Fractal Softworks Forum
Starsector => Mods => Topic started by: Trylobot on June 04, 2011, 12:31:58 AM
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(http://tinyurl.com/sf-gspb) Download version 0.8 (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14340846/gsp_0.8.zip)
Using the Federation ships from Gratuitous Space Battles (http://www.positech.co.uk/gratuitousspacebattles/) as a base (with permission), I've created a splinter faction of space pirates. There's 4 missions and a single-spawn convoy in Corvus in the campaign; the convoy fleet is a 200 point fleet, meant to provide somewhat of a challenge for you.
This particular Space Pirate faction (lead by Admiral Steelheart) is characterized by:
- Ballistic weapons only
- High speed
- Higher-than-average armor
- No shields
- Low flux capacity and dissipation
The Taka, medium fighter with mixed weapons. Good armor and fast, wings of 3
(http://i1239.photobucket.com/albums/ff516/Trylobot/spir_taka.png)
The Hyou, bomber with bomb-bays and some kinetic guns, wings of 2
(http://i1239.photobucket.com/albums/ff516/Trylobot/spir_hyou.png)
The Hayabusa, interceptor with a single vulcan, wings of 6
(http://i1239.photobucket.com/albums/ff516/Trylobot/spir_hayabusa.png)
The Kitsune, a very fast frigate with moderate armaments.
(http://i1239.photobucket.com/albums/ff516/Trylobot/spir_kitsune.png)
The Okami, a moderately fast frigate with plenty of close-up firepower.
(http://i1239.photobucket.com/albums/ff516/Trylobot/spir_okami.png)
The Pyuma, a longer range support frigate with swarmers and a hyper-velocity driver.
(http://i1239.photobucket.com/albums/ff516/Trylobot/spir_pyuma.png)
The Washi, aka The Bilge Pump, has four flight decks, and is heavily armored. For weapons it has only weak ballistic point defense, anti-fighter and anti-torpedo only, and is thus be relatively useless against other cruisers and frigates directly. It does however have powerful engines and due to the flight decks is able to field and support a massive array of fighter squadrons. The extra speed allows it to outrun any direct threats like battleships. Higher than average armor.
(http://i1239.photobucket.com/albums/ff516/Trylobot/spir_washi.png)
The Senkan, a Pirate Battleship. Has plenty of kinetic and high explosive ballistic weapons, but no shields. Is more maneuverable than most capital ships. Relies on ballistic point defense to defend against incoming ordnance.
(http://i1239.photobucket.com/albums/ff516/Trylobot/gsp_senkan-1.png)
Missions:
Back-of-the-Bus
Location: Volcania System
Date: 95.08.23
Captain Steelheart managed to steal a vessel from a Central Planet spaceport in orbit. During the three-week journey back to his home system of Volcania, he's started recruiting a fleet. Mercenaries looking for a quick haul now report directly to Steelheart.
Steelheart now fancies himself an Admiral, and the men are itching for their first payday. Pilot his freshly-modified vessel, The Bilge Pump, and see to it they are paid well!
Get the Booty
Location: Volcania System
Date: 99.11.02
Admiral Steelheart and his famous pirate vessel, The Bilge Pump, have appeared once more. The Admiral is of course never without his elite band of pirate skirmishers, who fly heavily-modded ships. These special craft have uncharacteristically high engine output and thick armor. None bother very much with flux dissipation or shield systems at all, and rely on ballistic limited-ammo weapons. Tactics usually involve hit-and-run, and with their faster vessels the pirates can often get away before sustaining any serious damage.
You will take on the role of the daring pirate, in an attempt to loot the precious cargo of a passing transport fleet. Don't underestimate the fleet's escort, however.
Caught Red-Handed
Location: Volcania System
Date: 99.11.04
Mere days after his glorious haul, Admiral Steelheart is caught off-guard by the Interstellar Counter-Terrorist Unit.
Fight for your life, Admiral!
