Universal Forum Archive

Well I like your ideas. But your thoughs open some new questions.

The clan leader is the first in the ship, nd the commander, but fellow players has to dock, or just join, and appear in the ship (like space station)? I think it is better if they dock too (more realistic), but can do it instantly, and of course without probes. Also for defenders the blast doors open instantly, but attackers have to blow the up in order to pass them.

I assume from your words that the cockpit would also have some weapons. I thinks this is ighly recommended. Also I like the idea, of turret control, but there has to be corridors to all the turrets. The question is, just for repair, or for first hand experiance too (by allowing to you to jump in, and out of the turret, repairing it and ave a chance of being killed). I thinks in both case the player is got killed, when the turret blows up. Preventing the "I fire a laser, than repair, I fire a laser, than repair" strategy, so the player who s busy with repairing the turret could get kiled too, if the enemy concentrates fire on his/her turret, because there is a certain repair time rate, for anything on the ship.

Destroyed things cannot be repaired. And for the method, in other games I have seen two ways.
1. Player picks up a wrench and changes between his/her weapons to it, than use it as a weapon, near the system, or near its control table (a simple box on the wall, it has the same looks everywhere in the ship).
2. The other thing is that players are specialists, and only engineer can repair things, but they are lightly armed.

I suggest probing ships could only launched from the capital ship (imagine in real that you dock to our mothership, leave your ship in the docks, than use the probe). This enhance the importance of the capital ship, and inspires the captains to fly closer, because in this case probes have to travel a smaller distance.

The most important thing the game balance, if player find the exterior or the interior combat more promising, they will leave he other. And I think all capital ships should like the same from inside, or very similar, to have both teams start equally.

In order of game balance, the ship interior has to be designed carefully. Wich is the first room after the docks? A room with its own systems (weapon control, communications), or a room with no functions, just a hall leading to other parts of the ship. Every room should have a blastdoor? Should be there onboard defences or just players? Should the ship contain useless rooms (lifesupport, medical, living quarters, dining room )

The other thing is the exterior, should every capital ship like the same? With some places where the faction banner is displayed, or should the ships look entirely different? Lots of work with modeling.

Should the ship has windows? Or beacuse of simplicity, only the cockpit and the turrets are connected to space.

I suggest that according to the difficulty, different attacking methods are have to be rewarded differently.

Thanks for the feedback, Iron. I hope I can clarify/flesh out some of my ideas.

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Docking: If it were to be incorporated, the docking sequence would probably be something like the current space station system, but the region from which you could "dock" would be either right next to or partially inside the capital ships so that you do actually need to be in the right place to land aboard a ship.

There should probably be a max number of ships that can land in each docking bay, perhaps more smaller ships could fit in a bay than larger ships. Example: you might be able to have a total of 5 galaxy cruisers in all the docking bays of a capital ship or 20 x-wings/cobra sized ships. This way there is some strategy to what ship each person has in a clan. Not simply a push to get the biggest and best ship available.
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The cockpit would have access to the capital ship's main weapons battery. This would be used in the brute force attacks (such as the initial shield cracking) and would almost certainly just a forward firing and slow reload weapon. The pilot would have to switch to one of the turrets in order to really fend off any smaller ships.

Players would be able to physically get inside the turrets by walking to them. This; however, limits them to the use of this single turret.

Repairing would be similar to the method of building capture on planets. A player would need to stand stationary by a turret for a few minutes in order to bring a destroyed one back on-line.

Getting in and out of a turret would be limited by a 15 second delay (variable) from the time between the player begins to get in/out and the time they actually do. This is to represent the time it would physically take to open/close the latch into the turret and put on a harness (or something like that). This would prevent players from rapidly jumping out when they are under heavy fire. The turret would be defenseless during this period.

If I haven't made it clear before, only one player can control a turret at a time. If a player is physically inside a turret no player can remotely operate it and vice versa.

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I'm not sure how well explicit specialization in the game would work (there is currently nothing like it in-game). An alternative is that players are allowed to equip a limited number/weight of items on their in-ship character. They then have to choose what they will be able to do and how well they will be able to do it when inside a ship. Example: A player can either choose a rambo-style-laser-gun that can level anything in sight, or they can pick a wrench-type item and a smaller, laser-pea-shooter as their weapon.

