Judging from the electromag laser-esque claws on the end of the Armature, would it be right to guess that the Armature is another vehicle in the Pariah's arsenal?

It only makes sense the Pariah would use the Armature. After all, they have their own custom variant of that other smaller space tug with overpowered tractor beams for the same purpose of ripping ships to shreds.

Also, the Armature sounds inspired by the Kraken or giant squid to me.

As evil as the Armature looks, you'll really most commonly see it breaking up asteroids. It's only an occasional event when you see one preying on other ships, and even then, only in far less-civilized space.

So... the Pariah don't use it then? Wow, I'm honestly surprised. Is it simply too slow or weak for them to put it to good use?

@darthkev, on 28 March 2012 - 07:21 PM, said in EVN - Delphi:

So... the Pariah don't use it then? Wow, I'm honestly surprised. Is it simply too slow or weak for them to put it to good use?

The Pariah are more about shock and awe, and though using a great behemoth mining vessel to tear your enemies asunder seems an attractive proposition, the Armature's inherent weak armour and lack of general armament makes it less-than-useful to their cause. Also, the Pariah take great pride in the design of their ships. Though their practices are barbaric, their philosophy demands near perfection in all that they create. Though they could be seen the types to break one of these apart and make a new ship, or to create a vessel inspired by the imposing design of the Armature, it is extremely unlikely that they would use a stock version of the ship, unless they were becoming desperate.

Those that you will likely see using this craft are renegade individuals in voidspace, operating independently of the NDC, the Enclave, or the Pariah. Of course, there is also the occasional legitimate mining organization who may employ an armed variant of the ship for collecting ore in dangerous space.

The Armature is also used in the construction of large space stations, where its tethers and physical clamps can be used to strategically position large components in space before smaller utility craft weld the hull together. You will occasionally find construction-marked variants of the ship present in systems where a station is being manufactured. Because Delphi spans the course of several decades of lore, I want to present a living universe with a growing infrastructure, where stellars develop along with you. It always seemed weird to me that nothing seemed to happen in Nova without you being a direct contributor. The best thing about this ever-expanding universe is that it'll make some excellent opportunities to craft new, previously unavailable missions and problems for the galaxy dependant on infrastructural expansions. For instance, the construction of a new station near the edge of charted space could open up missions in which the player surveys nearby planets for colony sites, and then participates in the settlement of these same worlds. Or, perhaps they will embark on the maiden voyage of a completely new trade route back to civilization, helping to lift a fledgling trading company onto its feet.

Anyway, the Armature is a decent utility vessel, with asteroid-gathering capabilities (a behaviour that comes built into a ship, not just sold like an outfit) and a large cargo bay. A prospective player may find that this ship is a the key to garnering a small fortune in either the harvesting or the trading industries. Of course, smaller asteroid miners exist in the universe, and may be a more attractive option for those seeking better mobility. The Armature is no graceful ballerina when being moved around.

Oh, and though the arms are technically flexible (if needed), the vessel relies primarily on its gravitational tethers. As such, there is no "unfolding" graphic for it (the sprite would just be WAY too big), but there will be a very cool weapon glow, in which you see the tethers being engaged and the collecting pipes doing their "vacuuming" thing. The unique set of outfits on the ship will give it a tractor beam capability on the front, in case you want to use this to perform a little devious pirating of your own... Of course, you'll want to stock up on armour and shield upgrades.

Actually, you can't delete posts, not even your own. Only moderators can delete posts. And in cases like this, with accidental post-cloning, they tend not to delete them simply so people can do stuff with them, as you just have. Also, that image is gonna give me nightmares. Really weird nightmares.

As for the Armature, it's starting to sound more like EVN's own asteroid miner but jumbo size and even slower. Less like a vicious space Kraken, even if it still looks like one.

I know the updates have slowed severely. I apologize for the long wait times between new information. I've been both planning and financing my own wedding coming up at the end of the summer, saving for a down payment on a house, and completing my university practicum (internship). It's been a bit of a full workload. When I get time, though, I do sit down on my laptop and get at least a little bit of work done here and there.

One of the biggest roadblocks I've been trying to overcome is stations and stellars. Though simple as a one-frame sprite can be, they ultimately determine the entire look and feel of the Delphi mythos, and the universe is expansive, to say the least. The one station I've really wanted to get done is the hypergate, or "Beacons" as they are called in the Delphi universe. The idea is thus: graviton impeller drives are, in theory, infinitely scalable in their reach. The only thing that prevents them from bridging the largest vast distances in a heartbeat is the energy and processing capability required to calculate and execute the trip. The physics of the drive dictate that as the distance increases, there is a gradual exponential increase in energy requirement that eventually approaches infinity, according to the distance being calculated. As a result, the greatest, most powerful drives can only factor up to a maximum of five jumps before the ship needs to come back into real space and recalculate again using its current bearings. The solution to this, obviously, is to create drives attached to absolutely massive targeting computers and with supermassive reactors to back them up. The problem inherent in the solution is that this prohibits the construction of ships in any kind of a conservative fashion. Already, the livable to non-liveable compartment balance in a shuttle is approximately 1 to 9. As ships become larger, the amount of usable crew space actually diminishes compared to mechanical systems. In a larger vessel, it's not unusual to have a ratio as poor as 1:15. This applies to mass as well, with every one ton of people needing several times more tons of equipment to sustain their life. When weapons are factored into the mix, and the engines to drive them around, it becomes a very prohibitive thing to build a ship with a computer any amount larger than absolutely necessary.

