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Curwen Wrote: **Lately I've been dreaming of doing a TC based on Dan Simmons' Hyperion books. (before or after the Fall, take your pick... one could actually make at least two TC's of this...)
Unfortunately I have neither the time nor the inclination to undertake such a massive task on my own, so I'm just offering this as an idea; if anyone wants to give it a try then by all means go for it.
I might even help working out the basic settings (star map, worlds, factions, position of the player in all this...) & ship designs and writing the scenario and mission texts, but I simply can't spare the time to do any intensive graphics or plug building work - though I would like to, believe me. (My 3D modeling skills have gone a bit rusty, anyway)
So if anyone's interested...
Hmmm... my very own Templar tree-ship... loses all contact with reality again**
Note: I thought about it and I believe this is where some have said plug ideas are supposed to go, so I am reposting this here from the regular EVN board
I am reposting this because I think the hyperion series, all 4 of them, are a fine series with a decent plot and would make a great TC, and it seems as if the post was forgotten/ignored in the thread it was posted on, although foundation is a nice series as well (although I have not read it personally as yet).
If anyone else would want to take this project up I would be happy to lend any plug-in (non-graphical) related assistance that you would need, as well as information about the series if need be, as I have all 4 books of it right next to me. If noone else wants to undertake it, I would also be happy to do it myself but that would mean it will take a good while, and I would need any graphical assistance that I could find. Anyways thats my spiel, have fun, and a nice day, and most of all, free the vell-os! (ok I couldn't resist, sue me.. not literally)
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Wait, there's 4? I thought Endymion was the last. Hm. They're good books anyway.
Divals
------------------ "And then god did come up from heaven and said, 'Do my bidding, you pitiful, powerless, weak humans! Go and spread my li... er, I mean truth, throughout the world!' And then he did laugh most evilly, and the planet of Mososuis did split in half, with one half becoming the moon, and the other half, bearing all its inhabitants, did fly into the sun. Yes." -from the Book of Relics, planet Rikka Ever wonder if illiterate people get the full effect of alphabet soup? (url="http://"mailto:micahg@microserve.net")mailto:micahg@microserve.net(/url)micahg@microserve.net
Hyperion, Fall of Hyperion, Endymion, Rise of Endymion and yes, I personally think they are a very good series
We should meat on irc.ambrosia.net. Just put your eggdrop up there in #hyperion and i will find it...we should probably set up a time.
CeRD
------------------ (url="http://"http://CeRD.total-x.org")This is my happy little site!(/url) | | Cheer up...the worst is yet to come.
Quote
Originally posted by CeRD: **We should meat on irc.ambrosia.net. **
Ummmm, meat...
------------------ (url="http://"http://www.wheenit.com/monkey-robot/")www.wheenit.com/monkey-robot/(/url)
Originally posted by CeRD: **We should meat on irc.ambrosia.net. Just put your eggdrop up there in #hyperion and i will find it...we should probably set up a time.
**
I'll do that, my email as I think I said before but on the main EVN board is hyperion@evmaker.cjb.net, I'll have to contact ambrosia or someone to see if I can get permission to run the eggdrop on the server
--Shade18
Update: Got permission from moki to run the eggdrop on channel #hyperion on irc.ambrosia.net, the bots Juggy, meet you on the channel sometime (setup meeting time via email?) ------------------
(This message has been edited by Shade18 (edited 04-25-2002).)
(This message has been edited by Shade18 (edited 04-26-2002).)
I am in #hyperion often...so we can meet whenever for the most part...i'm flexible.
I haven't posted on Thursday (as I promised) because I was stupid enough to forget most of my notes at work - and I'm not going back there during the weekend. But I'll put together a short list with basic suggestions asap.
In my case most communication will have to go mostly via e-mail (cell23@mac.com) or the EV dev board, I'm afraid.
And as said, I'm prepared to help out with graphics and writing.
BTW, concerning my offer to do some rendering work: I only have Infini-D version 3.something and an old beta version of Bryce 2 (which works pretty well though, except for some tools that invariably crash the program), and recently downloaded Strata3D 3.0.2 - still have to see what I can do with that one. I have a copy of Bryce 4 at work, but that's a Windows version so I can't use it at home anyway. In other words: I may have spoken a bit hastily... So if any help with 3D stuff would be needed, you may have to provide me with a copy of the software you used (damn, I can't believe this: I'm actually encouraging software piracy on a shareware company's web boards...)
------------------ "I have learned silence from the talkative, tolerance from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet, strangely, I am ungrateful to these teachers." -- Kahlil Gibran
OK, some first ideas, up to discussion:
1. star map:
Put LOTS of empty systems in there, and make navigation a bit more difficult (lots of dead ends etc.). I'm thinking of a blend of Auroran space in EVN and the solar system from that EVO plug, Galaxy's Edge. I can't remember what the maximum number of systems is for EVN, but I'm sure we can build a HUGE star map now...
