[RELEASE] Resistance Commander

[Ganelon]

The resistance organisation has a small range of models available;

Probably a silly question and terribly un-mercenary-like of me to ask.. But if it's a resistance org, who and what are being resisted against?

[Commander McLane]

The resistance organisation has a small range of models available;

Probably a silly question and terribly un-mercenary-like of me to ask.. But if it's a resistance org, who and what are being resisted against?

Does it really matter, as long as we get to blow stuff up?

[Ganelon]

Wellll.. Maybe it doesn't matter ultimately. (This is a game and the explosions in it are cool.) But it matters somewhat for "the game in the head", for me at least.

[Gimi]

The resistance organisation has a small range of models available;

Probably a silly question and terribly un-mercenary-like of me to ask.. But if it's a resistance org, who and what are being resisted against?

I would think that resistance organisations would flourish in Communist and Feudal systems.

[Ramirez]

To keep things flexible I wasn't going to make the OXP galaxy-specific. So, I'll probably choose a system at random from each of the galaxies and make them the enemy.

One story I had in mind is that a dictatorship has invaded one of its weaker neighbours, forcing the defenders to flee and set up operations in other systems. An obvious question to ask is why the Galactic Cooperation doesn't step in at this point, but the rationale would be that the resistance's homeworld is only small and they have little influence in high places.

Alternatively, a coup may have taken place (perhaps caused by a long period of drought, disease etc - check the planet descriptions for inspiration) resulting in the fall of a system's government and the installation of a military dictatorship. This would be an internal matter and so again wouldn't receive the attention of the Cooperation.

In both cases the aim is to keep the resistance feel instead of elevating things to all-out war. While I could do a story where one system is intent on taking over the whole galaxy (that's the Midwinter influence again), that would be more suited to a GalCop/Navy mission series and would be much larger in scope. Better start out small.

[pagroove]

s weaker neighbours, forcing the defenders to flee and set up operations in other systems. An obvious question to ask is why the Galactic Cooperation doesn't step in at this point, but the rationale would be that the resistance's homeworld is only small and they have little influence in high places.

One reason could be also that the Galactic Cooperation is too busy to fight the Thargoids and 'normal' pirate groups. This leaves them simply out of Resources.

[Thargoid]

Just as a thought, why not use a control system based on a simplified version of the scripting for the Vortex missile bays?

For example have a piece of activated equipment which switches the missile bay between the normal one and one containing the aforementioned "mines" used to send orders. That way your player ship can be normally armed, but can be put into "command mode" where those armaments are swapped out for your squadron control icons as you already considered.

It would need to be made incompatible with the vortex itself (easily done, make your swapping equipment incompatible with EQ_MULTIBAY) as it would probably screw up the missile bays there, but other than that it would work reasonably well I'd say.

[Ramirez]

That could be a useful alternative, Thargoid. I'm afraid the Vortex rather passed me by - I think I was confusing it with the Vector which I'd already seen - so I'll need to have a detailed look to see how it works.

I might park this aspect for a bit and do a bit more work on the actual missions to see how viable they really are. Also I need to do some general cleaning up for v1.75 so I better get that out of the way first.

[Ramirez]

Work continues at my usual glacial pace - bit busy in RL so haven't done as much as I'd like. Anyhoo, I've got most of the personnel and and ship management stuff sorted, so you can replace any losses in your team and equip them with specific ships. I've leave the introductory text for the moment. I then went on a bit of a diversion to introduce a bit of radio discipline so your team don't all respond at once to your orders but instead take their turn. That could still do with a bit of tweaking but it's generally working OK now. I also added a bit of business about hyperspace and making sure you don't abandon any units in deep space, and so I've created some special commands to help with that.

So, it's onto the missions, of which there are about 6 types and I've starting writing some suitable AIs for the opposing force to use. I've also been tweaking the squadron AI to make them more effective - giving some of the ships fuel injectors is a huge improvement and makes things much more dramatic. I've been testing my squadron against GalCop units and they're not doing too badly, though they still need a bit of coordination.

