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QUOTE (Spartan Jai @ Aug 22 2010, 11:38 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Well, you are flying in clouds , so I (and anyone who wants to help) could use the decay feature on some of the weapons. And Templar, physics are irrelevant. Look at nova. My shuttle is almost as big as a continent, yet I can actually land multiple ships on a planet at once? Hmm. :huh: Besides, I don't believe that you can use x and gamma rays as weapons, because you can't see them, and the game requires a graphic for each weapon, or it doesn't work. @of doom: so, you would be interested in playing this?
Nobody says the graphic for a weapon has to actually correlate to what kind of weapon it is. I mean, in EVN:UGF, the Varellavites' primary weapon is called the heat ray, which is really an infrared laser. Humans can't see infrared, but I'm making it a visible beam anyway (deep red) because otherwise it makes it harder (for the player) to fight with.
Well that was a can of worms.
I like where Reclusive, Templar, and DarthKev are going with a water-world, floating cities (besides using cloud-city type places (zepplin cities?), we have aircraft carriers and oil rigs, things can be on the water still). And I wouldn't worry about graphics, a quick (very quick) search of "WWII airplanes" will give you literally hundreds of good, usable ships/planes for a quick use. I actually rendered a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress (The plane with guns sticking out the side and one of my favorite aircraft ever), which I pulled from Google's 3d warehouse. It would be good for someone to graphically update the models to fit one style, but other than that you can find everything you'd ever want (and for free! If it's released on the 3d warehouse, it's free for our purposes).
If someone made an inertia less ship with this to test how it looks (I'm not sure if I did the banking right - so preferrably someone with some graphic-editing capability), that'd be sweet.
This whole thing could be really cool - some updates to the planes to make them more "steampunk" or whatever brand is decided on, do the textures in one unified style, and make some crazy world where it all works out. I'd recommend that whoever is going to do this change all the strings where it says "tons" to say "lbs" or "Kilos" though, I doubt any of the planes would be able to carry anything meaningful in the way of tons- the B-17 provided would max out at 15 tons total carrying capacity after the empty airframe (which has engines, armor, and fixed weaponry already provided), and it was a long-range heavy bomber.
First posts first. Templar, an blimp-city would be awesome. Fits with Darthkev's idea of having 'floating massive city-planes'. Also, a relatively small blimp would be a good starting point for the player. Second, we're gonna go with dieselpunk, because Darthkev said in his intro that the cities had solar devices and other sources of power, so technically on a sunny day they could fly forever. Starsword, while it should be realistic, that does work. Going away from this for a sec, you could actually have the beam/gun/magnetically shaped torpedo actually be seen by saying in the description that the weapon also throws out a certain medium that allows the beam/gun/magnetically shaped torpedo to be seen. Meaker, the world is under water. You are in the sky, so seeing aircraft carriers through miles upon miles (maybe not miles) of clouds would be difficult. As for the rigs, not needed anymore. See comment on solar devices. That bomber though, looks awesome. Since that would be an old WWII plane as you stated, maybe you should start out with that, seeing as it's old and decrepit... Actually, I might be able to do spob graphics. Still, other graphics are appreciated. I might use Meaker's suggestion, too.
Whoa, whoa, whoa! By 'floating cities' I didn't mean cities in the sky, I meant cities floating on the water. I suppose you could add sky-cities if you want, but that's not what I meant. And solar power isn't going to be the only power source as it would become useless at night unless you have a way to store excess energy gathered by the panels. Remember, I also mentioned heat-based generators. I came up with that because, in my concept, Earth is still cooling down. If that heat can be gathered and turned into energy, it can be very useful.
Another possible source of power is wind power. Since Earth is now a giant ocean and more or less 'flat', there's nothing obstructing wind currents.
Question, for aircrafts that are not designed to "float" in air like dirigibles, do you have plans to give them all 1 unit of armor and then use the "shield" bar as armor bar? Cause I imagine it would look weird if you for example, disable a B-17 bomber and it just ends up floating in midair without power. Also it'd look cool if you animated the explosion to have aircrafts spiraling downward and crash.
Actually, when using a new interface, you don't even have to have a shield/armor bar if you're making the interface yourself. Seeing as the earth is UNDERWATER, I'm still in favor of Sky Cities. Or else waves would sink the city, as the waves would be insanely large. It'd be more fun with flying cities. Plus, if you animated it, you could have it rock back and forth with the wind. Yes, I might make it so you can't disable them, but if you use Templar's link, well, it basically states disabled still-flying bombers would help the game.
QUOTE (DarthKev @ Aug 23 2010, 10:47 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Whoa, whoa, whoa! By 'floating cities' I didn't mean cities in the sky, I meant cities floating on the water. ... Another possible source of power is wind power. Since Earth is now a giant ocean and more or less 'flat', there's nothing obstructing wind currents.
In a steam-punky world, floating (sky) cities could easily be added. So could floating sea cities - to address
QUOTE (Spartan Jai @ Aug 23 2010, 12:00 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
...Seeing as the earth is UNDERWATER, I'm still in favor of Sky Cities. Or else waves would sink the city, as the waves would be insanely large. ...
