Why refer to them as one weapon split in two? Perhaps it could also be "We've developed a technique to penetrate these defenses, but it requires two ships and some special equipment. One will keep its shields blasted away and then the other will lob missiles at its armor." (And then, of course, you are asked whether you want to take on the shields or the armor. )

Also, are planets blown up elsewhere in the plug? If not, then perhaps only the Nova engine need know they're planetary weapons, and you can make up some other explanation.

How's this?

Quote

Our target has an experimental phase variance module. This puts the ship almost completely out of phase with the rest of the universe, effectively making it immune to standard weaponry: they will literally pass right through it. We've developed a counter-weapon, but it needs to work two-fold.

The phase variance module puts a shield around the ship in order to pull it in and out of phase. Our first objective is to take out that shield. Doing so will bring the ship partly back into phase, but not completely. We've developed a phased plasma blaster for this purpose. It's a high-energy weapon with excessive power requirements, so all other weapons will be restricted from firing at the same time.

Without that shield, bringing the ship completely into phase will just about tear it apart. Our second weapon is a phase variance slug thrower, essentially a very large railgun. Once the shields are down, it can pull the ship completely into phase and disable or even destroy it. Between the energy requirements for the railgun itself and putting the slugs it fires out of phase, it also requires a lot of energy, and will disable all other weaponry on your ship while firing.

The railgun is useless with the shield up, however, so we'll need to use the blaster first, then the railgun while the shield is down. Because both weapons require so much energy, we'll have to mount them each on a different ship. This means we'll have to work together to bring down this target.

That sounds perfect. Maybe the ship has some quantum-spacefabrickybendy stuff that simply bends normal fire around it, making it appear to go "through" it.

Heh... was just thinking: when I started this I thought I could get it done in 30 days. That was 3.5 months ago. I am nearing completion now, though, and I hope to get it out by February.

I also thought I'd just make one & be done. Oops.

This post has been edited by Sklent : 15 December 2013 - 03:01 PM

A gravity field or well to bend projectiles around it could work, too. Either way the target ship in this case must have some mad power generation abilities.

It's going to be a Pirate ship so I'll have to think up something crude & effective.

Glad to see you've made progress since the last time I stopped in. I've browsed through here periodically, but unfortunately, life has kept me from being of any real use. But it looks like DK's got everything technical under control anyway. Keep the good work Sklent!

Thanks Terrivel appreciate the encouragement

I think I may need to redo my plugin's economy. Instead of missions/trade routes paying only a small amount, and it taking forever to afford, say, a Terrapin, missions will pay more but compensation will be commensurate with skill and effort required. I hope to eliminate all "patiently hold jump key" type missions and make things challenging and entertaining for the player.

I also have more ideas that are too cool (imo) and too perfect for my plug's particular scenario to pass up. They will, however, take time to implement. I hope to be done by February but let's just say I have my doubts.

I've decided to eliminate Federation and Pirate storylines, at least for the time being. I may release them later as additional "Chapters" but right now, for the sake of getting this thing DONE they have taken a back burner and marked "optional".

Another feature I hope to implement is 3 different char resources: "EASY", "MEDIUM", and "HARD." This is another "optional" feature that may not make the original release but it should not take too much time.

I look forward to giving this to you guys

This post has been edited by Sklent : 26 December 2013 - 12:51 AM

A common tactic I use (and I'm sure most players use) to evade getting scanned by patrols is to simply fly in the other direction, get spat back out on the opposite side of the system and land. Here are some solutions I've considered (and the drawbacks)

1. Speed up patrol ships. I've already set the govt skill multiplier to 150 so there's no advantage when not playing in strict mode. However, it is still fairly easy to evade them with some fancy flying. I don't know if there's a happy medium between "easy to evade" and "impossible."

