Stormbrewer Strigine

[Nite Owl]

The Stormbrewer Strigine

brought to you by

Minerva Enterprises of Greater Gerete.

This ship is still undergoing trial runs although no major flaws have been found. Once we at M.E.G.G. are satisfied that there are no design flaws a press release will be created announcing the Strigine's availability to the general public. Consider this a small preview to gauge the reactions of our target audience. We understand that the paint scheme may not be to everyone's liking but to each his own in that respect. There is a lot more information available about the rationale behind the paint scheme but we will hold off on revealing that until the press release announcing general public availability . Keeping your customers guessing is a valid sales tactic. Further tweaking to the various stats of the ship may still occur based on public feedback and further testing. Enjoy.

Player Only
Medium Sized Trader / Bounty Hunter
75 tons of Cargo Space / 100 tons with Large Cargo Bay
2.0 Pitch / Roll / Yaw
Thrust 45.0
Max Flight Speed 450.0
8 Energy Banks
6.0 Energy Recharge Rate
8 Missiles


Top



Bottom



Front



Rear



The original Stormbrewer and Stormbrewer Vigilante were designed by Red Neck Rocketscience Laboratories. These labs were the brainchild of Morgan Orr. It is through his generous licensing agreements that we at M.E.G.G. are able to bring you this redesign of his classic ship. The Strigine is based on the Vigilante design platform as we think it better suits the needs of our customer base here in the Greater Gerete area. Without the pioneering design work of Mr. Orr the Strigine would have never seen the light of the stars. For his work and licensing agreement we are truly thankful.

[Redspear]

Hi Nite Owl, nice looking ship - it reminds me of some of mandoman's work.

Further tweaking to the various stats of the ship may still occur based on public feedback and further testing

You hinted that you'd like some public feedback and may tweak the ship's vital statistics as a result.

Based on the numbers I would say that you have created a 'super-ship' one that not only occupies many different roles but also excels in most (if not all) of them.
If that's what you want then cool but why it might not be so good is it might render a lot of other ships less useful if not obsolete.

Consider:

Fastest core ship: Asp Mk II @ 400

Highest recharge rate: Fer de Lance @ 4.5

Highest number of missiles: Anaconda @ 7

Highest number of enegy banks: Boa Cruiser @ 8

Highest cargo capacity for medium trader: Cobra Mk 3 @ 20 - 35

Highest pitch score: Adder @ 2.0

(The above exclused the vipers and constrictors as non -standard player ships. Also I haven't double checked everything so apologies for any mistakes).


Note the spread of abilities amongst the various ships, giving each a role or 'flavour' that keeps them interesting when they appear in the game.
The proposed profile of your ship would best (or at least equal) all of them at 'their own game'.

Super-ships can be fun but IMHO they are all the more so when they are only super in one department; or if they at least have some sort of achillies heal (no hyperdrive being a simple example).
So, if I were you (which of course I am not, so feel free to ignore) then I would seriously consider reducing some if not all of the numbers for this ship quite significantly.

[cbr]

Very nice classic tron like texture...

Cost with these specs, > 850000 credits ?

[montana05]

Further tweaking to the various stats of the ship may still occur based on public feedback and further testing. Enjoy.

Player Only
Medium Sized Trader / Bounty Hunter
75 tons of Cargo Space / 100 tons with Large Cargo Bay
2.0 Pitch / Roll / Yaw
Thrust 45.0
Max Flight Speed 450.0
8 Energy Banks
6.0 Energy Recharge Rate
8 Missiles

A great looking ship, it definitely reminds me of Mandotech, moreover with the current specifications it will be the dream of every pilot in the 8 sectors. I tend to agree with Redspear, maybe 2 - 3 variants would fit better to the different needs of the buyers. A fast fighter (expensive and not much cargo), a trader/courier (cheaper, less speed but more cargo) and a multi-purpose somewhere between. Just my personal opinion.

[Nite Owl]

Thank You for the feedback, it is much appreciated. It has led to some changes in the stats already. The "Uberness" of the stats as posted above was a recent innovation. More than likely hastened by my late night desire to get more bang for the buck. Once the next phase of testing is complete a post will be made seeking further feedback.

Was unaware of mandoman's work prior to it being mentioned as my tenure here has only been about 4 months. Have done the research on his work and despite the missing images it does seem we have a somewhat similar style when it comes to textures.

Somewhere in the distant future will wrap my head around shaders and JavaScript and more complicated coding in general but for now a simple ship release will have to do. We all have to start somewhere.

One final question. Does the use of shaders preclude solid designs such as the ones presented in my post above? Every shader designed ship studied utilizes a much more diffuse texture with an alpha channel at less than 100%. Is this mandatory for a proper look or can more solid designs use shaders as well? Probably already know the answer but an unasked question will always lead to doubt.

Fly Safe and Dock Straight Commanders.

[CaptSolo]

One final question. Does the use of shaders preclude solid designs such as the ones presented in my post above?

No. In fact, the opposite is true.

Every shader designed ship studied utilizes a much more diffuse texture with an alpha channel at less than 100%.

Not sure what you mean here, but the alpha channel quite often holds an additional texture rendered by the shader file. In the case of Griff's normalmapped ships, that texture usually applies the specular map to the diffuse texture.

