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

--//S'pht Translators Active//--

I think it adds a certain flavor [insanity?] to the game. I do know for certain [thinks strongly?] that the Colony ship has to have troops. The Marathon did, I know. And also, maybe the fighters shouldn't have troop transporters, but I'd think there were troopers [sucky Phfor?] on the Sfiera and the Khfiva. Maybe elites shouldn't be assigned [dumped on?] to less than Battleships as well, but they definitely should be on the Battleships, Dreadnoughts, and Colony Ships.

The Cruiser and Frigate still aren't working.

I like the idea of alternate ships, personally. We should probably make a MkI Colony Ship, like the Marathon. It would probably be a good idea to make stations for each race too- we've seen the Jjaro station, sort of, and it's not too hard to extrapolate with the other races' designs. Other ships, let's see...
S'pht Assimilator (Sounds good)
Jjaro Foldship (Warps planets)
UESC Flagship, the Merrimack (Big nasty thing)
Nebulon Starhome (Movable base)

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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 01-19-2001).]

Actually, I'll just make a quick runthrough of the way the Marines are deplyed, so it can be debugged on whether it will actually work:

The Object is the version of the ship labeled "1 Elite, Nonfiring" in the Developer's note. The device reloads in 15/20 of a second

ACTIVATION ACTION: Alter BaseType, Reflexive, Preserve Ammo, "1 Elite, Firing"
Alter BaseType, Reflexive, Delay 16, Preserve Ammo, "1 Elite, Nonfiring"
Fire the Trooper Teleporter (I won't go into detail here)

The "1 Elite, Firing" object is a duplicate of "1 Elite, Nonfiring," except its special weapon, the teleporter is replaced by a device with the following:

ACTIVATION ACTION: Alter BaseType, Reflexive, Delay 2, Preserve Ammo, "0 Elite"**
Fire the Elite Teleporter (This will remove a trooper, but we'll assume they're included)

For Assault Carriers, there will be a "2 Elite, Nonfiring" and "2 Elite, Firing" version, and will
--Alter BaseType, Reflexive, Delay 2, Preserve Ammo, "1 Elite, Nonfiring"--
instead of the marked action (**), then use the above. Unfortunately, computer controlled ships will dump the marine immediately, but this creates an actual use for fighters (Really?! I never would have guessed!)

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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

Progress Report:
Ship-----Design-Render-Rotated
UESC
Bomber --Yes----Yes----Yes
Cruiser--Yes----Yes----Yes
Frigate--Yes----Yes----Yes
Pfhor
Fighter--Yes----Yes----No
Corvette-Yes----Yes----Yes
AsltCrrr-Yes----Yes----No
Nar
SomeShip-Yes----No-----No

--The [url="http://"http://caalaklael.tripod.com/uesc_3d_frigate_sml.jpg"]UESC Frigate[/url] has decided to work.

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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 01-20-2001).]

Ambient sounds: Just for fun, let's make planets a little different, and have them play ambient sounds within a ranged distance. It was fun hearing them in Marathon, so why not in Ares?

All ships will have Shields = to their resource cost x10- therefore 6250 for a Jjaro Dreadnought, 600 for a UESC Colony Ship, and 280 for a Nebulon Scavenger.

Bomber: (2 Rsrc, 200 Shields)
L1: Kinetic Laser (And this time it'll be red , Not turreted) [KINLASER]
--
2 BOBs
If a Bomber arrives at a Troopship, it is equipped with one Fission Torpedo [FSN TORP], a light missile. The Troopship's energy will be decreased slightly.

Cruiser: (5 Rsrc, 500 Shields)
L2: Laser Cutter [LASR CUT] (Red Particle Beam, shorter range)
L1: Kinetic Laser Turret [LASR TRT] (KINLASER turreted)
5 BOBs

Frigate: (8 Rsrc, 800 Shields)
L3: Mass Driver [MASS DRV] (25 Rounds, significant damage, nonturreted)
L2: Laser Cutter [LASR CUT]
8 BOBs, 1 Marine

Battlecruiser: (15 Rsrc, 1500 Shields)
L4: Fusion Missiles [FMISSILE]
L2: Laser Cutter [LASR CUT]
10 BOBs, 1 Marine

