RFC: Fancy classics

[Simon B]

That is correct, there are 10 turrets and 5 lasers. So this version has a longer strike range and fewer more powerful attacks. It's also smaller - about 1.5x anaconda size.

In keeping with the frigate role, it has longer range scanners and a jammer filter. Shows up in the navy fleet, and as escort to some megaships.

I've been playing around with the rogue frigate - which is kinda fun because everyone attacks you. However, like before, I get to draw a bead on an attacker and poof - target lost due to vaporization.


... I don't know if you can see this, but I've enhanced the specular in the lower-hull textures to bring out underlying detail. I think that takes care of the skin pretty much.

The turrets are set flush tte the hull now.

I have got the flashers to change colors - they cycle between red and green through amber.

Note: I do not plan to make this ship available to players. I need the external views to check the normalmap. The transport OTOH...

[Lestradae]

Anyways, I do find that it captures the essential feel of the "original" frigate quite fine, I think mainly because you have left the old shape in and mostly implemented much more underlying details, as you said.

As to the "poof and you're gone" phenomenon of disintegrated enemies, as I have claimed often already - the thing about balance is if a ship that has very special abilities has opponents or situations happening to it that are hardcore enough to provide a challenge.

For the OSE extension, I did go the way of the D&D dungeon master: The Cobra Mk III is already a good ship, but Commanders will only really buy new ones if they are better. But then everyone else has to be better potentially, too. That starts an arms race.

Sure, there has to be a cap somewhere, but it all boils down to "has this ship, NPC or player or both, enough challenges to stay interesting ingame in whatever role I give it". That's why I suggested to produce a counterbalancing thargoid and/or even pirate menace, if you do it or someone else is not so much the point, just that there are problems in the story that need such a ship.

I hope my early-morning ramblings are vaguely understandable

Cheers

L

[ovvldc]

On escalating stats, I would suggest to put similarly balanced ships in an OXP together. Or at least link on the wiki to OXPs that provide a counterbalance.

And a referee in various RPGs, I can tell you from experience it is much better not to start the arms race at all. So if something is overpowering, do not have players handle it personally, but have them work on mobilising allies and support. Which has the makings of a nice mission OXP

Best wishes,
Oscar

[Lestradae]

Hey ovvldc!

On escalating stats, I would suggest to put similarly balanced ships in an OXP together

That was something my suggestions were meant to imply, yes!

And a referee in various RPGs, I can tell you from experience it is much better not to start the arms race at all

I'd say that depends on the RPG, basically if it is more player against player (like Magic the Gathering i.e.) or if it is player-centric but more against NPCs (like D&D i.e.).

Concerning that comparison, Oolite is more like D&D, with players on their own up against NPC forces. While I would completely agree that starting the arms race in MtG for example would be a bad idea due to the PvP component escalating, too, imagine a D&D campaign in which players could neither rise in experience levels nor would come into the position of going up against bigger and bigger adversaries over time! Like, fighting street bandits and a few orcs still after fifty sessions? That gets boring!

No, a player of level fifteen who has had sixty games with this character, will probably be a count of a country or a trader magnate or a planes traveller, going up against dragons and would-be dictator mercenaries and evil archwizards and demons etc.

Same concerning Oolite. Player-centric against NPC. After a few hundred game sessions, please no more Cobra Mk III versus two Krait. Super Cobra versus Juggernaut or thargoid hive, now that's more like it then. Or am I completely wrong there?

Well, at least that's where I'm coming from.

have them work on mobilising allies and support. Which has the makings of a nice mission OXP

Completely agree on that one!

Cheers

L

[Simon B]

Well, the frigate is not a player ship. Alone, one will provide a decent challenge for an experienced player, but it is killable. It's main disadvantage is it's pitch rate - so it it hard to bring the main guns to bear on a fast-moving target.

Keep moving, keep your distance, you should be fine.

OTOH: there is this:

thinks: the turrets are too big - maybe use the prototype anaconda class cruiser turrets?

[ovvldc]

MtG is actually one of the worst examples of escalation. For years theyhad to justify people buying new sets of cards, and for this reason, every set was just a bit more powerful than the one before. I didn't follow it closely, but from what I saw it did get out of hand.

