Legacy TC Status Thread

Hmm, you may have a point there.

Spoiler

The mantas certainly aren't sentient, though squids have a hive-mind of sorts, controlled by a semi-sentient queen. She seems to have some sense of self, but is still compelled by instinct.

Alright, their names will stay as-is, though lower-case. Thanks, StarSword.

Feedback.
Space squids. Very nice, personally I think having an eye or mouth in the ring inside the tentacles like on a normal squid would complete the look.
Space mantas. Being a fan of the Vell-os, I instantly thought it looked like a dart. Will the other (older) mantas look like the stronger Vell-os? Assuming of course that they are related (graphic wise).

@spartan-jai, on 31 January 2011 - 10:51 PM, said in Legacy TC Status Thread:

Space squids. Very nice, personally I think having an eye or mouth in the ring inside the tentacles like on a normal squid would complete the look.

It's hard to see from that angle, but there is a hole between the tentacles on squids serving the purpose of a mouth. As for eyes, they see in infra-red by absorbing infra-red signals through their skin.

Spoiler

It's actually impossible to sneak up on one because of this. They can even detect cloaked ships.

Quote

Space mantas. Being a fan of the Vell-os, I instantly thought it looked like a dart. Will the other (older) mantas look like the stronger Vell-os? Assuming of course that they are related (graphic wise).

Vell-os craft did in fact influence the design of the mantas, but the older ones have tendrils growing from their fins, something you can see is absent on the younger mantas. Also, I guess I can put this much in spoiler tags.

Spoiler

There are five kinds of mantas: fire, ice, acid, energy, and lightning. Their colors and appearance differ between each kind. They're also physical manifestations of the elements they control. No one is quite sure how they exist.

Wow. Definitely and unexpected twist. Pretty cool though.
EDIT: Dumb question. If the squid, well, um, runs over you, do you instantly explode as if it bit your ship.

This post has been edited by Spartan Jai : 01 February 2011 - 09:50 AM

@spartan-jai, on 01 February 2011 - 09:48 AM, said in Legacy TC Status Thread:

EDIT: Dumb question. If the squid, well, um, runs over you, do you instantly explode as if it bit your ship.

Well, yes and no. You can beat them, it's just a little tricky. The normal, small, male squids start out with a basic tentacle attack that either pulls it toward you or you toward it. They still need to get through shields before they can hit armour with this attack. This also constricts your ship and cuts off power supplies.

If they get close enough, however, squids can move through shield systems. Something to do with what their skin is made of, scientists aren't sure what. Once they do that they wreak havoc on a vessel. They won't kill you, however, but instead begin to devour your cargo, credits, and crew.*

So if you get swarmed or one of them attacks and gets close enough, then you're probably screwed unless your ships has lots of armour. Then you still stand a chance of killing them before they disable you. Large squids (all of them female) have longer tentacles to pull you in with that also do more damage.

Two more notes on squids. Somehow they are able to pierce the natural barriers of space and travel along flux routes that aren't there. The routes disappear once a squid exits one, however, but this has allowed squids to leave the Badlands despite the very best efforts to contain them. Onli scientists have managed to figure out how this works to an extent, and have added a variation of this ability to their own ships. Also, something else in their skin is impervious to standard scans, making it impossible to tell how deeply one is wounded if at all.

Lastly, it's not a dumb question. You have a write to know if you're going to be tormented by mini-Krakens or not.

*The crew part you'll have to imagine. You won't actually lose any crew as the result of a squid attack.

The "elemental energies" angle makes for an interesting twist, indeed.

Out of curiosity, if a squid meets a manta, are they enemies, allies, or indifferent?

Spoiler

Mantas and squids are enemies. A long time ago they had several turf wars, but that's something you'll find out later... For now I'll simply say there's a lot of events that take place before what I've shared of the timeline. Major spoilers.

@darthkev, on 24 January 2011 - 07:08 PM, said in Legacy TC Status Thread:

I know that can be done, but it's not an option here. The player's command crew are true characters in HOTS, they will do things the player can't, such as leaving the ship for some covert operation or were kidnaped and the player must rescue them (those two examples are not guaranteed to show up in HOTS, but it is likely). I cannot cut them out at any moment in the story. At this point I'm just hoping I can make fighters just useful enough players won't automatically sell them off when they buy a ship that carries them, but not so useful any player will try playing in one.

Would it be possible to, if the player is using a fighter or other one-man ship, say the rest of the "crew" is instead part of an off-screen support ship (carrier, recon craft, whatever)? The bonuses are then justified by having more competent support rather than people in your bridge. An offscreen fighter wing could also work, but it'd be a little harder to justify the bonus - may or may not work better for the story.