The Seven Seas
Location: Volcania System
Date: 122.01.20
The life of a pirate is a difficult one indeed. Decades have passed, and the Imperial Court has extended its reach into your domain. They are trying to seize your wretched rock, Volcania, right out from under you. Are you going to let this stand, Admiral?!
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Lookin' good, I like the concept.
Just an opinion, but I think the frigate would look even better with the cool blue, high-tech engine glows, rather than the low tech ones it's sporting now. You did say it's not finished, though.
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Nice ships - Though just to point it out, 4 flight decks /isn't/ unprecedented (at least among mods) (my atlas 2 carrier (also used by pirates and other independent groups) has 4 flight decks, but unlike yours it has utterly no armor (or shields, or maneuverability...) - it just has lots and lots of light PD & a non-insignificant amount of missiles to not get killed)) ;)
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I'm especially excited to fly around with some of your ships Avan :)
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Borrowing pretty heavily from GSB, by the way. Forgot to give cred in my first post. There's a lot of pixel-level clean up that has to be done before they're usable, but I definitely can't claim these designs as anything but "derivative."
Ahh, that's why it looked somehow familiar. Doesn't quite have that ray-traced look that GSB does, though, so didn't recognize it right away.
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Nice, I like it all!
I'm interested to see the 'supercarrier', and how it plays tactically. Can you get enough frigate based firepower close to it to neutralise it? Fighters and missiles could be fairly ineffective against all that pd and it could speed away from your average destroyer ... You'll also have to regale us with the heartache you go through in defining all the weapon positions ... I'm about to try and make a big ship soon and it fills me with fear !
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heh, I use paint.net & a calculator. ;D
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heh, I use paint.net & a calculator. ;D
I have been using paint.net and my head. I suppose I deserve all the pain I get ...
e: Good suggestion Trylobot, by the way, I'll use that if you don't mind!
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The sprites seem to be modified versions of ships from Gratutious Space Battles. Is this correct? If it is, is this legal / allowed? Especially since you did not give credit anywhere in the thread.
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The sprites seem to be modified versions of ships from Gratutious Space Battles. Is this correct? If it is, is this legal / allowed? Especially since you did not give credit anywhere in the thread.
Borrowing pretty heavily from GSB, by the way. Forgot to give cred in my first post. There's a lot of pixel-level clean up that has to be done before they're usable, but I definitely can't claim these designs as anything but "derivative."
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The sprites seem to be modified versions of ships from Gratutious Space Battles. Is this correct? If it is, is this legal / allowed?
Hmm, you know, I hadn't really thought about that with mods being free and all, but it's probably not. I would imagine the license for GSB explicitly forbids something like that, especially when it comes to distributing it. Not to be a downer, but I'd ask Cliff about it/look at the GSB license/etc.
Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer and all that. Still, asking seems like the right thing to do.
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Will do. I guess I figured since it was a user-created mod it wouldn't be a big deal, but I'll ask.
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*just realizes these are altered sprites*
yeah, you can't do that (distribute it) unless the license (of the artwork) allows for derivative work or you get permission, because its not within the same work (ie, for a mod for a proprietary game using its own stuff, thats fine, as it still requires you to buy the game in order to use them, ie me frankening david's sprites for use in starfarer, but if I were to say port that over to Transcendence, that wouldn't be ok without asking alex for prior permission (the starfarer liscence afaik does not specify it, so it automatically defaults to full copyright))
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Not a problem. If Cliff doesn't respond to me, I'll take it all down and start from scratch. I mostly started using the GSB renders as a base because it would be quicker, and I wanted to see how involved a mod for Starfarer would be.
I've already accomplished that goal (i.e., it's ridiculously easy) so I feel fine investing some more time in it. I'll sketch, paint and pixelize some of my own space pirate designs while I wait for a reply.
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I have permission from Cliff Harris to use the GSB ships, as long as it's clear that it's from GSB. So, I'll endeavor to do so and provide proper credit and move ahead with the mod!
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Excellent, congrats! Very gracious of Cliff.
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Added The Senkan, a Pirate Battleship, and made it available in version 0.3 of the mod. Updated first post with link.
