First Contact

That actually looks pretty good. Given the relatively early stage of Human exploration of space at this point, I think it'd make sense to have the designs look, if not primitive, still clearly less advanced than the designs of Override. In most cases I suspect this could be accomplished by using sharper angles and designs more directly reminiscent of Earth-bound planes.

One thing I'll try to do tonight is come up with a complete list of the new ships that'll be needed, and what designs, if any, they're earlier models of.

QUOTE

i think this plug is a great idea for the community to help develop. i mean, the faster it's 'made', the sooner we can play it.

I'm perfectly willing to do most of the work myself, in fact kinda want to (I work much better alone than in a group); but a little help now and then with things like ship modeling and mission construction would be appreciated (The_Claimer has signed on to help with the second of those, actually, so probably all set there).

And, of course, the community's comments on what they'd like to see in the plugin are always welcome :).

To do sheet metal and rivets, you'll really want to move up to more advanced modelling and texturing software. I would suggest Blender. It can look a bit daunting at first, but it's actually quite simple to use. Creating the texture of metal with rivets is something you'd really want to do with bump maps.

I really hate to burst your bubble, but I don't think rivets are a good idea, for several reasons. Number one, they're not air-tight enough for hard vacuum, making them a very bad idea for starships. The second reason is because even right now, in real life, they don't use rivets in aircraft construction (let alone spacecraft); mankind developed large-scale welding all the way back in the 1930s. (One of the first major uses was by the Japanese, in the WWII-era Yamato -class battleship.)

Regardless, the best way of creating a hull-metal texture is going to be with a 3-D animation program like Blender. My understanding is that Sketchup does not do advanced texturing or bump maps.

You could do what Delphi does. Model a ship in Sketchup and texture it in another program.

QUOTE (DarthKev @ May 27 2010, 10:17 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You could do what Delphi does. Model a ship in Sketchup and texture it in another program.

lol doesn't everyone do this? use a good modeller, then use a good texturer? i don't understand what kruger and starsw are talking about.

kruger: textures/mappings aren't the be all and end all. in fact, they normally look unrealistic and cheap.(because they are)

airtight? wtf dude? did you remember this is just a game? i'd prefer ships that looked cool, than ones that could theoretically work.

Blender works just fine for modelling. It's just as easy to use as Sketchup once you get the hang of things, really. It looks a bit difficult at first, but with a few good tutorials, it's not bad. As for texture mapping, particularly bump mapping, it's pretty industry standard, Tycho. To create the same look as a good bump map with polys would increase their number (and therefore render times,) by absurd amounts in most cases, and it wouldn't make the model look any better. I have a hull-plate bump map that I use quite frequently, and a rusty metal/grime/decaled overlay that I also use to add a significant amount of realism to my models.

An outer hull, or an armored layer, would likely be bolted or riveted on, by the way, if for no other reason than to make for easy replacement of hull plates or access to components underneath. The outer hull wouldn't really likely be what makes the ship airtight. That would be the inner hull.

QUOTE (krugeruwsp @ May 28 2010, 03:09 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

it's pretty industry standard, Tycho.

so's photoshop and windows. they aren't real standards.

I'm not exactly sure why you dispute these facts. It is an industry standard to use high detail UV mapping wherever possible to cut down on poly usage in the majority of 3d video games. Now, it's not nearly as important in a sprite based game like EVN because the graphics are prerendered, which allows Delphi to get away with the models he does, but it still helps to make things look more realistic and cuts down the render time for the sprites and other graphics.

Also, I suggest you calm down. If you don't understand what they're talking about, perhaps you should find out, rather than becoming defensive when no one is attacking you.

I like the idea, and the ships graphics you came up with are very good, and in my opinion if the man wants rivets he can have rivets. So let's just leave it at that and move on.

I think it would be interesting to see the Emalgha come into play. Since they did revolt when Voinians were weakened, it would be interesting to know their view, and perhaps the player can play a part in this by stirring up the revolt. Also I am curious to know what ship the player will start in. I feel like a UE Destroyer might be to powerful starting ship, but a UE fighter wouldn't last long in the battle of Sol with the rockets flailing everywhere. Perhaps a medium gunboat-destroyer ship much like the Defiant of Star Trek that was squeezed out of existence when the Destroyer started to be mass produced.

Or perhaps you could be a first officer of a powerful freight-courier, the captain was killed by a shock from a rocket and you had to take control. Then after the battle the crew members begin to leave because nobody could pay them, so you had to sell the ship to prevent them from suing and use your share to buy a shuttle. This makes the player challenged throughout and doesn't take away from the beginning game part of scraping up enough credits to go into warp. Ah well, the call is up to you.

