Somehow it was disabled in stock EVN. But if you play RoP (Realm of Prey) for EVN, a port of the original to EVN by MacDevil, you'll find dominating a planet gets you chased by an Earth Destroyer with no gövt according to the sensor display. Similar bounty hunters are also present in Guy's ports of EVC and EVO. I suppose it might be done with a mission activated or a bit set by each and every planet upon domination, but I thought it was a standard function of the engine. After all, EVC and EVO did have bounty hunters chase the player if they dominated a planet, thus why they're in Guy's ports.

pops in

Still here, still working. I've also decided I'm gonna post reviews of military ships to keep myself active in here. I just need to decide on a way to make those schematic shots look better. Stay tuned...

pops out

Still here. sigh Working in Real Life makes it hard to work on this. But I refuse to give up! Legacy will see the light of release yet!

@darthkev, on 14 March 2012 - 08:17 PM, said in Legacy TC Status Thread:

Still here. sigh Working in Real Life makes it hard to work on this. But I refuse to give up! Legacy will see the light of release yet!

Hey DarthKev, this looks very cool. Keep at it - I know I'll be playing it when it's done!

Dude, if I had access to Cinema4D I wouldn't mind making some textures or models or whatever it is you need for your TC. Sadly all I have is Blender, and that is some confusing program right there...

@that_guitarist_guy, on 04 April 2012 - 03:48 AM, said in Legacy TC Status Thread:

Dude, if I had access to Cinema4D I wouldn't mind making some textures or models or whatever it is you need for your TC. Sadly all I have is Blender, and that is some confusing program right there...

Try Sketchup. Much simpler to get the hang of, and many of the models that have popped up around here recently have been made with it. I should still have some files that help with faking a render in my sig.

@that_guitarist_guy, on 04 April 2012 - 03:48 AM, said in Legacy TC Status Thread:

Dude, if I had access to Cinema4D I wouldn't mind making some textures or models or whatever it is you need for your TC. Sadly all I have is Blender, and that is some confusing program right there...

@meaker-vi, on 04 April 2012 - 10:01 AM, said in Legacy TC Status Thread:

Try Sketchup. Much simpler to get the hang of, and many of the models that have popped up around here recently have been made with it. I should still have some files that help with faking a render in my sig.

Indeed, I've been using Sketchup, as well. I don't really need any help there. But if you can find a way to make legitimate renders, or even give them proper textures, I'd love the help. The one daunting part of it is I have over 200 models. Yes, that means over 200 different shïp resources, not including ship variants. At last count, there were 203 ship models. Then there's the space stations.

If you think you can handle it, you're more than welcome to it. But you'll get no pressure from me to do it. Even if I had the skills and software to do it myself I might not.

@darthkev, on 04 April 2012 - 11:31 AM, said in Legacy TC Status Thread:

...The one daunting part of it is I have over 200 models.

Yowza. Even if I remembered how to work Blender, the texturing, rendering, and positioning for all of that would be killer. Did you download Bryce when it was free? Maybe you can do something like what Delphi is doing.

The biggest trouble with sketchup that I've found is that it is tricky to export textured files to rendering setups. You need a dedicated sketchup-exporter, and not something that exports to one of the big ones (3ds, obj, etc.).

Twilight has an exporter to Kerkythea that works in Kerky; but then, you have to buy Twilight and if you're rendering in Sketchup with Twilight why take the time to export? There might be a free exporter plug and Kerky is free, however.

For your setup you're probably best just not rendering anything, and using Sketchup as a style statement universal to your project. In the old Delphi Ships thread I posted some examples of what could be done. Play with line types, textures, fog, transparency, and style settings to get something you like. If you've already textured everything don't worry; it's easy to swap any texture with a new image when it's applied to the model (hit the "home" on your material-browser and find the texture you want to replace; then choose a new image for it to use).

@meaker-vi, on 05 April 2012 - 10:17 AM, said in Legacy TC Status Thread:

<snip>

I did not get Bryce while it was free, unfortunately. I forget why, but I believe it had something to do with some extraneous circumstance that made me believe I wouldn't be able to get it for free. shrugs

In any case, I think I'll take your advice and just make it a statement of art. It won't be the prettiest TC, but it's still mine.

