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Author Topic: (ded) Obsidian Void (ASC: B5) (DOM: D2) - 0.6.2a  (Read 299670 times)

melnorme

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Re: Ascendency (Alpha 3 Released)
« Reply #180 on: June 01, 2012, 08:57:30 AM »

Dropping in to say I love your mod. Specifically, the weapons variety is excellent and the ship configuration allows for crazy fits. 2x 4GW beams on a Velithan is very amusing. MRMs need a little love though, it seems like they do 10 sustained dps.


There's also a bug in one of your new hullmods.

Elite Capacitors
    "Increases energy weapon damage by %s percent, and increases energy weapon ammo by %s percent."

but your java:
    public void applyEffectsBeforeShipCreation(HullSize hullSize, MutableShipStatsAPI stats, String id) {
        stats.getBallisticWeaponDamageMult().modifyPercent(id, DAMAGE_BONUS);
        stats.getEnergyAmmoBonus().modifyPercent(id, AMMO_BONUS);      
    }
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Psiyon

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Re: Ascendency (Alpha 3 Released)
« Reply #181 on: June 01, 2012, 09:57:45 AM »

Dropping in to say I love your mod. Specifically, the weapons variety is excellent and the ship configuration allows for crazy fits. 2x 4GW beams on a Velithan is very amusing. MRMs need a little love though, it seems like they do 10 sustained dps.
Thank you :)
I think I agree, MRMs might be a bit underpowered. Perhaps I'll give them a bit more damage.

There's also a bug in one of your new hullmods.

Elite Capacitors
    "Increases energy weapon damage by %s percent, and increases energy weapon ammo by %s percent."

but your java:
    public void applyEffectsBeforeShipCreation(HullSize hullSize, MutableShipStatsAPI stats, String id) {
        stats.getBallisticWeaponDamageMult().modifyPercent(id, DAMAGE_BONUS);
        stats.getEnergyAmmoBonus().modifyPercent(id, AMMO_BONUS);      
    }
Crap--don't know how I missed that. Thanks for bringing that up, I'll get it fixed.

EDIT: Fixed:

Elite Capacitors Hullmod Fix: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/71512473/elitecapacitorsfix.zip




EDIT:
Code
        <hullMods>
          <string>advancedshieldemitter</string>
          <string>autorepair</string>
          <string>hardcocks</string>
          <string>targetingunit</string>
        </hullMods>
Really?
Yes. That was named back when the armored weapon emplacement hullmod didn't work, and it took me several head-to-desk sessions to finally figure out how to make weapons have more health. The vulgarity of my programming-related items and time I spend trying to get them operational are directly related.

At least digging through the mod's files is entertaining, right?
« Last Edit: June 01, 2012, 10:53:21 AM by Psiyon »
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Psiyon

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Re: Ascendency (Alpha 3 Released)
« Reply #182 on: June 04, 2012, 12:06:27 PM »

Back to work.

KTA Corvette: the Valikasu







...and *gasp* portraits!

scumbag Psiyon:
downloads EVE online trial,
doesn't play it, instead uses character creator to make boatloads of reference screenshots.





So yeah, these should be what the majority of the mod's portraits will end up looking like. I'm shooting for about 4 per faction for the next release.


And I also re-did the asteroids. I wanted a less cratered look, and more of a hardened magma look:

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cardgame

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Re: Ascendency (Alpha 3 Released)
« Reply #183 on: June 04, 2012, 01:01:22 PM »

This looks very cool, I'm downloading now and barring real life interruptions will leave some initial feedback later tonight :)
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WKOB

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Re: Ascendency (Alpha 3 Released)
« Reply #184 on: June 04, 2012, 03:00:02 PM »

scumbag Psiyon:
downloads EVE online trial,
doesn't play it, instead uses character creator to make boatloads of reference screenshots.
That's terrible, horrible.

I totally did not do that for my own mods about 5 days ago.
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cardgame

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Re: Ascendency (Alpha 3 Released)
« Reply #185 on: June 04, 2012, 04:07:56 PM »

Okay, so the music and sounds earn a big thumbs up.

I heard one of my frigates scrape metal against a dead hulk and that sound effect was just awesome. Explosions sound as they should, quite impressive, and all the weapons sound nice as well. Good stuff.

The universe and unique ships/weapons get a thumbs up as well!

