Quote

Originally posted by Solel:
**I think you should leave the shield effect on. I always thought that was one thing that made the Ares gaming experience more realistic than that seen in EV:O. As one idea, you could disable the shield-shimmer effect on the Voinian ships to simulate the effects of having such a small armor rating.

Also, I believe it's possible to select the shield-shimmer color for different governments. This could be an added effect to address, if you haven't looked at it already.

So far, this looks like an amazing plugin.
**

Ragashingo and I are going to decide on that sometime soon. I originally wanted to keep the shield effects activated, but as Ragashingo made me aware of, that takes away from Override's gameplay. We've got a mixed bag here - some people would favor having such a project as similar as possible to Override, while others would like enhanced gameplay with more features.

I agree about not having shimmer effects for the Voinians - it'd make it appear that the ships are actually absorbing hostile weapons fire instead of deflecting it. Perhaps we could also change the blue shield status bar in Ares to a gray variant to hint at armor.

Ah well, Raga is the programmer. /drags him over to read suggestions

Aye, we intend on making this an amazing plugin indeed. Wish us luck on getting everything completed appropriately.

Carno: Correct - since Ares has no armor feature, we've just had to give them extra shielding instead. This makes them more powerful and able to withstand concentrated firepower. In the Ares plug Footsteps of Pyrrhus (I think it was this plug), all of the ships were armored, not shielded. So they changed the color of the shield status bar to gray to make it appear so.

Crescent ships will most likely be a little more potent against Voinians, although their firepower and protection will still not be able to match that of the Voins.

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:: Yes, I am the former Captain Skyblade ::

VERY impressive. Wow.

I suddely feel very excited...keep up the good work!

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Quote

Originally posted by Kyle Katarn:
Aye, we intend on making this an amazing plugin indeed. Wish us luck on getting everything completed appropriately.

Good luck!

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Hom much extra shielding did they get? As much as they had armor first? That would make all UE ships (except probably the Cruiser) helpless. But its good that Crescent ships cant still match the Voinians ;). You just have to be a little more careful.

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Quote

Originally posted by General Cade Smart:
**Hom much extra shielding did they get? As much as they had armor first? That would make all UE ships (except probably the Cruiser) helpless. But its good that Crescent ships cant still match the Voinians;). You just have to be a little more careful.

**

Actually thats what we did, add the armor to the shields for all the ships. So far it has worked very well. Skyblade described it good here

Quote

We tested alpha 3 tonight (which turned out really well) and the advantages became quite obvious. Raga proceeds to assault my base with a large Voinian battlefleet, and my two carriers, eight destroyers and about thirty fighters await. As soon as the Voinians are in range, my fleets begins to spit off an impressive display of hunter missiles. By the time my fleet actually engaged the Voinian battlegroup at close quarters, we had destroyed numerous Interceptors / fighters and severely damaged a few frigates with hunters alone. However, close quarters is where the Voinian's strength comes in - long-range neutron fire and loads of rockets, not to mention the better protection. I ended up losing to the big guns of the Voinian cruisers and left the battle with about ten fighters. All he had left was one frigate, two damaged cruisers and a handful of fighters. The Voinians generally win when the fleets are of equal size at close quarters, but the UE's hunter missiles evens the scales.

I actually lost more ships than he remembers in that quote so the balance seems at this early stage to be turning out quite well.
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Ares and EV:Nova plugin writer and all around helpful guy...

(This message has been edited by Ragashingo (edited 03-01-2003).)

This is great news. Is there any place to check on the progress?

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Quote

Originally posted by Icetray:
**This is great news. Is there any place to check on the progress?

**

Good question... I'll see about setting a progress place up somewhere soon.

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Ares and EV:Nova plugin writer and all around helpful guy...

Quote

Originally posted by Ragashingo:
**Good question... I'll see about setting a progress place up somewhere soon.

**

Yawn Been out of town for the last two days. We're back in business again.

I might open up a progress log at Dreamwave or just keep you guys posted here - whichever you prefer.