[Nite Owl]

Alpha Channel was a wrong choice of words on my part. Alpha Opacity is what was meant. At least that is what it is called in Paint.Net, my paint program of choice. Probably a better term for it is just plain old Opacity. Unless they are the same thing; Alpha Channel - Alpha Opacity - Opacity?

Brain Cramp.

The Shader Ships that have been studied always use a texture that uses an Opacity of less than 100% giving them a more diffuse look. My curiosity leans towards using Shaders for a texture that uses an Opacity of 100% (as in the pics posted above) for a non diffuse look. Will work my head around it eventually.

More Brain Cramps will surely follow.

[CaptSolo]

A_C, nice illustration of specularity on those three ships.

Probably a better term for it is just plain old Opacity. Unless they are the same thing; Alpha Channel - Alpha Opacity - Opacity?

They are not quite the same thing. Opacity or Transparency in the context of image manipulation allows the user to adjust the opacity of the tool in use (e.g. brush) or blend layered images. Alpha Channel, on the other hand, is the A in RGBA.

This is the best source of information on this subject:  Oolite Materials

[montana05]

May I be so bold to ask our friendly moderators to separate "The Stormbrewer Strigine" topic from Screenshots ? As much as I appreciate the great pictures offered here it sometimes takes ages before I could open the page, sometimes the connection is definitely sub-standard.

[Nite Owl]

Thank You CaptSolo for answering my questions. Have read that page a large number of times, to the point of bookmarking it. Still having trouble wrapping my brain around some of it which, in turn, leads to yet another visit to that page. It will all make sense to me eventually.

As to montana05's request to move "The Stormbrewer Strigine" Discussion to its own topic, that would be fine by me. Only posted it here in the screenshot thread as the ship was not ready for a release thread which will come about somewhere down the road. A pre-release discussion thread serves the purpose just as well.

[another_commander]

Topic split from Screenshots.

[montana05]

Topic split from Screenshots.

@ Nite Owl and another_commander, thanks a lot.

[Stormrider]

Very nice.
Nite Owl said:

The Shader Ships that have been studied always use a texture that uses an Opacity of less than 100% giving them a more diffuse look.

What you are seeing is the effect of a greyscale image saved to the alpha channel being combined with the base texture. This is done to save space so you don't need another complete RGBA texture file for specular maps and things like that.
From the page CaptSolo linked:

extract_channel * string * Indicates that one of the channels of the texture should be extracted into a new greyscale texture. Allowed values: r, g, b and a.

This obviously involves extra work for Oolite, which is always a bad thing, but it makes it possible to combine multiple effect maps in a single texture for shaders and then extract channels for use as emission or illumination maps without shipping a redundant texture. If this means nothing to you, you probably don’t want to use extract_channel.

With Gimp image editor you can create a greyscale copy of an image then right click on a layer in the layers window of the original base image and select add layer mask then Black (full transparency and paste the greyscale copy to it.
Emission maps can be really cool, one of the effects I was able to achieve lights up two panels on the bottom of the hull as the speed of the ship increases. I did it by combining red and blue faintly in the emission map. The red is to simulate heated metal around engines, the blue simulates the glow from the exhaust emission, I think combining them gives the panels a nice plasma glow effect and Griff's awesome griff_normalmap_ships_withScroll.vertex gives it a cool oscillation, which I discovered completely by chance.
I suspect the Griff's Moray has a similar emission map that gives the hull its octopian color effects.
Unfortunately due to my dismal backup program I can't offer you a full layered texture that might help you get a better grasp on how the textures are set up but I will give you any advise I can about how I did it. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions.

[Nite Owl]

Thank You Stormrider, twice.

First for creating the Stormbrewer ships and giving them a free use license which allowed me to go ahead with this project. The model and its shape appealed to me immediately upon seeing it for the first time. While cruising in my initial Cobra Mk. III the goal had always been to be able to get a Stormbrewer Vigilante. When the time came for the purchase it struck me that enough had been learned coding wise to make a unique version of The Vigilante to better suit my desires. The Strigine is the result. Credit will be given to you when the release comes about. The plan is to include your original Stormbrewer ReadMe. The final paragraph of my original post is included in The Strigine's ReadMe.

Second for the above advice. Any advice that cuts down on the coding learning curve is much appreciated.

[Stormrider]

You are welcome, Fact is all of the code is slightly modified from work done by others, Jens Ayton, Griff, and Staer9, specifically, so I could not have licensed it differently even if I wanted to. All I did was the model and the artwork.
Open source software is awesome and I am thankful to be part of it, if my small contribution is appreciated enough for someone to put in the work to release their own customized version I feel honored.
For me its also really cool to see my own custom effects in-game, that's why I encourage others to do the same with my oxps if they choose.

Any advice that cuts down on the coding learning curve is much appreciated.

I know where you are coming from, it took me a long time to figure out what was going on with the textures for shader ships looking opaque like that. At one time I found a link to a Griff Cobra that had the full layered Photoshop texture included which really helped me to grasp how the shaders work, and specifically how Griff set up the shader to utilize different channels to create glow and reflective effects. I'll look around and see if I can find that as well as some other resources that may help you.