I too am planning an expansion for Ares. However, my set will include only net levels , except for a tutorial to explain the new ships. I expect for my set to be out before most single player expansions, and therefore I will provide use of my plugin to be incorporated into other plugins. As with others, I plan to increase ships, and my additions are as follows:

Non-Combat :

Astrominer-Same as Ishiman, except that all small resource portions provide 4 resources.
12 Resources

Research Ship-Same as Ishiman, except that it collects enemy units, builds detention cells, and provides information. No Hyperdrive.
10 Resources

Cargo Hauler-Used to transport large items from surface to space; power plant, artillery drone (A destructible, downgraded Flak), Moor, and a special racial construct. No Hyperdrive.
5 Resources

Combat :

Battleship-For the Obiards and the Bazidanese, whose fighters will suck , the equivalent of a carrier. (Don't waste unneccesary lives as fighter pilots!) Has Hyperdrive.
22 Resources

Interceptor-Little energy, a primary ammunition weapon, secondary ammunition weapon, and special ammunition homing weapon-one use defense drone at lower cost. Has Hyperdrive
4 Resources

Dreadnought-Extremely Large Battleship; Designed to decimate Capships, but completely defenseless against smaller ships. Has Hyperdrive.
42 Resources

Corvette-Heavy Destroyer compliment; Armored Better, but with less weapons. Designed to fly in front of the Heavy Destroyer; Destroyer fires over Corvette, while Corvette takes Damage
27 Resources

If possible, I will separate the build menu into multiple categories;
Small Combat : Fighter, Interceptor, Cruiser, Heavy Cruiser
Capships : Gunship, Carrier, Corvette, Heavy Destroyer, Dreadnought
Noncombat : Transport, Engineering Pod, Cargo Hauler, Research Ship, Astrominer, Assault Transport
Spatial Constructs : Power Station, Relay Station, Artilery Drone, Moor, Racial Construct

I plan to post a list of the racial constructs later, and soon as I can figure a way to get my graphics from my non-internet computer to my non-removable media computer ( :rolleyes: ), I will post them too.

Note: if you ever want to put rolleyes in parentheses, place a space between the rolleyes and the parentheses.

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No, I'm not that cruel. I don't use the flamethrower on my
enemies. I save that for my
allies.
-caalaklael, the trigger
happy obiard

(This message has been edited by caalaklael (edited 02-02-2000).)

hey, I got a great idea, im designing a star wars plugin (not EVERY single level will be based on star wars) and I plan to have an extensive list of multiplayer levels. Would you like to make you plans for levels part of my plugin? I already have a beta testor list, a digital artist, and a webpage for it in the makings. email me at judygeof@ix.netcom.com if you're interested.

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"Well try to kill them with a fork-lift!"
The Notorious Bounty
Hunter,
Boba Fett
judygeof@ix.netcom.com

I don't think splitting the menu is possable, but you could split the planet. Have 3 invisable sprites underneath the planet and assign them and the planet each to a catagory eg:
Berilium Beta<small combat>
Berilium Beta<large combat>
Berilium Beta<non combat>
Berilium Beta<special constructs>
would be the planet names. and it could make mp much more interesting, having 4 "planets" to conquer instead of one. Just call them spaceports or something.

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Commander-in-Chief of the Nijayias Interstellar Navy.

Oh, to transfer just use a localtalk network. Or if the computer in question is an iMac, a CD burner is a good investment. I would kill a Salrilian or several thousand for one.

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Commander-in-Chief of the Nijayias Interstellar Navy.

Damnit, there goes 20% of my copyrighted ideas.

Here's another big idea of mine... (Note: Use this without asking me, and you DIE.)

Remove building capabilities from planets altogether. The big problem with Ares, as I see it, is that the only way to stifle a planet's production is to a) land a transport on it, and babysit it. Neither is an actual tactic: Babysitting occurs usually in a planet switch situation, and transport landing almost NEVER happens when the other person's navy is around. So why not shift all building to space platforms? In all reality, no naval fleet would EVER abandon their home planet, orbital bombardment and all. So there should be some incentive to actually guard your planet. If all building capabilities were endowed in rather strong off-planet stations, you would need to leave guards around the station to prevent it from being destroyed.