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Quote

Originally posted by Kyle Katarn:
I might open up a progress log at Dreamwave or just keep you guys posted here - whichever you prefer.

You could make a progress log topic on your board.

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Quote

Originally posted by EVula:
**You could make a progress log topic on your board.

**

Therefore bringing more traffic to your forums. Sounds fair enough.

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:: Yes, I am the former Captain Skyblade ::

Very cool. It'll take a bit of working to get around the whole missions/planetary issues, but I'm sure you'll come up with something clever. Just one question, though. Why are some of the graphics broken/discolored in some of the screenshots..? Or is that just my computer?

For example, the Turncoat getting blasted by the UE Fighters.

_bomb

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Quote

Originally posted by Bomb:
**Very cool. It'll take a bit of working to get around the whole missions/planetary issues, but I'm sure you'll come up with something clever. Just one question, though. Why are some of the graphics broken/discolored in some of the screenshots..? Or is that just my computer?

For example, the Turncoat getting blasted by the UE Fighters.

_bomb

**

Yes. We've already run into several issues where it's difficult to put an Override feature into an Ares engine, but we'll work around those problems.

The reason for the apparent "broken" appearance of some of the graphics has already been addressed - it's the shield shimmer effect of a ship being struck by weapons. It looks ugly in screenshots, but very nice in full animation.

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:: Yes, I am the former Captain Skyblade ::

A progress log has been setup at (url="http://"http://forums.evula.com/viewtopic.php?p=12977")http://forums.evula....pic.php?p=12977(/url)

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Ares and EV:Nova plugin writer and all around helpful guy...

More screenshots uploaded. Check them out (url="http://"http://forums.evula.com/viewtopic.php?t=943")here(/url).

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:: Yes, I am the former Captain Skyblade ::

I saw the screenshots. UE vs Human Renegades. The Hunter Missiles, Rockets, swarms of UE Fighters, and most importantly the huge explosions of Turncoats show that they are inferior to UE and can never win, so they shouldnt be played.

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I am eager to try to ansver mission questions

Quote

Originally posted by Kyle Katarn:
**
The reason for the apparent "broken" appearance of some of the graphics has already been addressed - it's the shield shimmer effect of a ship being struck by weapons. It looks ugly in screenshots, but very nice in full animation.

**

Ah, gotcha. Keep up the good work.. The plug seems to be progressing quite well. I haven't played Ares very often, but when your scenario comes out I'll definitely have to give it a better look.

_bomb

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"I want to tell you about a time I almost died...."

seems to be progressing quite well. I haven't played Ares very often, but when your scenario comes out I'll definitely have to give it a better look.

_bomb

(/b)(/QUOTE)

Indeed, things are going smoothly at the moment - I'm just hoping it stays that way.

Regarding your last remark, that's the whole idea. Ares net play has pretty much died the past few months at GameRanger, and Ares: Override is a dedicated attempt to wake up this very capable game engine. I really think this project will benefit both the Ares and Override community in the end, not to mention maybe giving Ambrosia Software some extra business.

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New Azdgari / Zidagar screenshots posted (url="http://"http://forums.evula.com/viewtopic.php?p=13525#13525")here(/url).

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Good stuff, as always. This fuels several comments:

1. In screenshot 2 there is one Zidara but 5 Zidagar Fighters. Since Zidaras have only fighters, was there another Zidara nearby?

2. Screenshot 4 doesnt contain Adzgari Arada vs. Zidagar fighter. It has a Azdara and Zidagar Fighter, with a small explosion ball in the middle. Is that the Arada?

3. Screenshot 5, I never knew Azdaras were so small. The look like the smallest birds. Kolibri?

6. Massive fleet battle! Theres four Zidaras, four Adzgari warships, and countless fighters (actually, two dozen Azdaras and little more than half a dozen Zidagar Fighters). This rememebers me of EVO, when all Strands fight at once. Except that there is no fleet battles. Fighters swarm, phase is all over the place. Bloody battle, massive explosions.

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I am eager to try to ansver mission questions