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The problem with having only capital ships being able to utilize probing ships is that a non-capital-ship fleet would be unable to take out the shields internally. Meaning that already powerful clans (i.e. have a capital ship) are the only ones that stand much of a chance at taking a capital ship. (That brings up the issue of multiple capitals in a clan)

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Fairness does not always mean equality. A ship might have better engines (both more in number and greater total speed), but can still be on the same playing field as another capital ship by having weaker shields.

Diffierent interiors is also something I'm planning to shoot for (although still similar in the rough location of important systems for the most part). Granted. This would make one team's invading experience different than another's, but this can be used as sort of a home team advantage for in-ship activities as the capital ship clan will be better familiarized with the layout of the ship.


We don't want capital ships changing hands everyday after all.

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The docking bays are likely to be located in the sides/belly of the ship and the first area after the bay itself would be ramps/corridors that lead elsewhere. It is unlikely that a vital system would be right next to the bay to allow the defending team to try to take out the intruder before any damage is done.

And although it would be very realistic to have a bunch of living quarters and what not, it would be a pain in the neck to model and would slow down the frame rate to have so many details. Maybe in the oh-so-distant future.

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I would hope to have different styles of capital ships. What I might do initially is design three differently sized capital ships and give each a few different textures so that there would be some variety between the appearance of each capital ship (large ships would be harder to get/capture). With each texture version of a ship given a unique set of stats that make it different from those a the same class (aka: model).

We'll see how well I can actually model these things before we make any big plans.

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I think rewards could come in the form of prestige (which would be able to spent on upgrades and other valuables). Simply taking a ship by a brute force shield crack and then another force attack on the cockpit without disabling any vital systems would not be as prestigious as a full system takeover.

Likewise, even an unsuccessful invasion, that only managed to disable the communications and a few turrets would still be worth some prestige (hence there is some advantage for a clan to attack, even if they lack sufficient manpower to take on a full capital ship fleet and win).

The downside of attacking would be that ship insurance which insures your ship against most major forms of destruction (and is the supposed reason why you still have a ship after you've just been blown-up) does not cover the full cost of ship replacement if destruction occurred as the result of a capital ship battle. (Might have to be a vicinity thing) This ensures that the lone, crazed person doesn't keep attacking a capital ship incessantly since they would soon run out of cash.

The defending team would also receive prestige based on their defense as well. Total reward would be based on the number/size of ships destroyed and if the invasion was successful, how long it took (longer time is worth more).

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I hope those were all clearly answering your questions.

Yes, hank you. I like you idea about the specialization, simple but effective.

I think the ship insurance is a bit deterrent, what if a sigle player would eventullay don't have a chance against a ship, because of shield recharg, or anything, even when the capital ship is only manned by one?

So friendly crafts can dock right? But enemies only with probes. The ship limitation by size is a good idea too.

Also in my opinion the repair system is well balanced too. Should somebody die while repairing the turret (standing close to it), or just unable to man it?

Well I think its not a good idea, that any clan could possess a ship, all clans with 0 powerpoints or newly formed ones would have one. So the question should the restriction cover the powerpoints of the clan, or only money?

The reward system is okay.

How should the ship look like in your opinion? Angular or rounded, or both. Should it has wings, brige (cockpit, but clearly identifiable) or just a window, other things what creep out from the hull (communication tower, external shield generator (still has to be disabled from the inside at the shield control) etc).

Also I don't want to look like an almighty judge. In my opinion every question what become answered, bring us closer to the birth of the capital ship. No matter who asks the questions.

I didn't quite understand your concern about the insurance idea. Can you restate that better?

I think there would need to be a way for clan members to enter the shield, yes. Perhaps also allied clan members (if such a thing were possible).

Since a player who is repairing a turret is already forced to remain stationary and therefore vulnerable to attack from invaders, I don't believe it would be necessary to have them die if the turret came under attack. This sort of thing you could really only answer once the whole thing was physically played out in-game.