Monitor: (25 Rsrc, 2500 Shields)
L4: Fusion Missiles [FMISSILE]
L5: Wave Motion Cannon [WAVE MTN] (Ok, it'll be the Colony-Eraser)
20 BOBs, 1 Marine

Flagship, Merrimack: ([only bought in just-conceived multiplayer level]65 Rsrc, 6500 Shields)
L5: Wave Motion Cannon [WAVE MTN] (With two emplacements)
L6: 2 Frigates, fired together [FRIGATE ]
100 BOBs, no Marines

Troopship: (8 Rsrc, 800 Shields)
L2: Laser Cutter [LASR CUT]
6 Bombers, fired in trios (2 shots) [BOMBRBAY]
50 BOBs, 2 Marines

Colony Ship MkII: (6 Rsrc, 600 Shields)
L1: Kinetic Laser Turret [LASR TRT]
--
15 BOBs, 1 Marine

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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 01-20-2001).]

Oh, Pallas: Open the MI map file with ResEdit, and the Pfhor Dreadnought will be pict IDs 160, 162, and 12420. The last one has another Pfhor ship in the background, maybe a Destroyer.

Also, the M2 manual ship is Boomer, Durandal's Corvette. The model was changed from M1 to M2, with less curves and all. Check for something with Boomer written on it in the pict resources if you don't believe me.

I've modified the Scalpal as per your ideas, but it's unlikely I'll get much more done this weekend. Spoony humans, I feel like I'm back on the Marathon with Bernard watching over me again.
[url="http://"http://www.geocities.com/fadarkk/Scalpal04.jpg"]http://www.geocities...k/Scalpal04.jpg[/url] [url="http://"http://www.geocities.com/fadarkk/Scalpal05.jpg"]http://www.geocities...k/Scalpal05.jpg[/url] [url="http://"http://www.geocities.com/fadarkk/Scalpal06.jpg"]http://www.geocities...k/Scalpal06.jpg[/url]

I don't like being a slave again. Maybe it'll go faster if I defrag my redundant external SPU cache field. As soon as I get my new home, they'll all pay.

Signing off,
Your friendly neighborhood rampant AI

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

Quote

I don't have Infinity. I should, I've seen it for $10, but I don't have it.

Quote

That's what I've thought all along. The Boomer pic was my main justification. And it's in "What About Bob?," one of my favorite missions.

Quote

I've modified the Scalpal as per your ideas

No you didn't, but I think that's my foult, not yours. What I was trying to suggest was that you decrease the height, to make it more slender from a side or frontal view, but not different at all with a ventral or dorsal view.

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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

Um, THAT'S WHAT I DID.
Please be more clear, or should I just send you the file to mess with?
Let me try to help you be more clear.
Take the first 3 fingers on your left hand (thumb, index, middle). Spread them until they're at right angles. Open Scalpal image #1. Point your thumb right and your index finger up. Thumb is x-axis, index is y, and middle is z. Please state which dimension you want multiplied by what.

That's all I can think of, you seem to be saying the same thing I did (multiply y by 0.5).

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

Sorry, I just can't see the difference. I'll take another look, maybe 0.25 would be better...

Take a look at the front view. It appears that (from the front) you changed O to |, but I was suggesting changing O to -
Strata switches Z and Y...
If you did, just give me a frontal view and I'll take a look.

If you want to take a look at the spin of the Bomber, [url="http://"http://caalaklael.tripod.com/ftr_rot.jpg"]here[/url].

------------------
-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 01-20-2001).]

Actually, those AREN'T front views. They're skewed, and I was more focused on getting them to look good than getting them to appear very accurate in the absence of a frame of refrance.

I'll work on that. In the meantime, I've done the foldship. Check above for my ideas on it.
[url="http://"http://www.geocities.com/fadarkk/Foldship01.jpg"]http://www.geocities.../Foldship01.jpg[/url]
[url="http://"http://www.geocities.com/fadarkk/Foldship02.jpg"]http://www.geocities.../Foldship02.jpg[/url] [this was an 1 hr 49 minute render]
[url="http://"http://www.geocities.com/fadarkk/Foldship03.jpg"]http://www.geocities.../Foldship03.jpg[/url] [this was an hour and 56 minutes]

As for the bomber, I think small ships should not be skewed. Other than that, rather nice.

