs some graphics work and almost certainly balancing.  The Elysiums built in weapon hasn't even been started on yet.  The initial hurdles have been crossed.  I hope to have this released by next week at latest, but who knows.  I'll also  need to make a slightly customized variant of the cloak subsystem, to get the cloaked glow the right color, but that should be reasonably simple.

Cheers, all.
« Last Edit: March 20, 2013, 03:10:58 PM by MShadowy »
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MShadowy

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Re: (0.54.1a) Shadowyards Heavy Industries v0.3.2c
« Reply #139 on: March 22, 2013, 09:02:19 PM »

Bah.  Well, I suppose it was foolish to hope that I could kludge together a method without having to dive heavily into the java script for the Elysiums main gun.  As it is this will probably cause things to take a little longer than I was hoping.  Oh well.

Hopefully I can find something that gives me an idea on how to proceed, as I'm not tremendously competent with java.
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FlashFrozen

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Re: (0.54.1a) Shadowyards Heavy Industries v0.3.2c
« Reply #140 on: March 22, 2013, 09:48:55 PM »

Bah.  Well, I suppose it was foolish to hope that I could kludge together a method without having to dive heavily into the java script for the Elysiums main gun.  As it is this will probably cause things to take a little longer than I was hoping.  Oh well.

Hopefully I can find something that gives me an idea on how to proceed, as I'm not tremendously competent with java.

Well that certainly makes two of us  ;)
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CopperCoyote

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Re: (0.54.1a) Shadowyards Heavy Industries v0.3.2c
« Reply #141 on: March 23, 2013, 03:42:38 AM »

I don't know any thing about coding in java (or in general really), but the new and improved tachyon lance has jumping crawling sparks that you might be able to look at for inspiration.

I don't know what you'd need to do to make it crawl through space though.


What if your phase cloak was intentionally different from the original cloaks? Like if the designers knew every one would have a phase detecting component on the sensors, but decided to optimize its ability as a defensive tool. Like if it had fairly low cloaking cost and a low upkeep. Offset by low physical defenses (like the other shadow yard ships).
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MShadowy

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Re: (0.54.1a) Shadowyards Heavy Industries v0.3.2c
« Reply #142 on: March 23, 2013, 07:20:05 AM »

Well that certainly makes two of us  ;)

Ahehehe.  Yeah, guess it's something I'll have to work on.

I don't know any thing about coding in java (or in general really), but the new and improved tachyon lance has jumping crawling sparks that you might be able to look at for inspiration.

I don't know what you'd need to do to make it crawl through space though.

Hmmm... its not a weapon I normally play with but it gives me a starting point at least.  Thanks for the idea.

Quote
What if your phase cloak was intentionally different from the original cloaks? Like if the designers knew every one would have a phase detecting component on the sensors, but decided to optimize its ability as a defensive tool. Like if it had fairly low cloaking cost and a low upkeep. Offset by low physical defenses (like the other shadow yard ships).

Actually, I already planned for the Shamash cloak to be a bit different functionally.

Due the excessive copyright protection practiced by the Domain, Shadowyards had to come up with their own.  It's important to remember that they weren't considered a legitimate enterprise, really more like something between a crime syndicate and a terrorist organization/revolutionary group/anarchist cell/etc., and so they were unable to secure manufacturing rights to potentially "dangerous" technologies.  Like Phase Cloaks.

It probably wouldn't even have been possible if they hadn't been rather far along into their own project when the Domain collapsed, but that catastrophe managed to delay the production of SHI's first phase capable ship (not the Shamash, actually, but a phase destroyer now considered to be a bit of a clunker) until around middle of cycle 135.

They didn't quite arrive at the same solution as the designers of the Shade, Afflictor or Doom, using multiple small "Phase Anchors" rather than large flux coils.  The system is rather more inefficient than the other phase ships, but it is much cheaper to enter a phased state.
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Cycerin

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Re: (0.54.1a) Shadowyards Heavy Industries v0.3.2c
« Reply #143 on: March 23, 2013, 09:11:11 AM »

You should ask EnderNerdcore or LazyWizard for java help, they gave me a hand with Blackrock plenty of times.
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Uomoz

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Re: (0.54.1a) Shadowyards Heavy Industries v0.3.2c
« Reply #144 on: March 23, 2013, 09:25:23 AM »

Also Cycerin for sound design :*.
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MShadowy

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Re: (0.54.1a) Shadowyards Heavy Industries v0.3.2c
« Reply #145 on: March 23, 2013, 09:37:03 AM »

You should ask EnderNerdcore or LazyWizard for java help, they gave me a hand with Blackrock plenty of times.

I was planning on it, though I decided to play around with Shamash's cloak a bit.  I may stick with the blueish default cloaking color, but the glow sprite at least is looking good.  Also changed around the engines a bit since the thrusters being on the inside of the prongs ended up bugging me.



Also Cycerin for sound design :*.

Hmmm... yes.  I believe I shall.
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TheHappyFace

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Re: (0.54.1a) Shadowyards Heavy Industries v0.3.2c
« Reply #146 on: March 23, 2013, 09:47:03 AM »

 :o nice nothing more to say
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sirboomalot

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Re: (0.54.1a) Shadowyards Heavy Industries v0.3.2c
« Reply #147 on: March 23, 2013, 11:43:53 AM »

A green phased ship!? I may be slightly biased by my love of the color green, but I think that you should stick with it.  :P
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phyrex

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Re: (0.54.1a) Shadowyards Heavy Industries v0.3.2c
« Reply #148 on: March 23, 2013, 11:45:25 AM »

A green phased ship!? I may be slightly biased by my love of the color green, but I think that you should stick with it.  :P

it especially fit well with the overall color scheme of the faction :P
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MShadowy

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Re: (0.54.1a) Shadowyards Heavy Industries v0.3.2c
« Reply #149 on: March 23, 2013, 12:18:55 PM »

Well, guess thats a solid vote for "Green is Best."

So green it shall remain, I s'ppose.
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