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Topics - mendonca

Pages: 1 2 [3]
31
Lore, Fan Media & Fiction / Unavoidable Decisions
« on: January 20, 2012, 04:19:28 AM »
By all the long lost Gods of man, I wish for nothing more than to avoid the pit, the mire, of Hegemony space. It’s hard enough as I walk through the black corridors of this ageing, creaking hulk to keep the shadows from my mind, I don’t know how I would cope if the shadows actually were out to get me.

I am on board The Grantham, an independently operated Venture-Class cruiser taking a few hundred miners and some low grade equipment out to a small industrial outpust on Clanx IV. It wouldn’t be my destination of choice, I’ll admit, but it was inconspicuous enough for me for now, and the people I am sharing the journey with were just the right kind of people that I needed. Simple folk, out to work the heavy metal mines for a few months, to earn enough credits to feed their temporarily discarded families for the rest of the cycle. Folk who couldn’t care less whether the Hegemony disappeared tomorrow. My kind of people.

I arrived on this boat six days ago, the Venture and its escort fleet hailing me well before I knew they were there. I had used up a significant portion of my system power in the escape shuttle making my escape from the scene of a massacre, and I was just sat there, on the go-slow, recharging the systems carefully from the bright white dwarf a few hundred million kilometres away. Some ancient orchestral music was keeping me company at the time, I believe.

I could still feel and hear the imploding crunch and the shudder of that Harpoon sinking in to the side of our Tempest hull as the engineer was desperately trying to discharge an overload of flux and bring our shields back. Something made our engine burst in to life a second later, failing almost as soon as it had started, and it dragged down those of us who remained standing after the missile strike. The bridge was littered with charred flesh and the sparking consoles streaked with blood. My decision was made for me.

I watched the Condor swallow up the black, burst hull behind me as I sped away. It was bittersweet that I alone survived from that wrecked hull, and for the sake of my own lost crew and those who suffered alongside us, I intended to carry out our mission to completion. But more than that, I intended to complete the mission for our glory.

I was sharing my quarters on The Grantham with an overweight miner, veteran of 25 cycles of working the pits of Clanx IV, and he was heavily marked all over his body with pitted depressions, some the size of a man’s fist. He was very keen to show me these, as well, which didn’t help me with my paranoia in any way. All those cycles working with the heavy metals had given him ‘enough cancer to choke a horse’ and apparently he still had the excised growths on display in his home. I wondered whether it really would take a lot of cancer to choke a horse, but I didn’t feel like prying, and I felt sorry for his family. It wasn’t their fault that they were provided for by such a man. But his idiocy was comforting - his ignorance bliss.

I walked the dimly lit corridors of the Venture, and returned to my quarters, hoping that he would be asleep on his bunk, or enthralled in one of those family dramas he liked to tune in to. Anything that would keep him from trying to entertain me, really.

The door opened, and a lump formed in my throat as I saw his body slumped, unnaturally, face down on his bed.

A foot tapped almost musically in the corner of the room behind the door.

“Please, do come in.”

The voice is shrill, but lazy. The voice of a man much calmer than I, my hand sweating uncontrollably around the tightening grip on my briefcase. My face feels cold. There is nowhere to run. A dark pool is beginning to form on the sheets around the unmoving head of the fat miner. He must have been alive but seconds ago.

“You have no need for concern, my dear fellow. You will be pleased to know the Hegemony have no concept of your escape, and in all likelihood they believe the reports of your cargo to be … false.”

Uncontrollably, my hand tightens further around the smooth metal handle of the case, so much so that the muscles in my hand began to cramp. I can only stand still in the dark corridor, just outside the door.

“We can negotiate with the door between us, if you want. But I would recommend whatever the outcome you are leaving this hulk with me. The rest of the miners aren’t going to appreciate what you appear to have done to your friend here.”

I try to speak but as I open my mouth, the dryness of my throat is stifling. Somehow, the Tri-Tachyon have found me, and I knew that my fate was already sealed, whatever that fate would be.

I force my legs to wake up and I enter in to the room.

E: Minor edits

32
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/01/04/but-how-will-it-fare-starfarer/#more-87516

 ;D

Congrats team! Hope it brings you some luck* for the New Year!

*cash

33
Suggestions / Linear 'campaigns' - modded missions
« on: December 24, 2011, 05:28:42 AM »
I had a thought, which isn't exactly groundbreaking but I thought it might be quite an easy, but powerful, inclusion given the upcoming mechanics.

Basically, allow modders to produce a set of missions that follow on from each other and allow the fleet mechanics, persistence, repair, capture etc. But you can only do mission 2 after mission 1, retaining your fleet. Basically cut out the exploration and sandbox, but allow modders to tell discrete stories while developing the single mission approach slightly. Perhaps offer a branching storyline depending on results.

Simple, I think, but could allow for some strong (linear) mission packs that could keep people entertained whilst the more free-form mechanics are developed and fine-tuned.

34
Mods / [0.9.1a] 'Junk Pirates' 3.5.3 (including ASP & P.A.C.K.)
« on: June 07, 2011, 02:25:44 PM »

Click the picture to download! Unzip in to the Mods directory of 0.9.1a, and let me know what you think!

(353 seemingly more stable / better null checking all round)

What is this Mod in a Nutshell?

The Junk Pirates themselves are one of the oldest mods for Starsector (even featured in a Blog Post back in 2011!).

Is compatible with Nexerelin. Requires Graphicslib & Lazylib.

