Ambrosia Software Web Board: Vegeta's idea - Ambrosia Software Web Board

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This is from the "Death of a Legend" thread in the briefing room. Sooo, anyone up to the challenge?

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I'm up for number 8 and 2

Jager

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Hmmm... I know what you mean, but this sounds like a HUGE project! I am currently working on an add-on that will be challenging, interesting, and inventive, but it is very slow work (plus I'm not sure that it is exacly what I meant). I think could help with your project (if you can get it organized).
I can write, do a bit of graphics (although there are quite a few who are much better then me, I can do decent graphics), I can test, I can also do the mission designing, I can do whatever. I'm sort of decent at everything, but not an expert in anything really. Anyways, Email me with what you have planned, I may be interested.

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There is a slight problem. If it's going to be a 100 mission TC with totaly new graphics, it would be sooo big nobody could download it. I think that you should cut that down to at most 30 missions.

Now if we could fix this problem, i think that this is a very good idea.
I will be willing to offer all my skills to this project. Im not a very good director, graphics and storyline are my specialty, and i can do a good deal of programing to.
(If you want to take a look at my grapics work go to: [url="http://"http://homepage.mac.com/benedwards/PhotoAlbum2.html"]http://homepage.mac....hotoAlbum2.html[/url]

So, what will be the story?

How about some kind of lost human space colony?
That finaly meet up with the earth empire agian, only to find out that the earth empire has gone sour.

Anyway, thats my two cents.
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Truth is a double edged sword,
with it the ignorant newbie is beaten,
with it your mistakes are exposed.

[This message has been edited by Skyfox (edited 12-16-2001).]

[This message has been edited by Skyfox (edited 12-16-2001).]

This sounds alot like AE. Well, we all know how that went.

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

lol

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I would take on any of 1, 2, 4, 5 and some 8 (er, is 7 a secret?!)
I think we would need at least 10 dedicated persons, with perhaps a few more on the fringes.

Like any large project, once the core ideas are set out in concrete form we could then contract out small modules ship designs, weapons etc.

Opinions

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

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8.

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Sundered Angel,
The One and Only
Ares Webboard Moderator, and all-around Nice Guy

We are getting close to a critical minimum number of participants...
Is anyone else interested in participating a plug collective?
Glances in the direction of Slug...

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

I'd like to help with anything that needs doing. Just don't look to me for graphics...

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Listed in the top 15 Ares plugin developers by Brookeview Technologies Worldwide.
[url="http://"http://homepage.mac.com/brookeview2/"]Screen shots of upcoming plugins and downloads[/url]
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Well here's what we have so far:

1. Directors - Fearra, Anic, SA, brookeview, Vegeta, Patrick
2. Writers - Jager, Fearra, Skyfox, Anic, SA, brookeview, Vegeta, Patrick
3. Graphic Artists- Fearra, Skyfox, SA, Patrick
4. Engineers - Fearra, Anic, SA, brookeview, Vegeta, Patrick
5. Programmers - Fearra, SA, brookeview, Vegeta, Patrick
6. Musicians - SA, Vegeta
7. Testers - Jager, Fearra, Anic, SA, brookeview, Vegeta, Patrick

I think that's close enough to critical mass. We might also want to see if someone can talk Cpt. Skyblade into doing some graphics for us.
Ok, I think it would be simplest for there only to be one Director. Instead of bogging down the project discussing who it'll be, I'll just declare it to be me. (bwahaha now I'm a dictator, just watch out for the mass executions and kangaroo courts! )

Anyways, does anyone know if it's possible to set up a free or cheap($10-30 a year) mailing list? I think having a list would be a better idea than doing it on the webboards, but if you guys want to do it here that'll be fine.

Before we start on the rest of the projects, we need to brainstorm up a reasonably believable and not-quite-that-horribly-cliched storyline. To do this plug justice, we'll need to do 4 separate plugs to evade the 26 level limit, and we might have to distribute our own copy of Ares with modified data files to get past the 16MB file size barrier like Slug or the M:Inv team were going to do.