In player vs. NPC, I meant the arms race literally. Handing them ever more tools to overcome enemies keeps them from using their brains. As a rule of thumb, the less opportunity players have of solving things by violence, the more fun the RPG session is.

In OOlite, I would see you go from Cobra MkIII with basic equipment against two kraits to Cobra MkIII fully kitted out against three thargoids.

Elite was always about sightseeing and lounging about in space, with few instant rewards. And if you stay in the Cobra MkIII, you have to improve your own skills to get the better of thargoids and such. You still improve, but it has nothing to do with the ship you fly.

If you want to be able to shoot faster and bigger things, try playing FreeSpace Open instead . For me, the eye candy is just a way to make the flying around a richer and more complicated experience. Getting an über-ship only detracts from that.

But that is just my personal opinion .

Best wishes,
Oscar

[DaddyHoggy]

I stopped playing Magic:The Gathering for exactly the reasons you stated about 15 years ago when it was obvious (i.e. I started losing) that each new expansion pack started trumping the good cards of the previous ones - I was a ruddy good player with the basic set and I did venture briefly into the first few expansions but I refused to be sucked in and I actually stopped playing completely. I recently found six pre-built decks from all those years ago, varying from a 40 card red/black hit 'em quick and hard, right up to a 90 card red/green monster heavy pack full of apes and shivan dragons...

[Simon B]

Isn't there a better place for this discussion?

Already stated - these ships are not available to players by default.

Since player custom OXPs are possible, the prospect of an arms race depends on the individual.

All the ships are easy to destroy with q-bombs.... so want to add a q-bomb supressor (navy station) to the megaship - maybe the frigate. Not looked into it... doing this forces a proper engagement.

May be neet to have dedicated supressor ships as part of a fleet. Easier to take out - though that's a bit like sheilding your super-station from a lightly defended base on some nearby moon.


Frigates have fewer weapons but some longer range - which should make an engagement trickier for players but using a tougher ship should not help as much as it did before. NPC have a bad time because they basically kamakazi - actually I just saw a drake mk1 destroy a frigate by diving into it on fuel injectors.


The transport I have designated "navy anaconda" due to the possibilities. Still basically a transport, it gets an extra gun but one turret is underneith . I'm two minds about that extra gun.

It's mostly the same as the anaconda, just faster with a better roll to favour turrets over lasers.

I plan a "frontier transport" edition for players who like anaconda play but are frustrated by that ships insignificance in battle.

The rest of the navy ships will be pretty standard.

I would like to see missions which involve more stealth - requiring recon, say, where engaging the enemy is not a good idea or sneaking a package into someplace.

I outlined several in the punkin attack discussion.
(Those models are still there btw - just waiting for someone to do the scripting.)

I also like the idea of an actual invasion set of missions - where a galaxy is gradually taken over by some enemy.

[Simon B]

Here's the recoiling turret shader

Thanks - that looks like I may be able to use it.
Fortunately, the guns are not normalmapped - no point.

[DaddyHoggy]

Apologies for getting off thread.

Of course with OSE pretty much every ship will eventually be playable...

Outside your control of course - perhaps somebody will do Third Wave for the Thargoids...?

[Thargoid]

Outside your control of course - perhaps somebody will do Third Wave for the Thargoids...?

Should I ever actually get around to finishing my first OXP (as opposed to the other 22 or so that have side-tracked me from it), then you will have some more to play with.

[pagroove]

How about some megaships in 'streamlined style'. Like the great old locomotives?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streamliner

For example something like this



Just an idea

[Lestradae]

Hi P.A.Groove,

How about some megaships in 'streamlined style'. Like the great old locomotives?

If you do such a ship, I'd make a viable player version and use it. Not sure if a pure passenger transport with 200+ cabins could be done and work in the game - but we could try!

Is it a deal?

Cheers

L

[DaddyHoggy]

How about some megaships in 'streamlined style'. Like the great old locomotives?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streamliner

For example something like this



Just an idea

That's positively Steampunk and I like! A lot!

[Simon B]

Nice style - outside the scope of the neolite project.
There are a lot of very good ideas, I cannot cover them all by my lonesome. However, that does not mean that someone else cannot try to make an oxp explicitly for neolite.

It should be possible to add a large liner set on fixed runs through the galaxies - with the possibility to hire on as escort.