Ambrosia Software Web Board: AE - Ship related - Ambrosia Software Web Board

LR Photon Beam would be a better name?

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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 (sig edited 08-22-2001).]

It will be rather interesting to see Canth levels as standard - playing as Canth is quite different from Ishiman, since ships are cloaked. Will we do anything about the computer's detection of cloaked ships? I think it would make sense. Have cloaked ships put out invisible "ghost" images (hated) so that computer ships will fire somewhat inaccurately.

How do we balance the plug? Just give %-wise suggestions on these:
Salrilians vs. Audemed
Boodan War/Cantharan Crusades
Obish/gaitori War
UNS Ares

I'd say around 15%-30%-20%-35% would work out pretty well.

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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"

It's not the same weapon Brook, but a totally different one reached by similar levels of technology (aren't I the sci-fi guru today .)

I'm not even sure the Cantharans will have cloaking technology. If NL didn't mention anything of the sort to Slug, then I plan on making cloaking technology a new-fangled thing that will appear near the middle of the plugin. How's that sound .

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There are only 3 kinds of people: those who can count, and those who can't.

Sounds good. Might want to increase the energy needed to cloak to make it seam more low tech. Or maybe only have the cloak last a couple of minutes through a delayed action.

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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 (sig edited 08-22-2001).]

I think Cloaking should have constant energy upkeep cost, but I'm not sure how to go about it.

As to energy itselt, it will play a more substantial role in Ares battles.

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There are only 3 kinds of people: those who can count, and those who can't.

Well to have an energy upkeep you would need 2 of each ship you would want to cloak and 2 of each weapon that ship uses (including 2 cloak weapons). The first ship would be normal, the cloak would alter the base type to its duplicate which would have an periodic activate action that would draw energy slowly. When you fire a weapon or the cloak it would decloak and change back to the first ship.

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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 (sig edited 08-22-2001).]

Or have one action that when the cloak activates it has many alter energys one after another with a little bit longer delay after each one and another alter cloak at the end to simulate an energy draw.

Does that make sense?

How do you plan to make energy play a bigger role?

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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 (sig edited 08-22-2001).]

[This message has been edited by brookeview (edited 08-24-2001).]

Energy will not be as plentiful in AE as it was in Ares. I don't mean to say that ships will fire a while, then suddenly will be spent and worthless, but that energy, in ships, is regained at a slower rate. Thus, long battles will deplete your ships energy, but not exhaust it completely. (Notice the strategic and tactical avenues that are just begging to be explored).

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Edit your signature, please, that (sig edited) stuff is unnecessary.

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There are only 3 kinds of people: those who can count, and those who can't.

Sig changed testing now. (I'm surprised you didn't like it)

So how do you plan to make energy more important? It sounds like a good idea whatever it is.

I'll create a quick demo of those two types of energy drain cloaks tomorrow sometime.

[edit]I actually misspelled a word even with Omniweb's very helpful spell checking[/edit]
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EVN started out as a plugin too...
[url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/cgi-bin/vftp/dl-redirect.pl?path=ares/scenarios&file=Earths%20Journey.sit.hqx"]Earth's Journey Back To The Stars[/url]
[url="http://"http://homepage.mac.com/brookeview2"]My download page[/url]

[This message has been edited by brookeview (edited 08-25-2001).]

Example: If you increase the energy the Ishiman gunship holds by a factor of 10, and the weapons it uses by a factor of 10, then nothing has changed in that regard. But, the reloading of energy is much slower, as that is a constant factor.

I don't know how to avoid all the multitude of energy blobs that would be created, can someone help me here?

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There are only 3 kinds of people: those who can count, and those who can't.

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Sure. Make them expire instantly. That way AI ships won't behave so retardedly when something is destroyed.

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

Yeah. Energy Blobs are idiotic - of course, to the same effect you could turn off the Blob's hated flag. The reason they behave retardedly is because they're trying to engage the Blob by ramming it (and don't bother paying attention to enemies because they think they're already fighting one).

As for the cloaking, here's what's necessary:

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Since I first came up with this idea, I've gotten how to do it pretty well set down. What's above should do everything you need.

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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"

Great ideas from everyone.

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EVN started out as a plugin too...
[url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/cgi-bin/vftp/dl-redirect.pl?path=ares/scenarios&file=Earths%20Journey.sit.hqx"]Earth's Journey Back To The Stars[/url]
[url="http://"http://homepage.mac.com/brookeview2"]My download page[/url]

The Gaitori Carrier:


Coming up next: the Gaitori Frigate

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

Slug, what are those things at the rear that don't appear to be attached?

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EVN started out as a plugin too...
[url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/cgi-bin/vftp/dl-redirect.pl?path=ares/scenarios&file=Earths%20Journey.sit.hqx"]Earth's Journey Back To The Stars[/url]
[url="http://"http://homepage.mac.com/brookeview2"]My download page[/url]

There is no such ship as the Gaitori frigate. Slug, I thought I told you not to make up your own ship classes!

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There are only 3 kinds of people: those who can count, and those who can't.

Oh no. The topic has gone to page two.