As for astro-mining, I'm not so sure that's doable, until we see the editor. AFAIK, resources can only be generated by ships/stations/planets. There may be a cute trick around that, but we'll have to see. Same goes for tugging ships around. VERY cool idea, but I'm not sure it's workable. I was under the immpression that tugging doesn't really happen in single-player, that it's just a synchonized movement trick. I believe (although I'm not positive) that tugging ships NEVER change course, so it's quite possible that they're just both scripted to move to the same place, at the same speed, at the same time.

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Pax - Drew Harry
sagitar@earthlink.net
(url="http://"http://www.axis.n3.net/")Ares Axis - axis.n3.net(/url)

"...they say that every five minutes someone dies in a car accident, but how often are there seven hundred and sixty one armless and legless corpses in one hangar?" - Terminal 2, Where are monsters in dreams, Marathon Infinity

I think you are right about the tugging. But maybe caalaklael (can I call you caal?) could script something. Can built objects have built-in scripts, Grammaticus?

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Commander-in-Chief of the Nijayias Interstellar Navy.

caalaklael is my internet name. I'm planning on using Pallas Athene for Ares multiplayer and as signatures for levels.
Pick one (All are correct)
A) Pallas,
Pal,
C) Caal, or
D) Klael

------------------
No, I'm not that cruel. I don't use the flamethrower on my
enemies. I save that for my
allies.
-caalaklael, the trigger
happy obiard

(This message has been edited by caalaklael (edited 02-29-2000).)

Pax, your ideas are sort of being used. The time to place my list of specialized race constructs is here.
Ishiman and Cantharan: Gateships (too large to fully assemble on ground)
Audemedon: Hyperspace inhibitor- drop out of hyperspace (sort of like the jumpgate inhibitor)
Salrillian: Omnicloak Device-Stationary, cloaks all friendly ships in radius
Gaitori: Habitat Station
Bazidanese: Trading outpost-permanently in Bazidanese control, gives resource bonus when a non-Bazidanese cargo ship brings resources.
Eleejeetian: Normally Eleejeetian Ships don't have many weapons, just armor, but the Armory converts the armor into weaponry, making the ship better balanced. It also refills ammo for ships.
Obish: Orbital Shipyard
Human: Outpost
Grolk: Starport-armed producer of small ships
I think I'll just make the Habitat Station, Orbital Shipyard, and Starport all destructible--if it wouldn't offend you of course.

And by the way-the Cargo Hauler will store everything internally-It's a charge to its special weapon with a special note to what it is carrying.

------------------
No, I'm not that cruel. I don't use the flamethrower on my
enemies. I save that for my
allies.
-caalaklael, the trigger
happy obiard
------------------
And by the way, the non-race-specific constructs are "Power Station, Relay Station, Moor, Artillery Drone."

(This message has been edited by caalaklael (edited 02-03-2000).)

And another response-Darkk, maybe your idea could be combined with Pax's. Why not divide the planet in to 4 quadrants. Each would be randomly assigned to do something-One part producng resources, one part producing ships, maybe a part armed with planetary defenses, and one constructing spatial platforms. Of course, these could be in any combination, to create an interestingly off balance planet. Of course, each would have to have at least on section producing resources, and one section producing ships, but imagine how quickly you could storm your opponent if you got 3 resource producing and one ship producing quadrant

..Roger..this is cruiser two reporting in..I see two carriers, a battleship..They seem to have seen me..when did you say the battleship would be ready?..(tomorrow)..Oh, ****..<<static>>

------------------
No, I'm not that cruel. I don't use the flamethrower on my
enemies. I save that for my
allies.
-caalaklael, the trigger
happy obiard

Mmmm. AFAIK, most of those mentioned ideas wouldn't work. I'm 90% sure you can't, for example, have an "area cloak" ship, have items "stored" in their own ships, and I'm pretty sure you can't have ships pull other ships out of hyper. As Grammaticus mentioned in the Hera Interview, remember to restrict yourself to stuff that you know has been done in the actual game, and make sure to think about HOW it's done. The hyperspace inhibitor was just a plot device, note that you could enter HS in that level. So while wild creativity is a good thing, don't lose site on what's been done before, and what CAN be done.

