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D-class ships of the Outlanders v0.2

Posted: Sat Mar 08, 2014 6:32 pm
by hiasakite
Hi all, my first foray into OXP making. Not completely satisfied with this, but is a start (textures could be better, plus whole load of stuff I need to learn about on subentities etc).
Hopefully once I have more time I can improve this.
Anyway, thought I'd share this with you. More to come.



Ships of the Outlanders

The little seen D Class series of ships.
Developed by a little known, isolated sect of humanity, nicknamed the ‘Outlanders’ (our name, not theirs) and believed by some to be in response to perceived threat to their homeworld.
Whether this is an external threat from attackers (possibly thargoid, or other humans), or in response to some natural disaster of lack of resources is unknown.

Previously very rarely seen in normal space, in recent years more incursions into ‘regular’ space have been spotted, which has led to an increasingly tarnished view of these as ‘miscreants and low lie scum not worthy of even the name of pirates’.
Whilst this is probably not entirely deserved, on some occasions encounters with these ships has, at least initially, been from a perspective of mutual distrust and wariness, but at least not-out-and-out aggression, with even rumours of occasional successful trades, more frequently than not they exhibit behaviours associated with pirates.

Rumour has it the increasing incursions into more known Galcop space, mistrust of outsiders and predatory behaviour is driven by some cataclysmic event on or threat to their home world, and their increasing forays into civilised space (yes Edzaar – even you!) is in response to this. These are unconfirmed. Attempts to engage in sensible dialogue usually rapidly descends into “give us your cargo, sister and coffee machine, or we’ll spit you into the nearest solar corona with just a copy of the Tionisla chronicle for sunscreen“.

Such is the contempt and mistrust around the Outlanders, that thus far there have been several submissions to the GalCop council in attempt to reclassify these ships, and their crew as ‘sub-human aliens’, thus allowing a ‘shoot on sight’ policy for all suitably equipped traders, bounty hunters and planetary authorities.
Thus far this has not been successful, despite several attempts, supported by strong lobbying from industrialists and trade representatives of numerous systems, and even the Federation of Pilots as, genetically at least, they are human.
Opposers of these motions naturally argue that these actions merely vindicates the Outlanders mistrust and behaviour, and removes all hope of resolving these issues in a manner that does not involve escalation of conflict.

It is felt however, that unless something drastic changes, this motion, and change in formal status to ‘alien’ is probably inevitable. Doubtlessly rumours of this filtering back to the Outlanders will only serve to feed even more predatory behaviour on legitimate shipping.

Their origin is unknown, some say from outside of ‘known’ spaces, others point to the some of the more isolated systems in the universe which are rarely visited, or possible to visit using normal means. One rumour has them residing near the systems of the prodigal suns. As yet, no-one really knows, and the way things are going, it’s doubtful they will care.

On a positive note, their shield technology has been generously described by one weapon system architect at Cowell MgRath as “so piss poor my nanna’ in an adda’ could shoot through it”. This is of scant conciliation when you have 6 to 8 of the blighters on your six to deal with though. And to give the Outlanders some credit, some of the larger ships do have significant numbers of energy banks….

Our advice?
You’d never heard of them until now, they’re probably all scum anyway and marry their own sisters/brothers/pets/portable appliances/thargoid neighbours, who knows where they really come from (and if you did know, would you really want to go there anyway?), so let’s shoot them all on sight and make the problem go away..



Thus far four primary classes of ships have been identified in use, both in formal designation and nickname:
D1: AcridRain
D2: ScorchedWind
D3: FeveredSquall
D4: ArdentThunder



D1: nicknamed ”AcridRain”
Appears to be a light support fighter, usually found escorting D3 FeveredSquall class ships. Quick, nimble, lightly armed principle defence is size, speed and ability to dodge, individually easy to kill, can be more problematic if you meet in a pack, combined with larger ship providing missile support/ECM cover.

