[Release] Staer9's Shipset

[Duggan]

Thanks again Amah, your recommended tweak earlier has resolved my peronal issue regarding this fabulous vessel.

[Amah]

you are welcome, duggan.

spara, I suggest we leave things like they are. The orginal pcc and the neolite have no naval_shield_boosters, only the 2.6 had...

[Smivs]

FWIW when I get round to starting on the Classic SuperPythons OXZ (PCC and Python ET), they will have their original specs - ie no Military Shield option for the PCC.

[Lone_Wolf]

OK Thanks for the research folks. It was me wondering how it could be purchased with a Naval Energy Unit and yet could not use a Naval Energy Grid with it because of it's inability to get an M.S.E. just seemed slightly anomalous to me .

Try Naval Grid Next, the Naval Energy Grid in there no longer requires Mil. Shields, only NEU.

[Duggan]

So out of curiosity, what is the thinking ? Is it that the PCC is too uber with an M.S.E?

I only ask because the core Boa Class Cruiser is able to equip an M.S.E though it can be regarded in some circles as slightly handicapped in the speed department.

I'll also accept; because that is the way the PCC was made as a perfectly viable answer

[Smivs]

The PCC is an old design and comes from more peaceful times. Also it is a freighter, not a warship, although these distinctions can get blurred as you've noticed.
Personally I'd like to see more of this - too many ships these days seem to try to be all things to all men, and I'd rather prefer designs which are more realistically spec'd to their role.

[Layne]

The PCC is an old design and comes from more peaceful times. Also it is a freighter, not a warship, although these distinctions can get blurred as you've noticed.
Personally I'd like to see more of this - too many ships these days seem to try to be all things to all men, and I'd rather prefer designs which are more realistically spec'd to their role.

This is always a problem; the whole point of the fame of the Cobra III was that it was always billed as the first big multi-role ship. (Why? Because the original Elite only let you own that one ship, and they wanted to give the player a sense of freedom to choose their play-style.) Pretty good at a lot of things, but not intended to be outstanding in any one area. Ships /other/ than the Cobra III are supposed to be better in their designed roles-- better at cargo, better at mining, faster in combat, et-cetera, but what's the point in letting the player choose a ship to own if every ship is the ultimate Jack-of-all-trades?

[Keeper]

I don't know who is in charge of putting updates of this into the manager, but I just made some more graphic enhancements that I had wanted to do a couple years ago before I dropped out of the Ooniverse. The large transport ships (PCC, Python ET, Monitor, Monitor 2) now have some blinking lights, just like Griff's Anaconda, Boa and Python do. I used the same shader I did for the Sb-Faves OXP, but include a copy of that shader here so the user doesn't need to have both OXPs.

Also I fixed a mistake I had made with the Bushmaster effects texture (I mistakenly had the weapon glow effect in the red and blue channels as well as green, meaning the weapon area would glow when the engines were on, instead of only when the lasers get hot). And I added the Chameleon to the Library.

I've uploaded just the changed/new files here: http://www.keeper1st.com/Oolite/staer9blinky.zip (I even already updated the version number in the manifest file, so whoever is handling uploading this to the manager should need only to insert these files into the current OXZ then it'll be ready for uploading).

And yes, I ran OptiPNG on the new textures.

[Amah]

the orginal shadered version is irc maintained by spara. I keep an eye on the set without shader effects.

[spara]

I'm on the road ATM. I'll make an update when I get home.

[spara]

Now it's updated (1.3.3) with Keeper's latest fixes. All thanks go to Keeper, I just overwrote files, started the game once to check it works and uploaded the new version.

Now that 1.84 is out, this one should be updated with twin laser player versions of the Cat and Iguana. RL work has been taking most of my time over the last year or so and I'm a bit of a drop out with the latest new features. So... has someone already done player versions of those two ships utilizing the new multiple laser feature? That would speed up the possible release of those player versions tremendously .

[Norby]

Some help:

Code: Select all

"staer9_cat-player" = {
    like_ship="staer9_cat";
    forward_weapon_type = "WEAPON_BEAM_LASER";
    roles = "player";
    subentities = (
			{	
				type = "standard";
				subentity_key = "staer9_cat_left_gun-player";
				position = (0, 0, 0);
				orientation = (1, 0, 0, 0);
			},
			{	
				type = "standard";
				subentity_key = "staer9_cat_right_gun-player";
				position = (0, 0, 0);
				orientation = (1, 0, 0, 0);
			}
    );
		"view_position_aft" = "0.0 2.5 -22.5";
		"view_position_forward" = "0.0 2.5 28.5";
		"view_position_port" = "-27.5 2.5 8.5";
		"view_position_starboard" = "27.5 2.5 8.5";
    weapon_mount_mode = "multiply";
    weapon_position_forward = ("-29.5 -0.1 7.0", "29.5 -0.1 7.0");
};

"staer9_cat_left_gun-player" = {
    like_ship="staer9_cat_left_gun";
    forward_weapon_type = "WEAPON_NONE";
};

"staer9_cat_right_gun-player" = {
    like_ship="staer9_cat_right_gun";
    forward_weapon_type = "WEAPON_NONE";
};

"staer9_iguana-player" = {
    like_ship="staer9_iguana";
    forward_weapon_type = "WEAPON_BEAM_LASER";
    roles = "player";
    subentities = (
			{	
				type = "standard";
				subentity_key = "staer9_cat_left_gun-player";
				position = (7, 0, 0);
				orientation = (1, 0, 0, 0);
			},
			{	
				type = "standard";
				subentity_key = "staer9_cat_right_gun-player";
				position = (-7, 0, 0);
				orientation = (1, 0, 0, 0);
			}
    );
		"view_position_aft" = "0.0 2.5 -22.5";
		"view_position_forward" = "0.0 2.5 28.5";
		"view_position_port" = "-27.5 2.5 8.5";
		"view_position_starboard" = "27.5 2.5 8.5";
    weapon_mount_mode = "multiply";
    weapon_position_forward = ("-22.6 -0.7 1.7", "22.6 -0.7 1.7");
};

Weapon positions are from [wiki]Multiple Lasers[/wiki] so should be good, but view positions are untested.

[spara]

Thanks Norby. Got it working .

Balancing the beast (Cat MkII) proves to be quite a challenge. The stats are based on Neolite's Cat and are quite a bit over the top.

Cargo: 5
Pitch: 2.4
Roll: 2.6
Energy: 420
Recharge rate: 3
Speed: 420
Missiles: 4

It's superbly fast and agile. And on top of that it take a lot of beating before it runs out of energy. And why 4 missiles? It's simply too good to be "balanced". I want to keep it fast and agile for character, but give it some major downside. So I'm planning reducing missiles to 1 and halving the max energy . That way it's lethal in experienced hands, but a deathtrap for rookies. Any comments?

And it's so cool to shoot with twin lasers .

[Cody]

And it's so cool to shoot with twin lasers.

How does that look externally - are there actually two cannons?

[spara]

And it's so cool to shoot with twin lasers.

How does that look externally - are there actually two cannons?

It looks like this.