There won't be any screenshots for a while, in any case the focus is on mechanics rather than graphics. In the meantime, could a Mod please move this to the Expansions forum as it's not really a suggestion for Oolite development?

[Staer9]

If you want I can model some ships... here is one I am working on which you might like.
just have to reduce the polygon count as it is about 500

[ZygoUgo]

That's kinda cool Excuse me, I'm going to throw some ideas out there.
It could be that as the resistance goes on, they become more organised and manage to retake some enemy strongholds such as beefed up astro-factories. It could then be announced through a mission screen that the Resistance have succeeded in taking enough resources from the enemy to set up a production plant and will produce a new craft specifically designed for their needs. The problem could have been that getting hold of second-hand craft to convert/equip for battle was becoming difficult, and surrounding systems are reluctant to become involved. It could even work out cheaper to produce the technology themselves instead of buying from stock-profit merchants.
Before this point it could be that the mission scenarios were becoming gradually more difficult as the resistance begins to run out of craft to replace those destroyed in battle, and you yourself are becoming short of wing-men. The ships other wing-commanders are turning up in/with are one by one more of a rabble of hastily found replacements.
The introduction of this craft could be the turning-point in the scenario where it is announced 'Now we have the means to take the battle to their bases!'.
Probable bass ship stats could be no cargo, injectors, three pulse lasers (later upgraded up to beam as the resistance continues to recruit its scientific team and knowledge), fast and maneuverable.

[Ganelon]

This looks like a really interesting OXP. Every Ramirez OXP I've tried so far has always had some really great elements and innovations. Do you think the test or first version will be coming out more in the near future or the far future?

[Ramirez]

I should have a test available soon. I might need some help on designing the ship selection screen as I'd like to put a small rotating model in one of the corners - I'll sketch out the kind of thing I'm trying to do. Meanwhile, I've only really done one mission type, though I've at least established the various parameters plus some custom AI that I'll need.

ZygoUgo - those are good ideas and not too far from what I had in mind. In particular, once you reach a certain stage you might be given a set of more powerful ships to play with, rather than having to slum it with cheaper models. That will of course make ship selection a bit more complex but it's doable. Also, it might be that at some point things turn away from the random mission selection towards more specific goals as things really come to a head. I'd definitely aim to increase the firepower available, though I've already decided that even the base ships really do need to have injectors otherwise they're just not responsive enough. It's great when you give an order and you see one of your wingmen swooping toward the target at full power!

[Staer9]

I cant wait to test this out, it sounds great

[Ramirez]

I've been trying to decide what ships to use as the basic set. Ideally I'd like to offer ships that have different strengths so the player can make a clear choice between them; 3 or 4 different models should cover it. The kind of missions I'm planning vary from assaulting an enemy installation to intercepting supply convoys, so the correct selection of ships is crucial. The kind of roles I'd like are:

Agile fighter - fairly standard Oolite ship with medium-powered laser armament
Long-range interceptor - faster but less manoeverable than the fighter, maybe with fuel injection and a more powerful laser
Bomber - unlike the interceptor and fighter, a bomber has a few missile pylons so can deploy special weapons and is generally still quite manoeverable
Gunship - a slow, heavily armoured ship used to deliver fire support, maybe modified with some turrets so as to make the fights look a bit more insteresting.

Some potential candidates based on the cheaper end of the standard list are:

Agile fighter - Sidewinder
Interceptor - Mamba
Bomber - Gecko (on the basis that it actually has some missile pylons)
Gunship - something like a converted Moray or Adder

Note all the squadron ships will have higher energy ratings than usual to improve their chances of survival, really I'm just trying to work out what mixture would 'feel' right. Maybe just three ships rather than four will be enough. In any case it's just a question of pasting the relevant role key into the scripts and shipdata.

Any thoughts on ship selection?