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

Anic why did you leave?

I just wanted to say if any of you are leaving because of my new ship being in a normal Ares mission, It was the first mission that you could build ships in. I in no way meant to try to change a orriginal mission. It is just a good mission to test ships in.

If not just ignore this post.


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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.

Here's my new brainchild: Not mess with the class system, but have more classes. This provides some originality. We will not mess with the weapons terribly, but add more.

Fighter
Bomber
Schooner
Cruiser
Escort
Gunship
Carrier
HVD
Battleship

The only new class you added was the bomber. That should work just fine.

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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.

In Ares, there are only 5 constant classes per race, in my version, there 9, thus I have actually added 4 new classes.

If this should be true paper-scissors-rock, which ship is anti-HVD? How about a specialised frigate or something (maybe even the bomber?)?

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

Ok now tell us what you envision the bomber to be. A fighter/bomber perhaps or something like a B-52 or B-1.

Same thing for the battleship. What will it be?

I'll make some fun previews for the fighter/bomber.

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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.

Ok I updated the AE Project file on my iDisk. It now includes an original briefing detailing the new ships and the Bomber.

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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.

I've thought hard about the ship classes, and this is what I've come up with so far. Each ship has a primary strength, and a secondary strength.

...................Anti
Fighter............Bomber, Gunship
Bomber.............Cruiser, Gunship
Schooner...........Fighter, Bomber
Cruiser............Schooner, Gunship
Escort.............HVD, Cruiser
Gunship............Carrier, HVD
Carrier............(Below gunship)
HVD................Battleship, Carrier
Battleship.........(Not very offensive units)

Fighter: Moves very fast, has fast-firing beam. Extremely manouvrable. (Like, turn rate of 3, max velocity of 10.)

Bomber: Has an armament equivalent to cruiser's firepower, but with longer range. Not much stronger than a fighter, decidedly less manouvrable.

Schooner: Has almost a fighter's manouevrability and a cruiser's strength, but also has a light armament.

Cruiser: Has normal firepower levels, decent manouvrability.

Escort: As manouevrable as a cruiser, a little stronger, long-range weaponry and very powerful.

Gunship: Longer range, and more firepower. This will be boosted in firepower in AE, to handle more capital ships. The escort will take it's place in handling smaller ones.

Carrier: Turreted weaponry will take out all ships that don't have long-range or very powerful guns.

HVD: Does exactly what it says.

Battleship: Is strong and has powerful weapons (about as powerful as a carrier but not turreted). Can withstand alot of attack, but is not invulnerable to groups of i.e. escorts.

Now, this seems the formulae for atleast one of the races.

Guys, Nathan Lamont wouldn't give less of a rat's ass on how we make this plug, just as long as the plugin in unofficial and we don't use all of his ideas. It's fine.

As far as time setting goes, I think before the Ares War is best, as loads of stuff happens to set up the Ares plot:
- The Boodan War (I know all about it, but at the request of NL I will add a few unofficial bits)
- The Star League/Cantharan Expansion (again, I know most about it)
- The last Gaitor/Obain war (I know tons about this)
- The Cantharan Crusades and the fall of Gaitor

So keep this in mind that the Pecking order went roughly like so:

Gaitor
Cantharis
Bazidan
Ishima
Salril (includes the Audemedons)
Elejee
Bood
Obain

As for graphics, I'll start work on some Gaitori Empire ships right away.

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

Ishiman weapons:

Fighter: PK beam.
Bomber: Rapid PK beam, LRPK (not salrilian) beam
Schooner: Trreted PK beam.
Cruiser: Fusion Pulse light, PK beam.
Escort: Astrominer pulse (longer range), Fusion Pulse light
Gunship: 3 missile ports, rapid PK beam
Carrier: 2 missile ports, fighter launch, bomber launch
HVD: Lepton beam, 3 missile ports, rapid LRPK beam
Battleship: Fullerene pulse (slower firing), 6 missile ports

You should have previews of each of those ships by noon my time tomorrow.

Schooner with turreted laser? Are you sure?

Shouldn't a bomber have something like a bomb?
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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 08-10-2001).]

Sure am I not.

Are we just modifying original weapons slightly or creating totally new ones? I think the bomber should have a bomb, on second thoughts. Yes, that would be it. A neutron bomb. Ahh, I've got a great explosion sequence and sound for that (not used in SETR).

I can't have that preview out because all the Ishiman graphics will have to be redone, and there is no placeholder bomber graphic. At the moment, I'm kind of mucking around with ships and weapons.

Fighter: PK beam.
Bomber: Neutron bomb
Schooner: Rapid PK beam.
Cruiser: Fusion Pulse light, PK beam.
Escort: Astrominer pulse (longer range), Fusion Pulse light
Gunship: 3 missile ports, rapid PK beam
Carrier: 3 missile ports, fighter launch, bomber launch
HVD: Lepton beam, 3 missile ports, Very rapid PK beam.
Battleship: Fullerene pulse (slower firing), 6 missile ports

Having nothing better to do, I created a new Ishiman fighter sprite and accompanying weapon. It is available [url="http://"http://homepage.mac.com/joveia/.cv/joveia/Public/Ares%20Extended-binhex.hqx"]here[/url].

