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

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Messages - Apokus

Pages: [1] 2
1
Modding / Re: Mod: Epic Battle Mod
« on: June 08, 2012, 12:46:03 PM »
Wow... after one Year someone noticed the thread and played necro hu? :D

For those who want to "play" this mod, dont worry i never stoped working on it... only completed my Studies, moved to a new city, got a new job and... well didnt got that much time to work on the mod after that.
But i´ll try to complete a first release in a few Weeks.. so maybe someone else can finish the mod if i don´t find the time to do so by myself or at least you can see by yourself if its worth to wait until i can finish it by myself ;)

2
Modding Resources / Re: Mod Format Preview
« on: May 19, 2011, 01:00:09 PM »
Unicode (UTF-8) is great :)

3
Modding Resources / Re: Mod Format Preview
« on: May 19, 2011, 09:32:16 AM »
Woa, great news! :)
Good that i couldnt work on my little mod the last days (who the hell gets a flu while we have 25°C outside? -.-) ^^
Not thaaat much more to port into the new system this way :)

Btw, read about the
Quote
Improved spreadsheet loading code - should be able to handle CSV files saved with OpenOffice etc
... does that work with all versions (mean : UTF-8) or only the "normal" US/UK Settings @ open office? ^^

4
Suggestions / Re: Map, and Space Terrains.
« on: May 09, 2011, 10:44:42 PM »
Quote
Quote from: Alex on Today at 07:14:37 AM
Just wanted to say that battles take place in a separate space from travel.


So its more like for example Master of Orion? Galaxymap -> Moveorders -> Fleet meets Fleet -> Battlemap?

5
Modding / Re: Mod: Epic Battle Mod
« on: May 09, 2011, 06:26:23 PM »
Well... again some "mino" Update.
This time i got the FFs the way i "like" it and the first DDs are ready too.. still to figure out how i design the Capital Ships but well.. what would i do all night if not changing numbers at the .csv files ;)


Frigates - I tried to make the FFs fast specializied Warships. This way i could combine the old Style designed by the Royal Navy (small and fast Warship) with those FFs we got after the WW2.

Wolf - Point Defense FF. Fast for a FF, Medium Hitpoints and Armor. Can be used to capture Objects at the beginning of a battle while it can handle hostile fighter with the same task. Good to cover Capitals.
Hound - Fast Attack FF. Fastest FF, Light Armed with medium armor. Like the PD good to capture object at the beginning, after that a Support FF to deal with light armored FFs.
Lasher - Close Combat FF. Slow, heavy armored with powerful weapons to inflict as much damage as possible to any FF,DD and maybe even light CVs within range.
Hyperion - Artillery FF. Slow, light armor but strong weapons that can damage even a Cruiser and several of them can destroy him. Good Range but has no Point Defense Systems.
Tempest - Missle Support FF. Medium Speed and Medium Armor with some medium range Missle Launcher to support other Ships in battle.

Destroyer - They are supposed to be a multirole Warship. Good Speed, good armor and well armed.
Specialized but not that much as the FFs.

Hammerhead - Has some nice mainguns with a lot of Point Defense and an average speed. Good to knock out Fast Attack FFs or Fighter if they try to cap a objective early.
Sunder - The Close Combat DD. Much Weapons, few Point Defense Systems, good armor but not that fast. Good for some trouble against a group of FFs. Within a Wing of several Sunders, they could hunt down a ship of larger size.
Condor - Something like a mix of Destroyer and Carrier. Due to the fact that its a carrier, there should be allways a Fighter or Interceptorwing next to him to refit so instead of Point Defense Systems he got a few weapons to deal with a FF if one is going to attack him. Against Larger Forces hes history..
Enforcer - Light Armor, good Speed and several long range Weapons make this ship kind of Artillery. The Weapons are strong enough to hurt even a CA.


Litte demonstration of the FFs and the first DD:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GK-aK7w7esU

6
Bug Reports & Support / Soundbug [FIXED for 0.34a]
« on: May 08, 2011, 10:46:11 PM »
If you win a Mission and "Continue" to the Main Screen before the Music finished, youll have some short music clip i you start a new mission quickly.

