5/5 4 5H33R AW350M3N355!
five out of five for sheer awesomeness!

I love your work Delphi. Have you considered graphical design as a career?

SO MUCH FREAKING DETAIL!!!! I CAN SEE A GIANT MOUNTAIN ON THE PLANET SURFACE!!!!!!!!!!!

Delphi, one day we could hope to aspire to your greatness.

QUOTE (EKHawkman @ Oct 10 2009, 11:07 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Delphi, one day we could hope to aspire to your greatness.

I couldn't even hope to...

Let's just hope Nova won't limit Delphi, because I see some unbridled potential here.

QUOTE (Delphi @ Oct 8 2009, 10:20 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Okay, in honesty I didn't make the asteroids (of course), but I'm not likely changing them from the original version because there's really nothing that can be improved. They look like rocks, and they break apart.

If I were to make a TC, I would add another class of asteroid that looked like ship parts. Only seen as space debris in high-combat systems. These could be blown up and the chemicals/metal harvested, depending on the object. (fuel tanks, wings, radar systems, etc.)

But that's just my take.

QUOTE (Insomniac @ Oct 12 2009, 12:00 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

If I were to make a TC, I would add another class of asteroid that looked like ship parts. Only seen as space debris in high-combat systems. These could be blown up and the chemicals/metal harvested, depending on the object. (fuel tanks, wings, radar systems, etc.)

But that's just my take.

That's downright brilliant. I like the idea. I've actually be trying out different effects using non-purchasable hangars and specialty ships that look like debris, so that I can incorporate a mission in which you are ordered to steal a full piece of hardware from an enemy ship, but instead of the usual disabling the ship and taking its cargo, you outright destroy it and on death it releases its single carried fighter, which starts disabled; the piece of equipment you're supposed to remove. You board the debris and remove all the internal components and report back. I don't know, it just seems to make more sense than telling you to board the enemy ship, steal an entire weapon (an integral part of the hull, I might add), and just run off without expecting bad things to happen with hull integrity and all that. I'd say it'd make more sense to blow up the craft and salvage the remains.

Either way, I REALLY like the idea of debris asteroids. May I use that, as long as you are credited in the project?

Actually, I just had a clever idea. Could it be possible to give a gigantic ship a hangar bay capable of holding an entire cruiser-sized ship? I mean, the bays are custom-tailored to only accept a certain type of ship, so if you provided a ship with a zero-weight, mission-only bay, could you create a mission in which you take your carrier to an enemy system, disable an enemy cruiser, and then capture it into your bay for processing? It'd be a little Borg-like, but it could be ultimately very cool to steal an entire enemy flagship right out of the system. I figure if it worked anything like regular fighters, which you can "board" to repair and then recall, it should be applicable to a "fighter" with a jumbo sprite, like for instance, a cruiser. It would of course be a unique ship just for that mission, so you don't go amassing a fleet of cruisers in your bay, but it'd make a good technology-stealing mission.

Think of the opening scene from Star Wars IV.

I don't know; ideas, criticisms, logical fallacies?

This post has been edited by Delphi : 12 October 2009 - 03:32 PM

That would be neat. And not all that difficult to do, either. I can just see a huge ship appearing out of hyperspace, grabbing the enemy's capital ship and jumping out again before the fleet knew what hit them.

It's pretty plausible, but only questionably practical. I've tossed the idea around a bit too and ended up with only the next few grades up from fighters and bombers as carriable, since with anything too big it kinda straddles the line between "what's the point?" and "is it possible not to make this ridiculously overpowered?"

Still, it does open up some interesting possibilities. Think of modern-day frigates that hold a platform for attack copters. That's some serious hurtin' potential.

The "cruiser-hangar" idea would be very easy from a programming standpoint.

Another idea, if you don't want to add a dreadnought-sized ship, is to have a "capture-ship", which, is a somewhat smaller ship (say, destroyer or battleship sized) that basically latches onto a disabled craft, and flies it off. You could have it change sprites when it fills its bay, somehow; I don't know exactly how, but I'd be willing to bet there'd be a way.

Yet another way would be to change the player's ship when you board it, though that also comes with difficulties.

You could use keycarried ships to make it change it's sprite when it captured the ship couldn't you?

QUOTE (Archon @ Oct 12 2009, 05:30 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It's pretty plausible, but only questionably practical. I've tossed the idea around a bit too and ended up with only the next few grades up from fighters and bombers as carriable, since with anything too big it kinda straddles the line between "what's the point?" and "is it possible not to make this ridiculously overpowered?"

Still, it does open up some interesting possibilities. Think of modern-day frigates that hold a platform for attack copters. That's some serious hurtin' potential.

Well, like I said, it'd be mission specific. The mission would only be offered if you have a ship of a certain size, and the bay would be applied invisibly to your ship when you start the mission. The mission could be something like "Go to System A and capture the new enemy Tech Frigate, and then return to System B." Upon mission completion the "fighter" would be automatically removed from your outfit list as well as the bay handling it, never to be seen again. It'd waste an outfit resource, but the mission would be very cool to execute, when you fly right over the enemy ship and almost literally eat it up.

It'd lay out like this from a Nova engine standpoint:

1. On accept, add outfit "Cruiser Hangar"
2. On arrive, warp in target ship.
3. Disable enemy ship, "Cruiser"
4. "Repair" enemy ship.
5. Recall now-friendly ship to hangar bay.
6. Return to mission destination.
7. Remove 1 "Cruiser" and 1 "Cruiser Hangar".