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Wonderful, congratulation to receiving the permission and to your first mod. As soon as the Preview is out for MAC I will try it! :-)
I hope there are no hard feelings. I like ask difficult questions early as I think it´s better safe than sorry.
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Original post now updated with link to version 0.4 (http://www.mediafire.com/file/aos96mj5h00hzla/gsp_0.4.zip) of the mod.
Added two new missions and tweaked some of the variants a tad, especially the Senkan battleship. I also removed the battleship from the first mission, as it didn't really belong there anyway, I just didn't have anywhere else to put it. Anyway, I'm pretty happy with the way the missions turned out and they were really fun to make!
I also added a new medium-sized ballistic weapon. I was unhappy with the ammo capacity of the Flak cannons (they tended to run out really, really quickly when you have no shields) so I took the regular small-sized Vulcan, and gave it like 5x more ammo, upgraded it to a medium weapon and called it the High-Capacity Vulcan Cannon. I also tweaked the turret base graphic a bit, to add "ammo cartridges" to the side of the base, it looks pretty good. Both the Senkan and the Washi ships use this new vulcan for ballistic point defense against torpedoes and fighters.
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Wonderful mod, very very fun ships and missions. One question though: are the enemy ships in the third mission supposed to fly through the map and retreat on my side without doing battle?
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One question though: are the enemy ships in the third mission supposed to fly through the map and retreat on my side without doing battle?
Hmm... this is probably due to the AI quirk. It needs some freighters/civilian ships on the escaping side, otherwise it orders the military ships to retreat a bit too early.
This is assuming that mission has the enemy fleet goal set to "ESCAPE", which is what it sounds like.
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Whoops! I only meant to have the AI escape on the first mission, and there are civvie ships in that one. The other two are just straight fights. Main post updated with new version.
Download Version 0.5 (http://www.mediafire.com/file/n68tmeb7q1tm7gx/gsp_0.5.zip)
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Wonderful, now it works allright! :-)
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Just installed and play a couple rounds, very fun. I dig being loaded with vulcan cannon though I wished the Bilge Pump had either a cannon with little punch to it or some sort of missile/torpedo, maybe just a few reavers? The Senkan-class ship felt a little better rounded out though the second mission seemed to underscore how slow she is. What do you think about adding a nav beacon in the middle-right of that mission that the sides can contend over?
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Great mod! I am amazed at how balanced this is.
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I wished the Bilge Pump had either a cannon with little punch to it or some sort of missile/torpedo, maybe just a few reavers
Ah, but you've missed the point of this ship. It's a point-defense carrier, keep it in reserve and out of the fighting. It's got more flight decks than an astral-class carrier, so you can pretty much send fighter squadrons back to be retooled whenever you like, but it needs to stay out of direct combat especially with other capital ships. It's fast enough that you can outrun them, and any enemy fighters who try and harass it will get pummeled.
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Ah, but you've missed the point of this ship. It's a point-defense carrier, keep it in reserve and out of the fighting. It's got more flight decks than an astral-class carrier, so you can pretty much send fighter squadrons back to be retooled whenever you like, but it needs to stay out of direct combat especially with other capital ships. It's fast enough that you can outrun them, and any enemy fighters who try and harass it will get pummeled.
Fair enough, but I guess I just didn't feel like I needed a dedicated super-carrier on that mission (there are only like 4 or 5 wings of enemy fighters to my 5, they didn't care about the carrier for one). He just looked all lonely and back-of-the-bus-like. :(
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I should make a fourth mission as an intro that highlights this, maybe a very fighter-heavy one, and give the enemy a lot of fighters but only one crappy carrier, or something. I'll give them torps to make it scary.
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Added; new download link updated in first post, and here (http://www.mediafire.com/file/h4nsobeavdxaiat/gsp_0.6.zip)
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Good mission name, I lol'd.
Hehe, all of the machine gun fire in the mission pummeled my frame rate to dust.
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Updated (GSP 0.7) to work with latest version of Starfarer (0.5).
