Ambrosia Software Web Board: Ares Extended - Ambrosia Software Web Board

This topic is hereby devoted to the Ares Extended project.

People currently on the AE project:

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Count Altair (ships/graphics)
...
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As you can see, there is ample room for more.

People tied up with their own TC's, but quite accomplished may lend help in regards to storyline or spare ships. I myself will be working on this, alternating it with SETR. What I'm looking for is people with hera experience/graphics expertise but who aren't doing anything major.

***Looks meaningfully at brookeview, viper, zell, patrick and lord commander anic.***

Yeah, why not, I'm in. Storyline, Weapons development, maybe a ship or two. Depends on what you have in mind. I'm continuing to work on It's War (if anyone's interested!!), but most of the difficult thinking is done for that. New challenges await...

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Oh, so it is another bug hunt then...

Excellent!

AE members:

Count Altair El Alemein (ships/graphics/physics, and possibly 'project coordinator')
Lord Commander Anic (storyline, weapons development, and ship/graphics/physics, which will now be abbreviated to 'ships')

The official early Ares storyline is unfortunately known to only a select few, Slug, Sargatanus, SA, and darkk are names that come to mind.

I'd love to help. I have no experience with graphics or sound but anything else I can do. The only thing is school starts in two weeks so my spare time will be cut down some. I'm also working to get Earth's Journey into a single file with some more interesting things (like net levels) added along the way.

I'll take weapons or ships if you don't mind.

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Creator of the great new plugin for Ares "Earth's Journey Back To The Stars". And hopefully a member of the Ares Extended Team.

[This message has been edited by brookeview (edited 08-06-2001).]

Don't get this started just yet...

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"Once, just once, I'd like to be able to land somewhere and say, 'Behold, I am the Archangel Gabriel.'"
"I fail to see the humor in that situation, Doctor."
"Naturally. You could hardly claim to be an angel with those pointed ears, Mister Spock. But say you landed someplace with a pitchforkŅ"

Interesting Pallas, is another AIM chat in order?

Just to rough a few things out:

Ships
{Physics: what people doing physics generally agree to be the most fun things. This can include weapon acceleartion, missile turning and generally things to do with manouevrability or movement.
{Weapons: people doing weapons will put forward ideas for new weapons, ie a weaker ishiman fusion pulse should be such and such. Damage, firing rate, and innaccuracy will be handled.
{Ships: this is mainly graphics, sprites, mission briefings, starmaps, opening screen, title screens etc...

Levels will be the actual levels. People doing levels will probably start working a little later than others because the ships will have to be made first, levels will be more concentrated on fun rather than proving a plot point, so the storyline in regards to missions will go around the missions.

Programming equates to levels.

Since I know more about the Ares universe than you can possibly imagine ( ), I would be glad to help.

My expertises are story, graphics, and Hera.

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Time is the best teacher, yet it kills all of it's students.

Hmmm... interfaces for me. I recently added on a couple cool features for the Ares Interface twiddler (things which I knew enough of ResEdit to do w/o the program, but they'll work out well)

I suppose Sounds/Levels for me too.

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"Once, just once, I'd like to be able to land somewhere and say, 'Behold, I am the Archangel Gabriel.'"
"I fail to see the humor in that situation, Doctor."
"Naturally. You could hardly claim to be an angel with those pointed ears, Mister Spock. But say you landed someplace with a pitchforkŅ"

Hmm. No offense, but with what I know, I'm not sure this is necissary.
Ah well. I'm not sure NL would approve of this in any case.

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Formerly-Rampant Human-Coded AI

[This message has been edited by Fleet Admiral Darkk (edited 08-07-2001).]

Since when did we need NL's approval. Of course, if he suddenly announces he's going to make Ares 2, this project will in likelihood be scrapped or made for Ares 2 instead. However, any intelligent person in NL's place would advertise Ares 2, so has to attract new members and revitalise Ares interest. Well, it's what I would do any way. Advertising... anyway, back on topic.

