Tell me watcha think!

Hey, why not integrate the ability to change history into the plug's plot? For example, you could take sides in one of the major wars to help one country dominate another, or prevent some cough hack sputter from gaining independence. Of course, you also need to set up the eventuality that the player doesn't take sides at all, and set up default outcomes with cröns.........

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Originally posted by P-Psycho:
**How are you going to explain hyperspace jumps?

**

It's just a sort of fast forward thing. You set a coordinate in your map, and then hit J. It'll then jump to the next day, when your guy arrives in the place you set. It may be stupid, but it's the only explanation I could think of. Of course, the sound will be different, and there won't be any "BOOM" when you enter the "system."

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(url="http://"http://www.webanimag.com/ayb/")All your smurf are belong to smurf!(/url) )( Generic (url="http://"http://ww.evula.com")EVula(/url) link )( { (url="http://"http://www20.brinkster.com/greenmonster/index.html")s p h e r e(/url) - soon to be complete!

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Originally posted by Mantaray:
**It's just a sort of fast forward thing. You set a coordinate in your map, and then hit J. It'll then jump to the next day, when your guy arrives in the place you set. It may be stupid, but it's the only explanation I could think of. Of course, the sound will be different, and there won't be any "BOOM" when you enter the "system."

**

That makes sense. I assume all the ships will be inertialess? You could also use the nëbu resource to make a background for the map. This project is very ambitious. Are you sure you are up to it?

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"The day microsoft makes something that doesn't suck will be the day they make vacuum cleaners." -White Lightning

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Originally posted by P-Psycho:
That makes sense. I assume all the ships will be inertialess?

But of course.

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Are you sure you are up to it?

Pretty sure. I've got the idea of what it should look like in my brain, and I don't think I'll stop working until it's done the way I want it. Aside from that, I've got all the techy stuff worked out, so yeah.

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(url="http://"http://www.webanimag.com/ayb/")All your smurf are belong to smurf!(/url) )( Generic (url="http://"http://ww.evula.com")EVula(/url) link )( { (url="http://"http://www20.brinkster.com/greenmonster/index.html")s p h e r e(/url) - soon to be complete!

Well, if you're going to take it up to the end of the 19th Century, then you might as well let it run through the first couple of decades of the 20th: WWI would be very interesting for either a naval captain or a simple trader. Besides, who wouldn't want to take command of the H.M.S. Dreadnought? Just use different chärs with different starting years. So now, instead of a Shuttle, you start out in a Pinnace or a Sloop... Slowly save your money to buy a French-Colonial-made Barque, run around plundering smaller ships, get money to buy a beefier ship to rob treasure galleons... Oh yes, the Spanish Empire was at its height in the late 1500s, and it was much more fun to plunder galleons in the mid 1600s (less Spanish military vessels around to kill you). By the 1700s, the Spanish were a joke. Just FYI. So if you want the golden age of piracy, set it to start in the early 1600s. If you want huge naval battles, set it in the 1700s. If you want to be a C.S.N. blockade runner, it'll be in the mid 1800s. And for the biggest, beefiest ship of them all, the early 1900s.

As if you hadn't figured it out...

Your most loyal naval history buff,
-- spacecowboy

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“You’re only given a little spark of madness. You mustn’t lose it.”
-- Robin Williams

Be forewarned (though I'm sure you've discovered this already) -- inertialess ships are not affected by spöbs with gravity.

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It is better to feed the goat than it is today.

Heh, impressive. I live what you've got there. I've been playing around with a World War II plugin idea, and seeing your image there has re-inspired me.

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Joseph Payne - (url="http://"mailto: joseph.payne@tmgmedia.net ")mailto: joseph.payne@tmgmedia.net (/url) joseph.payne@tmgmedia.net

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Originally posted by UncleTwitchy:
**Be forewarned (though I'm sure you've discovered this already) -- inertialess ships are not affected by spöbs with gravity.

**

I've decided not to go gravity. Dead spobs work fine, but some of the ships sort of run into them. (This'll change when I implement my inirtialess vessels)

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( (url="http://"http://www.webanimag.com/ayb/")All your smurf are belong to smurf!(/url) )( Generic (url="http://"http://ww.evula.com")EVula(/url) link )( { (url="http://"http://www20.brinkster.com/greenmonster/index.html")s p h e r e(/url) - soon finished! )
Mantaray: Supergenius and idiot rolled into one!

Hmm. I've been wondering how you hide the stars.

Anywho this looks great. As for what spacecowboy said, why not the 1700's? All three sound fun, but when people think of adventures on the seven seas, they think "PIRATES!!!YARR!!!". I know next to zip about plug-ins, but I've always wanted to actually BE a pirate, not just steal like one.

Something else: What do you propose to do about hyperspace? I might have been to ignorant to notice the answer, but I would find it quite odd to see a seventeenth century galleon to suddenly shoot forward at ungodly speeds with only the aid of several cloth sails.

And theres the question of the number of outfits. Ships then only really used cannons. I guess if the Chinese were involved then there might be rockets and such, maybe some catapults in other cultures like the romans, some ballistas if you want to, but besides that there wasn't a lot of ship-mounted weaponry.

Well, like I said, I know Jack Daniel 'bout plugs. I'm just offering some outsider insight (hehe :)). Good luck on the project!

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Quote the raven --
CAW!

