Homeworld-style mothership mod feasibility study

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FourFire
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New post! Combo story **** storm!

On IRC:
"
So you're at "Kharak" and then suddenly crystal lobster attack!
so you're left with the "Mothership"
and you're all "Vengence. I'll avenge my planet!"
"and it seems that the crystal lobster escaped through that stargate over there..."
(ofc we're talking about the Iocrym sentinels)
so then you follow through most of the original game, except it's like been damaged
signs of the escape of the sentinels all across the main chain of systems (or a completely new one)
maybe we could take a route through the unseen industrial sector of human space, and Karak was an attempt at a planetscale mining operation:
the industrial equivalent of Eridani.
then you follow through and there's some stations in the systems which are blown up, wrecked freighters, gunships you'll see lots of stuff, trade and stuff has been messed up because the Iocrym changed which gates go where... in order to take a shortcut
and then you'll go through some ares space (nebula) where the Iocrym strike force thing has stealthed away from the Ares, but you can't so you have to fight them
(deep in Ares space, you meet the CW fleet) and all you've got is the mothership (which you can upgrade and stuff)
then eventually you get to Heretic.
After the events of D&O.
There is swarms of Iocrym, several ICSs, everything is destroyed.
>> Epic boss battle with CSC's gating in and a squadron of Aquilas, and you've got to go fleet support
The game ends the same way as before, you gate through the now open portal seeking revenge on the Iocrym
so it's like after, sorta parallel to D&O
"
Refined a bit:

You are the pilot of the Kharak Mining Industries Mobile-Orbit Station, nicknamed: MOtherShip-class Portable station. During the initial testing phase of your capabilities you encounter a small cache of centauri pirates.
The MOS is equipped with a mining laser, a class III deflector and 36 Reinforced Titanium barricades. The MOS has 4 turreted weapon slots and a single fixed weaponslot.
The Mothership-class portable station is designed to be almost entirely autonomous, except for refuelling, it is however designed to be highly efficient and can even harvest it's own fuel rods from mined asteroids.
After obliterating the centauri outpost and examining their kinetic weapons you will be prompted to return to the Karak orbitary station (where the Mothership-class is supposed to dock for refueling and depositing of resources)
Upon your arrival you discover that *something* is slowly sliding away across space towards the jumpgate The orbitary station is destroyed along with all installations on the planet Kharak.

Node: Kharak, features a custom planet graphic and possibly a custom station (Can we use the graphic from this mod?) "orbiting" that planet. Karak has light asteriods and is plagued by a smattering of centauri pirates. (ability to mine & smelt intrinsic, learn ability to research & fabricate devices, able to fabricate Only default hulls, and salvage wrecks)

System 2: [No name], has about two times the asteriods of system 1 which are divided between three belts, a couple of rocky planets with a mining colony and an industrial complex.

System 3: [No name], has about 50% more asteriods as system 2, but mostly inside a dense rin around the white dwarf sun, outside the ring there are centauri agriculture stations each agriculture station has atleast one centauri outpost next to it.

System 4: [No name], has a large concentration of centauri and charon pirates battling over the five inner plants orbiting close to (red dwarf) on the huge outer belt there is a mining colony with the same number of asteriods as system 1. (learn how to customize a hull's item selection, able to produce variants of default hulls)

Rigel Aurelius: the system is as vanilla, except that the Arena is closed! it has been destroyed by something... there is a wreck of a single Iocrym Sentinel and a coprorate cruiser, the Black Market station is destroyed.

System 6: [No name], This system is inhabited by Urak warlords and Charon pirates near the far gate there is half a squad of IAVs (medium and heavy) they will request permission to escort you through the next systems to the Korolov base system

System 7: [No name], This system will have ruins of mining stations and industrial complexes, along with Urak wrecks it will also have 3-5 various Urak stations (prompt from escorts to clean the system of Urak).

System 8: [No name], This system will have a marauder base or two, as well as a charon stronghold, a Large amount of asteriods & some Mining colonies with freighters going to and fro - the next gate.