However, Real Life has got to the point where I don't have a lot of time for Legacy. It is NOT vapourware, I cannot stress that enough. I am simply putting it on hold for a bit while I... well, while I do some soul searching. Things have been getting, for lack of a better word, confusing in my life, and it took a PM to make me realize that. I need to straighten those things out. Once I have done that, work on Legacy will resume.

Thank you all for your interest in this project, and I hope you will still be interested when I come back to this.

So I'm doing some work on this again. I am fully aware it's only been a month since my last post. The fact of the matter is I actually missed working on Legacy. Not much to show just yet, but at least I'm working on it again.

@darthkev, on 05 April 2012 - 09:59 PM, said in Legacy TC Status Thread:

I did not get Bryce while it was free, unfortunately.

They extended the promotion: it's free right now.

That. Is. AWESOME. Downloaded.

So I've been working on the Onli ships recently. They just didn't look alien enough to me. I still have two more to finish remodeling, but here are the five I've finished.

Onli Navette - Shuttle
Onli Cheval - Light Freighter
Onli Vache - Bulk Freighter
Onli Guerrier - Cruiser
Onli Roi - Battleship

Edit: And here are the last two.

Onli Chasseur - Gunship
Onli Requin - Destroyer

This post has been edited by DarthKev : 28 May 2012 - 02:43 PM

Hehe I get it, an evolution from a shuttle to a battleship, what do you feed it to make that happen?

Actually, while the array of Onli ships does stem from one original, central design, it's not the shuttle. They first started with the Cheval, the light freighter. They were once akin to space whales that roamed between the stars much like the space squids. They were also hunted by said squids, nearly to extinction.

The Onli didn't always have organic ships. Their first starships were mechanical constructs like everyone else's, and they used those ships to save the last few space whales from the squids. In time the Onli learned to communicate with the whales. The whales displayed remarkable intelligence and, realizing they couldn't survive against the squids on their own, asked the Onli to enhance their bodies with mechanical implants. The Onli agreed, on the condition they could serve as crew in the whales to monitor the implants and make repairs when necessary.

So the first Chevals—and the first organic Onli vessels—came to be. The implants weren't perfect, however, and certain defects started cropping up in some Chevals as a result of them. The most notable of which was the enormous size some Cheval would grow to. They showed signs of a limited nervous system, but were otherwise functional. These were dubbed Vache, and served the role of bulk freighter. Through what can only be described as selective breeding processes, the Vache design was enhanced into its own distinctive ship class.

One other effect also emerged in some Chevals: violent tendencies. Originally this was of little use to the Onli, a peaceful people with no enemies. Many of the vessels displaying this characteristic were ultimately put down as they were too much trouble. But when humanity achieved space flight and piracy began to grow, the Onli finally saw a use for these ships. Through more breeding and trial-and-error, the first Onli cruisers were born and named Guerriers. At the same time, some would-be cruisers would cease growth at an absurdly small size and had no chance of becoming a Guerrier. They were fast, though, and showed great potential for patrol and light combat, so they were bred into a gunship class and named Chasseurs.

The Roi was a great experiment. As human pirates began to grow more prevalent and even some Onli were drawn by the riches to be had, the Onli saw the need for a warship even stronger than the Guerrier, and began breeding cruisers into virtual monsters, eventually becoming the fearsome battleships known as Rois. Consequently, the Onli needed a vessel even smaller than the Chasseur to ward off hostile fighters, so the Navette was created. Not from any one ship, mind you, but rather from grafting living tissue onto a metal frame and growing the various organs inside. As a result Navettes aren't nearly as intelligent as other Onli ships and rely even more on their crews for piloting and weapons control.

Lastly, the Requin is essentially a scaled up Navette, though with a metal shell on the outside rather than a fleshy exterior. Like the Roi, it was an experiment. However, the goal of the experiment was to determine whether existing Onli ships could benefit from armoured hull plating. While the design of the Requin was a success, the process was deemed too risky to apply to other Onli ships. Thus the Requin is the only armoured Onli design.

Wow. That is one heck of a backstory. Very cool.

Interesting way to justify organic starships. Cybernetically augmented space whales...

This post has been edited by StarSword : 06 June 2012 - 10:01 PM

I know it's been a while, but there are a few other things to point out about Onli ships. While most Onli weapon systems are implanted into the creatures, there is one that the space whales use all on their own: the Plasma Lance. This weapon is their own natural ability and, as such, cannot be installed (or grown as the case may be) in any other ship. It's akin to a dragon breathing fire. Onli ships can build up immense reserves of energy even without implants, and they can release this energy in a glorious pillar of destruction. It was the one advantage the space whales had over the squids before the Onli joined the fight. The squids have no abilities other than tentacles with which to grab things and tear or crush them.