Many of the empty systems will be really empty (I mean, other ships passing by will be a rare sight indeed) so solar panels and battery packs will be essential. IMO, anyone stupid enough to venture into deep space without adequate supplies deserves to be removed from the gene pool by choking/freezing/starving to death.
This should somewhat simulate the disadvantages of actual space travel (time debt), and encourage people to use the farcasters/hypergates as much as possible. And of course, that will make the Fall much more of a shock - as it should be.
Yes, i'm feeling a bit evil today
Access to the farcaster system should be given fairly easy (maybe a little more difficult than in Nova, I don't know...) but there should be a small fee for making use of the 'casters. (this will be offset by the fact that you will almost never have to pay for recharging, so don't make that fee too small either - if you don't want to pay, you can always fly somewhere the old fashioned way, right?)
1b. spobs:
quick sug: it would be nice to make multiple ports on some planets, as in the Frozen Heart. With the increased max. number of spobs in Nova, this would be very cool.
And with the new features of the Nova engine, the destruction of God's Grove, Heaven's Gate and those other worlds could now take place in front of the player's very eyes, rather than setting it with a mission bit and swapping systems... Using the overlapping spob trick and placing a "before" spob over the (then still unlandable) "after" spob, we could also do this without making the whole world blow up and have it reappear again later. (I don't know if I'm making sense here...)
2. ship designs:
I've been making some rough, random sketches (couldn't help myself, even though I know I probably won't be doing the 3D stuff), but if anyone knows of some available reference material beside the books themselves, I would really appreciate hearing about it.
I noticed I was making a lot of stuff with rotating sections (like the Auroran cruiser or the Leviathan) even though this isn't really correct - in Hyperion, force fields were used abundantly, also for creating artificial gravity. Still, those rotating sections would look quite cool... any thoughts on this?
Here too, it might (or might not) be a good idea to stay closer to reality: no space battle will ever be fought at close quarters ŕ la Star Wars. Not when you have so much space available (literally).
In other words: no Thunderhead lances anymore, I'd like to see more long-range weapons - but not so much as to take the fun out of it, of course.
Also, I'd go for having less weapons that pack a much larger punch, and less weapons space, to make outfitting your ship a bit more challenging. That's right, no more ships loaded with every kind of blaster (or FPC, yeah) available and ten different kinds of missiles/torpedoes, with room to spare for a couple of fighter bays and and a ****load of reactors, shield upgrades and the like... Choose, and choose very wisely - your life may depend on it <wicked grin>
3. storyline:
This is probably obvious, but I would suggest letting the player advance in a storyline that runs parallel to that of the books - you can encounter any of the main characters and get involved in whatever they are involved in, but you cannot actually play as one of them.
(although I suppose that could be done, but we'd have to add a lot ourselves to make it interesting - with the exception of the Consul, Kassad and perhaps Het Masteen, I don't see any of the characters flying around in a spaceship very much)
Of course, this still leaves a lot of options open: one could be an independent trader/mercenary, or a FORCE serviceman, or a spy (like the Consul...). Playing as a Templar or a scientist (sort of like Rachel or M. Arundez) might also be feasible.
Hell, and why not throw in some "semi-official" pirate factions like the Free Traders, too. This is still EV, after all.
Just my two cents...
4. miscellaneous graphics stuff:
Yeah, I might as well start working on that. Make a new title screen, start on the intro text etc...
I prefer very simple, graphic stuff, no bombastic screens full of exploding ships and space battles etc. I like it a bit dark and brooding (but not too much) without any "fancy" stuff, so the player has as little as possible knowledge of what to expect.
Shade18, CeRD and others who wish to contribute: as soon as I have something worth showing, I'll upload it somewhere and send the link via e-mail, so we can discuss it.
Originally posted by Curwen: **OK, some first ideas, up to discussion:
This should somewhat simulate the disadvantages of actual space travel (time debt), and encourage people to use the farcasters/hypergates as much as possible. And of course, that will make the Fall much more of a shock - as it should be. **
Agree totally
Agree, especially considering farcaster access was availible to near everyone in the hegemony, and they took extreme measures to make sure the Ousters didn't get ahold of the technology. And although I haven't tested with it yet, I do believe that theres a setting for hypergates which would allow them to charge for use
Especially since this is a TC, for total conversion, so we are basically wiping out all existing planets, which opens up alot of planets for use, same with missions, ships, outfits, etc..