Contains many small contributions from the community and a couple of significant ones from others:

MUSIC from Versus The Ghost

SOUNDS by MesoTroniK (all custom weapon sounds)

GIFS:
Spoiler
[close]

The Three New Factions
  • Junk Pirates - 24+ ships, with original artwork, covering all aspects of the StarSector fleets. Asymmetric and unusual arrangements, but easily underestimated.
  • Post Anarchist Canis Kollective (P.A.C.K.) - 14+ individual ships with numerous additional high-end skins, all original artwork. Limited larger ships (two cruisers + one light capital) NOW WITH CARRIERS & 5 unique fighter wings!!!. A bit of a 'challenge' Faction - or one for the destroyer-lovers.
  • Associated Starline Parcels (ASP) Syndicate - Mini-faction created as part of a forum initiative some time ago, continue to be maintained as part of this mod. About a dozen original ships total (and a few vanilla skins), the faction mainly adds flavour and not too distinct from vanilla when e.g. played in Nexerelin.


Read on for more fluff (and check out the PACK thread in my signature for even more fluff around the imaginary history of this faction).

----------------

How do I play with these? What can I expect when playing as / against these ships?

JUNK PIRATES
Spoiler
The main design philosophy when creating the Junk Pirates was/is to create unusual ships, with atypical and asymmetrical loadouts. There is however a 'spine' of more typical ships to make playing as them not completely frustrating, and generally if trying to play successfully as the Junk Pirates you might want to start by basing your fleet around the following:



The Satsuma is flexible and mobile, and can be a good hunter-killer destroyer. The Boxenstein is very sturdy, with lots of forward-facing weaponry - but suffers in mobility. The Clementine and Mandarine-class frigates are decently survivable, and have enough weaponry to at least stand up to Vanilla.

Don't expect the Sickle and the Hammer to act as generalists; but in either case they do have their niche (Sickle is super fast and can pack a decent punch - save a few to deploy late in a battle for quick support; Hammer carries a medium missile mount so can be very dangerous as a support vessel).

Fighters are an okay option for the JP fleet - with the Orca being a capable carrier and all the fighters being able to hold their own.


[close]

PACK

Spoiler
The design philosophy for PACK has been to create a set of fleet members who, when combined, outweigh the value of the individual players - i.e. the sum is greater than the whole of it's parts.

I think it works, to an extent, and generally mixed fleets are more effective than simpler fleets.

Take for example:


In this fleet, we decided to take a couple of Schnauzer-class frigates. These operate similar to 'Safety Override' ships (without the CR downsides) and consequently have high mobility and high flux handling. They are, however, paper thin - but the base level of mobility and flux efficiency gives them some level of survivability. Depending on fit-out - they can bring some high-alpha or some generalist support with her all-round energy mounts.

Supplement them with a Pitbull - which has high alpha-damage potential from four small missile mounts, decent resilience from high armour, good pinning potential from the kinetic barrage of her built-in Ripsaw - and the fleet becomes much stronger. The Schnauzer and the Pitbull are somewhat reliant on each other - as the Pitbull can't get close to anything that isn't harassed / distracted - and the Schnauzer can't stand toe-to-toe against many things without high levels of personal danger.

This fleet also has a BRT (an Escort Destroyer with good point defense capabilities), which can be a good defensive choice - to give respite to the Pitbull and hopefully field against smaller / more mobile threats.

The Labrador is included to handle some logistics for the fleet, but also has a FELIX drone to provide on-field interference; minor support; and can operate fairly safely in a retreat condition with her burn drive.

Also note that each one of these craft will perform poorly on their own, and it can be difficult to field a very small PACK fleet that maintains a decent level of combat effectiveness.

OR if we are feeling like we should go all customized:


We are immediately stronger due to the PACK Custom-shops having wide-ranging nett positive benefits (so comparable base ship vs. any of the Canebianco / Caomarelo / Rothund will always be worse; in differing amounts and against different comparable strengths).

The Bedlington (CB), a high-tech modified version of the standard, has a much improved shield (although now locked to front, it covers about 300°). This also has an Ion-drone following it around (as a built-in wing), basically a free ion cannon. It's a great disruptive force - and can be built around the front-locked medium energy for support or alpha-strike hit and run. It's super-quick, and with an efficient shield it can survive some abuse. It's even lighter than the Schnauzer, and will almost entirely buckle under the weight of just a single stray Harpoon MRM.

So we've taken a Komondor (RH), a heavily armoured version of the standard Komondor. The Komondor has lots of forward facing universal mounts, and an Accelerated Ammo Feeder, which forces some real decisions to be made in how it is kitted out - but it can be a pretty decent generalist combatant and can use the distraction of the Bedlington to close in on individual ships to finish them off with perhaps high-alpha missiles or a collection of front facing ballistics pushing out ordnance on overdrive.

The Ridgeback-X (RH) and the Caomarelo Samoyed are included primarily as logistic support, but (as per the Labrador) there is a pair of FELIX drones on board the Ridgeback to provide interference; and a decent enough weapons package to contribute generally - perhaps safer operating in a close support role. The Samoyed is quick enough to avoid a lot of trouble (including an on-board burn drive), but a missile-centric loadout skews this particular model in to a more specialist combat role, and may not be deployed most of the time.

Again, particularly with the 'Logistics' ships - these will struggle on their own - but work okay as a team.

[close]

ASP
Spoiler
TBC
[close]

----------------

Any criticism, constructive or just plain rude, is more than welcome in this thread. Go for it, but hope you have fun.

current version 3.53 - Pack MESH, Intel, Junk Explorers & Cyborg Queens from 3.52 plus more null checking ...

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