Speed: 380mls
Pitch: 3, Roll: 3.5
Energy banks: 3
Recharge: Medium
Missiles/pylons: 0
Cargo:1T
Forward lasers only

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D2: nicknamed “ScorchedWind”
Large heavy support fighter, known to fire the odd missile and generally found in support of the ArdentThunder class of ship. Packs slightly more punch than the AcridRain, though doesn’t appear any better defended. Known to operate in isolation, possible as long range reconnaissance vehicle for long term deep space exploration. Some cargo capacity, and believed to contain significant life-support systems enabling prolonged space travel using crew stasis fields.

Speed: 340mls
Pitch: 1.6, Roll 2
Energy banks: 3
Recharge: Medium
Missiles/pylons: 2
Cargo:6T
Fore and aft lasers

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D3: nicknamed “FeveredSquall”
Primary support vessel/cruiser. Rarely seen without escort. Missile equipped and usually with looted cargo. Whilst not overly nimble itself, when in action as a missile cruiser combined with agile D1 ‘AcridRain’ class escorts is able to put up a solid defence.

Speed: 300mls
Pitch: 1, Roll: 1.5
Energy banks: 6
Recharge: Medium
Missiles/pylons: 4
Cargo:38T
Fore and aft lasers
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D4: nicknamed “ArdentThunder”
Large support vessel/cruiser. Well equipped with missiles, usually with escorts. Combined with escorts considered a formidable match for light/medium equipped ships.
Speed: 250mls
Pitch: 1.2, Roll 1.5
Energy banks: 7
Recharge: Medium
Missiles/pylons: 8
Cargo:38T
Fore and aft lasers

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Breaking Update:
A further batch of these miscreants have been spotted – notice from the Galcop Authorities is ‘shoot on sight”.
Whilst outwardly based on the same hulls, they appear to be better equipped and armed than earlier variants, and carry the designations:
D1: Piercing Rain
D2: HowlingWind
D3: ZealousSquall
D4: TempestuousFervour

In addition, a larger classes of battlecruisers have also been identified:
D5: RighteousStorm
D7: MalignantMaelstrom
These should be regarded as extremely dangerous, and frequently come with escorts.

In addition two variants of another ship – D6: PoisonedWind and D6B GloriousMalcontent have been identified. The D6B variant appears to be carrying some form of payload, but as yet it is unclear what.
Screenshots:
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Compatibility. Written on 1.77.1 and 1.79. Don't know about earlier versions.. try it and see?

To download: v0 2
https://app.box.com/s/0vhyh58sktpjzj5se7z7

Re: D-class ships of the Outlanders

Posted: Sat Mar 08, 2014 6:40 pm
by Diogenese Senna
Downloaded and testing ...

... and nice introduction by the way.

Re: D-class ships of the Outlanders

Posted: Sat Mar 08, 2014 6:51 pm
by hiasakite
Wow - download already!

I'd inadvertently posted my 'test version' - which turns every other pirate ship out there into one of thes (which is geat for testing, but doesn't really suit the 'rare' back story!')

I've just amended the download with the 'rarer' frequencies in the shipdata file..

Re: D-class ships of the Outlanders

Posted: Sat Mar 08, 2014 7:21 pm
by Smivs
Rather Klingon-like....nice :)

Re: D-class ships of the Outlanders

Posted: Sat Mar 08, 2014 7:45 pm
by Cody
Good introductory back-story - we like those.

Re: D-class ships of the Outlanders

Posted: Sat Mar 08, 2014 8:09 pm
by Diogenese Senna
Cody wrote:
Good introductory back-story - we like those.
Very muchly do we like those

Re: D-class ships of the Outlanders

Posted: Sat Mar 08, 2014 8:33 pm
by Norby
Nice work. :)
My thoughts:

The role of D1 should be escort rather than pirate - without hyperdrive and enough cargo capacity this is not a good standalone pirate ship.

The model of D2 is larger than D3, I think should be smaller based on ship data.

D4 is larger but weaker in energy than D3 which is a bit unnatural for me. I can imagine 8 banks and more cargo space or at least some explanation of this inconsistency.

Most importantly the size of all playable ships should be within 138*64*250m to be able to dock into stations (192*64*250m) and rock hermits (138*138*250m) also. Your D2, D3 and D4 ships are too wide, I suggest to shrink the wings of these.