I'm working on the Remover, will post when done.

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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).]

Personally, I think that the closer to top down they are, the better. Take a look at EV and EVO, they both have near vertical sprites, and they look great.

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

Almost finished the Assault Carrier. Need to get some better textures set up, though.

I can't get the Frigate to work, still, Pallas.

Hoping to be able to upload something soon,
Tycho.

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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.

I think that whatever we choose, 45° or vertical, or inbetween, we should be consistent. There are a couple of cases where vertical is better, but 45° looks better, generally. We were previously talking about which angle to use, and then Darkk did the Dreadnought, so I just assumed that was what we were doing. I'll have to redo a couple if we decide vertical, but I'm more inclined towards 100% 45°.

------------------
-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

45° for everything but fighters isn't consistent? That's about what Nathan Lamont did...

[update]
Here's the frontal view of the Scalpal: [url="http://"http://www.geocities.com/fadarkk/Scalpal07.jpg"]http://www.geocities...k/Scalpal07.jpg[/url]
[/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 01-21-2001).]

--crud--

[This message has been edited by Fleet Admiral Darkk (edited 01-21-2001).]

Here's the Remover. I went for "odd".
[url="http://"http://www.geocities.com/fadarkk/Remover01.jpg"]http://www.geocities...k/Remover01.jpg[/url] [url="http://"http://www.geocities.com/fadarkk/Remover02.jpg"]http://www.geocities...k/Remover02.jpg[/url] [url="http://"http://www.geocities.com/fadarkk/Remover03.jpg"]http://www.geocities...k/Remover03.jpg[/url]

[Durandal]
Oh, and a piece of advice: never put off until tomorrow what you can slay today.
[/Durandal]

[update]
Here's Bungie's Pfhor Dreadnought: [url="http://"http://www.geocities.com/fadarkk/PDreadnought.jpg"]http://www.geocities...Dreadnought.jpg[/url]
ResEdit and Graphicconverter are beautiful things, ¿verdad?
[/update]

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Formerly-Rampant Human-Coded AI

[This message has been edited by Fleet Admiral Darkk (edited 01-21-2001).]

From what I've seen of the Ares Sprites, Nathan Lamont started out vertical and then switched. All of the sprites you see up to the Ishiman carrier are pretty much vertical. Then, the Auds, obviously one of the later races designed, have everything in 45°. So do the humans. If we are to choose one, we should be 100% consistent.

And you're sure that's the dreadnought? Hmm... it looks quite different from the corvette- did they change designs again?

I did a new energy pod- this is a TC, right ?

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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

Yep, it's a TC. We can still use pulses/sounds/little things from Ares, though, but a new energy blob is welcome. I'm working on a space-folding sequence.

[Durandal]

Here is Mr Battleship.
[url="http://"http://www.geocities.com/fadarkk/Battleship01.jpg"]http://www.geocities...attleship01.jpg[/url] [url="http://"http://www.geocities.com/fadarkk/Battleship02.jpg"]http://www.geocities...attleship02.jpg[/url] [url="http://"http://www.geocities.com/fadarkk/Battleship03.jpg"]http://www.geocities...attleship03.jpg[/url]

A little like the Carrier/Dreadnought/Foldship, but differentiated nonetheless.

[/Durandal]

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Formerly-Rampant Human-Coded AI

You know I have been wondering why that big ugly thing was hanging outside all the windows in all the marathon levels...

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

We've also got to figure out how to do folding. It's not quite like the FTL drive. Really, we don't have many options for how it's going to work, but I'm sure we can find something better than the warp flare. If possible, there might be some restriction against folding in close to a gravity source. But I don't think it is. Too bad. One idea - make the ship look slightly different when folding in or out. A glow, inversion of colors, a couple of other things would work too. I think we'll just leave the castaway crew member, though. But I think I'll spend a bit making some new pulses etc. The further this is from the original Ares, the better.

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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 too great with pulses, so I'll make a special request of you Pallas: take a look at the GAE plug for EV, and make something like the quantom cannon shot. That's alot like what I want the energy flack main shot to look like...