I'm pretty sure that waves are in fact primarily caused by interaction with landmasses and the shifting gravity of the moon. So if there's not much (any?) land, the waves might not actually be that bad. Anyway, even if the waves were terrible, you can build your city suspended from the surface 40-50 feet and be completely isolated from waves (water under the surface doesn't move much). Blimps, jet engines, and helicopter-blades can (fictionally) create a sky-city.
So could anti-gravity devices:
QUOTE (Coraxus @ Aug 23 2010, 10:52 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Question, for aircrafts that are not designed to "float" in air like dirigibles ... I imagine it would look weird if you for example, disable a B-17 bomber and it just ends up floating in midair without power.
If you replaced the propellers with nuclear-powered AG devices, your aircraft could float in the air disabled. So could your sky-cities. Props could be used for standard travel, since they're easier to produced than jets, which would be the fastest but most expensive tech (The AG devices became standard and well-understood because they use few parts. Nuclear became well used because of necessity. Jets weren't necessary, and there are few who understand them).
QUOTE (Spartan Jai @ Aug 23 2010, 10:25 AM)
... Meaker, the world is under water. You are in the sky, so seeing aircraft carriers through miles upon miles (maybe not miles) of clouds would be difficult. As for the rigs, not needed anymore. See comment on solar devices. That bomber though, looks awesome. Since that would be an old WWII plane as you stated, maybe you should start out with that, seeing as it's old and decrepit...
It'd be easy to make aircraft carriers or other "sea" based Spobs visible, if you're going for accuracy, by making them smaller. It's also easy to say that the ceiling is not that high - commercial airliners fly at 30,000 feet and you can see a surprising amount of detail on the ground. Most small aircraft fly lower than that - I would imagine that in a post-apocalyptic water world people would be far spread and few, so small Cessna's, Auto-gyros, Ultralights, and the like would be the main types of flight - and not too many of those can get nearly as high as any commercial plane. I would actually be very adverse to using a B-17 as your first plane - in real life there are (sadly) only a few dozen left (Flying or otherwise - out of the 15,000 or so built to win WWII). It's also a relatively massive plane, with a crew of 13-15 and max load out of 65,000 lbs. Starting the player out in a single seater biplane, a Cessna, Autogyro (Google it), or an Ultralight would be much more reasonable.
And finally, it might be useful to kick back into the more steam-punky-post-apocalyptic mood and set the whole thing up as an alternative history:
CODE
1949: The year the Soviets first tested their own nuclear device, "Joe-1," in Khazakstan. 1953: The year the third, and final, world war began.
It started with the Soviets launching nuclear devices against the United States, in an effort to protect themselves from the newly-developed anti-gravity weapons the US Was in the process of constructing. This prompted immediate international action, and while the US tried to defend itself- launching the anti-ICBM "minutemen" missiles, not nearly enough of the warheads were stopped, and they were forced to play their hand by using the newly developed energy weapons to ...
... In a last-ditch effort, they launched the only Anti-Gravity Bomb that had been constructed, but not yet tested (as had the AG generators which had been powering most motor vehicles and aircraft for nearly 6 years). The weapon, upon detonation over Stalingrad, did something that no one expected - it cracked the crust of the planet and crumbled the continents. ...
Now, 25 years later, society has become harsh. While many have found ways to make their living in the sky cities and the old converted warships and platforms, you are not satisfied to lie idle. You wish to fly the clouds, risk life and death at the sword or sidearm of the many pirates that ply the jet stream, all for the sake of adventure...
There, now you can do anything you want. Anyway, the idea is that it's supposed to be somewhat cheezy, somewhat ridiculous, and somehow end up awesome. You're not going to make a "realistic" TC using aircraft as a model - but then you wouldn't make a truely realistic TC in space either (Only one ship in space? And one station? And you use all your money just to refuel? And you have no weapons? And all the missions involve fixing the hubble telescope? Yeah, no thanks). While I realize the idea is to get a reasonable amount of realism, and I'm a fan of it in many instances, the bigger idea is to make the game fun without making ridiculous-sounding unexplained statements. For example, I shouldn't just leave the disabled aircraft floating around, but if I say "they've all got helium in them and it lets them float," most people will be happy with that. If I go farther, and say "they have anti-gravity," it makes more people happy but now they're upset that they have anti-gravity. If I explain "they invented AG on accident, when trying to develop a way to control sheep with radio waves to free up shepherds for the cat-herding that needed to take place because of all the stray cats left masterless after the war; an incident involving the combination of those same radio waves, twelve AA batteries, a fan, and a Frank Sinatra album took place which ripped the building off it's foundations and shook it up and down based on what note Sinatra hit," people think it's funny and stop worrying about it and just play.