[Insert name of node here]: The surviving IAV's will escort you until this system, the main industrial center for Korolov then they will "put in a good word for you" with the CW militia.(killed 12 or more Urak ships, and retained atleast 1 medium and 1 heavy IAV escort) (Learn ability to create ship hulls, get blueprints for Ronin)

System 10: [No name], {sung/dwarg, CW militia missions}

System 11: [No name], {sung/dwarg, CW militia missions #2}

System 12: [No name], {sung/dwarg/ventari/kobold, CW militia battle, intro to Ranx}

The Sol System: The Sol system, ruined during the Syrtis war, though poor in resources is still strategically important, it currently functions as the main base of operations, fielding and logistics for the Commonwealth Fleet{CW reward: get blueprint designs for heavy IAV, Wolfen and Manticore} (just placehold this system with 7 orbiting bodies and a sun type star, we can do gfx stuff later)

System 14: [No name], {ranx, meet up with squad of centurions, They are reinforcements for Point Juno}

System 15: [No name], {ranx, gate is guarded by substantial ranx forces, elimnate them (now back on vanilla topology) follow centurions through gate}

System 16: [No name], {ranx, large battle, 2 CSC [insert names here] and four Aquila cruisers are trying to traverse the system, but are under attack by ranx dreadnoughts, frigates and uncountable gunships. Cover them and you will get rewards later on. However. At the gate there is a large fleet of Xenophobes!!!}

Point Juno: Arriving at this system with atleast 1 CSC or 3 Aquilas will award you with a big shiny medal, and access to some Military weapon blueprints. otherwise the goals and rewards are:
CSC + 1 Aquila: some Military Weapons BP & Centurion BP
CSC + 2 Aquilas: some Military Weapons BP & Britannia BP
2 CSC OR CSC + 3 Aquilas: Full Military Weapons (Lamplighter!) BP & Aquila BP
2 CSC + 4 Aquilas: Full Military Weapons Blue Prints and Aquila, Britannia & CSC Blue Prints respectively.

Events after Point Juno are for you to decide, but I suggest something to do with Xenophobes, something to do with Ares and something to do with collecting lots of high level resources and trading with ringers for weapons/ship Blue Prints.
Last edited by FourFire on Mon Jul 21, 2014 10:42 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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@ Fourfire, thanks for the hard work, and sorry for not attending to the thread that I've started. I had a tooth pulled out and I was put out of commission for a week (I blame that, and Persona 3 Portable).

The campaign structure is nice. But I would like to mae a few additions and changes:

1) The Mothership can be called "Kharak Mining Industries Mobile Manufacturing Station", nickname: "The Mothership"

2) I'll go for 36 armour segments. The MS is colossal.

3) The Mothership should have a few initial custom ships to start off (all stats are basic and can be customized later on):

A Resource Collector (6 Heavy titanium plating, Class II deflector, 1 mining laser, .15c main drive (1.0 thrust, 3.8 manueverability), scripted to mine and dock with MS) (I think I have seen a coding for that in a mod sitting in my archives.)

A Salvage Corvette (4 Heavy titanium plating, Class II deflector, .20c main drive (1.7 thrust, 4.2 manueverability), no weapons) (Can be a glorified looter ship that collects RUs and items from wrecks before scuttling them.)

Optional: A light scout for escorting and recce. (2 titanium plating, Class I deflector, .27c main drive (14 thrust, 8.0 manueverability), 1 weapon) The initial mission can include a segment for testing the factory array, and perhaps building some scouts to destroy the Centuri.

4) Why would the Iocrym attack Kharak? The reason lies in the wreck of the Khar-Toba. Before Kharak was destroyed, the Daiamid sent a tight-beam message to you, along with the coordinates of the Khar-Toba, "Recover the Second Core and find Hiigara." Among the ashes of your burnt home you must recover the artefact your people has sealed for so long. The actual, secret, purpose of the Mothership was far more than a factory ship. It was to take Khark's Hyperspace Core, something which power even the Iocrym fear, and seek out the true home-Hiigara. But before that, you have some payback to do-track down and destroy the Iocrym fleet that committed the genocide. (The Hyperspace core is mostly a plot coupon. Fleet Command won't allow you to leave through the gate until you have found it. It will be made gradually more useful later on.)