The problem with making fighters useful enough to be good in AI hands while not so useful players would want them is... um... the AI sucks. Hard. If a stock ship is good enough for crappy AI, imagine what a modified ship can do for a skilled player - look at the Polaris Manta from stock Nova. I've seen a single AI Manta take down a Fed Destroyer. Players could do even more with it simply because they could tweak the outfits and just, y'know, fly better. The AI doesn't use any techniques more advanced than "charge", "charge in a group", or "fire missiles then charge".

So this way, you could make fighters still capable of having an impact on a fight while also being able to accomodate them in the story in a way that makes enough sense.

Also, that space manta looks like a flattened Vell-os Dart. Not saying that's a bad thing, though.

This post has been edited by Thexare : 02 February 2011 - 01:04 AM

Well, I suppose that might work, but it would require a convoluted process to ensure it worked if the player captured a fighter as their own rather than purchase one, as well. A shïp's OnCapture field is evaluated whether the player assigns the ship to their escort compliment or uses it as their own. There is a workaround, I think, but it's complicated. However, it does give me an idea.

As much as the AI sucks, a single fighter in HOTS is fairly useless against anything larger than another fighter. Working together, two or three average fighters could probably take down a gunship or corvette even if said gunship/corvette is piloted by the player. Fighters also have very limited expansion space, and most outfits that would enhance your ship take up space, enough to either be unmountable on a fighter or would require you to remove several outfits already on it to fit them.

All this means players are going to need escorts if they plan to fly a fighter. I suppose I could offer a free escort ship as a mission that would act as the player's 'ship' with the command crew onboard while they fly the fighter. The mission could only be accepted when flying a fighter and would be aborted upon selling the fighter. This should also work if the player captures a ship for their own use and assigns the fighter as an escort. It's not perfect, but would give the command crew a place to be while the player galavants in a fighter. It doesn't explain why the player's fighter gets the bonuses instead of the escort ship, but hey, I already said it's not perfect.

Almost all the baseline ships have been fully coded, which means I have a mostly playable universe. Here's what's left to do:

• Finish the düde resources

• Populate the galaxy

• Build the other half of the game universe

• Finish the outfits

Once that's all done I'll have a fully-functioning game world to play in, minus graphics. Everything in it so far is either a placeholder or my own poor attempts at faux rendering.

All the sounds currently being used are also borrowed from various sources. So unless I'm going to recycle sounds from the EVC, EVO, and EVN, I need to either find or make some sounds for HOTS. Anyone have any pointers or tips on either somewhere I can get sounds free to use or methods I can perform to make my own?

Sup, Kev. Sorry for poofing for a while, there. Rough start to the spring semester, this year. x.x

But anyway, read through almost all of the new posts since my last visit and I had a couple thoughts.

For fighters, you might make them only useable through a fighter bay. The ai does kinda suck, but something you might do is give fighter point-defense weapons. Depending on the fighter models, this might look a little odd, but it would have fighters mostly fighting other fighters and then going after your target. Also, if you make fighters have a more realistically small size compared to larger ships, they'll be more effective at getting through some of the capital ship fire.

The biggest reason they're so useless in stock nova is because they're WAAAAYY larger than they realistically should be, removing the evasion capability a fighter would normally have against capital ship weapons. You add in the physics of projectiles pushing smaller ships back and this obliterates a fighter's chances against most larger ships.

So, realistic ways to improve the fighters would be to specialize them against other fighters (through point-defense weapons, also giving them some use against incoming missiles) and boost their evasive capabilities. Also, having more than 4 fighters for one bay might improve things a bit. Perhaps have up to 10 fighters per bay (balancing them accordingly, though) would make it more useful. Then having a fighter bay is a pretty viable option. I don't know if it's possible to edit the ai controlling the fighters at all, but having your own fighters swarm yourself would be pretty useful. Then you could have them basically act as a point defense system for capital ships. A basic pattern of them circling you half clockwise and half counter-clockwise would suffice. Then, once your opponent's out of missiles or their own fighters, you can send yours in for the kill.

Then you basically make the smallest pilotable ship a corvette-size. I'd boost the mobility of corvette-sized ships a bit, giving the more of a fighter feel, but not so much that it's ridiculous, then you remove most of the need to actually have fighters to pilot.

Also, I love the ideas for the squids and mantas. They'll make for fun victims. >:D

This post has been edited by Zephyr8965 : 09 February 2011 - 03:53 PM

They will be more realistically sized, actually. Very tiny. And they are specialized against other fighters, but two or three of most fighter classes can take down a gunship, sometimes even a corvette, even if that gunship or corvette is piloted by a human. Anything larger than that makes brunch of them, though.