Last thought: The airplane I showed you was taken straight from the Google warehouse. I didn't do anything to it. I found 2,950 results for "airplane," ~300 for "WWII airplanes," and ~100 for "WWI airplanes." In You'd have no problem populating a TC to the limit of the engine with all new, completely unique craft using the warehouse.
That's amazing writing as well, but I don't really see how that fits in with Darthkev's 'Great Flood' idea. And I see what you mean about floating cities... we might as well have both. By the way, the wind, the moon, and earthquakes can make waves. Notice how wind is there. As dk said, the world's flat, making winds increasingly strong, so making waves strong. By the way, ever flown over a naval base or marina in a plane? The spobs would have to be so small...
You could make flying aircraft carriers and naval bases like the one in sky captain. That was pretty sweet, but you could also say that they're really big naval bases that had to be modified into massive ships in order to sustain a high city-like population.
QUOTE (Spartan Jai @ Aug 23 2010, 02:15 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
The story wasn't meant to fit into Darthkev's idea, but to be a starting point on it's own. The idea would be for whoever is taking charge of this TC to pick an idea, or a history, or what have you, that works for the goals they wish to pursue. If you want a strict sci-fi about being aircraft over an apocptyliptic world, you'd make it so that no aircraft could be disabled (because they'd crash), you'd probably have boats be the main ports - (in any of the current ideas they would make great candidates for planet-type ships), and you'd run out of fuel constantly so if you don't fly to a port quickly you would crash. If you want a sci-fi-fantasy, you can have flying cities, aircraft can be disabled in the air (which is more conducive to NOVA's engine IMO), and you can have lasers and beams in addition to traditional weaponry. Both could be equally awesome if done well.
And while I don't know, nor do I claim to know, everything about waves - I do know this: Waves are larger and more violent by land masses than at sea. A tsunami may travel thousands of miles relatively unnoticed in open ocean, as I understand it it's only when it hits a land mass or continental shelf that it gains size.
Meaker's right. Wind alone won't make massive waves. In fact, wind alone does very little to water in terms of waves.
QUOTE (Meaker VI @ Aug 24 2010, 06:35 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
This effect, strictly speaking, is not due to any special interaction between the waves and the landmass, but merely the height of the sea bed. Which does mean that the general surface would be pretty calm.
Personally, I'm against AG and going by Rule Of Funny. I'd rather go "the wings are full of helium"/Rule Of Cool.
Making blimps is harder than I thought, but I'm getting there.
Wind and moon still make semi-large waves. Cities act as landmasses. Unfortunately for the future of this project, I'm in charge. . The idea, being 2192, is a sci fi fantasy. Fuel wise, every ship could have a negative energy regen set while devising ship stats. I'm probably going to do a Gli-Tech sort of thing and have new tech become available after you 'test' them.
So thinking how this is going to be more of a sci fi cloud thing, why use planes? If we have nuclear powered AG devices, why do we use planes? Check Delphi Ship Creations for stuff LIKE what I'm thinking of.
QUOTE (Spartan Jai @ Aug 24 2010, 11:14 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
The reasoning for using planes would be that planes aren't used in other NOVA TC's or plugs. The models for them are also readily available. However, if you're making the TC, you can in fact do whatever you want. The reason I initially suggested it was because it would be different, and you could make it work in either a hard sci-fi theme or a softer sci-fi-fantasy or any of the various steam-punk-fantasy type worlds. I was actually thinking along the lines of some of the things in this book, which I remember from childhood.
What I meant was, why use only planes. Like the med dingy I modeled. I more modeled it for this than anything, because it fits with the sci fi thing, and, the military is always about ten years ahead of the general public tech wise. However, the designs in your book are interesting, and, I might model something like them. Thanks for the inspiration! Actually, I quite like the design that the link first brings you to!
The bs.211 looks like a Separatist Landing Ship. The only difference is it has two wings instead of four and no guns.
Sort of, but you're right based on structure. The Separatist Landing Craft has a longer and shallower hull compared to the wings, and the bs.211 doesn't have exit points for tanks. If I can, that would be one I use.
Just to get things clear here, I didn't draw/write that book, I just was referencing it because I remember some designs in it that were inspiring me in thinking about this topic.
Now that that's out of the way, if that is what you meant Spartan (not using only planes) then I think that that is a fine idea. Use helicopters, VTOL craft, ducted fan hovering things like the one I referenced, blimps, airplanes, gyrocopters (Like a gnomish flying machine from Warcraft 2 or 3), Zepplins, floating/flying cities, etc. etc. . I would actually imagine (depending on the scope of the TC) making 3-4 zepplin/blimp-craft, 4 or so helicopters, 2 gyrocopters, a few ducted fan ships, 8 single-seater planes (fighters, Cessnas, what have you), and 10 or so larger planes. That gives you 28 unique 'ships' to play with - something comparable to the original EV.
On another note - is it possible to make escape pods have very low speed? Like, parachute speed?
I believe so. Escape pods in EVN have their own shïp resource, so adjusting the top speed value entered there might work. Escape pod outfits could then be listed in outfitters as parachutes, as I'm sure Meaker is hinting at.