Thus, the Beacons were constructed. A Beacon is a massive space station fitting the requirements of a ship requiring a more powerful jump drive. Capable of calculating impeller jumps simultaneously for up to twenty ships of any size or capability, they facilitate the rapid movement of fleets throughout civilized space, though they are entirely incapable of movement themselves. When a ship interfaces with the Beacon's computer, it only need wait a few short minutes while the station processes its desired coordinates before the gargantuan computer delivers the necessary course to the ship's computer. The only tradeoff is that in order to speed up the process of navigation, Beacons can only deliver ships into systems containing other Beacons. These stations are most often found near the hearts of populated sectors, acting as a gateway to other nearby regions without the requirement of travelling through Voidspace in between.

Both the Enclave and the NDC have access to the same Beacon network, as neither entity has deemed it necessary to sever connections in the network at the cost of civilian commerce, even if it means leaving doorways open for either opposing army to intrude. The very fact that most Beacons only exist near capitol worlds, and are guarded as such, is often enough to prevent their use as a tactical asset. In addition, ships travelling using a Beacon have no idea what they could be jumping into at the other end of the trip.

This is one concept I'm trying out for the Beacon. I like the skeletal design of it, but I almost feel it is too spread out. I feel sometimes like the Beacons should be compact, albeit massive stations; just giant CPUs floating in space, basically. The structure for the station is present, though: the large towers are part of the station's impeller-based sensor network, reaching deep into space and reading other Beacons nearby, while the large structure hanging off the back is the processing centre of the station. The "boxes" on the end are massive heat-sinks, bleeding thermal energy away from the sensors and the processor and dissipating them as radiation into space.

This post has been edited by Delphi : 17 April 2012 - 12:24 PM

Come to think of it, I think I can improve the design by simply hacking off the tips of the sensor arms. They're just a little bit too spindly, and shortening them by removing the "Anything Piece" from the ends of them could help.

Though that previous station was nice, it just didn't quite sum up the intentions I had in mind for the Beacon. This more accurately depicts what it should be:

I'm pretty certain that I will keep this design and render it. It's just slightly more complex than it needs to be, but that'll be good at setting the proper scale of the object. Beacons are in no way a small type of station.

Oh, and when you activate it, the whole station slides apart slightly in the middle and lights up like fireworks! Instead of some sort of wormhole effect, you'll just see marker lights pulsating in sequence across its entire surface, but I think the whole look will still be VERY cool.

That does look better than the last one, and I always love to see what people do with the animations on those things.

Agreed. The original was nice, but it didn't have the 'Delphi' feel. Y'know, that feeling of something being large, bulky, and purpose-made but still AWESOME. The original was cool, but just didn't have that feeling.

I would still like to see it in the game, though. Maybe as a standard long-range monitoring station. Like something kept just behind a nation's borders to spy on events outside their border. Or even as a shipyard or dry dock. The 'antennae' look more like the arms from the Armature to me than antennae. Perhaps they're used to put together ship assemblies.

@darthkev, on 19 April 2012 - 09:15 PM, said in EVN - Delphi:

Or even as a shipyard or dry dock. The 'antennae' look more like the arms from the Armature to me than antennae. Perhaps they're used to put together ship assemblies.

I like the idea of it being used to put together assemblies. The piece does look like it's part of a gigantic shipyard and could be used for capital ship construction.

This post has been edited by king_of_manticores : 19 April 2012 - 10:50 PM

@delphi, on 16 April 2012 - 03:54 PM, said in EVN - Delphi:

I know the updates have slowed severely. I apologize for the long wait times between new information. I've been both planning and financing my own wedding coming up at the end of the summer, saving for a down payment on a house, and completing my university practicum (internship). It's been a bit of a full workload. When I get time, though, I do sit down on my laptop and get at least a little bit of work done here and there.

Over the years, I've had the satisfaction of being continually impressed by both the quality and amount of content for this project of yours, Delphi. It's been a fantastic journey just watching your progress, and I wish you the best both here and in your life.

Keep at it.

I'm trying to get the primary laser sound effects nailed down just the way I like them, and learning how to properly use Logic Pro 9 has been extremely helpful. Now, I just have to argue with getting them cut just exactly right, and then converted to 8 bit System 7 sounds. As it stands, I'm getting a lot of pops and clicks when SoundConverter processes them, in addition to them being slowed by about 20 percent during the pass-through. I may have to just increase the speed on all of them to offset the conversion problem.