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Pax - Drew Harry
sagitar@earthlink.net
(url="http://"http://www.axis.n3.net/")Ares Axis - axis.n3.net(/url)

"...they say that every five minutes someone dies in a car accident, but how often are there seven hundred and sixty one armless and legless corpses in one hangar?" - Terminal 2, Where are monsters in dreams, Marathon Infinity

Sheesh, I should remember to think of all the responses next time.
Boba, Yes, I would like to make more multiplayer missions. Although my plugin would be first priority (naturally). I also have a book which lists almost every ship in the galaxy of Star Wars and one that lists the technology. I'd like to render the Hapan forces and the Ssi-ruuk if you don't mind. There aren't many ships for either, if you've ever heard of them. And did you know that you can outfit a Carrack with a cloaking device?

And the Hapans conquered the Galaxy in one brilliant Stroke...

------------------
No, I'm not that cruel. I don't use the flamethrower on my
enemies. I save that for my
allies.
-caalaklael, the trigger
happy obiard

Maybe I couldn't do the hyperspace inhibitor, or the Omni-cloak, but I think most of the others would work fine. The Orbital Shipyard, Starport, Outpost, Gateships, and Habitat Station would definately work, and I think I can tweak it so that the Armory takes a ship and produces a new ship with the desired characteristics. I think the Trading post would work if the Astrominer did. Actually, maybe I should change the Audemedon construct to a systems inhibitor - I know that the magnetic pulse can be done. We'll have to see about the Salrillians.

The Cargo ship would have to land on a friendly planet to pick up an item, and then it would be replaced as a "Cargo ship; moor" or a "Cargo ship; power." It would then fly to the insertion point and fire the special weapon, at which point it would disappear and be replaced by a "Cargo ship; empty" again.

------------------
No, I'm not that cruel. I don't use the flamethrower on my
enemies. I save that for my
allies.
-caalaklael, the trigger
happy obiard

(This message has been edited by caalaklael (edited 02-02-2000).)

Darkk says 6 ships per planet? Doh! Now I'll have to create moons. But that could be interesting too...

------------------
No, I'm not that cruel. I don't use the flamethrower on my
enemies. I save that for my
allies.
-caalaklael, the trigger
happy obiard

There is no reason the ship-producing segments can't make resources.

------------------
Commander-in-Chief of the Nijayias Interstellar Navy.

I know that they can produce both, but the point is that you have to rely on different sections for different things. That way you can sabotage someone by either taking over the resource or the ship producing area.

------------------
No, I'm not that cruel. I don't use the flamethrower on my
enemies. I save that for my
allies.
-caalaklael, the trigger
happy obiard

Or you could devide the planet into sections like I said...

------------------
Commander-in-Chief of the Nijayias Interstellar Navy.

No, you thought of multiple planets in the same place. I thought of the planet being divided into NW, NE, SW, SE.

------------------
No, I'm not that cruel. I don't use the flamethrower on my
enemies. I save that for my
allies.
-caalaklael, the trigger
happy obiard

Actually, hyperspace can be inhibited by a scrambler weapon. A turreted, scrambler, maximum-speed weapon could function like an area around a ship in which hyperspace does not work, but it would only be able to nail one ship at a time, the closest one, if multiple ships were moving there. Just the tiniest nudge of scrambling would bring a ship out of hyperspace momentarily.

And yes, tugging is synchronized movement. You'll notice in level 13 that if you click on the liner (once it is secure and you can select it) that its orders are listed as 'Tractor Tug' - it's following the tug. Notice also that the tractor tug does not have any tractor weapon that it could be aiming at the liner. Interestingly enough, the liner produces resources once secure... but not until then.

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Replicant
www.axis.n3.net

I thought about that, but when you think about it, weapon fire doesn't pull you out of hyperspace, or prevent you from entering it. The only thing, as I see it, that can be done with weapons is determine whether or not weapons can hurt ships in hyperspace. For example, collisions don't matter in HS, but running in a green asteroid WILL kill you in HS. But I don't think that means the asteroid pulls you out of HS, just that it deals collision damage to in-HS ships.

------------------
Pax - Drew Harry
sagitar@earthlink.net
(url="http://"http://www.axis.n3.net/")Ares Axis - axis.n3.net(/url)

"...they say that every five minutes someone dies in a car accident, but how often are there seven hundred and sixty one armless and legless corpses in one hangar?" - Terminal 2, Where are monsters in dreams, Marathon Infinity

It would work the same way, and you wouldn't need to make new sprites. Same diff. You could still call it that, and still have it located that way. You could even make the sprite non-selectable like a star.

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Commander-in-Chief of the Nijayias Interstellar Navy.