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Awesome! Updated the sticky. Can't wait to try it out!
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I would really like to fight these guys in the campaign, is that coming at some point?
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Yeah are they campaign compatible? love the idea of shieldless ships!
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Heh.. I'll see what I can do
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I'm getting an error with the missions, 'Error loading mission preview' and then it say it can't find hull variant 'Enforcer_Support, and Lasher_Support, things along those lines. It also just shows the last mission I had selected. I'm using Starfarer extended 0.21 and Nomads 0.3, along with GSP.
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I'm getting an error with the missions, 'Error loading mission preview' and then it say it can't find hull variant 'Enforcer_Support, and Lasher_Support, things along those lines. It also just shows the last mission I had selected. I'm using Starfarer extended 0.21 and Nomads 0.3, along with GSP.
Do you get the same error with only GSP enabled?
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Yes, I still get the error.
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Neither of the ships you mentioned are even part of the mod, so obviously the error you're getting is not in GSP. Reinstall Starfarer. If you still get it, open a ticket in the support forum.
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I'm also getting the the error without any other mods enabled. In each of the GSP missions the description is:
"Error loading mission preview.
Ship hull variant [lasher_Support] not found!
check starfarer.log for details"
When I tried playing it anyway it was just the first core mission, Turning the Tables.
Where is the log, or is it the text file in 'starfarer-core'? I'd really like to play this mod :-\
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Neither of the ships you mentioned are even part of the mod, so obviously the error you're getting is not in GSP. Reinstall Starfarer. If you still get it, open a ticket in the support forum.
I am a complete *** moron - of course those ships are part of the mod, they are explicitly referenced in the Mission.java. I was really a bit of a *** about this, so I'll use this space to shame myself. Sorry Spartan114.
New version is up.
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Nah, it's all good. I love the work you do, and I understand how coding and *** can be confusing. No worries mate.
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That error is gone, but I'm now getting the same error but with 'condor_support' , 'sunder_support' and 'falcon_support.
The mission 'The Seven Seas' is playable though.
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I just got home 'bout 10 mins. ago, but updating this mod is the very first thing I did after discovering there'd been a SF release.
The nature of the error was the same as Spartan114 discovered before; GSP missions explicitly require certain of the vanilla variants as opponents, and Alex routinely renames them presumably to follow stricter or more logical conventions, as any good developer will do.
I'm considering copying all variants in the current version named by GSP missions into the mod itself (just the *.variant files, not the hull defs or graphics or any other stuff) so that future variant name changes of this type will not immediately break the mod, but for now the risk remains. I must remain ever vigilant.
Ver. 0.7.2 up fo' d/l.
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The nature of the error was the same as Spartan114 discovered before; GSP missions explicitly require certain of the vanilla variants as opponents, and Alex routinely renames them presumably to follow stricter or more logical conventions, as any good developer will do.
Aw, c'mon, I only did it just the once ;)
I try to fight it, but sometimes it gets the better of me.
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I should clarify that I was being sincere and not sarcastic :D I do the same thing at my day job. I'm currently a web developer. So one dev to another: don't stop re-organizing, re-factoring and slickifying your existing base of data, if it makes you more able to produce content
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I did think you were being sarcastic, and had a fair point at that. There's a saying - "the best is the greatest foe of the good".
Ah, well, I'll certainly keep breaking things in various ways - you can pretty much count on that. In the name of making them better, of course :)
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For the next release, I plan to make Steelheart and his crew a full-fledged campaign faction with backstory, and with their own planet; a new moon of the existing pirate planet system in Corvus. They will more than likely be hostile to all factions, including the other pirates.
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Is it done yet? ;D
No?
Hurry up then dude! C'mon ! ;D
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bump: update adds campaign support in the form of a 200-point fleet spawning as a convoy/raider battle fleet.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14340846/gsp_0.8.zip (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14340846/gsp_0.8.zip)
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This is surprisingly well balanced. Well done. Though the fleets are appallingly hard to beat due to the high fighter/bomber concentration, haha. (not knocking it, just whining a little)