Ambrosia Software Web Board: While I'm on the subject... - Ambrosia Software Web Board

I can't say if it's good or not right now- give it a rotated angle, so we can see all three dimensions, and then I'll tell you. As it is it doesn't quite compare to the way the original Ares ships looked.

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-Pallas Athene of Dysian Beta, Obish Consensus Representative
-Nieru Dast, {M}ilitia Aeriane
-Danae Vernius
"Cheaters don't really win, and winners don't really cheat. Unless you're talking politics." -Durandal

Another thing: One of the things I considered when naming ships was that the names were very dissimilar. If possible, change them to be different.

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-Pallas Athene of Dysian Beta, Obish Consensus Representative
-Nieru Dast, {M}ilitia Aeriane
-Danae Vernius
"Cheaters don't really win, and winners don't really cheat. Unless you're talking politics." -Durandal

Quote

Alrighty, then. [url="http://"http://www.geocities.com/fadarkk/Dreadnaught02.jpg"]http://www.geocities...eadnaught02.jpg[/url] for a front shot (not a very good angle in my opinion) and [url="http://"http://www.geocities.com/fadarkk/Dreadnaught03.jpg"]http://www.geocities...eadnaught03.jpg[/url] for a rear shot.

I've spent some time on this, and really hope it's ok. It certaintly fits MY conception of how the Jjaro ships look; it doesn't have wear because the material is some sort of super-metal that lasts pretty much forever.

If you think it needs more character, I could try blending some different chromes, or maybe some hybrid grey/green/brown texture.

Also, I changed the names some. You like?

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William Darkk, head of the Darkklight Entrepenurial Federation
"Strategic warfare" is code for "killing civilians", and it's my calling. Yeah, it's barbaric. War's supposed to be.

[This message has been edited by Fleet Admiral Darkk (edited 01-15-2001).]

Good. just make sure you give it that third dimension in the final version.
(Note: we should probably keep the camera angles the same. How about a ratio of X:Y:Z movement of 0:1:2, or 0:2:1 in Strata?)

Sorry, but I don't like some of those S'pht'Kr names.
Defender
Sentry
Escort
Gunship
Warcruiser
Tranfership
Habilitator

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-Pallas Athene of Dysian Beta, Obish Consensus Representative
-Nieru Dast, {M}ilitia Aeriane
-Danae Vernius
"Cheaters don't really win, and winners don't really cheat. Unless you're talking politics." -Durandal

Me, I'm going to try to visualy approximate the angles of the ships in Ares. I suggest we do that. I'm pretty sure they're only tilted in one axis, but they're rotated to make it look like they're tilted in more. For now, I'm going to work with aspect ratios, as I'm not sure orthographic projection will work even with some angle...

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William Darkk, head of the Darkklight Entrepenurial Federation
"Strategic warfare" is code for "killing civilians", and it's my calling. Yeah, it's barbaric. War's supposed to be.

Hmmm... I think we should have some standardized point where we put the cameras. My suggestion was essantially up 100, over 50. That's about a 3/4 angle (Don't ask me to calculate it precisely), and it certainly seemed to work with the Landsraad ships I had rendered. I'll do one of my ships nice and big at that angle for evaluation. When I can.

--Also, I changed some ships names above. I added some Nebulons for eval too.

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-Pallas Athene of Dysian Beta, Obish Consensus Representative
-Nieru Dast, {M}ilitia Aeriane
-Danae Vernius
"Cheaters don't really win, and winners don't really cheat. Unless you're talking politics." -Durandal

[This message has been edited by Pallas Athene (edited 01-16-2001).]

Oh, I think the UESG "Dreadnaught" catagory ship should be the Missle Destroyer, which has shields slightly less than the battleship but tons of long-range firepower (warp capable fusion missles, perchance) and maybe a wave motion gun (which I think should be the colony-eraser for the humans).

[This message has been edited by Fleet Admiral Darkk (edited 01-16-2001).]