As far as the ships go, the fact that many lack shields or high flux capacity definitely raises the stakes and I think makes it more exciting. Actually cheap low tech units also get a thumbs up. The plethora of missile types and ammunition for them is also very nice.

A concern of mine is the weapon names - they're all so very similar, I tell them apart from their descriptions :\

Balance:

I think the Kio's flux capacity is a little bit high to be honest, by around 200-400. The description says they're unreliable as far as warding off enemy attacks, but I can frequently go toe to toe with Rela-class units, firing my lazors, and still keep the shield up for a long time. I have to drop it eventually, sure, but it's already soaked up loads of damage.

I don't think I've encountered anyone with kinetic weapons, so the shielding seems a tad bit OP in combination with the impressive armor. I'll play some more before passing a judgement on this.
« Last Edit: June 04, 2012, 04:11:20 PM by cardgame »
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Psiyon

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Re: Ascendency (Alpha 3 Released)
« Reply #186 on: June 04, 2012, 05:21:17 PM »

scumbag Psiyon:
downloads EVE online trial,
doesn't play it, instead uses character creator to make boatloads of reference screenshots.
That's terrible, horrible.

I totally did not do that for my own mods about 5 days ago.
I lol'd.
That character creator is amazing. They should turn it into a separate product and add even more stuff to it.



A concern of mine is the weapon names - they're all so very similar, I tell them apart from their descriptions :\
I'll take this into consideration. Personally, though, I like the weapon name structure as it is--makes it feel like they're real weapon systems rather than just generically-named video game guns.

I think the Kio's flux capacity is a little bit high to be honest, by around 200-400. The description says they're unreliable as far as warding off enemy attacks, but I can frequently go toe to toe with Rela-class units, firing my lazors, and still keep the shield up for a long time. I have to drop it eventually, sure, but it's already soaked up loads of damage.

I don't think I've encountered anyone with kinetic weapons, so the shielding seems a tad bit OP in combination with the impressive armor. I'll play some more before passing a judgement on this.
The Kio is sort of intentionally overpowered as it's your starting ship. I figured it would be pretty cruel to make new players start out in a ship that has shields, but then scare the crap out of them when they realize how differently they operate in the mod as compared to the vanilla game. It also makes starting off a bit easier.

I appreciate all the other compliments, though :)
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cardgame

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Re: Ascendency (Alpha 3 Released)
« Reply #187 on: June 04, 2012, 05:41:26 PM »

Keep the alphanumerical system if you want, but please consider adding some sort of nickname or recognizable phrase ala the M1 Garand, P-38 Lightning, M4A2E8 Sherman, etc.
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Uomoz

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Re: Ascendency (Alpha 3 Released)
« Reply #188 on: June 04, 2012, 10:48:44 PM »

Ahaha I knew I saw those particular poses somewhere in the near past :D
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melnorme

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Re: Ascendency (Alpha 3 Released)
« Reply #189 on: June 06, 2012, 12:13:30 PM »

Alpha 3.1 test report coming up :)

Plasma cannons are glorious and satisfying. Gets my vote for best weapon class, really almost all the weapons have great audio and projectile graphics.

A fitting issue: Savil-class Missile variant has two L-TEC SPLNT-X4 missiles fitted, but they're large missiles in a medium slot.

Iri-class shields are way to good. Unless the enemy brings a cruiser with a full set of kinetic weapons, they are practically impervious to damage. Multimode Scanner Array on an Iri is also a 50% range bonus, which may or may not be far too good.

There's a significant problem with dps output of energy weapons. It's noticable in battle as some weapons being 'weak', but shows up better in numerical analysis. Look at the actual dps in the in-game codex. Comparing weapon dps in different class sizes with the codex shows that all the large energy weapons put out less dps than small or medium class weapons, while taking up around 2x OP. Effective dps is all over the place for all energy weapons in fact.

Large energy weapons - C.SIX HPL R6 (77 dps), HPC-770 (65 dps), PIC-880 X2 (85 dps), each uses 12-16 OP but outputs less dps than half of the 5 OP small weapons. The only advantage they have is a range increase, even that is reduced by large turrets being positioned towards the back of ships.

Medium energy weapons - PIC-880 (44 dps). Fires popcorn shells at an extremely low rate (15/min) while doing less than half the dps of the small PIC-550 (104 dps).

Ballistic weapons are mostly well set up. Exceptions are:

MAG.CG_VI (119 dps kinetic), insulting dps for the only large ballistic weapon.