I know what your talking about, I've seen (but haven't tested around with) the ability to destroy and resurrect planets using the cool new features in the EVN engine
I'll look around
Some rotating sections would be cool, especially on less-expensive or older types of ships, since they may be too old or built cheaply, for newer/modern ships, or more expensive ones I would think they would be built using standard/best technologies, such as making extensive use of force fields, and wouldn't have any rotating sections, aka the consuls ship
Well, space battles read about usually speak about being many AU apart, which is a good distance and using FTL missiles and CPB lances (energy beams), in the endymion series (Pax and after) they have even more weapons such as hyperkinetic faster than FTL missiles and such things. But my point is that the CPB's weren't very short range, but they were much shorter than missile range, like maybe 1 screen away
Agree
or Raul in the pax era, it could easily be done via Char resources if we so decided
Or a Ouster grins
I really don't think we want EVN groups in the hyperion universe, it just doesn't fit, however if we could find some information about a hyperion universe pirate group..
...or Raul in the pax era, it could easily be done via Char resources if we so decided
Personally, I'd stick to the first two books for this one, and maybe do a second TC of the Endymion books afterwards... It's a quite different universe after all - and unless someone volunteers, we'll have a hard enough time making just the Hegemony-era ships :frown:
BTW, as far as the storyline is concerned, it might be a nice idea not to let it end with the Fall, but include a couple of aftermath missions where some loose ends are wrapped up, and the player is already given some hints of what's to come - Father Duré asking for a ride to Pacem, Brawne Lamia announcing she's pregnant... perhaps even let the player catch one last glimpse of the 'resurrected' Shrike on Hyperion, before it disappears for the next couple of centuries...
Heh, I forgot that one. Yes, we definitely want an Ouster storyline too.
I don't think there was anything like that, but I just want to keep the suspense of EV, where you never know what you're going to run into (like "Hey, isn't that a HWP Pirate Carrier? OH SH--" that kind of thing ) It might become a bit boring when you know you can cruise around pretty much anywhere without running the risk of being attacked and having your ship plundered.
Of course the Web worlds would be far too well-protected, but in the Protectorates and definitely in the Outback worlds, there might well be some bands of ambitious ahem "gentlemen of good fortune" hanging around, looking for fat, wealthy merchants or stupid tourists. After all, if general Horace Glennon-Height could terrorize the outer Web worlds for years in an all-out war with loyalist FORCE troops, some small well-organized gangs should be able to make a living without being chased by Hegemony task forces all the time...
And they needn't all be psychotic marauders either. I can imagine some smugglers (Association style?) making desperate cargo runs to supply the last remnants of the resistance on Maui-Covenant, for example. (Perhaps an idea for a small branch in the storyline... I always liked the part about Siri and Merin)
Originally posted by Curwen: **Personally, I'd stick to the first two books for this one, and maybe do a second TC of the Endymion books afterwards... It's a quite different universe after all - and unless someone volunteers, we'll have a hard enough time making just the Hegemony-era ships
BTW, as far as the storyline is concerned, it might be a nice idea not to let it end with the Fall, but include a couple of aftermath missions where some loose ends are wrapped up, and the player is already given some hints of what's to come - Father Duré asking for a ride to Pacem, Brawne Lamia announcing she's pregnant... perhaps even let the player catch one last glimpse of the 'resurrected' Shrike on Hyperion, before it disappears for the next couple of centuries...**
Agree, I was thinking the same thing that the hyperion books should be a TC, and the endymion books a TC, as the universes are really totally different, there is very little similarities between the two besides in regards to ships and a few groups
And I agree that leaving little foreshadowing cliffhangers like that would be real good
(quote)Originally posted by Curwen: **I don't think there was anything like that, but I just want to keep the suspense of EV, where you never know what you're going to run into (like "Hey, isn't that a HWP Pirate Carrier? OH SH--" that kind of thing;)
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Personaly i think that the Srike is just about the coolest thing i've ever read about. We will have to include some cool stuff about this guy in there.
Originally posted by CeRD: **Personaly i think that the Srike is just about the coolest thing i've ever read about. We will have to include some cool stuff about this guy in there.
I agree. It should at least play a part in the written storyline. Making some nifty visual stuff may be a bit hard, given that it doesn't fly around in a ship and usually moves so fast that it can't be seen unless it wants to be seen... but I guess we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.
I'll try to have a first (incomplete) list of ships and worlds ready somewhere within the next couple of days, and do some brainstorming (see if I can come up with some good ideas for characters and mission strings).
best, Curwen
How would one reconcile the plot effects of time debt? Quite a bit of plot rests on this lag; think of the Maui-Covenant rebellion and the time it took FORCE to get there. Is there a way to make jumps take years rather than days? Or would one use space based farcasters?
------------------ If at first you don't succeed, use more duct tape.