-The Wave Motion gun should be a gigantic Tesla Coil (in appearance) High-Yield Nuclear Weapons would destroy colonies best (We're crude, aren't we?).
-But then again, why are we talking about the UNS Dreadnought here? What about the UESC Dreadnought?
-Have we agreed that fighters will be on Assault Carriers?

-Multiplayer maps:
-Lucky Seven: Two opposing planets with another 5 uncolonized planets a random distance from the center.
-Crossfire: N/S Planets for one player, capable of little production, Player 2 E/W. Center planet without outpost but can build everything once has outpost.
-Fringe: (My favorite) Top Secret. I'll email everyone the details. It's long to write out too.

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-Pallas Athene of Dysian Beta, Obish Consensus Representative
-Nieru Dast, {M}ilitia Aeriane
-Danae Vernius
"Cheaters don't really win, and winners don't really cheat. Unless you're talking politics." -Durandal

Just got to see the pictures (now I'm on iCab not Lynx) and I really like them. I can't see much living space in the Dreadnought, but who cares...

I didn't like the names too much myself either; those are a bit better. I was just thinking of putting a little of what we know of S'pht language in them (Narhl - Vengeance, Lar - Freedom). Yeah, I like your ones better.

I love the net levels, too. How many weapons will we be able to have on our ships? Are we going to have to reserve a weapon for the troopers and elites?

Anyway, this is going to be a cool plug when it's finished.

Well, it had better be...

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Subcommander g'Var "8 Lightnings" Krai'un
Second in command of the Escort Starbeam.
"CRUISER DESTROYED. 91 remaining" -Ares, chapter 9, Hand Over Fist

I'd certainly agreed fighters go on assault carriers. What should their nearest equivilent be, Dreadnought, Battleship, or Destroyer? I'd love to know...

Of course, it could be different per race, with associated cost fluctuations, like the way the Sal carrier is almost their HVD, and the Aud gunship is pretty much their HVD...

Also, do the Carriers and Dreadnoughts have 1 teleporter or 2? How about other ships? Or is it up to the designer?

[update]
I've finished the model for the Drone Carrier. Yes, it is somewhat similar to the Dreadnought, but you've got to expect some similarites. Standard order, 1 is top, 2 is front, 3 is rear. [url="http://"http://www.geocities.com/fadarkk/JDC01.jpg"]http://www.geocities...darkk/JDC01.jpg[/url] [url="http://"http://www.geocities.com/fadarkk/JDC02.jpg"]http://www.geocities...darkk/JDC02.jpg[/url] [url="http://"http://www.geocities.com/fadarkk/JDC03.jpg"]http://www.geocities...darkk/JDC03.jpg[/url]

Also, I have experamentally verified that the way the Ares ships are set up is that the primary rotation is made, and then the ship is tilted 45° along the axis running horizontally across the screen (in my case, the x axis). The test results (yes, they look like crud, I was trying to do it fast) are here: [url="http://"http://www.geocities.com/fadarkk/test.jpg"]http://www.geocities...adarkk/test.jpg[/url] WARNING: It's a big image.

[/update]

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Never fly in front when attacking a Jjaro ship. -Me

[This message has been edited by Fleet Admiral Darkk (edited 01-17-2001).]

Just to clear up my idea of Assault Carriers:
Primary Weapon: Small Gun (Particle Beam?)
Secondary Weapon: Fighter Bay
Secondary/Special Weapon: Trooper/Elite Teleporter
About the shields and speed of a Destroyer.

OK, here's what we'll have to do (if anyone finds a problem with this, just say so, I'll be happy to change it):

I can configure the Special Weapon to do the Mars Rising kind of "Hold down for big shot" thing (Different Wave Motion ). Therefore, if the player taps the Special weapon key, it will teleport Troopers, and if the player holds it, it will subsequently fire off the Elite Teleporter (I'll explain it if anyone is skeptical). It may sound annoying, but necessary, that we create a version of the ship with 0, 1, and if applicable, 2 Elite on board. These would be necessary to allow them to teleport back on anyway. Then, we'll have the Primary and Secondary available for weapons fire.
With all that, I think I'm overloading my core logic circuits. I won't have to call in a marine to get them destroyed...