I've made a feeble attempt at pulses, found here: [url="http://"http://www.geocities.com/fadarkk/pulses.jpg"]http://www.geocities...arkk/pulses.jpg[/url]

[It's a test of various colors, for those of you wondering.]

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Formerly-Rampant Human-Coded AI

If you've got it, why don't you just post it up?

Here are my 3 pulses:
[url="http://"http://caalaklael.tripod.com/pulsea.jpg"]Pulse A[/url]
[url="http://"http://caalaklael.tripod.com/pulseb.jpg"]Pulse B[/url]
[url="http://"http://caalaklael.tripod.com/pulsec.jpg"]Pulse C[/url]
And here's the [url="http://"http://caalaklael.tripod.com/energy.jpg"]Energy Blob[/url]
I'll make some more...

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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 01-23-2001).]

And for the Pfhor Weapons:

Fighter
--
Particle Accelerator [PART ACC] (Like concussive pellet gun, but better)
2 Fighters

Corvette
Particle Beam [PART BEAM]
Turreted Particle Accelerator [TPARTACC]
5 Fighters

Destroyer
Particle Beam [PARTBEAM]
Neutron Bomb [NEUTBOMB]
8 Fighters, 1 Juggernaut

Battleship
Gamma Array [GAMMA]
Neutron Bomb [NEUTBOMB]
10 Fighters, 1 Juggernaut

Lochaber
Gamma Array [GAMMA]
trih xeem [TRIHXEEM]
20 Fighters, 1 Juggernaut

Assault Carrier
10 Fighters, 1 at a time [FIGHTERS]
Particle Beam [PART BEAM]
50 Fighters, 2 Juggernaut

Colonizer
--
Turreted Particle Accelerator [TPARTACC]
15 Fighters, 1 Juggernaut

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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

Actually, the foldship isn't a flagship. There are probably 2-10 that the Jjaro own, but there'll only be one UESG* Flagship. The Merrimack can teleport troopers, but not marines. I want it to be able to pick up frigates to move them around. If I wanted marines and frigates, I'd have to create 15 versions for 2 marines and 10 for one marine. Just not worth the effort. (Unless someone complains) Generating resources: definitely possibly. Periodic interval, activation action alter resources by x.

Pulse A, above, will be the Acretion Projector.
Pulse B, above, ?
Pulse C, above, will be done as follows: It will start at a random frame, and have an animation speed of 0. That way we have rainbow fire but it doesn't switch back and forth.
[url="http://"http://caalaklael.tripod.com/pulsed.jpg"]Pulse D[/url] ?
[url="http://"http://caalaklael.tripod.com/pulsee.jpg"]Pulse E[/url] is the fission torpedo.
[url="http://"http://caalaklael.tripod.com/pulsef.jpg"]Pulse F[/url] ?
[url="http://"http://caalaklael.tripod.com/pulseg.jpg"]Pulse G[/url] ?

Missiles and bombs will be done as objects rather than flares and glares.

*OK, lets make it like this: UESC: United Earth Space Colonies, UESG: United Earth Space Gov't

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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
Interesting,
aren't we
only supposed to
be allowed
to have five
lines in our
signature?

[This message has been edited by Pallas Athene (edited 01-23-2001).]

Quote

Um, NO!
The accretion projector shot is COMPLETELY different from that. I'll make it, as soon as I get time.

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Formerly-Rampant Human-Coded AI

OK, Pulse A isn't the acretion projector. I don't think we'll need any more pulses, really. Most of the stuff we're doing is missiles and beams.

Here's what we should do on the troopers:
Troopers should alter occupation by 1, Elite alter by 10. Troopers should have a delay action to create an explosion in the area of the ship, possibly damaging it, as well as a delayed disable. Elite should have a massive (but slightly delayed) disabling effect, and a delayed event to "jettison" them from the ship to add a marine back to a passerby capable of carrying one. Ships should have an max occupy of 3x their Trooper capacity + 5x their Elite capacity, and then are immediately captured.

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I almost forgot! All ships should have a periodic activation to decrease their occupation count by 1. Now I just have to figure out how to decrease the enemy's occupation count instead of your own...
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Actually, it'd probably be fine to have the activation create an invisible object which has create actions of "alter owner to other owner" and "reflexive, alter occupation by -1."

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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 01-24-2001).]