Oh, that brings up a good question! How hard will it be to build up to a nice useable ship and to join the storylines?

QUOTE (EKHawkman @ May 20 2010, 06:11 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Oh, that brings up a good question! How hard will it be to build up to a nice useable ship and to join the storylines?

You actually start automatically on the NDC story line, the victim of an unexplainable phenomenon that left you stranded in an escape pod for more than fifteen months. The pod did its best to keep you alive, but slowly the oxygen ran out, and it was forced to put you into stasis, where gradual brain damage began to occur. Though this is a trivial thing for medicine of the 2800's, the higher-ups still want you on temporary probation while you recover, in case any of your command abilities were compromised by the accident. Over time you'll regain access to technology and starships that you were supposedly well-versed in before the story begins. The Enclave story line comes in as a sort of thorn in your side, with a few opportunities to pursue it along the course of the main game. You'll find NDC story missions in which you are attacked by the same Enclave officer over and over, and he always seem curiously reluctant to destroy you outright.

I just always found it strange that if you played your cards right in Nova, you could go from piloting a Starbridge to captaining a Federation Carrier and a full fleet to complement it. I figure, if you already knew how to from the beginning, but just didn't have the permission, it'd make more sense when over just a few scant months you go from flying cargo in a shuttle to raining fiery artillery down upon an enemy world from your battleship.

So, to answer your question: it'll be easier than you might initially assume, simply because the story line is designed to be completed in whatever ship you so happen to have. In certain situations, you'll get side-missions that are specific regarding your ship type (like the passenger missions for the luxury liner in Nova), but for the most part, a ridiculously skilled player could finish the main campaign in a shuttle.

Awesome, cause it was really annoying during the beginning of Nova trying to get a ship that you can actually do anything in, like kill people, and to get into almost all the stories killing people was necessary.

Will there be a definite and full Enclave story-line? Like the Fed-Rebel line where you start in Fed and go to Rebels and it is an entire line? Or will it be more or less the NDC line but you occasionally help out the Enclave?

QUOTE (Delphi @ May 20 2010, 06:24 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

... but for the most part, a ridiculously skilled player could finish the main campaign in a shuttle.

In other words, Qaanol would be perfect at this TC. In fact, I'm actually expecting him to post that he's done it after you release this project of yours, Delphi. :laugh: You readin' this, Qaanol?

So the game will be balanced, but not so much so that you need one particular ship and weapons configuration for each mission. More or less correct?

@DarthKev
I hope not. The Rebel storyline was waaaay too ridiculously easy because of that.

Either Delphi creates obstacles the player needs to worry about, or he makes an Insane difficulty plug that makes it so that you'll be forced to think about your equipment before entering battle.

QUOTE (king_of_manticores @ May 20 2010, 09:04 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

@DarthKev
I hope not. The Rebel storyline was waaaay too ridiculously easy because of that.

Just the Rebels?

QUOTE

Either Delphi creates obstacles the player needs to worry about, or he makes an Insane difficulty plug that makes it so that you'll be forced to think about your equipment before entering battle.

Well obviously, that's part of balancing. Of course there'd be some tweaking. I meant more like you could keep your main guns more-or-less the same, but you might need to make minor alterations like changing missile load-outs, fighter compliments, those kinds of things. Sorry I wasn't clear.

Actually, now that I think about it, that goes the same for the Feds, really.

Your second point was my problem with Nova--I could just use one loadout the entire game and I'd still be good. I remember beating the Rebel storyline with plug-ins and a Leviathan. I don't think it's really possible to ramp up difficulty through your method, because if all else fails, you have your main guns.

Unless you want a boatload of troops versus the player, which would take some planning.

Just scribbling in 3D here, and I think I may have something I like.

I'm not entirely sure if it's a keeper (it's really late and I'm tired), but it looks AMAZING from the right distance (Nova perspective), though some of the side shots are a little awkward. If I use the model, I think it'd make a fantastic carrier in the Dominant hull class.

Also, for those who haven't read the entire thread (and I don't blame you), a "Dominant" is a type of super-heavy cruiser; a ship so large that they often can't even dock with conventional space stations (hey look, more parentheses!), because their own massive size eclipses most fixed stellar structures. They are few in the Delphi TC, and are the pinnacle of advanced starship design. The Raven would probably be the closest comparison from Nova, simply for its sheer destructive power.

The largest dominant is the NCV Chrenari, a colossal mobile weapons platform just under 73 km in length. The ship itself is actually cumbersomely unwieldy, requiring the escort of a smaller sister ship, the NCV Mejiaro, for general protection during combat operations. The Chrenari is simply too massive to turn the entire ship to bring its weapons to bear on a moving target. However, the ship excels in its original function: the near-complete annihilation of enemy planetary surface facilities and sometimes even pieces of a planet's crust, under prolonged firing.