I'll make a webpage for the project on Tripod. It'll have it finished in maybe 1/2 an hour.

--As soon as I get started- All I have is the Navigation Bar.

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-Pallas Athene of Dysian Beta, Obish Consensus Representative
-Nieru Dast, {M}ilitia Aeriane
-Danae Vernius
"Cheaters don't really win, and winners don't really cheat. Unless you're talking politics." -Durandal

[This message has been edited by Pallas Athene (edited 01-17-2001).]

*GASP!* Oh, the lack of antialiasation!
Camera goes up one, camera goes back one. That's 45 Degrees, and it's better to tilt the camera than the ships. (If that's an option, I don't know if POV-ray can)

--I did the same on my Pfhor Corvette. Tripod isn't working too well lately,
--so I'll send it out as an attachment, as well as the opening screen.

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-Pallas Athene of Dysian Beta, Obish Consensus Representative
-Nieru Dast, {M}ilitia Aeriane
-Danae Vernius
"Cheaters don't really win, and winners don't really cheat. Unless you're talking politics." -Durandal

[This message has been edited by Pallas Athene (edited 01-17-2001).]

POV Ray can tilt the camera, just not with an explicit rotate, but by going 1 back and 1 up (actually, It's much easier to move the ship, but whatever works best for each of us).

If I use it much more, I'm going to CLEP my way to being Doctor of Mathematics or something...

What do you think of the carrier?

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Never fly in front when attacking a Jjaro ship. -Me

Personally, I think it looks a little too much like the dreadnought.

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Throughout their history these "unenlightened" beings have continually opposed and fought abuses of power wrought by their own bretheren. We, as the prophets would do well to learn from these Humans.
-Final statement of the Salrilian reformist Sirthis shortly before his execution.

If there's enough of a difference in size, they should be fine. If the spikey-prong things stand out in the sprite, than nobody will care to see that there isn't much of a difference. (look at Sal and Aud ships)

If worst comes to worst, shorten the center prong and see what it looks like.

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NEW NAME FOR THE DREADNOUGHT
The Hard-Boiled Egg
Why?
Because she cant be beaten!

Does anyone know what you do to Strata to stop it crashing? I'm having trouble using PiXELS, and Strata, well, crashes all the time.

I like the Jjaro ships, Darkk! But, yes, the drone carrier could use a little more difference...

So, there's always two weapons available for use on the ships. Thanks for clearing that up, Pallas.

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Subcommander g'Var "8 Lightnings" Krai'un

Second in command of the Escort Starbeam.
“Imagine if you will, you’re standing on a grade of finely processed salt in a salt factory. Now, there is a very large rusty blade flying towards you at a very high speed. Imagine now, the feeling you will have as you fall into that salt after you are run through with that blade.” -Marathon Infinity, Terminal 0, Page 2, You Think You’re Big Time, You’re Gonna Die Big Time, Vidmaster’s Challenge Edition.

Alrighty then, Drone Carrier remix at 12 o'clock (literaly).
[url="http://"http://www.geocities.com/fadarkk/JDC04.jpg"]http://www.geocities...darkk/JDC04.jpg[/url] [url="http://"http://www.geocities.com/fadarkk/JDC05.jpg"]http://www.geocities...darkk/JDC05.jpg[/url] [url="http://"http://www.geocities.com/fadarkk/JDC07.jpg"]http://www.geocities...darkk/JDC07.jpg[/url]

These better (this is the last time I'll reuse Dreadnought parts)?

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Never fly in front when attacking a Jjaro ship. -Me

Better, yes. Don't reuse much of the Dreadnought, but do reuse at least that "power generator" (or something like it) in the central modules.