2. Line the system with spobs. They could have negative/positive gravity or have weapons that would make flying past them more of a pain than it's worth. The problem here is I have, at most, 15 spobs to work with (16 minus the central planet or planets). A spob's sphere of influence is always going to be circular, so while it would be possible to create a "no man's land" I'm guessing it would either have gaps or be so huge it wouldn't even let you jump in the system. I haven't tested it yet but if no one has any ideas this is what I may go with.

(Maybe "set course 0010 toward dock 40 immediately to be scanned. Any attempt to evade scans, including flying outward, will result in you being fired upon.")

I can tell you right now the second option isn't feasible. To keep from making jumping in and out of the system a pain, you'd have to put the guard posts really far out. And I mean REALLY far. To cover the gaps, you'd have to give them really long-range weapons, which means pushing them even further out so they don't fire on players when they're in normal range, which means extending the range further to keep coverage on the gaps, etc.

Speeding up patrol ships is probably your best bet at this point.

Regarding #2, DarthKev, there could, perhaps, be a "High Alert" and a "Normal Traffic" version of such systems. There might also be solely-ionizing/tractoring spobs. which would slow the player down enough for the patrol ships to catch, but not too slow for ordinary business. (And really, isn't it the point for it to be a pain?)

What about placing deadly spobs where the player is likely to jump in? Maybe make sure the player has to pay attention to where all the roadblocks are to escape successfully?

###############X|

X=Player jumping in from east
_,|=single deadly Spob
#=empty space

You might make it a bit more porous so it isn't insanely hard to not die. And of course our patrol ships will have deadly spob resistance. I'm now imagining it as an animated spob, where the first few frames are solid, and subsequent frames have it dissolving into nothingness.(Probably a few warning frames for when the blockade's coming back). It'd probably be a shell surrounding the planet, with occasional spokes. I imagine that to evade the patrols you'd have to find an unblockaded hyperspace route, and be able to turn around quickly enough while jumping in to avoid slamming into the shell. (Is this too complicated/lethal for what you had in mind?)

This post has been edited by ScratSkinner : 30 December 2013 - 07:20 AM

I made a scale drawing of my idea:

https://db.tt/hSD2berl

The ratio is 50:1. The red dots are hostile spobs. The gray circle is their "sphere of influence". The green area is neutral space around the system center.

The spobs are arranged in a loose circle pattern.. Their range is 2,500 pixels (radius), and they are placed either 5,000 or 3,500 pixels out depending on their position on.the curve. I mis-calculated ths drawing, so the "neutral" area has a radius of only 1,800 pixels. However, I can "shrink" the circles pretty significantly without leaving gaps (or only leaving minimal gaps).

I'm doing this assuming that the jump distance is 1,000 pixels, and the "gravity well" where you can't jump is around 1,000 pixels also. I'm going to go test this out.

PS: I now have 20 or so functional missions. Very exciting to have things come together!

You know, that might actually work after all. Well, I've been wrong before.

Also, tip with deadly spöbs: they don't allow players to use escape pods. So if you're playing on strict, deadly spöbs are a nightmare as they end your game, period.

Good tip! I agree - this was much more feasible than I thought. My only problem seems to be that the gravity values are not predictable.

It seems that increasing the gravity value (pushing or pulling) increases the strength AND range. However, there is no real logic to the values. I started with the value -2500 for all spobs, which happens to extend WAY further than 2500 pixels. 2000 also did not give the desired result. Re-testing with 1500.

Can AI be given gravitational resistence?

@scratskinner, on 30 December 2013 - 07:18 AM, said in "Trade Captain" Plug-In Development Questions:

Regarding #2, DarthKev, there could, perhaps, be a "High Alert" and a "Normal Traffic" version of such systems. There might also be solely-ionizing/tractoring spobs. which would slow the player down enough for the patrol ships to catch, but not too slow for ordinary business. (And really, isn't it the point for it to be a pain?)

What about placing deadly spobs where the player is likely to jump in? Maybe make sure the player has to pay attention to where all the roadblocks are to escape successfully?