The Chrenari is the only ship in the entire NDC fleet that carries a continuous-fire variant of the venerable Nichron cannon; a prototype update to the classic mainstay enabling it to sustain a focused beam of concentrated thermonuclear force. However, the energy requirements of the weapon demand that it is only to be used as a last measure, either if the ship is presumed lost and must complete its bombardment mission in one final strike before detonation, or if the parameters of the mission necessitate a prohibitively quick entry, assault, and escape. Once fired, the weapon must jettison its nuclear matter and return to non-combat space for a refit; the core burns out and damages/destroys several adjoining systems after only a few minutes of firing.

A carrier was my first thought upon seeing that beast, too. The huge frontal cavity would be perfect for launching fleets of spacecraft from in droves at a time.

Regarding the continuous-fire Nichron Cannon, have you figured out a way to enforce the risks of using one on the player? A weapon that damages the player's ship upon firing simply because it uses that much power is an intriguing prospect I'd love to try out. In fact, the possibilities I could come up with in using such a weapon in-game could be considered maniacal. :ninja:

This sounds like a beam weapon, so my idea wouldn't work here, but one way to create a weapon that damages the ship simply by firing would be to use submunitions, I think. This is just a theory. Create a weapon that subs after 1 frame, explodes on submunitioning (I think you can do this...) and can damage the player's ship. EVNEW is down for me at the moment, so I can't test this or confirm this right at the moment.

QUOTE (krugeruwsp @ May 21 2010, 11:12 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

This sounds like a beam weapon, so my idea wouldn't work here, but one way to create a weapon that damages the ship simply by firing would be to use submunitions, I think. This is just a theory. Create a weapon that subs after 1 frame, explodes on submunitioning (I think you can do this...) and can damage the player's ship. EVNEW is down for me at the moment, so I can't test this or confirm this right at the moment.

Well, you can't do it with a beam weapon, but otherwise all you have to do is activate the "Shot detonates at end of lifespan" flag, then follow the above procedure.

Also, weapons damage the player by default; you actually have to deactivate this with a flag or by setting the blast radius to 0 if you want the weapon to be, say, a shaped charge that directs its blast only in one direction. (I've noticed this in EVN: if you fire a radar missile at point-blank range, your ship will take minor damage.)

Right. I could visualize how to do this, but with EVNEW down at the moment, I couldn't recall the exact flags to set.

Slow days at university give me lots of time to stick ship pieces together. I made this chunky behemoth of a vessel, definitely bound to fall under the Heavy Cruiser category. It almost makes me think of a combination between the Alexander Class and the Harbinger Class. Either way, I'm pretty happy with the design. We'll have to see what I decide to do with it.

Wow.
That'd probably be good enough for use untextured... looks amazing.

Are you still using the same cover-all textures you were using back in the previous screenshots? Just wondering. Will look great regardless of how you texture it (Well, maybe avoid puke green w/ magenta).

I saw that, and I literally gasped, not figuratively, literally. I saw it and it was just so cool looking! Very, very nice delphi!

QUOTE (Technomancer @ May 25 2010, 01:08 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Wow.
That'd probably be good enough for use untextured... looks amazing.

Are you still using the same cover-all textures you were using back in the previous screenshots? Just wondering. Will look great regardless of how you texture it (Well, maybe avoid puke green w/ magenta).

Well, damn. I was so close to doing it, too.

For those interested, here's a little data table comparing the silhouettes of the different hull classes and sizes. This isn't in the SLIGHTEST a full chart; just five ships, one from each of the "warship"-sized hull categories.

Delphi Ship Chart (Link)

This post has been edited by Delphi : 25 May 2010 - 04:55 PM

Also, I'm going to be doing a quick remodel of the Alexander Class some time soon. Now that I've been empowered with the face-crunching abilities of SketchUp 7 (it's funny 'cuz I'm talkin' about polygon faces!), I can see from my own chart that it needs some extra detailing.

Also, thanks to of doom, EKHawkman, and the venerable David Arthur for visiting my little thread.

EDIT: And Shlimazel, too! It's like a party in here!

This post has been edited by Delphi : 25 May 2010 - 04:50 PM

I'm not sure what you did in that first post on the page, but whatever it is killing my browser. Could you edit that please?

QUOTE (Shlimazel @ May 25 2010, 02:48 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I'm not sure what you did in that first post on the page, but whatever it is killing my browser. Could you edit that please?

Could be the image I uploaded. It's rather big. I'll change the IMG tag into a link, so people can click it and view instead of forcing it to be embedded in the forum page.

I love the Alexander on the comparison chart. Its size suggests that it eats Mars class corvettes for breakfast.