I'll post the general weapons for each ship here.
L1 Weapons are simple, usually kinetic, and do little damage.
L2 Weapons are a step up, sometimes kinetic, but always turreted.
L3 Weapons are long-ranged, high damage dealing but nonturreted for striking from afar.
L4 are turreted and do massive amounts of damage, as well as being relatively long-ranged.
L5 Weapons are capable of destroying outposts.
Troopers include BOBs and Fighters.
Elites include Marines and Juggernauts.
AC is a general Measure of how much damage a ship can take before it is destroyed.
Fighters indicates a Fighter Bay

Fighter:
L1 Weapon
No Secondary
2 Troopers
AC 1
Corvette:
L1 Weapon
L2 Weapon
5 Troopers
AC 4
Destroyer:
L3 Weapon
L2 Weapon
8 Troopers, 1 Elite
AC 6
Battleship:
L3 Weapon
L4 Weapon
10 Troopers, 1 Elite
AC 10
Dreadnought:
L5 Weapon
L4 Weapon
20 Troopers, 1 Elite
AC 20
Assault Carrier:
Fighter Bay
L2 Weapon
50 Troopers, 2 Elite
AC 8
Colony Ship:
L1 Weapon
No Secondary
15 Troopers, 1 Elite
AC 10
Can land on Planet to create colony

I think I finished all of the names of the ships, check above.

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-Pallas Athene of Dysian Beta, Obish Consensus Representative
-Nieru Dast, {M}ilitia Aeriane
-Danae Vernius
"Cheaters don't really win, and winners don't really cheat. Unless you're talking politics." -Durandal

[This message has been edited by Pallas Athene (edited 01-18-2001).]

Actually, the power generator won't be on any more ships but the battleship. I think there should be some float on the shields, about ±1 for little guys, and ±2 or more for biggies. The ships in Ares, after all, have differing shield ratios (slighty).

Jjaro Ships/Weapons:

Drone:
Shields 500
L1: Turreted Cosmic Ray Beam (turreted kinetic beam with decent damage)
--
[Note: the drones in the origional tutorial are a good example of how these will turn out]
2 Attack Drones

Scalpal:
Shields 1250
L2: Turreted Rapid Cosmic Ray Beam (fighter weapon speeded up)
L?: Phase Cannon (this isn't quite your conception of a corvette weapon, it's a very slow firing, 2 ammo count, rather powerful foreward pulse; my origional concept of the scalpal was that the Jjaro developed them as assassin ships, to take down a single enemy INSTANTLY; they're rather expensive and suck against groups)
5 Attack Drones

Remover:
Shields 2000
L3: Area Eradicator (XLR version of the Cantharan Gunship weapon)
L2: Turreted Rapid Cosmic Ray Beam
8 Attack Drones, 1 Assault Drone

Sterilizer:
Shields 3750
L4: Acretion Projector [Sick, sick, sick. This uses virtual particals and quantum "action at a distance" to produce a small, temporary, black hole. It does Tazer-like damage (keep in mind 5 tazer beamss can be hitting you at once, for about 150/tic) and pulls the nearest ship its way.]
L3: Antimatter/Matter Missle [Rather self-explanatory]
10 Attack Drones, 1 Assault Drone

Dreadnought:
Shields 6250
L4.5 Heavy Acretion Projector [slightly wider shot than its little brother, and core singularity (very small) that kills in one hit]
L5 XLR Fluctuation Missle [great range, high damage; should outrange almost anything; area effect]
20 Attack Drones, 1 Assault Drone

Foldship:
Shields 13000 (cost 130)
L4.5 Heavy Acretion Projector
L5 XLR Fluctuation Missle [rapider fire, and definatly turreted]
L6 Fleet Warp [creates randomly (0 to 2 of) Scalpal and (0 to 1 of) Remover; uses vast quantities of energy]
Should generate resources when possible

Drone Carrier:
Shields 2000
L2: Turreted Rapid Cosmic Ray Beam
8 Drones, fired in pairs (4 shots)
50 Attack Drones, 2 Assualt Drones

Habitat Ship:
Shields 1500
L1: Turreted Cosmic Ray Beam
--
15 Attack Drones, 1 Assualt Drone

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Never fly in front when attacking a Jjaro ship. -Me

[This message has been edited by Fleet Admiral Darkk (edited 01-20-2001).]