Keep on Warpin'
:hector_bird:

Update and Question

Well, it's taking longer than I expected (which I blame entirely on my own laziness), but I have a nearly functional universe. Sÿsts, spöbs, and flëts are done, and I'm working on düdes (at which point all I have to do is change the sÿsts resource so the correct düdes show up, but that won't take long). I've got the beginnings mapped out for three major storylines, and several ideas for minor storylines as well. I've also created three new ships, and one new weapon, though these still need graphics and to be tested against the other ships, etc.

Pretty shortly I hope to get some pre-game history written up, and maybe a teaser or two, just to keep people interested. (Oh, for the curious, I'm trying to stay as close as I can to what PAC wrote regarding pre-Voinian War history, but I will be diverging from that in several ways for the sake of playability).

Now for the question. Several times in the game, new weapons and ships will come into existence; not just for the player, but for the UE as a whole. This will affect flët and düde resources in obvious ways (I'll want the UE to stop using some of their old ships, and start using the new ones, for example). I know it's possible to just create a new system with different düde types, and set it to replace the old system, but I don't want to have to do that for every system every time. Is there an easier way?

Yes there is. The Appear On field for ships. This will make them show up in düdes and flëts only when the expression entered in that field is true. Example:

You have three sets of UE ships, one using machine guns (M Fleet) one using laser cannons (L Fleet) and the final one using Blaze weaponry (B Fleet).

• M Fleet needs !b4
• L Fleet needs b4 & !b5
• B Fleet needs b5

So, you start out with both bits clear. When you need to switch ships for new weapons, have b4 activate, and M Fleet will disappear while L Fleet shows up. Then, activate b5 and L Fleet will disappear to be replaced by B Fleet. Make sense?

Aha, that's exactly what I was looking for. Thanks!

Edit: after thinking for more than two seconds, I realized I needed to make sure I knew what you mean.

Suppose I set the UE Carrier to be available when b1 was set. If I then created düde types with the UE Carrier listed in them, the Carrier still wouldn't appear until after b1 was set, though all the other ships listed in that düde resource could still appear?

And if I created a flët with the UE Carrier included as a possible escort (or even as the lead ship...), would it still not appear until after b1 was set? (And would that change if the minimum number of Carrier escorts wasn't zero?)

This post has been edited by Male_Valkyrie : 09 June 2010 - 05:31 PM

Yes, if you have a düde with a bunch of ships, and only some of them are supposed to show up at the moment, those will show up and the others that aren't supposed to be there won't. For flëts, escort ships that aren't supposed to show up simply won't while the flët itself will. However, if you have a ship that's not supposed to show up yet as the lead ship in the flët, the entire flët won't show up until that lead ship does. So you'll need separate flëts for each version of the lead ship.

This post has been edited by DarthKev : 09 June 2010 - 06:14 PM

Ok, excellent, thanks :-).

Question for the community:

Should I make use of the Nova engine's ability to create reinforcement fleets? I want to stick as close as possible to the feel of the original Override (brief mission descriptions, focus on action rather than story, etc.), but should that include minimizing the use of Nova-engine innovations?

Probably a stupid question, but while I'm at it, is it safe to assume that there are no copyright law implications for me leaving some of the original elements of the game unchanged (e.g., bar descriptions, etc.)?

This post has been edited by Male_Valkyrie : 24 June 2010 - 08:55 PM

I think adding reinforcement fleets would be a good idea. By the time EVO starts, the war has mostly died down and it's pretty much down to border skirmishes. This would explain the lack of fleets everywhere ready to jump enemy ships at a moment's notice. However, in your project, the war is still very much a raging conflict, so there would be fleets of ships from the UE and the Voinians patrolling space, looking for hostile ships to eliminate.

You should be good with leaving some stuff the same. It's content from the game that you're using in that game, so it really shouldn't be a problem. Just as long you don't claim you wrote it yourself.

So you know, the original 3D models used to make EVO are available on the addons page here, though you’ll need Infini-D to make use of them. Also, I can provide the names and designation codes for the half-dozen human ships that were discontinued prior to Override, if you want.

QUOTE (Shlimazel @ May 28 2010, 01:47 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Also, I suggest you calm down.

Did you just suggest that the Machinated Mercenary calm down?

are you insane?

Thanks Qaanol, that's a useful link (I think I new of its prior existence, but it didn't come immediately to mind).

I assume you're referring to the (at this point, only 3) ships I intend to insert into the game as pre-Override vessels? In which case, I have names already, and what are designation codes?