Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Sandremo]

Slashing beeeeemz! How's the shivans coming along?

[EnderNerdcore]

Slashing beeeeemz! How's the shivans coming along?

I'm trying to solve the slashing beam problem before I start implementing the Shivans. This of course is complicated by the fact that my girlfriend and I just started playing Ni No Kuni together and my development PC can't see the TV screen the PS3 is hooked up to.  Based on the problems I encountered yesterday evening it is going to take me several more evenings (if in fact the way I want to implement them is possible).

Implementation won't be too hard, Shivan ships share some common weapons with the GTVA, and most of the rest are variations. Since all the sprites are ready to go, it mostly comes down to getting the ships into Starsector and doing some balancing passes.

[Sandremo]

I suppose the large burst damage of the beams gave them an edge during autoresolve?

In practice the beam weapons are quite hard to use IMO, and the AI cannot adapt to the relatively long burst of the weapon and a lot of damage is wasted. Their usage of anti-fighter beam is downright disappointing, although its limited range may play a role.

And I don't know if the power of flak weapons are supposed to be that low...

PS. I do remember anti-fighter beam was mentioned to have a range of 1500m in FS2 (mission: Feint! Parry! Riposte!), so maybe its range need a little buff?

I had to reinstall freespace 2 again to remember what did you mean by that but now i know.

[EnderNerdcore]

On weapon balancing: I'm going to do another pass on the things like flak cannons once I get slashing beams working and the anti-fighter beams fixed (since they are currently not very useful combined with not being implemented correctly)

At one point the flak cannons were far, far too powerful, making the area around any of the ships into a dead-zone through which no fighter could fly or missile survive and it appears I may have toned them down a bit too much. However, their balancing partially depends on anti-fighter beams actually working correctly.

[Sandremo]

Hmmm the atleast back in freespace 2 the flak cannons alone werent that dangerous... the thing that made them dangerous was the crazy amount of ammunition a few cannons could fire. It's not the damage it's the continuous volley fire that made them a pain in the ass in freespace 2. And to be honest i havent seen a single fighter been destroyed by them... They were there to "keep the fighters" away rather than actually destroy them. Since flying in cloud of flak made the screen shake like there's no tomorrow making it impossible to actually do anything. xD

Cheers

-Sandremo

Edit: Actually the reason the flak cannons werent that dangerous was that the shields could take on the full force of the flak for long enough you to do your thing and bail out... and since fighters in starfarer dont have shields  you might want to take that into account.

[Sandremo]

Just a quick question about the vasudans. Are you going to add all the vasudan ships? Meaning will you include the older ships PVD (Now known as GVD http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/GVD_Typhon) Typhon class cruisers? Of course with the upgraded weaponry... without the beam weaponry they would be totally under powered or stick to the new stuff like the GVD Hatshepsut (GVD Psamtik for example http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/GVD_Psamtik)?

I think with LazyWizard's suggestion for how to do slashing beams I might be able to do this, yes. However, they might get it for free with the triple-burst since it is a Point Defense weapon. It depends on if the game engine allows the weapon to re-aim between bursts.

Dont think you actually need to make it aim too much... since the beam it self is usually centered on the fighte... actually it needs to aim between burts... from my recent experience the anti-fighter beams in freespace 2 are trying to be shot so the fighters actually flies into them... so the point defense AI would actually have to lead the targets.. Not sure if it already does? I really dont spend too much time looking at how the point defense weaponry works. XD

One other thing you need to take into account is the duration of each pulse. Since the fighters in FS2 were rather fast the pulse didnt last long but fighters in starsector fly much slower compared to the FS2 ones well obviously since it's a totally diffirent game so you might need to make it so the pulse beam stays in place for a few seconds so there's enough time for fighters to fly into them... but this could make adapting the Anti-fighter beam sounds to starsector.. since the duration of each pulse would be longer than it is in FS2 hence making the sound stop early compared to the beams.

Cheers!