Count Altair (Ships{all}, Sounds, Project Coordinator)
Lord Commander Anic (Ships{non-graphics})
Brookeview (Ships{non-graphics})
Slug (Ships{all}, Storyline, Levels)
Pallas Athene (Sounds, Levels)

One thing I forgot to add was sounds, which will be no less necessary than good levels or graphics. I myself know a huge storehouse of +3000 sci-fi sounds, which I will no doubt use (after taking the best ones for SETR of course ). I'm afraid only Slug will be doing the storyline, because as he said, there is alot more depth to Ares than the average player knows (remembers AIM chat).

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Ahh! That's your plugin, is it?

I loved the level design for the audemedon crises, and fooling around with the EFULPULSE entertained me for hours on end. Haven't tried It's War yet though, although I definitely will.

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'Is that what I think it is?'
'What?'
'A big orange swirly thing in space!'
-Red Dwarf

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Just put me on for a little of everything ok?

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just take my post, and imagine everything is speeled right.

[This message has been edited by Pyro (edited 08-08-2001).]

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Well, NL will probably kill you and have your karma lowered to -7 if you include the Bood. He prohibited SLUG from doing a Bood plug - he likes Slug a lot better than he likes you (no offense).

The "any intelligent person" part is especially funny to me. I'll leave it to you to find out why. In any case, Frank Bunker Galbraith (hope I spelled that last name right) would probably not approve of this project. Maybe someone who's read the books his kids wrote will figure out what I'm talking about.

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Formerly-Rampant Human-Coded AI

Depending on how far NL has gotten with Ares 2, that bit about the advertising seems perfectly logical to me.

NL would not lower my karma to -7, for the basic reason he is not a mod, and has no real reason for doing so. This plugin will be made!! Bwa ha ha ha ha! I seek to impose joy and happiness on the Ares community! And none shall stop my devious plans!! Bwa ha ha ha!

Ok people, time for some decent in-depth discussion:

Slug: I need you to email me some of the storyline, you will have a major controlling factor over this TC. You decide in what time the story is set.

Now, people who are doing ships, I want to hear your input. From the twisted imagination of CA comes:

Their are 5 ship classes, but don't necessarily have to be the Ares standard, even if it would be more true to an Ares-remake. I imagine it will not be set too far in the past, but all weapons and ships will receive some downgrading. Here are some weapon ideas:

Weaker PK beam (not original, I admit). This beam fire faster and has a shorter range. It is also highly inaccurate (ref: Gaitori beam)

Weaker Fusion Pulse. Is very very different from normal fusion pulse. Fires quickly and with smaller shots.

Anti-capital missile. Alot like the barrage missile in Ishiman Quest, except the travelling explosions do damage.

I wouldn't defy NL if I were you, CA. Seriously, why try make a plug that might make him have to alter the storyline of Ares 2? Especially if he doesn't want anyone to do it.

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'Is that what I think it is?'
'What?'
'A big orange swirly thing in space!'
-Red Dwarf

the whole idea of moving explosions was kind of wierd looking in game.

For the part about the 5 diff classes there would be two good options
- Use "real" class systems
- Use the ares class system
Considering this is just an ares revisited i would stick with the ares class system.

weaker fusion pulse and weaker PK beam
I dont particullarly like the idea of the weaker fusion pulse. I mean, if everything fires fast it doesnt put so much of an emphasis of aiming in the game. Keep the faster laser, but have the fusion pulse remain relativly the same.

My ideas:
First a question: Are we planning on altering the programming of the game in any way because:
- Banking when ships turn (these would look so cool in ares considering the 3d models)
- An explosion sequence on most ships and to make the explosion sequence look cool make it a ship with a movment sequence (like a pulse movement sequence) that makes the ship spin and flip around out of control like, this will give a real good 3d feel to the game.
- Make the heavy destroyers have different feel. Face it: they were made for multiplayer. They should be changed and made unequal.

Thats all i got for now.

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just take my post, and imagine everything is speeled right.

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Do you not think he could just get andrew to do it for him? I think you tread the path less taken because the path less taken is blood stained and strewn with corpses of the ones to took it


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just take my post, and imagine everything is speeled right.

My first thought is that any new ships that we create should have a good reason for why they didn't appear in the normal Ares missions. Also unless we go way back in the Ares time line the major races ships wouldn't change that much. It was 150 years between the time the Apollo left earth until the Ares returned. Unless I am wrong only Human tech changed that much in those 150 years. Weaker ships should only be around in the distance past if the time line works like I think it does.