7
General Discussion / Re: Minimum and suggested requirements
« on: May 08, 2011, 02:37:44 PM »
Well it works fine on an old AMD Turion 64 X2 with 2.2GHz
3GB Ram and an Nvidia 8600GS GPU...
1440*900 with 90 FPS @ 30-60% Idle @ a trashed Vista OS..
So i would guess even some Netbooks can handle the game Oo

And with the screen capturing part: On my main system, i can capture the game on 1920*1200 with 60 FPS per Movie while still getting 40-50 FPS @ 50% Idle (using Fraps 3.3.2 there where some great improvements @ CPU Usage in the 3.2.x region iirc)... i wish i had this good results @ Bad Company 2 too :D

8
Modding / Re: Mod: "Balance" mod
« on: May 08, 2011, 02:15:36 PM »
Interested in seeing how this progresses, looks very promising!


You might want to consider a more descriptive name for the mod (I doubt "Balance" is the final name you've settled on, but still). The concept of big battleships being king of the battlefield and slugging it out in longer battles is very cool, and the mod name should reflect that, imho. Hmm. Apokus' Epic Battles, perhaps? :)

Changed :D
To be honest.. i was sitting here and i had nooooo *** idea how to name it right now :D
So ty for the suggestion =) *renamed :D*

As a suggestion, I do not know if you are familiar with that old like of board games called Wooden Ships and Iron Men. I loved that game!

Anyway, although Starfarer is more in the "World War 2 in Space" vein, we DO have the Conquest, which is a mix of both the Age of Sail and World War 2 era concepts. The concept of a Broadside, and that of a Battlecruiser, respectively.

So how about something like Wooden Ships and Iron Men... In Space!
Or..... hum.

Polyuridium Ships and Genetically Mutated Men?
Titanium Ships and Digitally Enhanced Men?
Strontium Ships and Cyborg Men?
...
I could go on but I'll stop cause a build I was running has crapped out :(

Hm, never heared about Wodden Ships and Iron Men, guess it wasnt published here in Germany (or iam not old enough with my 30 years :D) but i read something about that right now ^^
(And found a online version of the game mhmm ^^) *lets see..* :D

9
Modding / Re: Mod: "Balance" mod
« on: May 07, 2011, 10:06:04 PM »
First: I used some abbreviations i want to explain first.
Probably most of you knew this allready but just to be sure ;)

FF = Frigate
DD = Destroyer
CA = Cruiser
CV = Carrier
BC = Battlecruiser
BB = Battleship


With those balancing i tried stick to the only area in our history while we had "equal" Seabattles with "modern" technology.. that means Early/Mid WW2 and some influence of the late area there.
I also tried to get some refits into this like the refit of the Iowa Battleship class while they get a small amount of Anti Ship missles and Long Range Missles.
But i didnt wanted to use the present versions because since WW2 there wasnt any "big" need in building up equal Navys, thx to the Atomweapons carried by ICBMs or Aircrafts..
So there was some development of new anti ship weapons like the harpoon or exotec and some new torpedos but thats all.. the area of big battleships was more or less history.
(Who needs a weapon plattform that can only reach 40km far, while you need 2000 People to keep it up, months to build it and funds large enough to build several Bomberwings and everything the enemy has to do is keeping the Targets 50km away from the coast..)

But well.. enough about right now. I want to tell you some of the early changes ive made so far to the fighters,interceptors  and bombers ^^.


The Interceptors

I tried to design them how they where designed at the end of WW2 and during the Cold War time. Fast and light armed to deal with any other Plane.

Talon - Good against Bombers and Fighters but the Mainweapon cant penetrate any Armor of a FF and larger. No secondary weapons to deal with them.
Wasp - Faster then the Talon, same Mainweapon but less hitpoints with only a slight armor upgrade compared to the Talon. Stronger against Bombers, weaker against Fighters (But not that much @ both)

Both Ships are fast enough to evade small and medium amounts of Point Defense in most cases.

The Fighters
I wanted them to have better chances within a battle while covering the bombers engaging the enemy. So they are faster then Bombers, have a fair amount of Hitpoints and Armor but nothing thats good enough to deal with bigger ships then a light FF.

Broadsword - Average Fighter, good against Bombers and light armored FFs but has some problems as soon as Interceptors are joining the Fight.
Longbow - Light Fighter, light armed with a higher speed then all other fighters but it lacks the same protection the other fighters have.
Xyphos - Light Fighter with good weapons against other Fighters and Bombers, even against damaged Interceptors but without a real chance against FFs and more.