Here's some ideas i just wrote down out of my head now, and yes, they suck bad.

• Humans take over the entire galaxy, find no intelligent life. Human gov't is disintegrating and now everyone wants a piece of the pie.

•Humans colonize surrounding systems using STL travel. Earth later develops FTL and now wants the resources and riches of the former colonies for itself.

• Aliens stumble upon the human race before we leave Sol. The brand-spanking-new FTL colony ship is the... oh wait this is ares itself nevermind.

• Earth has expanded to dozens of nearby worlds, but now the colonies have split into multiple factions, all wanting the grand prize- Earth itself. The Sol gov't isn't going to take this lying down however...

• Earth is devastated by nuclear warfare. A few survivors escape to nearby solar systems in top-secret FTL craft. In 50-100 years, as Earth struggles to rebuild, the warring factions decide to continue their fight from their new colonies.

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]• Humans take over the entire galaxy, find no intelligent life. Human gov't is disintegrating and now everyone wants a piece of the pie.]

Sounds too much like EVNova

[•Humans colonize surrounding systems using STL travel. Earth later develops FTL and now wants the resources and riches of the former colonies for itself.]

Huh?

[• Earth has expanded to dozens of nearby worlds, but now the colonies have split into multiple factions, all wanting the grand prize- Earth itself. The Sol gov't isn't going to take this lying down however...]

Agian, too close to the EVNova storyline for comfort.

[• Earth is devastated by nuclear warfare. A few survivors escape to nearby solar systems in top-secret FTL craft. In 50-100 years, as Earth struggles to rebuild, the warring factions decide to continue their fight from their new colonies.]

Hmm, I like that, in a way.

* An alien race expands their influance to the nearby stars. They meet up with earthlings for the fist time. However the earthlings arn't as nice as it may seem. Earth seeks to eliminate the alien race.

Methods of Communication:
E-mail:you can get email for free at yahoo.com
Instant Messenger: if you have netscape you have the AOL instant messenger.
Gameranger:hey, it comes with ares. (this wouldn't be very private)

OK, im out of ideas for now.

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Truth is a double edged sword,
with it the ignorant newbie is beaten,
with it your mistakes are exposed.

[This message has been edited by Skyfox (edited 12-20-2001).]

I voulenteer for:

2; Everyone I know says I'm a good writer
3; I can do splash art and interfaces but I don't do 3d or sprites.
4
5; I could do a few things here and there but programmign takes a lot of time... if you really need me though....
8

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-[url="http://"http://admiraldennis.dhs.org/emailredir.html"]Admiral Dennis[/url]
[url="http://"http://admiraldennis.dhs.org"]Admiral Dennis's Abode[/url]

[This message has been edited by Admiral Dennis (edited 12-20-2001).]

Could I be a tester? I enjoy Ares, and any new plugs are a great welcome.

RMA


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If someone makes a mistake, it is not my fault. I will however use it to my advantage.

I suggest email because if everyone gets the same emails... it would work Anyways email me at sgtjager@yahoo.com . When we going to start this?

Jager

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[url="http://"http://saberstudios.evula.net"]Saber Studios[/url] | [url="http://"http://saberstudios.evula.net/hsgr.html"]The Homeschoolers of GR [/url] | [url="http://"http://evula.com"] Evula's Lair[/url] | [url="http://"http://home.attbi.com/~e-gamerguy1/bfs3/index.html"] BSIII Home Page [/url]

I'll take door #4. I've always enjoyed playing around with new ships and weapons. For example, when Hera was in beta, I found a way to make mines that would stay motionless in space (yeah yeah, all objects in space are in motion... motionless relative to the planets and objects of the area). An essential part of making a powerful plugin is making the new ships interesting to fly and command.

Plot suggestion: Start the player out in somewhere small. For example, the player is cast as a general in a war between two colonized planets, and as missions progress the player's character becomes swept up in the larger war. You know, a rise to fame from backwater nothing to hero who changes the course of history. That would let us gradually introduce the player to the new ships and weapons without any plot conflicts of trying to explain why the enemy didn't just send in battleships to begin with.