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Ares Extended: EV:NOVA started out as a plugin too...
[url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/cgi-bin/vftp/dl-redirect.pl?path=ares/scenarios&file=Earths%20Journey.sit.hqx"]Earth's Journey Back To The Stars[/url]
[url="http://"http://homepage.mac.com/brookeview2"]Earth's Journey v2.0 screen shots[/url]

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Engines

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why not?

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

DP

[This message has been edited by Joveia (edited 08-28-2001).]

Damn, 2 pages...

Because Slug, AE isn't like your average TC. We'll keep to NL's style of ship making as best we can.

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There are only 3 kinds of people: those who can count, and those who can't.

Ah, good old 1000Ņ

I think that the addition of a few ship classes is entirely justified - if I'm thinking along the same timelines, the period we're dealing with has to be at least 100 years. Now, if we were to parallel technological development with the past century (and I believe technology increase is exponential, indicating a higher difference between the two) we can notice a couple things:

1) "Motorized Carriages" are much more primitive than modern cars
2) Biplanes differ largely from 747s
3) Horse-drawn canal boats have been replaced by motorized boats

Now, we haven't been particularly sentimental about keeping the same names, so I don't see why any Ares-based races would be. If we choose ship classes that imply lesser technological periods on Earth, it adds to the effect instead of decreasing it. Frigate is a perfectly good ship class to add.

As for ship classes, why not just get a list down right here. If there's one missing that should be standardized, copy the list and add it.
10. EVAT
100. Fighter
200. Cruiser
225. Schooner
250. HVCruiser
300. Gunship
350. Frigate
450. HVD
500. Carrier
550. Battleship
800. Transport
825. Cargo Ship
850. Engineer Pod
860. Assault Transport
1000. Station

-You may question the Cargo Ship and the Station at first. However, 5 races already
-have what I consider a "Station": Aud Inhibitor, Sal Battlestation, Obish Shipyard,
-Gaitori Habitat, Human Outpost. The Cargo Ships could be used to create a trade
-aspect to the game (Hyperiums) and also for spatial construction.

Not included:
325. Astrominer
400. Escort
575. Gateship
600. Defense Drone
810. Research Vessel

As for Standardized Races:
100. Ishiman
200. Cantharan
300. Gaitori
400. Obish
600. Salrilian
700. Audemedon
900. Human
1200. "Los Ran"

Not Included:
500. Bazidanese
800. Elejeetian (Definitely Open to discussion)
1000. Zerbilites (Not Open to discussion)
1100. Grolk

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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"

It has to be at least 300 years. The Apollo/Ares had a round trip of 150 years from Earth and back. Besides we have to be able to explain why new ship classes don't exist in the original storyline.

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Ares Extended: EV:NOVA started out as a plugin too...
[url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/cgi-bin/vftp/dl-redirect.pl?path=ares/scenarios&file=Earths%20Journey.sit.hqx"]Earth's Journey Back To The Stars[/url]
[url="http://"http://homepage.mac.com/brookeview2"]Earth's Journey v2.0 screen shots[/url]

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You're touching on an old subject of debate. Some people have always believed that Earth was taken almost immediately after the Apollo's departure, while some believe that it was 50 or fewer. I happen to be a student of the latter theory. If the Lalande situation was so urgent when the Ares Crew got there, the Lalande system obviously couldn't have been taken too long before the arrival. Also, in Beta Pictoris, the Cantharans obviously didn't have a good hold on the system, as a single Carrier + Transports was able to take a planet and the Power Station.

As for why they don't exist anymore, they've simply been outdated. Why not place largely concussive weapons on Frigates - if I've got my memory in order, then it can be argued that weapons such as the ConcPellet used to reign supreme in space combat.

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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"

Actually, 2 more things:

• I know that the gaitori were one of the most advanced races during the Obain/gaitor war. But the designs you're turning out look as technologically advanced as modern Ishiman/Cantharan designs. Were the gaitori _reduced_ in technology when defeated? I suppose it explains a bit more, but then invalidates my argument about ConcGuns in the last post.
  
• I still haven't gotten any responses on storyline percentages. I think we should establish here and now how about long we're going to be spending on each little aspect of the story.

A thought just occured to me, actually, and I'm surprised it hasn't before. Why not release it in installments?

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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"

The intro and ending mentions 150 years (earth time) between departure and return of the Apollo/Ares. For the crew of the Apollo/Ares it was 6 years tops from departure to return.
At least that's what the intro says

Very good points. I would think that the Cantharan took and adapted the Gaitori's weapons for themselfs leaving the Gaitori to develop less advance weapons with their now limited resources. At least that's what I would do if I were the Cantharan.

As for story line I don't seem to have any say (not really anyway) on what goes on...



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Ares Extended: EV:NOVA started out as a plugin too...
[url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/cgi-bin/vftp/dl-redirect.pl?path=ares/scenarios&file=Earths%20Journey.sit.hqx"]Earth's Journey Back To The Stars[/url]
[url="http://"http://homepage.mac.com/brookeview2"]Earth's Journey v2.0 screen shots[/url]