Oh wait, didn't quite read your explanation properly - missed the bit where firing the weapon immediately kills a mission ship. I see now

Once again, that's a bug, Peter. Report it to Matt to get some action on that front.

@pipeline, on Jan 13 2007, 10:43 PM, said in Age of the Council (AotC):

Once again, that's a bug, Peter.

I know. But I never got anywhere by expecting engine changes.

Still, can't hurt to try.

Can you please put the damage capability of each weapon (Shield damage, Armor, damage, reload time) in the desc for that weapon? Please?

@lnsu, on Jan 17 2007, 03:24 AM, said in Age of the Council (AotC):

Can you please put the damage capability of each weapon (Shield damage, Armor, damage, reload time) in the desc for that weapon? Please?

There wouldn't be the space - weapons do have a lot of stats. People should experiment with lots of weapons. It's very easy for someone to put that information into an external guide, anyway.

I do plan to put jamming values in the appropriate outfit descriptions though.

Actually...

Make a free "outfit" that's removed as soon as you purchase it. OnPurchase toggle a control bit, ^xxx. Now, in the dësc for each weapon/outfit/random other thing, you have:

{bxxx "Numerical data, stats, specs, and so forth." "Descriptive text, scientific explanations, history, and things of that nature."}

My work here is done.

...by which of course I mean it's just beginning! =Ţ

@pac, on Jan 13 2007, 01:12 AM, said in Age of the Council (AotC):

I've set myself a kind of quota of updating five systems every day, and am trying to exceed it whenever possible.

And guess what? I'm now waaaay behind on this quota! (Cursed work ) I may be able to catch up a bit over this weekend.

Quick update.

Things seem to be falling into place. Most of the outfits (and outfits seemed like a huge task) are in place. More illegal and rare ones may have to be added, but the key things are in place. This is important so that I can design variant ships while knowing the right mass and cost for everything they're armed and equipped with.

Systems (in terms of my 'five-a-day' quota) are more or less back on track. Every system (and associated spobs, etc) has to be updated, but there are basically three different types of updated system: ones which are minimally updated (descs changed, owner changed if necessary, dudes changed); ones which have to be significantly changed (it's been colonised, or otherwise greatly changed role in the 'future'); and ones which don't have to be radically changed, but which I get struck with an idea of something to do with.

At the moment, I'm mostly just doing the first two types - because it's really quick. In empty systems, I can just update the dude information and that's another one done. That will be enough for the initial developers' version. By the final version, there should be a lot more examples of the third case, but it makes sense to leave them for a while for a number of reasons - not least that other people working on the project might have a great idea for something to do with a system, and there's no sense me struggling to come up with something now when someone else may have a better idea.

Yeah, I think I'm somewhere on schedule. I hope to have something other interested parties would be able to work with within a month or so. (I have given up much of the outside world to achieve this, but I needed to save money anyway. ;))

A pleasing thing about working with the Nova engine, is that I can throw out a lot of the assumed restrictions which applied when I was drawing up my very old notes (which have all been left far behind now) outlining this project. Like something as simple as the number of ship resources available. Suddenly ships from Override which under the original plan had to disappear completely can feature again (albeit in minor roles since they are outdated).

Other little details are handy, like the fact that ships can have up to eight weapons. Now, it isn't really that useful in terms of exploting this to its fullest extent, since the AI probably can't efficiently handle that many different weapons (I haven't studied the AI's ability to use different weapons at the same time that carefully, but it seems to be somewhat restricted when they're of the same guidance type - although that can't be the whole of the explanation ). But, when your original plan assumed a maximum of four on everything, being able to go just a little bit further is nice.

Well, I'm just rambling a bit now here. Suffice to say that I'm enjoying working on all this. Next step will be to actually try 'playing' in the half-built universe. Well, I've done basic trade, but I should take the time to build up a decent ship and see what fighting random pirates is like. Probably, I'll decide it's no fun, and scrap everything I've done and go back to square one!

Keep on trucking, Peter. I really look forward to seeing the result.

Okay Who put so many systems in this game? I must have done about 30 over the weekend and I barely seemed to make a dent!

Just a note to say that I can't believe what fleets are like now. They just look wrong when they do anything at all. Really unnatural to look at. Oh, and player escorts are just as bad Worse, in fact.

But Can't do without fleets, can we?

If you want to advocate for fleet resource reform, you could always put in a word for dudes in fleets (not like there are going to be any more revisions, of course...)

@pac, on Jan 31 2007, 01:46 PM, said in Age of the Council (AotC):

Just a note to say that I can't believe what fleets are like now. They just look wrong when they do anything at all. Really unnatural to look at. Oh, and player escorts are just as bad Worse, in fact.

But Can't do without fleets, can we?

Hmmm, could you elaborate?

It's been awhile since I've played stock EV:O, but come to think of it, the AI for fleet handling probably would be pretty different.

@mista_b, on Feb 1 2007, 02:05 AM, said in Age of the Council (AotC):

Hmmm, could you elaborate?

It's been awhile since I've played stock EV:O, but come to think of it, the AI for fleet handling probably would be pretty different.

Nothing to do with AI. (Well, that's a little weird too, but that's not the main thing.) It's just the way they move around the flagship. It looks completely wrong, and totally breaks suspension of disbelief for me.

@pac, on Jan 22 2007, 06:59 PM, said in Age of the Council (AotC):

Other little details are handy, like the fact that ships can have up to eight weapons. Now, it isn't really that useful in terms of exploting this to its fullest extent, since the AI probably can't efficiently handle that many different weapons (I haven't studied the AI's ability to use different weapons at the same time that carefully, but it seems to be somewhat restricted when they're of the same guidance type - although that can't be the whole of the explanation ). But, when your original plan assumed a maximum of four on everything, being able to go just a little bit further is nice.

Couldn't Override handle 8 weapons per ship?

@evweb, on Feb 1 2007, 06:57 AM, said in Age of the Council (AotC):

Couldn't Override handle 8 weapons per ship?

There probably is no max for player ships other than the number of wëap resources, but AI ships can only have 4 different weapons in EVO.

This post has been edited by Vempele : 01 February 2007 - 09:53 AM

Weird, because I remember giving the default ships over 4 weapons...

Gah, I'm way behind schedule.

I still want to have something other people would be able to look at by the end of Feb/start of March, but I'll need to have a burst of energy or two (and some time would be handy, too) to manage it.

There's no reason to burn yourself out, Mr. Cartwright. I dunno about the rest of these yahoos, but I was more than content waiting about 6 months (from the time I joined the forums last August) to wait for Arpia 2 to be released.

Personally, I say if it meant waiting until April for the work you want us to see to be completed, then so be it.