My idea, is that there would be quests (similar to the gal. cruiser quest but more strategic and team-based). One for each of the several capital ships. Each quest can only be completed once by any clan that doesn't already have a capital ship. Once all the capital ships are obtained, the only way to get one will be to take it from someone else.

The ship's design will probably be angular since round inherently means higher poly count.

I haven't decided exactly what I will and won't put on the outside of the ship. It will depend a lot on my patience and creativity.

I welcome any and all of your questions. I've struggled in the past with getting anyone just to give me a tiny bit of feedback.

How is this for a "Condor" class capital ship (just an outline). Docking bays will go in the wings and I'll throw in four engines when I have time.

Well okay. The insurance is something you have to pay when attacking the capital ship rigth? In order to prevent solo rage attack. I think it would be a better to prevent these with, offering no chance to a solo man harming the capital ship.

I have some time in the weekend, tomorrow I'll go home, so I think we should work togeather. Are you accept it? If there would be different models, we could space out who do what. it would be more quicker. And I willing to do interiors.

Also must interiors fit the ship size exactly? Or it would look like in rpg games Entering into building... loading... whole different size, but more free, also cockpit and turrets should be separated in this case.

Hey you in! Nice model. I have to go now its 0:00 am. Bye

The problem with the lone attacker is not that he could really damage the ship, but that he would keep it in red alert for long periods of time just to tick off the CS captain.

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I'd love to work more on this with you. Keep in mind I am in college right now and I have other stuff to attend to throughout the week. And any of that will always come first.

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What I need are designs for engines, turrets, shield generators, control panels, and various other things that will need to go on the interior and exterior. I'm hoping to get the interior and exterior of the ships to match. Although it may still have to be rpg style.

With any luck I can get enough time in this weekend for modeling the outline of the interior.

Ok, I will start modelling today, but the train requires 3.5 hours. Could you scale down a model (if make bigger, or smaller), and should it be in atm format?

The format doesn't really matter as long as it isn't .dwg or whatever that native file type you saved to via your AutoCAD software. I can convert the file type as needed.

By the way. I feel I'm getting a little too distracted from other stuff right now. So I'm planning to restrict this work to only on weekends from now on. So it will be a day or so before you hear from me again.

Use 3D Exploration to transform .dwg to .3ds, then the model converter to transform .3ds to .atm

Ok. Real life is more important.

Well here are some ship, I cannot decide wich is the better. A convert it as soon as I have the opinions.

Don't misguide you the color, it will depend on textures.






I am also working on some engines and weapons.

Engine for craft, I think suitable for your ship.

Had a moment to spare since a class was cancelled.

I like the second one of the ships the best. It could be a "HedgeHog" class capital ship. He so cute...

But seriously, nice designs all around.

Thanks.

So the one with the most wings? Well I liked that more too. Hedgehog=Sündisznó in Hungarian. Thats a good name I think.

I will pot the engine in atm. so you could try it out.

Mishka wrote:Use 3D Exploration to transform .dwg to .3ds, then the model converter to transform .3ds to .atm

I tried, but it says not supported yet, I have to do it with 3ds max. I have read some forums, and I now know how to convert the model.

EDIT

The problem is that 3ds max deteriorate the quality of the ship.



You can download the Anyahajó.atm (Anyahajó=Mothership) here:

http://www.2shared.com/file/4815850/4a2 ... yahaj.html

P.S. Be careful, advertisement.

I have your CS. I'll work on it once I've finished working on my own.

What do you think about this for a turret.



The top two openings would be for a slow reloading missile or high damage laser weapon while the other four openings would be a battery of rapid fire laser guns.

Fine work, remind me of a darwinian turret, but I cannot see it properly. Could you use this link to upload?
http://www.2shared.com/

People always like more barrels, think about WW" aa-guns, four barrels look more cool, the double missile launcher also. I think that the cockpit should, have different weapons though. Like not laser guns, but laser beams.

I also want to post a turret model today. But I started to design it with an octagonal glass window. Or should the gunners just see, the enemy through cameras, not windows?

Here is the turret so far. I will improve it more when I start working on details of the whole thing.

The interior of the CCS (Condor Capital Ship) is coming along slowly. I still have several more rooms to add.

:O!

I take it that means you approve?