Nice sprite. I think it would be better suited to the bomber and have a redone and better looking Ishiman fighter. I think we should keep the general look of the original ships but have them look better.

I'll have the updated AE demo ships file up sometime around noon here.

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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.

Ok the file has been updated on the iDisk.

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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.

I could use a rough sprite for the Ishiman battleship so i can start placing the weapons.

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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.

Hold on here, I might not have the weapons finalised. First things first however. Now, as Slug pointed out, the pecking order was quite different in them days, with the Gaitori being a decent galactic power. In Ares, they tell us that the Gaitori tech has become obselete, and thus imply they haven't changed much. So if we're doing it from the glory days of the Gaitori empire, then it follows the Gaitori tech won't be all that different from in modern Ares, but instead of being really weak, the Gaitori will have decently up-to-date military tech. Slug, don't bother remaking all the Gaitori ships, but only the ones that don't come with Ares. Gaitori technology and weapons will be the same in AE as in modern Ares.

Next thing, are the 'techs' of the time. In Ares, the major tech shared by all races was the PK beam, the Ish, Sal, Gait, Canth, and other races having more powerful or less powerful versions. In AE, as is shown by my little enjoyable plugin, the main weapon will be the photon beam. It will do 10 damage, and will be the 'PK beam' of AE. Additionally, for the Gaitori to not have outdated technology, Ishiman shields will be roughly cut in half, and the puny 10 damage photon beam accompanying their fighters. Ishiman technology is going to be a little more advanced than Canth tech in this, but the Gaitori will have the upper hand. I know that having the photon beam is good, it's fun and doesn't seem like something patched up by mixing weapons.

The 'lepton beam' of the time will be the PK beam, which will be the way it is in normal Ares, but of course, special. It is the new technology of the time. I have already tried out some of the weapons on Ares ships, and I have found some combinations I originally specified to be not that fun after all. Here is the update:

Ishiman Fighter: Photon Beam
Bomber: PK beam
Schooner: rapid laser beam
Cruiser: Rapid Photon Beam, rapid laser beam
Escort: astro pulse, rapid PK beam

I think captain Pharris will be joining us for weapons and sounds as well. As always, I would appreciate your input.

Ok. Sounds good to me. Wouldn't unguided bombs play a bigger role if the races didn't have fancy lasers and missiles and pulses. What about Carriers and the other higher up stuff?

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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.

I've finished the Gaitori Cruiser sprite:
[url="http://"http://www.slugsoft.f2s.com/G_Cruiser.mov"]www.slugsoft.f2s.com/G_Cruiser.mov[/url]

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

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heh that was back when obain put like lasers only on ships or something right?
that'd be a pretty funny mission, obain war parade with like no weapons 'cept for a few ships and you have to defend against some gatori raiders.

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Newbie bashing = Tactical destruction of possible future threats = NATO
So why cant i do it?

Slug, the movie doesn't load properly.

[url="http://"http://homepage.mac.com/joveia/.cv/joveia/Public/Alpha%20One-binhex.hqx"]Here[/url] is the Ishiman bomber and fighter in level 3 again.

Please comment on it.

About the Gaitori ships, don't change NL's designs. I've thought about it and decided we will need them, so we can show them from an isometric viewpoint in the game. Otherwise, Gaitori weapons will stay the same. I would like to hear your thoughts on what weapons the Gait 4 extra classes will have.

To all sprite modellers, we will be using a 15 frame interval for the ships, and we should also have identical light sources.



We'll be using this light source direction for all ships.

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I _really_ don't think that's a good idea, Count. This plugin will be taking place back when Gaitor was at it's height, and not just a bunch of loose pirates piloting scrappy ships. I have dreadnoughts, frigates and battleships in the works for the Gaitori. I'm re-uploading the movie as we speak. The link should work.
[url="http://"http://www.slugsoft.f2s.com/G_Cruiser.mov"]www.slugsoft.f2s.com/G_Cruiser.mov[/url]

As for re-rendering NL's Gaitori ships, sorry, no can do. My liscence contract with Nathan for using his models expired way back in March, upon which I had to destroy all copies of his 3D models.

As I said, I'll be completely redesigning the Gaitori shipset.

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

Hey slug it said the movie couldn't be found.

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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.

Don't make up new classes like the frigates or dreadnought for normal use. This is 9 class ship system. Your gaitori ship designs can be different if you really think it would be cool, but don't go straight out and make something totally radical. An AE Gaitori cruiser should resemble an Ares gaitori cruiser to some degree.

Well I have updated the file. The Ishiman shielding has been cut in half. And the main weapon is now the "Photon Beam" as you suggested. Fighting against the Gaitori would now be very difficult if you weren't playing against the computer.

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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. Have a nice day.