4a) Hyperspace core "upgrades" (you actually hook the other systems to it, instead of meddling with that black box):
Initial: None. Plot coupon to leave Kharak.
Level 1: Power couplings and transformers hot-wired to the core provides fuel to the MS slowly. (Refuel Amount: 30) (This is to partially offset fuel costs when refining and producing and for when fuel asteroids are low.)
Level 2: More efficient power management system and rudimentary core output control, provides fuel slightly faster. (Refuel Amount: 60) (overwrites effects of upgrade 1)
Level 3: Experimental rerouteing of power to reinforce shields, adds +5% to installed shields.
Level 4: Better shield-core interface, adds +10% to installed shields. (overwrites effects of upgrade 3)
Level 5: Core energy used to overclock weapons and fire control, adds +5% to installed weapons.
Level 6: Enhanced weapons management, adds +10% to installed weapons. (overwrites effects of upgrade 5)
Level 7: Dumping of energy directly to MS engines, adds 0.2c to max speed and 2 to thrust.
Level 8: Dumping of energy directly to MS manoeuvring jets, maneuver= "10".
Level 9: Bought Bentusi/Ringer technology makes it possible to use hyperspace jumps. Hyperspace core acts as transspace jumpdrive. Also turns the core into a 3GW reactor. (Refuel Amount: 250) (overwrites refuel of upgrades 1 and 2)
Level 10: Siege Cannon for fun and profit! (Final upgrade. Takes up 1 weapon slot. Adds weapon "Siege Cannon." A Long-range cannon with singularity:9d10 (9-90), Fragment: Beams 60 singularity:9d10 (9-90) lifetime 15. Fire Rate 5 (.12/second) Power Use 25000 (2.5GW)

5) Would we include the St. Katherine's System, or is its purpose replaced by Sol in this topology?
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FourFire
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That sounds awesome.
Personally I just wanted an excuse for implementing such a ship as the mothership in Transcendence, there was never any "wreck of the Khar-Toba", and never any hyperspacecore (or earth) to go back to, essentially I saw that we were going to add (mothership) to the transcendence canon.
However if you would rather remove this mod from Transcendence canon entirely then we have a great deal of work ahead of us, and I'm not really sure I'm interested in seeing the project to it's completion (it would entitle 'The Stars Beyond' levels of work).
My idea is just to intergrate the single ship into a slightly possible scenario inside Transcendence canon, that way we can use the same enemies and storylines, just changed slightly etc.

The Idea for the topology is that;
A: The mothership should be almost entirely independent of stations (can it even dock with a normal station?)
B: The mothership should get loads of enemies to battle and asteroids to harvest.
C: This happens after the events of D&O, one or more pilgrims have traversed human space and done almost everything you can do in a playthrough.
This means that;

St. Kats serves no real purpose (and it could have been destroyed by an errant, evil pilgrim besides).
The Iocrym have changed the destinations of both the Rigel Aurelius, and one of the Point Juno gates (and presumably many of the others between, which don't exist in canon yet) in order to traverse Human space hastily, this results in fewer, faster paced and more enemy dense systems.
We are travelling through the industrial centers of The commonwealth and therefore more asteroid dense systems.
Sol would logically be an important strategic system to hold, and since The destruction of earth was avenged by the budding commonwealth then we would expect the commonwealth fleet to have control over it. Furthermore the earth may have been destroyed but the industrial installations present in the Sol system would probably be substantial, meaning that it could more easily be re-purposed as a military industrial and command center. (CW Fleet shipyards).
The Huari could be either saved or destroyed, we don't know, so we'll be ignoring them here.

As for your ideas
The mining corvette could use some code from some mining auton mod I've seen somewhere.
The Salvage corvette could probably use some edited code from RPC's Rotolooter utility Item.
we might be able to get our mcguffin/Hyperspace core from the wreckage of the single Iocrym Sentinel at Rigel Aurelius.
I think that shield upgrades should increase regeneration (there's a mod which adds an item which increases shield regen by a set number)
Weapon enhancement should go to increased firerate
The siege cannon could actually be a prototype for a weapon derived from the lamplighter (which the player is rewarded after Completing Point Juno)

I have listed the mass and wreckchance of all the ships you are likely to encounter before the St. Kathrines Star system.
I will, once finished, proceed to decide which materials ingots will be salvageable from each hull and post it here.
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It is possible for a playership to have more than 36 armor segments, as long as the number can divide 360, not unlike ship facings. If the shield graphic is reduced to a small line (or eliminated), you may squeeze 40-something armor hp boxes within the given space. If you do not care about displaying armor hp, you can use 60+ segments.

If you want more than 36 segments, but also want to see segment hp boxes, then 40 or 45 segments are options.
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FourFire
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Pre St.Kats ship mass list and incomplete hull-material droprates:


The determination is as follows:
Ingots (which reperesent 80% of a hull's mass) will drop 20, 10 and 5% (of 80% mass) for under 50, over 50 and 100% (wreck rate) respectively.
RU (which reperesent 20%) will drop 1, 5, and 10% if mass of hull is lighter than 500 tons and 15, 10, and 5% if heavier than 500 tons.