True, you could potentially launch the ship back out again, but that'd make a certain amount of sense anyways, as completely capturing a ship like that would definitely give you the chance to repair the systems and re-crew the vessel, especially if you have a ship large enough to completely carry the smaller one in the first place. The mission wouldn't complete unless it finds the ship in your bay though. Not 100% sure how I'd ensure that, but whatever.

This post has been edited by Delphi : 12 October 2009 - 10:48 PM

QUOTE

You could use keycarried ships to make it change it's sprite when it captured the ship couldn't you?

That's the one! I knew there was something, I just couldn't remember exactly what.

QUOTE

4. "Repair" enemy ship.
5. Recall now-friendly ship to hangar bay.

I'm pretty sure Nova says something like "You added the fighter to your bay", and it gets added in automatically. If you wanted to, you may be able to find the string, and say "You added the ship to your bay"

QUOTE

The mission wouldn't complete unless it finds the ship in your bay though. Not 100% sure how I'd ensure that, but whatever.

You could add a mission bit to the "fighter" ammo outfit.

QUOTE

True, you could potentially launch the ship back out again, but that'd make a certain amount of sense anyways, as completely capturing a ship like that would definitely give you the chance to repair the systems and re-crew the vessel, especially if you have a ship large enough to completely carry the smaller one in the first place.

Archon solved this problem, but it prevents you from using primary weapons while you have the ship. The You Can't Fire Beam: an invisible, short, no-damage beam that fires below the ship, has a reload of zero, and the "prevent other weapons from firing while this weapon fires" flag. Make the docking bay a primary weapon. Make sure the You Can't Fire Beam is a lower resource ID than the docking bay. Finally, any weapon with a resource ID lower than the Y.C.F.B. can shoot once every time you tap the space bar, but no more. Giving the YCFB a really long burst reload may make it more reliable, and will stop the primaries from firing more than once. Since you're doing a TC, you could put it as weap. 128, if you want to.

Incidentally , I also like your idea of blowing up a ship and salvaging its remains. It's all good stuff. You also may be able to use the "do not show running lights when ship is disabled" option for interesting effects. In my opinion, the more atypical (i.e. not strictly "go here" or "kill this") missions in a plug, the better. They're a lot harder, of course, but set it apart from the past 13 (holy crap!) years of Escape Velocity Plug-ins.

I almost wish there was a way to modify the opacity of running lights, because you could make some interesting modifications for disabled ships, almost like changing a keycarried sprite. If the running light opacity could be set to 100%, a sprite could be permanently laid over that of the ship: its "alive" state. Then, when disabled the ship could change to a completely different sprite because the running lights could be disabled.

Oh well.

QUOTE (n64mon @ Oct 13 2009, 06:28 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

QUOTE (Delphi @ Oct 13 2009, 03:46 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The mission wouldn't complete unless it finds the ship in your bay though. Not 100% sure how I'd ensure that, but whatever.

You could add a mission bit to the "fighter" ammo outfit.

I don't think you can ensure that with a mission bit, as they only get activated OnPurchase, not if you just happen to have one. It should also be noted that you can't dXXX a launched fighter.
However, a contribute bit could work for this.
Unlike oXXX, the contribute bit is only true if the item is currently on you ship, launched fighters don't count.

You might have to do the detection with crons, or something.

EDIT: need to read things through better...

This post has been edited by Sp3cies : 29 October 2009 - 04:28 AM

I believe there is a flag for "no running lights when disabled." I might have another solution for your fighter bay problem, but it is completely untested and entirely hypothetical. I discovered when attempting to make a shuttlebay for a plug of Serenity that if you make the carried fighter a non-sellable outfit, the bay cannot launch the fighters. I am unsure if this would mean that it renders the whole bay useless, however. You might be able to capture the ship, add it to your fleet, recall it to the bay, and then it refuses to launch from there. I am not positive about this. It may not recall it to the bay at all.

Another possible solution is that "OnBoard" in the mission programming, you could possibly cause the target ship to die/disappear, and grant the player an outfit of the key carried ship. I don't know if the engine can tell if the ship has a key carried ship, but no bay from which to launch it. If it recognizes only the carried ship as the flag, then it would be possible to grant the outfit, change the sprite, tow it back to base, and all without the player being granted the option of relaunching the captured ship.

Again, both of these are hypothetical and untested, just theories.

Contemplates prostrating on floor for Delphi

Decides not to

Anyway, I saw this a year back or so, looked amazing! Now it's even better!
Your work is awesome to behold, I only wish that I could figure out greebling for ships.

-K

QUOTE (Kasofa1 @ Oct 15 2009, 11:28 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Contemplates prostrating on floor for Delphi

Decides not to

Anyway, I saw this a year back or so, looked amazing! Now it's even better!
Your work is awesome to behold, I only wish that I could figure out greebling for ships.

-K

To be honest, I do all my own greebling, but it helps to create a universally-applicable model that you can glue all over the detail areas if you want to save some time. A long time back I created this weird-looking arm thing with lots of detail and I've been including it in almost every model since because it distorts and bends quite nicely to create the illusion of extra detail wherever I place it.

However, you can also go and download greebling plug-ins for certain 3D programs. I know I came across one for LightWave a long time back, and it looked pretty solid. When it comes down to it though, it's really just random model surface detail, and if you have the time and the energy, it's really easy to do it yourself.

I got this amazing new app for iPhone / iPod Touch called Sketchbook, from the guys who make AutoCAD. It let's you draw on your display using just your fingers, like digital finger paint; if your fingers had built-in airbrushes and layer support, that is. Anyway, I scribbled up this picture of an NDC "Archon" Heavy Trooper's powered helmet. It's not content you'll really see in the plug, but it's flavor material in the universe so it is relevant to an extent.