My email: replicant@pdq.net

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Replicant

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Sounds like a good idea to me...

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Listed in the top 15 Ares plugin developers by Brookeview Technologies Worldwide.
[url="http://"http://homepage.mac.com/brookeview2/"]Screen shots of upcoming plugins and downloads[/url]
Everywhere but the Macaddict fourms : Brookeview

I could probably do #'s 2,3,4,6, and 8. 3 and 4 would be the best for me, but I could also do any of the ones above. I'll tell u right now: don't expect too much from me, I'm a middle schooler , but I love working with computers. Putting me in as a programmer would be bad news, to say the least.

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I could probably do #'s 2,3,4,6, and 8. 3 and 4 would be the best for me, but I could also do any of the ones above. I'll tell u right now: don't expect too much from me, I'm a middle schooler , but I love working with computers. Putting me in as a programmer would be bad news, to say the least.


Idea:Instead of making 100 OP levels and 25 MP levels, why not just have groups of levels. Each group would have a certain # of OP and MP levels, so there wouldn't be any 14-hour downloads. we could also tell people about RAM disks

when talking to or about me, please call me The, not Journalist.
I'll send some level ideas soon.





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Some preliminary interesting ideas:

- Aforementioned space mines. I'm pretty sure that they can be rigged so that the Zoom to Hostile setting doesn't give them away in multiplayer or when the computer has them.
- Two-stage ships - a lot like Starcraft's siege tanks, they would have a mobile form and a stationary form, with the stationary form being deadlier. This would be accomplished by having the special weapon of the mobile version remove that version and create the stationary version, and vice versa.
- A flak-type weapon that strikes an area. I've played around with this and it's pretty fun. It can be fixed so that the weapon is useless at close ranges to add some interesting strategy. Of course, the Ares AI doesn't understand the concept of weapons that require long-range, or standoff attacks, so it has to be given to the player except maybe in some special situations.

That's my bag of tricks as far as interesting and new things that the player would not have seen before.

Edit: It occurs to me that we're basically talking about making Ares II by ourselves. At that point, we might as well talk to Nathan Lamont about whether an Ares II is planned, and whether, much like ATMOS and Nova, we might end up making the scenario for it. Considering that this seems to have gone no further than a forum thread between strangers over the Internet, ascending to the status of design team is unlikely, but there's no harm in asking... and maybe finding out that there's going to be a resurrection of Ares later on with a sequel.

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Replicant

[This message has been edited by Replicant (edited 12-24-2001).]

Welcome back Replicant, sure has been a long time since you were around.

As for Ares II, I believe there was one in the works last year. Haven't heard anything from anyone since then though, and judging by Lamont's site ( [url="http://"http://www.biggerplanet.com"]www.biggerplanet.com[/url] ), he doesn't seem to be doing much programming lately(that "watch this space for info on "Wicked" has been there for over a year now I think)

However, I believe that the M:Inv team had actually talked NL into implementing a few extra actions last year into Ares, but of course since they still haven't made any levels(they have the ships in Hera though), as far as I know, nothing has happened.

Heh, anyways, before we go talking to NL, we need to actually have something heh. ATMOS did have the EV/O Nova plug partly done already after all.

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• Space mines sound good. I wonder if it would be possible to rig them to release only when the comp's ship is being chased. I think there is a "fire when in trouble" flag or something like it. Also, to increase chances of hitting, we could have the explosion deal the damage, much as the nukes in SETR could take out squadrons of ships at once. Probably we should have them time out after 120 seconds or so, but let the ones dropped by a special player ship(maybe one of the races HVD-equivalent could have mines) last for 4-5 minutes. That 255 object limit certainly doesn't help things...