I had thought about making them useable by the player only through launch bays (which work a little differently in HOTS, I'll explain in a moment) but I don't want to limit the player's freedom of choice by preventing them from flying smaller ships. At any rate, should the player's ship blow up and they use an escape pod, they will re-spawn in a Carpenter. Also, one of the planned starting chär resources starts the player in a Tern class gunship, smaller than a corvette. I'm still undecided as yet, but I am leaning more toward allowing players to fly fighters and just giving the option to have a smaller escort via mission added. I thank you for your suggestions, though.

Launch bays. Where to begin? First off, there are three size classes; small, medium, and large. Small launch bays accommodate interceptors, light fighters, fighters, and shuttles. Medium launch bays are for gunboats, interdictors, and heavy fighters. Large launch bays are for cruisers. Now, buying one of these launch bays won't let you carry fighters right off the bat. You still need to buy a repair bay for maintenance purposes. After all, your fighters won't last long if you can't repair them or restock their ammunition. Launch bays just put a hole in your ship for them to fly out through. Repair bays actually store and repair the fighters, and there's one class of repair bay for each class of bay-carried craft. Small repair bays carry 6 craft, medium carry 3, and cruiser repair bays only carry one per bay. Multiple repair bays launch simultaneously.

There are exceptions to this. Eros bays carry eight craft because their design makes them more compact, though they can only operate from special bays on either ships, planets, or stations. As a result, Eros repair bays don't require a launch bay to install. The Onli Abeille, a combat variant of the Navette for bays, has its own bay like cruisers do, but also doesn't require a launch bay to install. This also means ships carrying Abeilles can launch them all in the blink of an eye.

I hadn't thought of point defense weapons on fighters, but it's kind of a moot point right now. You see, all turret weapons in HOTS are point defense. Additionally, every single ship is vulnerable to point defense. Larger ships can also mount larger turrets that will actually be useful in combat, rather than just shoot down missiles for you. I realize this is a drastic change from the norm, but I've tested it and it's actually pretty useful. For one, AI ships will fire their turrets at hostile craft in flybys without actually focusing on them, but focusing on another ship instead. It's also interesting to watch.

What about heavy weapons? I refrained from making heavy weapons point defence, because watching a ship use it's massive deck cannon against a solitary torpedo was amusing, but a little sad.

For the most part, actually, heavy weapons will be forward-firing only, no turret versions. That said, most forward-firing weapons are simple unguided projectiles and somewhat weak. These are classed as guns. The more powerful forward weaponry swivels in a forward arc, however, but are mostly only mountable by large warships. These are classed as cannons. Smaller ships can mount one or two if they can free up the space, but for the most part only warships will have cannons.

See, what I'm trying to recreate here are the battle scenes in sci-fi space movies, with warships flying close together, lobbing energy bolts at each other by the hundreds. Turrets will have rather high rates of fire and their shots won't be the strongest out there. Still damaging, though, so you have to be cautious when in a smaller ship. Larger ships will brush off turret hits except from the largest of turret systems. I'm still tweaking it to work the way I want, but I believe I can make it work.

It also adds extra strategy. Several fighters in a pack will probably get torn apart if sent after a major warship alone. But if you accompany them with guided ordnance from your own ship, either the fighters will get through while the enemy targets the ordnance, or the ordnance will devastate your target while the fighters draw turret fire.

Oh, a few things I forgot to mention in my previous post regarding fighters: you will have to account for each fighter's mass. Repair bays don't include that in their own mass requirements. This, of course, does make them relatively light. Quite contrary to launch bays, which even the smallest of which weighs 60 tons. All launch bays are also fully integrated into whatever ship they're built on, so make sure you won't need that space later if you want to install one. At the same time, though, I'm putting in size limits for launch bays. Basically, you need a ship 300 meters or longer to install a small launch bay, 500 meters for a medium bay, and 1,000 meters for the largest launch bay. Most ships that can mount launch bays come with them already installed, as well as a few fighters.

This post has been edited by DarthKev : 10 February 2011 - 10:10 AM

DarthKev, it seems the following strategy makes more sense, given the following assumptions about your universe:

Guided ordinance is cheaper to manufacture than manned fighters.
PD and Flak-type guns are everywhere.
Fighters can be deployed as anti-missile and anti-bomber fighter screens, rather than being used offensively.

Strategy:
Take a few fast space superiority fighters, a huge bunch of rockets/missiles, and some flak guns on your warship. Of course, you still have big forward guns.
Keep your fighters nearby to provide anti-missile and anti-bomber capability.
Launch wave after wave of missiles at enemy warship. Huge barrages. Empty the entire armory in one volley if you can. Overwhelming the PD is the goal.

If fighters themselves will be torn apart by PD, it doesn't seem worthwhile to use them for anything except defensively, given the cost of a fighter over a missile. Besides, the way to defeat PD in your universe appears to be overwhelming it, as it can only track so many targets at once, rather than sending in well-shielded fighters than can do some damage and make it home alive.