All Ships have a good chance to evade smaller amounts of Point Defense Systems but they will be hit and damaged after a time.. they cant dodge them forever.


The Bomber
I didnt liked the idea that a single Bomber could destroy a Battleship without any bigger problems as long as you let them attack in "masses" (2-3-4..).
There would be no one who would build capital ships anymore if you could take them out with 1/100000 of the ressources. So i tried to make them weaker while still beeing a big threat to any capital ship.
They are now generating 75% Flux and 25% Damage. The flux should simulate a damage dealed to a subsystem like weapons/shieldgenerator. So you can send in some bombers to disable the weapons of a cruiser for example, and take him out with your heavy armed but weake armored FFs.
Compare it to the Battle of the Denmark Strait at WW2. The Torpedo Bombers couldnt destroy the Bismark at all... they had several hits on her but only a lucky hit at the rudder did "damage" to the ship...not even the Torpedo Broadside of an Destroyer could sink a crippled ship that was under fire for over an hour by several other ships including hostile Battleships.
So Torpedos where powerful against smaller targets but less powerful against larger ships like CA, BC or BBs while dealing direct damage until the armor of one of those ships is critical. After that they can finish them too.
I didnt wanted to use todays Torpedo technology because they advanced while there was no big development effort in increasing the countermeasures or suitable armor upgrades for ships.
(There was for example a research project in germany/france to build something like the phalanx on US Ships,placed on top of a Ship to use it as a anti torpedo weapon... spray enough bullets into the water as soon as the torpedo is near the surface and hope youll hit him.. but it was stopped and the funds went into other projects like the EF)


Dagger - The Dagger is a heavy Bomber. Many Hitpoints, the best armor a bomber can have but it comes with a lack of speed even some light FFs can match them. Heavy armed with Ioncannons and Reaper torpedos to attack subsystems and open up a window for other heavy armed ships while the victim cant engage them.
Piranha - Light Bomber (well.. twice the hitpoints and armor then the broadsword), fast but light armed. Not designed for Capital Ships but FFs and DDs.
Trident - Super Heavy Bomber,can deal a lot of flux and damage to every ship. Very slow but good protected against the first PD Attacks of a Capital Ship so it should deal enough flux in the first attack run to survive after that too, but easy targets for Fighters and Interceptors and PD Escorts.

All Versions have a strong Front Shield to withstand the first attack of enemy Point Defense Systems while Fighters or Interceptors in their back have a good chance to get them quickly.


To show you how it looks ingame, i made another small clip.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26xbu0IQjbg

First the Conquest is under attack by 3 Bomberwings, one of those wings could incapacitate the Conquest with the second volley of Torpedos keeping the ship incapacitate for at least 60 Seconds until it runs out of Torpedos.
Because of the strong front shields the Point Defense Systems arent strong enough to destroy them fast enough.
While they are keeping the flux level high enough other forced could finish the Conquest without getting hurt by her primary and secondary weapons. If there are no other Ships, the bomber could deal with the Conquest but you would have enough time to move reinforcments to her like those Interceptors in the Video...


Thats all for today.
I hope i can offer a first version tomorrow, have to pimp the last 4 Ships for a first release.

10
Well, 700 isnt that far..
The Anti Matter Blaster i used in my Conquest (the video yesterday ^^) has a Range of 1000 and it dies within the screen too..
The projectile at 1000 moves ~2/3 of my screen while playing at windowed mode with 1680*1050.
So i would guess the range of the projectile is correct but not the marker mhm.....