KAC-200 (417 dps fragmentation) and KELLAM HCIWS-94 (500 dps fragmentation); these both seem to do too much damage given their ranges. Fragmentation ammo, while ineffective on armour, does do full damage once it gets to hull, it's a little scary.
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Psiyon

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Re: Ascendency (Alpha 3 Released)
« Reply #190 on: June 06, 2012, 01:01:29 PM »

Thanks a bunch for the report. I'll do what I can to iron out the weapons, but keep a few things in mind: DPS isn't always the end-all-be-all of a weapon. You have to take into account damage type, accuracy, range, projectile speed (relates to accuracy), weapon turn rate, etc. So while you do make a valid point about DPS, weapon balance isn't solely dependent on it, though it still plays a sizable role.

Also, I've fixed the Savil, and I'll definitely be lowering the benefits for larger ships using the Multimode Scanner Array. I'll play around with the Iri too to see how much of a problem its shields are.
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cardgame

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Re: Ascendency (Alpha 3 Released)
« Reply #191 on: June 06, 2012, 01:07:07 PM »

I thought the Savil did have large mounts.
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melnorme

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Re: Ascendency (Alpha 3 Released)
« Reply #192 on: June 08, 2012, 04:11:45 AM »

Thanks a bunch for the report. I'll do what I can to iron out the weapons, but keep a few things in mind: DPS isn't always the end-all-be-all of a weapon. You have to take into account damage type, accuracy, range, projectile speed (relates to accuracy), weapon turn rate, etc. So while you do make a valid point about DPS, weapon balance isn't solely dependent on it, though it still plays a sizable role.

You're right, I did go a little dps crazy there. If I were to remake my point, it would be that there's no reason to fit large energy weapons when you could fit mediums with a range booster and have all the benefits and more damage for the same OP cost. I can appreciate that sniping weapons shouldn't be too powerful, so that strike ships have a chance to get in range. Maybe they are a bit too accurate as they are, since corvettes tend to go boom very quickly around cruisers.
« Last Edit: June 08, 2012, 09:01:57 AM by melnorme »
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Psiyon

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Re: Ascendency (Alpha 3 Released)
« Reply #193 on: June 08, 2012, 11:18:55 AM »

You're right, I did go a little dps crazy there. If I were to remake my point, it would be that there's no reason to fit large energy weapons when you could fit mediums with a range booster and have all the benefits and more damage for the same OP cost. I can appreciate that sniping weapons shouldn't be too powerful, so that strike ships have a chance to get in range. Maybe they are a bit too accurate as they are, since corvettes tend to go boom very quickly around cruisers.
Still a good point nonetheless. As I said before, I'll have a look and see what I can do about it. :)

I thought the Savil did have large mounts.
As did I, but apparently they were set to medium.
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Psiyon

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Re: Ascendency (Alpha 3 Released)
« Reply #194 on: June 08, 2012, 07:09:33 PM »

KTA's gettin' real.


The Cerija-class Assaultship:






Not quite large and powerful enough to qualify as a battleship, but it's still too large and powerful to qualify as a cruiser. Regardless of whichever class it's closer to, this thing will annihilate you.

That thing took forever to detail.


Karitka-class Light Frigate:




Small, relatively fast, and able to carry a lot of missiles.


And the Coalition's first female portrait:



Potential question: "But why does she have blue skin while the KTA portraits look grey/almost Caucasian?"

A: People from Esk are blue-ish/white because their world is mostly covered in arctic/tundra/taiga conditions, meaning their skin color gave them a slight advantage to blending in to their environment in the face of natural predators. On Bli and Nara, arctic conditions don't dominate the globe, so the original blue complexion of their ancestors could fade away without consequence. Same changes go for hair color as well.



Anyway. I've got a few things that I'm going to implement for the next release:

-Mercenary system. Lets you ally yourself with either Thiiei or the Coalition to fight for them, and also gives you a nice paycheck each month. The KTA, however, will always hate your guts, you cannot fight for them.

-Civilian / corporate presence. You should hopefully see transport ships going between worlds, and corporations like Okella, Naran Armories, or the Coalition's Armatrium-E doing stuff throughout the system.

-A new scrap metal resource. Why should CPU cores be the only thing salvageable from destroyed ships?
« Last Edit: June 08, 2012, 07:11:56 PM by Psiyon »
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