This post has been edited by LNSU : 10 February 2011 - 03:05 PM

For the most part you're right, and that would be an effective strategy. Just one thing:

@lnsu, on 10 February 2011 - 03:05 PM, said in Legacy TC Status Thread:

Fighters can be deployed as anti-missile and anti-bomber fighter screens, rather than being used offensively.

I don't plan on giving fighters PD weapons at the moment, so they aren't really anti-missile in any way unless I decide to allow missiles to hit targets in their path instead of only their target. And if I did that, they'd almost certainly die fast. Turrets and jammers are anti-missile. Fighters are anti-bomber. They're also good against cruisers, gunships, and corvettes if you have about 6 of them and give them support fire from your own ship. There's enough anti-missile stuff in there already without adding fighters to the mix.

@lnsu, on 10 February 2011 - 03:05 PM, said in Legacy TC Status Thread:

<snip>

Really? I went the opposite direction: If PD is so common, equip cannons. Lots of cannons.

Hm...I can see where it would be a little unrealistic for fighters to be shooting down missiles. It's too bad you can't do PD that only targets ships, as that would make battles between fighter squadrons seem a lot more insane. I would be careful with all turrets being pd, because what if you have a longer ranged-turret that you want to target something specific, but it's too busy trying to shoot fighters even though it's a heavier weapon better designed for hitting warships?

Also, something that would be really nice is if you include side- and rear-firing versions of the heavy weapons? It would make sense for them to be hardpoint, but some ships may be designed for protecting their rear as they flee moreso than going head-long into a battle. Also, larger warships that have issues turning may fall prey to more agile ships that avoid their more powerful forward-firing weapons, which would be a huge tactical disadvantage that realistically would be easy to avoid by turning a couple weapons and giving them just enough turning arc that your forward and left or right side guns could all be pointed at the enemy fleet. It would divide your firepower against a single target, but keeps you from being quite as vulnerable to flanks.

Also, what kind of range were you thinking of giving bombers? Something you might do is include bombers and fighters of varying ranges so that the player can have heavy fighters go in to take a couple shots from PD while longer-ranged fighters can be behind them firing somewhat stronger weapons and taking less flak in return. This lets the player kinda build formations to their fighters using the simple ai system. Also, having shorter-ranged bombers that do come into PD range would be more vulnerable to defensive systems, but in a pinch, the bomber, itself may take some of the shots from the PD, distracting it from stopping some of the bombs, while the longer-ranged ones can add to your barrage from a safe distance, hoping to strong-arm the enemies' defense systems into submission.

Also, you might think of a few lighter cannons on turrets, as many ships in sci fi did tend to have some of their support cannons on turrets, not for point defense, but to avoid flanking attacks. Perhaps not the largest of the cannons, but lighter to medium sized ones and make them a huge chunk of mass so the player really wants to get them only to protect against that flanking attack or to catch a more maneuverable enemy trying to escape.

Heavy weapons distracted by other targets won't happen because turrets aren't heavy weapons. They're meant for close-range support fire on hostile targets and anti-fighter and -missile defense. There are three turreted beam weapons that are not PD in the game, though, so one can use those if needed. There are also light rocket turrets that allow slower ships to still have some punch even when not facing their target.

That said, any ship that could outmaneuver a large warship without having a fantastic pilot at the controls would have a hard time with the PD, anyway. Destroyers and frigates aren't fast enough to dodge around them without help. And even with help, battleships and carriers have powerful shield grids and thick armour. Seriously, they're beasts. None of them has a shield value under 1,000, and the two largest carriers exceed 7,000. Don't worry, I've already tested and confirmed they can be killed, but you need a ship of similar size to do so or a fleet to wear it down. Players with 6 powerful escorts would be enough, though most of the escorts would most likely die during the conflict. Their appearance will be limited, however, because of the awesome power they possess.

Bomber range? You mean as in weapon ranges? I guess it's about the same as anything else carrying missiles. I'm still trying to decide if they should hold position when firing their barrage or not. If they sit there, then their guns are kinda useless since they'll just run back to the mothership to reload afterward. But if they charge forward to use their guns, they risk being killed. They're definitely more well-defended than other fighters, but they're not invulnerable.

If you are making separate bomber and space superiority/defensive screen type fighters, then bombers should be hit and run. Either give them a one-shot or one missile (guided) payload. Their use should be launch, attack, run away, reload, go again. If you have them hover in place, or swing around the target, they will die to your awesome PD stuff, or the fighter screen, or something.

Either way, unless bombers can live through most engagements, its still worthwhile to take missiles or forward guns when considering the cost and mass difference. Not to mention a full load of missiles will generally last longer than a full bay of fighters in many circumstances.