11
Modding / Re: Mod: "Balance" mod
« on: May 07, 2011, 12:26:52 AM »
Yeah, like said in the edit, i had a radio stream in the background.. didnt noticed while iam a bit tired.. :D
New Video with the "same" Setup is rendering right now, should be ready to post as soon as iam back from getting some breakfast :)

Right now in my pre pre pre alpha settings, the Onslaught has 60000 HP with the best Armor. A frigate (well we can talk about "special" Frigates while creating new Variants isnt that big problem for missions like sink the....) alone cant hurt the Onslaught in a One on One for example. Before the Onslaught would notice the dmg, the frigate wouldnt have any Ammo left for the main weapon ;). A Wing of "Close Combat" Frigates with heavier weapons and a stronger armor can deal a fair amount of damage to the Conquest while the Conquest has a fair chance to minimze the force quickly if they dont have any support like Bombers for example. (The Bombers will create more flux then dmg to simulate a damaged subsystem like a turret or shield generator .. didnt figured it out how much flux/dmg ratio would be the best... will be the next movie :))

Edit:
The new Video for post #1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hOdkkV7R2Q

12
Modding / Mod: Epic Battle Mod
« on: May 06, 2011, 11:12:26 PM »
Hi there,
right now iam working on a "little" Balancemod.
Its not that iam thinking the balancing right now is bad or something! :)
But i am a fan of large, long and hard battles and i think right now the fun is over before he really starts ;)
I also wanted to get more space between the different Ships. Right now in the alpha, a frigate has the same weapons like a battlecruiser... only maybe a different amount of them. In my opinion, a frigate and a battlecruiser should have different weapon systems :)
Every ship can hurt every other ship and thats something i dont like ;) (Hell.. wheres the fun part while playing Rock, Paper, Scissors with the ships? ;) )
The Battlecruiser is bigger, has normaly more Crew, bigger weapons and more place to store the ammo while a frigate has different Targets. Well.. the BC shot at everything in range, the Frigate has smaller Ships like Patrols, Frigates or maybe Destroyer as a Target.
Thats why i created ~250 different weapons so far, for the small fighters, bombers and interceptors ... for the frigates, destroyers, carriers and for the battlecruisers / battleships too :)

The Goal is to get a different Balancing, for example where Fighters cant destroy a Battlecruiser, even with plenty of them shooting on one for a long period of time (weeeell ok, they can if the crew is sleeping for 2 days :D). Their Mainweapons shouldnt be strong enough to penetrate the Armor of a Battlecruiser because their maintarget should be defense against hostile Bomberwings or other Fighters while protecting the own Bomberwing on an Attackrun.

To give you a small first impression what iam talking about, i made a small Video.
The Conquest is the first of the "Capital" Ships i tweaked (i like the ship :D thats why the Conquest first ;) ) and i gave her several Fighters and some Frigates as an Enemy. (Those Frigs were designed as PD Frigs)
Its only a Video from the first units, but i wanted to show what i mean with some more material then my Text written with my poor English Skills :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hOdkkV7R2Q

Btw.. someone, iirc it was David, said that he liked the Idea of Broadsides with the Conquest... i do too, so the Conquest still has some strong weapons to both sides but not as main weapon.
Those are designed to fight against Frigates or Destroyer and only in case of an emergency against larger Ships. If it comes up for a Battle against other strong Capitalships, the front weapons are the weapon of choice. (I would guess the weapons in front would give the enemy the smallest Area of the Ship he can shoot at while he would have a large area he can shot at if the ship shows him the side. While firing a broadside would uncover more vital systems (Engines for example) the mainweapons can only hit the enemy while heading his way and uncovering the small area in front).


13
Modding / Re: Adding in custom ships
« on: May 05, 2011, 08:10:35 PM »
Well.. for a moment i thought about a little prog (or Startmenusetting from Starfarer? :D) that could change the Data folder to activate a single modification while renaming data to "data xyz" and renaming the "data mod" to the current data folder mh..
That way you could change the folders without big trouble mhmm... (Its the easiest way i guess to change the whole data folder.. you cant play the old missions with the new ships anyway without modding the missionfiles.. ^^)

14
Modding / Re: Adding in custom ships
« on: May 05, 2011, 08:00:48 PM »
So it wouldnt be that much work for a user to test your ships i guess :)
All he needs would be the "Data" folder... overwrite the old, keep the old files while he can test the new ones *hmm*
(Works as long as he has no other mod installed :D)

15
Modding / Re: Adding in custom ships
« on: May 05, 2011, 07:52:27 PM »
^^ Thanks!


I don't plan on releasing them until there is a simpler way of adding custom ships into the game, because of the fact that the end-user is going to have to change the .csv files to add them in.

I plan on having a wing of bombers, and then making some frigates this weekend.

Well, did you change the old Weapons and Ships or did you insert new Weapons and Ships to the csv file for your custom ships?


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