From a gameplay standpoint, the Plasma Lance is a forward-firing beam. It uses energy extremely fast, so even Onli ships with 10+ jumps can use it for only a few moments. In addition, all other Onli weapon designs make use of the energy the whales generate. This means firing Onli weapons will eat up your energy reserves, slowly but surely. It also means Onli weapons are much lighter than human counterparts as they don't require their own reactors to power them. Onli ships will regenerate energy, though, so you won't end up dead in the water.

This does have the side effect of making Onli weapons of little use on human ships as they carry much less energy and, for the most part, don't regenerate it on their own. Despite this, Sapphire Dragon ships make heavy use of Onli weaponry, albeit with extra reactors installed, as well.

Edit: Oh, and the Roi has the distinction of being the smallest battleship in the entire game. Every other battleship owned by every other faction is well over 1,000 meters in length. The Roi is just under 900. The Vache, despite being primarily a freighter, also has a common variant of being transformed into a carrier. It, too, is the smallest of the class. The Vache comes in at 1,024 meters in length, with every other carrier being over 5,000. Some even break 6,000, and one breaks 8,000.

This post has been edited by DarthKev : 04 July 2012 - 07:56 PM

So I've finally admitted to myself that having a team of mercenaries as your sole military arm is a bit foolish. Okay, more than a bit. After all, if they were true mercenaries, your enemy might just outbid you and turn your own forces against you. As a result I have created the Orion Military Police, or OMP, as an entity in Legacy. The Sapphire Dragons are the elite of the elite within the OMP with their top commanders being DarthKev and Kronos. They are no longer the leaders of the entire OMP, just the Sapphire Dragons. The OMP works similarly to our own military today, with a chain of generals leading up to the President as Commander in Chief.

I've also finally admitted to myself that DarthKev is a bit of a silly name. I will be changing DarthKev's name (the character) but I'll be keeping it as my own username. No need to ask the mods or admins to change that. I still need to come up with a name for the character, however. I'm thinking an anagram of something, but not sure what yet. Stay tuned.

/bump

Quote

I've also finally admitted to myself that DarthKev is a bit of a silly name

It's hard making a major change to a character, after you've grown attached to it. golf clap

Just want to say that it's awesome that plug-in development is still happening. I'll definitely play it when it's ready.

Thanks for your continued support, n64mon. That goes for everyone else, too. Knowing that even one person out there is looking forward to Legacy's eventual release helps keep me working on it.

Speaking of working on Legacy, I've added a new line of ships to the universe. It all started with me thinking it was pretty silly for Sol Shipyards, the largest starship manufacturer in the galaxy, to be among those with the fewest designs. Six ships was all they had; the Taurus, Starbridge, Tulip, Turtleshell, and both Shuto ships. Even then, the Shuto ships are old tech, the first human vessels to be equipped with the Fluxdrive. They've been kept modern as the design is so solid.

Anyway, so I decided to come up with a bunch of new ships. Where to start? I looked at the Taurus and how it's named after one of the twelve Zodiac signs in common astrology. Then I thought, 'wouldn't it be fun to have a Zodiac Line of ships?' So, I've made eleven new ships to go along with the Taurus as the 'Zodiac Line' of civilian and paramilitary starships from Sol Shipyards. This brings their total up to seventeen, more than any other manufacturer in the game. That's also not including the Star Navy and Star Corps ships which are also largely produced by Sol Shipyards. The designs are all relatively final for now and painted, but I'm not going to post them just yet. I first want to put together a better format for the images. Essentially I want to design the shipyard info window for Legacy and use a larger version of that for the desktop screenshots.

But I'm not going to leave you with just the above. Here, in alphabetical order, are descriptions for the twelve Zodiac starships.

• Aquarius: Civilian model. Sort of a cargo gunship. Capable of combat but also able to ferry passengers and freight from place to place.

• Aries: Paramilitary. A fast and sporty destroyer meant to give the Merchant Marines a fighting chance against pirate capital ships.

• Cancer: Civilian model. A massive freighter rivaling the Onli Vache in both bulk and fighter compliment. While not a warship, it is capable of withstanding significant assault.