###############X|

X=Player jumping in from east
_,|=single deadly Spob
#=empty space

You might make it a bit more porous so it isn't insanely hard to not die. And of course our patrol ships will have deadly spob resistance. I'm now imagining it as an animated spob, where the first few frames are solid, and subsequent frames have it dissolving into nothingness.(Probably a few warning frames for when the blockade's coming back). It'd probably be a shell surrounding the planet, with occasional spokes. I imagine that to evade the patrols you'd have to find an unblockaded hyperspace route, and be able to turn around quickly enough while jumping in to avoid slamming into the shell. (Is this too complicated/lethal for what you had in mind?)

It's a good idea, but a little "totalitarian." In my story, the Federation is a secondary antagonist but they're not necessarily the bad guys. (Pirates are the main antagonist and as I'm sure you'd imagine, the bad guys).

You did however encourage me to at least sketch my concept out

@sklent, on 30 December 2013 - 04:14 PM, said in "Trade Captain" Plug-In Development Questions:

Can AI be given gravitational resistence?

Yes and no. Specific ships can be resistant to gravity by checking a little box, but the AI still needs to be flying those ships to be resistant. There's no outfit option for 'resist gravity' nor an option in the gövt resource. Another tip: inertialess ships are also immune to gravity, but that also means they fly weird.

Edit: I think you should just try armed spöbs using missiles. Really fast missiles that simply ionize the player and can disable but not destroy them.

This post has been edited by DarthKev : 30 December 2013 - 09:20 PM

There is indeed a "resist gravity" outfit option. I know that bestowing a ship with a paint outfit does not work unless it's your ship. Hopefully the same is not true for gravity resistence.

Edit: I think I agree though. Missiles!

This post has been edited by Sklent : 30 December 2013 - 10:46 PM

There are several issues I'm having:

1. The planets won't fire on me unless I actually destroy a federation ship or demand tribute. The Federation patrol ship govt ID is 128 and the planetary "guards" are 146 (also a Federation govt resource)

I changed govt resource 146 so that:

Initial record is -999.
Xenophobic
Always attacks player

The spobs:

Minimum status: 32767
"Only fires when provoked" is unchecked.

3. My patrol ships now go land on these spobs. I don't want the spobs to fire on them but I don't want them landing there either. I don't beleive weapons will fire unless "can land here" is checkef an "uninhabited" is not.

edit: I can piss off the guard spobs pretty well with a silent mission. However it also PO's all other governtments also

This post has been edited by Sklent : 31 December 2013 - 12:05 AM

Try making them inhabited, but unlandable, and give them their own unique gövt with Always Attacks Player checked. Make this gövt ally/enemy to no one and not part of any class. They should shoot the player whenever they get within range.

That unfortunately does not work either. I don't think Nova was intended to have spobs fire in this manner - when would it come up in a regular scenario?

I think I may just do as you originally suggested and speed the patrols up, in addition to having some gravity.

I got it - the spobs will be EMP generators like on Colosseum. They will be pissed at EVERYONE, but all other ships will have extreme ion resistance.

edit: This actually required significant tweaking. The patrol ships have 32000/32000 ion resistance, which makes them immune. The spobs actually would not fire or become "hostile" unless the govt IDs all matched.

So I set the weapon to have 0/0 damage, ionize at 100, and a pretty high blast radius. That would mean, however, that the patrol ship would need to be inside the spob's firing radius in order for YOU to be ionized.

My current best solution: have a silent mission start immediately. There will be invisible, invincible ships that are allied to everyone except the guard spob govt. They will have no weapons, but will be "attacking" you all the time. Their only job will be to be close enough to you so that if you are in the EMP field, the "ion splash" will get you.

The problem that arises is that your "hostile warning" alarm will be going off constantly. I think I'll just disable it. It's useful for new players but I think most people ignore it after a while.

The other issue is that you'll be able to see it on radar unless it's cloaked. if it's cloaked, I don't know if spobs will fire on it.

This post has been edited by Sklent : 02 January 2014 - 10:21 AM