Originally posted by CrazyTom9: **How would one reconcile the plot effects of time debt? Quite a bit of plot rests on this lag; think of the Maui-Covenant rebellion and the time it took FORCE to get there. Is there a way to make jumps take years rather than days? Or would one use space based farcasters? **
Well , the only thing I can think of is to make "traditional" space travel as long and cumbersome as possible, and encourage the use of space-based farcasters/hypergates. (see that very long post above that starts with "OK, some first ideas..." for a more detailed explanation) But then we're still talking of weeks or a few months at best, certainly not years.
It's not ideal, but... making the trip between two systems actually take years (game time of course) by putting lots of empty systems everywhere would be outright sadistic, and I can't think of any clever tricks with resources either (not that I'm an expert at that, I haven't made any EV/O plugs in the past couple of years).
Now that I think of it, there was contest on the EVN board some time ago about pulling off clever resource tricks with the new engine. I didn't follow that thread, but I'll see if I can dig it up again - maybe there's something in there that may help. If not, then I guess it won't hurt to post a call for help...
There is probably a way to make travel between systems take years instead of days. I think almost every system will have to have a farcaster (maybe even 2 is some systems so you can get to more that 4 or 5 systems from one system). as for graphic work i am really bad at organic ships. this means that i won't be able to do ouster ships with much skill. is there anyone else who is doing ships or am i the only one?
Originally posted by CeRD: **There is probably a way to make travel between systems take years instead of days. **
Cool. If you have any ideas: let's hear 'em. (Because I still have none )
Originally posted by CeRD: **I think almost every system will have to have a farcaster (maybe even 2 is some systems so you can get to more that 4 or 5 systems from one system). **
Agreed - as far as Web worlds are concerned of course. There may also be some military farcasters in Protectorate and Outback systems, but those won't be accessible to non-Hegemony/FORCE personnel. I believe one hypergate can connect to 7 or 8 others max, but I'm not sure.
Originally posted by CeRD: **as for graphic work i am really bad at organic ships. this means that i won't be able to do ouster ships with much skill. is there anyone else who is doing ships or am i the only one? **
Right now, you're the only one. I've been sketching a bit (FORCE ships mostly, tried an Ouster 'Squid' too), but haven't gotten anything conclusive yet. Right now I'm still concentrating on getting that damn ship/planet list finished, studying up on EVN plug making, and experimenting a bit with Strata3D, POV-Ray and the Bryce 5 demo I've just downloaded - in that order.
Judging by the pics I saw on your site your 3D skills are better than mine anyhow, so I'll concentrate on the 2D work. I don't mind helping out a bit with the 3D stuff though.
As for the organic ship designs: I'll see what I can do, but don't expect too much in the near future - I've only worked with Bryce4 and Infini-D 3.0 (back when EV Classic was new); made some stuff that wasn't too bad but I still have a lot of catching up to do.
I'll start uploading sketches and artwork as soon as all the preliminary work mentioned above is done, and we at least have a vague idea of where we're going.
(At the rate this project is progressing now, it's probably going to take quite some time... but then, I'm not in a hurry. Sometimes it's better to be slow and sure.)
best Curwen
I look forward to seeing your ship designs...i'm gonna ask around and see about the long travel thing.
Well, here's a first idea...
DISCLAIMER: I haven't looked at the Nova Bible yet, but I'm pretty sure that what I'm about to describe can be done. It's a very crude solution though; there must be a better way.
Very Crude Solution:
All the previously discussed stuff still applies, only no inhabited system is accessible directly anymore, it is only connected to the rest of the galaxy through a 'portal' system with a small space station in it. This is where you have to 'check in' before you are allowed to go to any of the nearby worlds. You can leave the inhabited system through this 'checkpoint' the normal way (hyperjumping) but you cannot access it via the hyperspace link. (I know these one-way jump lines are possible; they were used in Vorlon space in the Babylon 5 plugin for EVO)
Every mission has what you could call a 'shadow' mission that can only be offered when a control bit for the initial mission is set (=when you have accepted the mission). When you dock at the checkpoint, you will automatically get this mission (100% chance) and it will forward the calendar (ŕ la Auroran drop bear attack) and send you to the destination system as soon as you take off from the station again (ŕ la S7evyn). The mission bit that was set by accepting the mission is cleared again upon completion.
By specifying a fixed starting point and destination for each mission, we have total control over the time debt. (No four-day trips to the other end of the colonized galaxy, followed by a six-year time-debt for traveling to a neighboring system).
However, this would mean that we need LOTS of mission resources - even the generic missions that are not part of any storyline (cargo runs etc.) and their secondary mďsn will take up a sizeable chunk of the available number of mďsn resources, as we'd have to make a separate set of such missions for every single inhabited world... which would kind of suck.
Still, it's better than nothing, for now... Waiting for other suggestions.