Re: D-class ships of the Outlanders

Posted: Sun Mar 09, 2014 9:41 am
by hiasakite
Folks, really appreciate the comments and constructive feedback, really helpful (and quite/very flattering, especially given the quality of some of your work which I have downloaded!).

Norby, good point re-ship size. Believe it or not I have manually docked all the ships (though care is needed!) in both stations. Hadn't appreciated they were out of size.
I agree they are (once 'wings' accounted for') big however.
>Will see if I can shrink slightly.


Re: relative weakness of D4. Good point, will 'beef' up slightly, though worth mentioning that the philosophy around these ships is that they should not represent 'uber ships', or anything remotely approaching this. I have a few concepts which will slot in 'above' these once I work out how to do a few further things with subentities etc.
Similarly there is another set of variants of these which have capacity to represent far more of a pain in the back side for players once I've got these working. Plan is to include these in a late update.
This particularly applicable to the 'cooking oil' variant of the D2..hence the size/'relative power' anomaly (which basically just makes it easier to hit from top or bottom!).

They are playable, but this was initially driven from a need to test them. From a player perspective there are probably better ships out there frankly.

Regarding roles: The "pirate-light-fighter" is probably best suited to the D1, however my concern around using this is that it would upset use in v1.77. Just tried it and it 'appears' to work ok (ie ignore it) My worry with using 'escort' as a calls however is that it will then start to show up in random clean/legitimate escorts.

There is a whole further back-story/mission thread that can go with this lot (variants thereoff) if I can get my head round scripting and some of the more advanced/sophisticated options available, I fear time commitments (ie work etc!) will get in the way of that however!

Smivs: Re klingons.. that may have been a source of inspiration..!

Re: D-class ships of the Outlanders

Posted: Sun Mar 09, 2014 11:02 am
by hiasakite
Ok- updated ship sizes and some of the classes.

Will repost new pictures and link shortly

Re: D-class ships of the Outlanders

Posted: Sun Mar 09, 2014 11:57 am
by Diogenese Senna
hiasakite wrote:
Ok- updated ship sizes and some of the classes.

Will repost new pictures and link shortly
... and downloaded :D

Re: D-class ships of the Outlanders

Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2014 3:37 am
by Diziet Sma
Cool backstory.. I like the sound of these characters! :twisted:

Downloaded.

Re: D-class ships of the Outlanders

Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2014 6:06 pm
by Pleb
Smivs wrote:
Rather Klingon-like....nice :)
Klingon in name and appearance, Vulcanised in colour! :lol:

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Re: D-class ships of the Outlanders

Posted: Sat Mar 15, 2014 7:36 pm
by hiasakite
Fair point - maybe I should reconsider the colour scheme..

A taster of what's coming..
These are Wings3d images, so Emissions effects are not shown... bear this in mind if they seem a little 'dark'

In black:

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And in green:

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Have sussed out subentities (had a } in the wrong place!) - now just trying to work on game-balance, as my next crop of miscreants are a little too 'kick-ass' (even when I come against them in an iron-ass Caddy!!)

Re: D-class ships of the Outlanders v0.2

Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2014 12:52 pm
by hiasakite
Ok folks, v0 2 out. Corrected a few cosmetics (such as a exhaust detail), plus added in:
- a range of 'badder' ship versions (you'll soon work out why)
- heavier class of turret equipped ships that sit in the heavy cruiser / battlecruiser category.
- placeholder ships for future ideas, once I work out (or rather get the time to work out!) how to code AI's properly

The next range have a 'dark' theme to them (see screenshots), however the emissions tags on wingtips etc should make them easy enough to see from a distance.

Once again feedback appreciated,

Note that 3 of the ships (D7, D6 and D6B) are not 'player buyable', and one of these (D7) would be a 'bigship' for docking dimension purposes.

Development next steps:
- Currently these are handled as ‘pirates’, however it would be better to build customer AI’s for these, and associated ship roles, so they appear as a separate ‘faction’ within the game.
- Once past this, I have specific behaviours in mind for one or two of these


A.