• Capricorn: Civilian model. Based around the Taurus chassis, the Capricorn trades offensive and defensive capability for larger reactors granting more powerful engines. This nearly turns it into an oversized blockade runner.

• Gemini: Paramilitary. It's a large shuttle. Or is it? As Gemini is 'the twin' this little guy can easily be converted into a capable starfighter. Something of an evil twin. I'm seriously considering making a pair of përs with this ship named S.S. Jeckle and S.S. Hyde. It's also a miniature Q-ship as scans alone won't tell you which is which.

• Leo: Paramilitary. While it is a gunboat, it's a heavily armed gunboat and thus is not sold to civilians of any sort.

• Libra: Civilian model. A sleek courier with potential to become a luxury transport. This, along with the Tulip, marks the second ship Sol Shipyards has that will be capable of Passenger Cruise missions.

• Pisces: Civilian model. Basic but expensive space superiority fighter. Passed up for use in the Navy and Corps for aforementioned cost.

• Sagittarius: Civilian model. Weaponized variant of the Libra. Less cargo, better defenses, more weapons, and faster engines. Classes as a corvette instead of courier.

• Scorpio: Paramilitary. A heavy interdictor with an intimidating appearance. Yes, it has a scorpion tail.

• Taurus: Civilian model. Same as before, a workhorse freighter. A variant is in use by Star Medical as a rudimentary cruiser and is a testament to the Taurus' flexibility. It is also the flagship of the Zodiac Line, the first to be designed, both in Real Life and in Legacy lore.

• Virgo: Civilian model. Sol Shipyards' second yacht, it aims to be a cheaper alternative to the ultra-modern Starbridge. It achieves this goal almost a little too well, if you catch my drift.

Please note that these ships, while named after Zodiac signs, rarely emulate the signs for which they are named. This is intended as I merely wanted to make use of the names. They do, however, emulate the animals of the signs very frequently. For instance, the Taurus, a cow, is used to haul cargo. The Capricorn, a ram, pushes through obstacles. Pisces swarms in fighter squadrons like schools of fish. Leo and Scorpio both hunt for prey with deadly abandon.

Lastly, the Milky Way has suddenly felt under-populated to me. Not in terms of individuals, but number of races. I have humans spread across the top, left, and right sections of the map with the Onli controlling the bottom. Even if the Onli were to be a number of races under the same banner (I've mentioned this idea previously as the basis for the name 'Onli Conglomerate') that's a lot of aliens to be stuck in one spot with humans just running rampant. It's a little too much like EVO where humans are all alone in this huge area in the center with Voinians, Miranu, Emalgha, Strand, and Hinwar (among other enslaved races) all rubbing elbows with each other. I like EVO and all, but it does seem a bit odd.

To fix that I'm making the Crimson Nebula the home of two new alien races: the warlike Shojen and the sneaky, conniving Malfost. As you can no doubt guess, the Shojen live in what once was Shojen Samurai space and the Malfost hail from former Mafia space. The Mafia is no longer an entity and is entirely replaced by the Malfost, whose government operates more like a (largely corrupt) company than anything else. The relationship between the Malfost and Shojen is strained, to say the least. The Shojen, with their warlike tendencies, have alienated every other faction. At the same time, they don't really have enough resources to go around. The Malfost, on the other hand, have plenty. They trade resources to the Shojen in return for the Shojen's protection. This hasn't stopped the Shojen from attempting raids on the Malfost, but the Malfost are always ready and such raids are rarely fruitful. And so the Malfost have successfully bribed the Shojen into becoming their bodyguards.

The Shojen are somewhat reptilian in nature with large scales/plates covering much of their bodies. They are, however, humanoid, and other than the scales and inch-long teeth (and a mouth to fit them) look human. Most Shojen are well above seven feet tall and those that fall short are often ridiculed. As a result, these shorter Shojen usually end up leaving Shojen space and become citizens in the Earth Empire or Onli Conglomerate.

The Malfost are mammals and most closely resemble dolphins in appearance. They have no nose, small pointed teeth, and a short snout. They are bipedal with six fingers on each hand and average five feet in height. They need to keep their skin moist at all times as this prevents their pores from clogging up with dirt. They breathe through their pores, as well, so you can see how acne would be problematic. Curiously, most Malfost cannot swim.

I'm also coming up with a few alien races to live alongside the Onli, but more on those later.