[This message has been edited by Fleet Admiral Darkk (edited 01-28-2001).]

The AC values are relative to other ships in the same race, not to other races. For resource costs of ships:
Fighter: 2 Resources
Corvette: 5 Resources
Destroyer: 8 Resources
Battleship: 15 Resources
Dreadnought: 25 Resources
Assault Carrier: 8 Resources
Colony Ship: 6 Resources

Nebulons: x0.35 (0.7, 1.75, 2.8, 5.25, 8.75, 2.8, 2.1)
Nar: x0.75 (1.5, 3.75, 6, 11.25, 18.75, 6, 4.5)
UESC: x1.00
Pfhor: x1.25 (2.5, 6.25, 10, 18.75, 31.25, 10, 7.5)
S'pht: x 1.50 (3, 7.5, 12, 22.5, 37.5, 12, 9)
Jjaro: x2.50 (5, 12.5, 20, 37.5, 62.5, 20, 15)

I've finished the Pfhor Assault Carrier and the UESC Cruiser and Frigate, but have yet to upload them.

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-Pallas Athene of Dysian Beta, Obish Consensus Representative
-Nieru Dast, {M}ilitia Aeriane
-Danae Vernius
"Cheaters don't really win, and winners don't really cheat. Unless you're talking politics." -Durandal

I meant, say, the carriers of one race might have the same shields as their battleships, but another race have the 8:10 ratio.

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Never fly in front when attacking a Jjaro ship. -Me

I made a table for the resources of each race at [url="http://"http://caalaklael.tripod.com/miresources.sit"]caalaklael.tripod.com/miresources.sit[/url] (opt-click) and uploaded the [url="http://"http://caalaklael.tripod.com/pfhor_asltcarr.jpg"]Pfhor Assault Carrier[/url]. The UESC cruiser and frigate were also uploaded, but they aren't working, so I'll spend a bit longer on them. It might haveto do with the fact that those two were 640x480- I'll try 320x240.

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-Pallas Athene of Dysian Beta, Obish Consensus Representative
-Nieru Dast, {M}ilitia Aeriane
-Danae Vernius
"Cheaters don't really win, and winners don't really cheat. Unless you're talking politics." -Durandal

Here's the Jjaro Corvette, a little monochromatic, but it works IMNSHO.
[url="http://"http://www.geocities.com/fadarkk/Scalpal01.jpg"]http://www.geocities...k/Scalpal01.jpg[/url] [url="http://"http://www.geocities.com/fadarkk/Scalpal02.jpg"]http://www.geocities...k/Scalpal02.jpg[/url] [url="http://"http://www.geocities.com/fadarkk/Scalpal03.jpg"]http://www.geocities...k/Scalpal03.jpg[/url]

Oh, and the Infinity manual has a great pic of the Pfhor Dreadnought.

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Never fly in front when attacking a Jjaro ship. -Me

Take it and decrease the height of the entire thing by a factor of 2. Could you send me the pic? I don't have the Infinity Manual.

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-Pallas Athene of Dysian Beta, Obish Consensus Representative
-Nieru Dast, {M}ilitia Aeriane
-Danae Vernius
"Cheaters don't really win, and winners don't really cheat. Unless you're talking politics." -Durandal

I'm not sure I like the idea of all ships having the troop transporters...

One thing I should point out: We can (and should) have more option than the basic 7 ship classes. Thus I propose that the only basic ship to have transporters should be the assult carrier. This places more importance and tactical value on the ship, as well as provide the player with an interesting challange when they aren't allowed to build them and the computer is. We could also have other tertiary ships with transports that aren't as versitile as the assult carrier in earlier or more difficult missions.

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Throughout their history these "unenlightened" beings have continually opposed and fought abuses of power wrought by their own bretheren. We, as the prophets would do well to learn from these Humans.
-Final statement of the Salrilian reformist Sirthis shortly before his execution.