• 2-stage ships are also a cool idea. These were executed, albeit with some problems, in Mag Steelglass' War In The Void. We'd probably need to have them player-controlled though, because otherwise we'd have problems with hyperbombing being able to freeze a fleet's main guns into position.

•Flak rocks! In Ares Net Remix Plus by KMQ, the readme mentioned "and an improved Gaitori gunship that hangs back" I haven't looked at the plug with Hera, but whatever KMQ did might also work for flak ships.

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A stationary mine that sits and shoots at you would be very boring.

Stationary ships? a ship is NEVER meant to be stationary as it's main propose. It's main propose is to zoom around the galaxy.

Ok, not to be rude or anything....

I think we should put more emphasis of a fast moving star war. light fast star craft, speedy battles.
Look at the past.

Wars in the very old past, -Dark Ages- could take many years, even centuries.
Wars have been becoming very much more advanced. Each new war is almost always faster then it's predecessor. Airplanes always become faster war or no war.
Tank's also have evolved in speed. Today they move at easy speeds of 50 kph.

Things are getting faster, better. A star war set it the future would most likely a fast changing one. No sieges. Only swift decisive attacks by squadrons of light ships, followed by major battles.

Please, lets not make a plug with slow sluggish ships, and siege wars. They arn’t any fun. And I don’t believe that this is the real future of star craft.
(i just HATE long stagnating space battles.)

Oh, Merry Cristmas!!
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Truth is a double edged sword,
with it the ignorant newbie is beaten,
with it your mistakes are exposed.


[This message has been edited by Skyfox (edited 12-25-2001).]

I'm not talking about a stationary mine that sits and shoots at you, I'm talking about a stationary mine that blows up when you hit it, like a landmine.

Don't forget, every war also has defensive components. Also don't forget, there's no reason that a stationary ship has to be boring. I would find nothing boring about frantically trying to destroy an enemy ship before it attained a stable orbit and began beating the tar out of me with powerful armament.

Finally, don't assume that faster is better. In my opinion, the speed of movement in Ares is a bad thing. There's no need for reconaissance because with few exceptions the enemy is always visible... no waiting for scouts to find anything out. Your fleet can essentially be anywhere at any time because of hyperspace, so that all the game really comes down to is who has more ships - there are none of the tactical considerations of distances and divided forces. Think for a moment... the only time that the strategy of Ares goes beyond whose fleet would win in a battle is when you're dealing with capturing planets and stations... which is done by transports... that don't have hyperdrive. The player should not be holding down F6 to fast forward out of boredom, but neither should levels that are supposed to involve strategy boil down to four minutes of firefight because the player can ignore all tactical considerations of defense and reinforcement and simply jump into hyperspace to wherever the enemy is and duke it out.

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Replicant

It's been a while since I've checked the boards, as I completely lost interest in Ares for a while. This looks quite interesting, though. I could do 4 (mostly for the ships and weapons) and I can definately do 8.

I really like Patrick's idea of:
Humans colonize surrounding systems using STL travel. Earth later develops FTL and now wants the resources and riches of the former colonies for itself.

That would allow great variety in the ship types of each group, as they've been isolated for a long time, and would be a great plot. It'd also be cool to have pirates thrown into the mix, which could by why the individual colonies would have warships ready to fight the Earth forces.

As far as how the ships would function and battles would go, if we were to be realistic:
• ships would be extremely fast
• ships would have horrible acceleration
• ships would have pretty bad turning
• ships would have very low shielding
• they'd be completely decked out with guns
• guns would be long range (about as long as concussion missiles in Ares) and either very high accuracy or capable of very large splash damage
• ships would be very stealthy. much fighting would probably become like submarine fights
• ships would be very small

I've done some experimentation on this recently, and it's very different than ares, and more fun in some ways, but less fun in others. I think it would be very good to get as different from ares as possible. Ship classes shouldn't match with Ares and should be different for each individual faction. There should be different kinds of bases and methods for getting additional resources should be made available to the player(s). And we should really try to make combat and overall strategy different than the standard.

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"United we stand, so I wandered off and got me a chair."