Actually, yes, I'm hoping the small number of outfits will be componsated with the large array of ships, skiffs, boats, man o' wars... And the fact of differant veriety: you could have a small cannon, medium cannon, or large cannon, etc. Then you have your flintlock pistols, for picking off the crew members 🙂

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( (url="http://"http://www.webanimag.com/ayb/")All your smurf are belong to smurf!(/url) )( Generic (url="http://"http://ww.evula.com")EVula(/url) link )( { (url="http://"http://www20.brinkster.com/greenmonster/index.html")s p h e r e(/url) - soon finished! )
Mantaray: Supergenius and idiot rolled into one!

Wow, Mantaray, I'm very impressed. It's nice to see this much requested idea being put into play. Hopefully, it'll be out before (url="http://"http://homepage.mac.com/farpoint")this(/url)...

I've been trying to work a plug-in along these lines for a while. I can't wait to finally see one in action.

Can you fix the screenshot on your plug-in page?

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Eytee
farpoint@mac.com

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Originally posted by Eytee:
**
Can you fix the screenshot on your plug-in page?
**

Did it break? 🙂

Whatever. peace, love, groovy. Thinking of updating it anyway (status bar is slightly (aka 5 revisions) out of date).

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( (url="http://"http://www.webanimag.com/ayb/")All your smurf are belong to smurf!(/url) )( Generic (url="http://"http://ww.evula.com")EVula(/url) link )( { (url="http://"http://www20.brinkster.com/greenmonster/index.html")s p h e r e(/url) - soon finished! )
Mantaray: Supergenius and idiot rolled into one!

Are slaves going to be a commodity in your plug or will you avoid the subject (like in the old strategy game Imperialism) ?

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Pesmo's Profile Refresh no. 13
I am to tired to think of something I could potentially write here and the perspective that no one would ever read that (yet inexistant) signature discourages me even more.

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Originally posted by pesimist_guy:
**Are slaves going to be a commodity in your plug or will you avoid the subject (like in the old strategy game Imperialism) ?

**

There might be slave ships, but you can't buy slaves, as I probably will get some nasty e-mails.

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( (url="http://"http://www.webanimag.com/ayb/")All your smurf are belong to smurf!(/url) )( Generic (url="http://"http://ww.evula.com")EVula(/url) link )( { (url="http://"http://www20.brinkster.com/greenmonster/index.html")s p h e r e(/url) - soon finished! )
Mantaray: Supergenius and idiot rolled into one!

I'm not on my Mac right now so I'm not sure if this is possible or not...Oh, it is, the Thunderhead Lance is like that.

Another weapon idea: Make a straight-ahead beam that is invisible and allow the ships to ram eachother. 🙂 To make it work you would need all the ships to be vulnerable to point-defense, but I can't see what else you would use point-defense for, so...

(Oh please let me not have missed something completely obvious in this).

And for the weapons, are they going to have unlimited ammo? Because I think it would be neat if all the different cannons and such had different sizes of ammo that weighed 1 pound, 5 pounds, 10 pounds, etc. for the big ships. 🙂

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Different sized cannonball ammunition would be neat. They could be used by the different sized cannon weapon/outfits that one could purchase. For the traditional broadside attack, weapon exit points on the ships could be placed two on a side. Another possible way might be to have the turret points be located along the center axis of the ship. Each could fire a "master" shot which shows as an explosion, which then breaks into 1 submunition of a cannonball flying to your target, providing the necessary offset to make it seem as if the shot were originating from the edge of the ship.

Would cannon be side-quadrant only turrets? (so that when your foe is off your port side, you don't send stray shots off the starboard into the ocean (as you might if they were side mounted guns).

Other cannon types could be specifically for bow or stern use (and fire in those quadrants only).

(This message has been edited by Starfish (edited 08-16-2002).)

Another slight problem would be the fact that the ships overlap. I think it can be fixed, my suggestion is to putting a thunderhead lance at every corner and side of the ship, set to a short length and low power of course. Would that work?

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Quote the raven --
CAW!

jaw smashes into foot

very cool idea. If you actually finish it, much applause. I can't wait to play it.
Just an idea for hyperspace. I like your idea of "trade winds" or something of the sort, so why dont you use an oscillator to produce a sound of viciously blowing wind, like in a hurricane? And your system entrance sound could be the wind quickly subsiding. It would work, and make a lot of sense!

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Yes, the answer is 42.
For an interesting quote, look elsewhere. -Me

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...Another possible way might be to have the turret points be located along the center axis of the ship. Each could fire a "master" shot which shows as an explosion, which then breaks into 1 submunition of a cannonball flying to your target, providing the necessary offset to make it seem as if the shot were originating from the edge of the ship.

You're a genius! Submunitions, I should have thought of that. Yes, cannons will be turrets in disguise, with the "blind front and back" and the "shoot closest to target" thingies.

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( (url="http://"http://www.webanimag.com/ayb/")All your smurf are belong to smurf!(/url) )( Generic (url="http://"http://ww.evula.com")EVula(/url) link )( { (url="http://"http://www20.brinkster.com/greenmonster/index.html")s p h e r e(/url) - soon finished! )
Mantaray: Supergenius and idiot rolled into one!

Cool. But what about different size cannonballs?
And will munitions actually take up space? That's one of the big differences between EV and EVO that I didn't like, in EV all the ammo but the...whatever they weres (javelin rockets?) took up space. And if your munitions took up space it would be nice because you could have a total outfit space, no cargo space, and a really cheap (or free) outfit "Prep space for cargo" that would give you an even exchange between cargo and outfit space. After all, there's not a whole lot of difference in the way you store supplies and the way you store cannonballs. 🙂

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