@delphi, on 09 May 2012 - 04:03 AM, said in EVN - Delphi:

I may have to just increase the speed on all of them to offset the conversion problem.

I'd find it amusing if, after speeding up the sounds, the conversion process ends up speeding them even more. You'd end up with a universe where chipmunks are gunners.

So, here's a little bit of an important post regarding sounds and what I've discovered.

Nova supports an audio bit-rate far higher than I originally expected. In fact, it has absolutely no problem managing 16-bit sounds. This is significant because the 8-bit format that all of the original Nova audio was recorded in has a dry static crackle in the background because of the resolution loss. While 16 bit audio isn't as good as it gets, it's superior by enough a margin as to eliminate the background noise altogether. Similar to Nova, the Mac OS of the 90s apparently allowed higher bit-rate System 7 sounds; it just didn't take advantage of the higher format in most cases.

I found a free program, albeit for Mac OS 9 only, that allows conversion straight from a regular MP3 to a 16-bit System 7 sound.

SoundApp
http://www.mac.org/utilities/soundapp/

Also, because I know it baffled me for the longest time, here's a quick walkthrough of how to create your own sound, and bring it into Nova.

1. Produce your sound effect. This can be done using whatever program you like, or you can sample the sound effect from an existing audio file. Make sure that the file is an MP3 or a WAV format.
2. Using whatever means you have on hand, run Mac OS 9. My preferred method is via a Basilisk II emulator (68000 Mac Processor) such as SheepShaver. Or, if you have an old Mac sitting around, fire it up, brush off the dust, and see if it runs. Make sure you have a way to move files to and from the Mac if this is your method.
3. Open SoundApp and go to the File menu. Choose "Convert". Navigate to your file.
4. Specify the output as a System 7 Sound, in 16 bit format, at its original sample rate. Choose where the converted file will appear.
5. Open ResEdit, and use the program to open the System 7 sound you created. It will contain a SND resource. Open the collection, and select the sound ID that you created. Copy it.
6. Use ResEdit to open a copy of Nova Sounds, for easiest editing. This way, you already know what sound IDs to replace. MAKE SURE YOU ARE WORKING WITH A COPY OF THE ORIGINAL FILE. Delete the sound effect you are going to replace with your own, e.g. 208, the Light Blaster.
7. Paste your sound effect from the clipboard into the SND resource table. Give it the same ID as the sound you replaced, as well as a name.
8. Save the modified version of Nova Sounds.
9. If you want to make the sound available to others, you cannot just send out the Nova Sounds file. Back on your modern computer, use Mission Computer or another Nova editor and create a new plugin. Open your modified Nova Sounds file, and copy the sound you created from the file into the new plug. Save the plug, and distribute it with your new sound.

And in a workflow, for simplicity:

Sound -> MP3 -> Mac OS 9 -> SoundApp -> Convert to System 7 -> ResEdit -> Copy to Nova Sounds -> Mac OS X -> Mission Computer -> Copy from Nova Sounds to Plugin

I almost feel that I should make a similar post on the front page, because I know this one will become lost in the onward march of the thread and I noticed there are few instructions on putting sounds into Nova; especially no instructions on forcing high-resolution sounds into it.

As for Delphi, it means the gameplay and combat is going to sound great.

This image properly demonstrates my level of happiness.

I'll post a link to this in the 'Cool Nova Links' thread. That should help.

Holy crap, it's been a long time since my last post. I've been busy planning my upcoming August wedding, as well as the subsequent move to a new home, so there hasn't been a lot of time to work on the project. I did, however, get quite a bit of work done on various station models, and target icons. I've also started again into creating outfitter images, including these two, which also appear as physical models on some stations.

Nichron Turret - Single

These turrets are massive artillery pieces, and the energy requirements to fire and reposition them are so substantial that their placement is usually reserved for only the heaviest capital ships and, more commonly, space stations. This version, armed with a single high-yield Nichron Cannon, is commonly seen on defensive platforms placed in orbit above well-protected worlds in the core region.

Nichron Turret - Double

The double-barreled variant of the Nichron Turret is a lethal horror. Unlike the singular version, the energy output on the heavier turret is amplified, allowing a much higher damage potential compared to the smaller cannon. The venting around the base of the turret armature is increased, allowing larger quantities of superheated coolant to be vaporized and released during the weapon's operation. The sheer mass of this turret precludes the possibility of its use on anything other than a station, though. Even the mighty reactors of the largest starships fall short of the gun's energy requirements.

That looks pretty awesome, Delphi! And from one newlywed to a soon-to-be, congrats, and I hope your day goes perfect for you!

How did I miss these posts? :huh:

Awesome weapons, Delphi. And congratulations on your nuptials! Best of wishes to you and yours.