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Creator of the great new plugin for ares "Earth's Journey Back To The Stars". And a member of the Ares Extended Team.

[This message has been edited by brookeview (edited 08-09-2001).]

Ok here is my first idea for a new ship class. A missile gunship type thing. It has 3 missile launchers that launch small missiles that do 75 damage. To make up for its weapons power it is very slow and has terrible turning. If you want to see what I'm talking about go to the Ares Extended Project folder on my idisk at [url="http://"http://homepage.mac.com/brookeview2"]http://homepage.mac.com/brookeview2[/url] . There is a file called AE Ship Demo. More ideas to come soon.

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Creator of the great new plugin for ares "Earth's Journey Back To The Stars". And a member of the Ares Extended Team.

[This message has been edited by brookeview (edited 08-09-2001).]

Wait a minute, wait a minute... this plug no longer appears to be progressing in the direction it appeared to be previously. There are some extremely odd things creeping in.

At this point I think that I will creep out and withdraw from the new plug consortium. As you are already hip deep in heroes falling over themselves to assist you, it is unlikely that one more or less will make a difference...

And if it does, well the Galaxy will never know what hit it.

LCA

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Oh, so it is another bug hunt then...

Interesting, that is definately one of the weapons... but for what races or context I'm not sure.

Now then, here some of my ideas for the Ishiman classes:

1:Fighter: Not much different, but should be worth it's cost.
100:Cruiser: Should have anti-fighter and anti-gunship abilities.
200:Carrier: Carries 10 fighters and has a turret (is cheap and weak).
300:Gunship: Should be anti-carrier and anti-battleship.
400:Battleship: Pretty much anti-everything except gunships.

Well, this is paper-scissors-rock like in Ares, but the roles have been changed around somewhat. I know it would be truer to the Ares model to have strict classes, but I want diversity. We should not limit ourselves here.

I don't know about the ship classes. I think we should have continuity with the original missions and some new ships. The Ares class system works very well but I think the best solution would be something in between Ares and your ideas.
Fighters - Only good at fighting other fighters unless in groups
Fighter/Bomber - Good against larger ships in two or threes but not as good against fighters.
Cruisers - Slower than fighters but quicker than gunships or carriers and more longer lasting fire power.
Gunships - Mainly around to combat HVDs
Carrier - Should be toughest vessel and have no weapons except for a turret and its fighter and fighter/bombers.
Heavy Destroyer - ? Carrier killers. Good defense against the fighter/bombers but need to have some weakness against Cruisers and Gunships
In this system the Cruisers and Gunships would escort the Carriers against the HVDs
Of course their would be other classes but they would belong to individual races.

I just thought of this on the spot so it will need some work. You of course have more of a final decision than I do in this matter.

Thanks for the complement about the missile ship thing by the way.


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Creator of the great new plugin for ares "Earth's Journey Back To The Stars". And a member of the Ares Extended Team.

[This message has been edited by brookeview (edited 08-09-2001).]

now wait a minute. I gotta agree with LCA here, is this a TC or just a revisited sort of thing. I dont think Admiral would appreciate you using his storyline then just screwing around with the ships. If your using his storyline the ships are gonna have to be ares style, or im outta here too.

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just take my post, and imagine everything is speeled right.

I won't leave but I do agree with Pyro. Keep the Ares type ships and add a few new ones.

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Creator of the great new plugin for ares "Earth's Journey Back To The Stars". And hopefully a member of the Ares Extended Team.

Ideas for weaker existing ships.
Ishiman
Gunship - No Lepton(sp) beam cannon. Replaced with another Rapid PK beam cannon.
HVD - Same. Replace Lepton with RPK
Cantharian
Cruiser - No cloak
Gunship - Make the large plasma pulse do less damage. 2/3 maybe

For the people leaving this should be ok changes to make. It doesn't mess around with the class system it just makes the ships seam less advanced. If you do have a problem with anything any of us suggest please bring it up before leaving.

Oh and an interesting thought. EVN started out as a plugin. It was good enough to attract major attention and get a new game engine built for it...
Remember it was just a thought


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Creator of the great new plugin for ares "Earth's Journey Back To The Stars". And hopefully a member of the Ares Extended Team.