-Sandremo

[EnderNerdcore]

The Vasudans (including the FS2 version of the Typhon) will be added to the GTVA side after I've created the Shivans.

[Sandremo]

Another thing i liked to point out... which i'm sure you're hopefully going to fix is the ship designations... sorry about this but i quite like the Freespace universe so i'm a bit strict about thease but hey it's your mod. Anyway on to the point. I noticed that all the ships are "GTVA something" which in a sense is correct but not 100% the only ship that was actually tagged with GTVA was the colossus since it was a joint development.

For the designations:

Fighters: GTF
Bombers: GTB
Transports: GTT
Freighters: GTFr
Cruisers and Corvettes: GTC (Note the deimos is GTCv)
Capital ships: GTD

The exceptions to the capital ships were the GTVA Colossus and the rebels who defected to the Neo terran front hence the NTF but that one doesnt really count.

Need to point out that thease are entirely cosmetical. But when you get the chance mind "fixing" it?

PS. Any idea what does the "v" in GTCv stand for? GTC is Galactic Terran Corvette but no idea with the "v".

Edit on this. After some carefull thinking it's quite easy to understand that the "v" is the "v" from the corvette hence the GTCv (GTC = Galactic Terran Cruiser)

Cheers

-Sandremo

[EnderNerdcore]

That will all be fixed in a polishing pass when ship and weapon descriptions are added.

[Sandremo]

I was bored the other day... so i decided that i might as well try to learn this "modding" and possibly help you if i get any good at it... oh well let's see where this goes.

[EnderNerdcore]

I was bored the other day... so i decided that i might as well try to learn this "modding" and possibly help you if i get any good at it... oh well let's see where this goes.

If you can get slashing beams working well before I do (no, I haven't actually been working on them at all, been busy) then by all means.

OTOH I just started playing again last night now that Uomoz's 17 has been released, so I'll probably take a stab at first fixing the anti-fighter beams, then getting slashing beams to work.

What I could really use is a good spriter for the turret graphics...

[Sandremo]

I was bored the other day... so i decided that i might as well try to learn this "modding" and possibly help you if i get any good at it... oh well let's see where this goes.

If you can get slashing beams working well before I do (no, I haven't actually been working on them at all, been busy) then by all means.

OTOH I just started playing again last night now that Uomoz's 17 has been released, so I'll probably take a stab at first fixing the anti-fighter beams, then getting slashing beams to work.

What I could really use is a good spriter for the turret graphics...

Fiddling with java isnt my kind of thing (Believe me i tried and i didnt understand which way was up and which way was down. xD) So spriting would more likely be my thing...

Btw "OTOH" = ?

Edit: Is it possible to make the "Turrets" fixed in a sense but the beam it fires mobile? IE you can actually aim it? The idea for that was to make the "beam turrets" look like it's on freespace 2 but it would be weird to make it look like the freespace 2 variant if it clips through the ships hull when it's aiming... Guess i need to let my imagination free.

Edit2: I cant seem to find any basic guides for creating weapon sprites...

-Sandremo

[Sandremo]

Question! When i eventually get there what weapons do you need sprites for anyway? Here's hoping that i'd get some ideas what the weapons would look like depending and what it's function is.

[EnderNerdcore]

Question! When i eventually get there what weapons do you need sprites for anyway? Here's hoping that i'd get some ideas what the weapons would look like depending and what it's function is.

All the custom weapons except the fighter weapons (though the GTM Piranha needs a turret & missile graphic since it is also mounted on capital ships).

OTOH = On the other hand

Unfortunately I don't think you can make the turrets static, so we're going to have to depart from FS2's look a bit here. Keep in mind they looked as they did with the limitations on polygon counts on the 3D models, so I think there's plenty of room for interpretation as long as we don't make them huge.

For the moment single-sprite turret graphics are enough, we don't need to animate them yet. I'll probably work on the fighter beams and the slashing beams this evening, I need to get back into java coding.

[Sandremo]

Yea i'll get it try to make something for you.... as soon as this bloody photoshop decides to work this year.