40 60 100 %
§ 20 | 10 | 5 % (*80%)

0-500 tons
£ 1 | 5 | 10 % (*20%)
600-5000 tons
£ 15 | 10 | 5 % (*20%)

Hornet battlepod: 10 tons, 0% -

Earthzone : 50 tons, 35% titanium (1d8), (1d100) RU

Centauri Raider : 45 tons, 20% titanium (1d7), (1d90) RU

Heavy Raider : 100 tons, 50% titanium (1d8), (1d200) RU

Corsair : 45 tons, 20% titanium (1d7), (1d90) RU

Viking : 150 tons, 35% titanium (3d8), (3d100) RU

Drake Missle : 1000 tons, 85% titanium (20d8), (20d100) RU

Charon Frigate : 1000 tons, 85%

Barbary Class : 50 tons, 20%

Raid Platform : 5000 tons, 100%

Tripoli : 5000 tons, 100%

Sapphire Yacht : 30 tons, 30% titanium (1d4), plasteel (1d4), (2d30) RU

EI500 freighter : 250 tons, 75% titanium (), plasteel (), () RU

Wolfen Gunship : 30 tons, 20% titanium (1d4), plasteel (1d4), (2d30) RU

Ronin Gunship : 100 tons, 50% titanium (), plasteel (), () RU

Manticore : 200 tons, 50% titanium (), plasteel (), () RU

Light IAV : 25 tons, 30%

Medium IAV : 50 tons, 30%

Heavy IAV : 100 tons, 40%

EI100 freighter : 100 tons, 75% titanium (), plasteel (), () RU

EI200 freighter : 200 tons, 75% titanium (), plasteel (), () RU

EI7000 : 850 tons, 100%

Antares I : 1000 tons, 100% titanium (), () RU

Antares II : 1200 tons, 100% titanium (), plasteel (), () RU

Antares V : 2000 tons, 100% titanium (), plasteel (), () RU

Scarab freighter: 20000 tons, 100% plasteel (), uranium (), () RU

Molotok : 200 tons, 50%

Meth Inforcer : 250 tons, 35%

Borer Miner : 50 tons, 50%

Hammerhead : 30 tons, 20%

Mikeno Destroyer: 5000 tons, 100%

Oromo Gunship : 75 tons, 30%

T31 Transport : 150 tons, 75%

T55 Transport : 250 tons, 90%

Zulu Gunship : 25 tons, 20%

Urak Destroyer : 5000 tons, 100%

Urak Sentinel : 100 tons, 15%

Nomad Salvager : 5000 tons, 100%

Heliotrope Des : 250 tons, 100%

Heliotrope Gun : 25 tons, 20%

Plague Gunship : 50 tons, 35%

Revelations M/S : 150 tons, 55%

Dwarg Raider : 25 tons, 20%

Dwarg Master : 100 tons, 50%

Dwarg Behemoth : 12500 tons, 100%

Wind Slaver : 50 tons, 35%

Steel Slaver : 250 tons, 65%

Earth Slaver : 9500 tons, 100%

Dragon Slaver : 4000 tons, 100%

Sung Transport : 8000 tons, 100%

Corp Cruiser : 8000 tons, 100%

Corp Exlorer : 5000 tons, 100%

I'm sorry that i still havn't completed this, but I will eventually get around to doing every ship and assigning droprates for their hulls.
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@Fourfire:

Thanks for the work on all the number-crunching. If we have the formula at hand, then why don't we make the salvage process use this formula instead of assigning salvage rates for individual ships? This way we only need to code once and it can accommodate modded ships.

Also, after yesterday's succ session, I got an idea for a bit of the plot: you begin in Eridani with the main goal of reaching St. Katherine's Star, but a few minutes after you reach the system (or first dock at the arcology,) something "fun" happens. (What exactly it is check my newest succ save. I don't want to spoil too much here.)
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FourFire
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Yeah, LOL, I didn't think of that, I'll look at the save now ...
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FourFire
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Oh Dear, you did have some Fun didn't you?
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"Fun" it is.... It also gives you a sense of purpose. To embark on a holy crusade.... To kick to rear plates off every single motherloving Drawg in the galaxy!
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newtonianfreak666
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Autohummer... Dude!!! I used your TABINKA mod!!! 15.7metre gun is by far the coolest thing i've ever used!!! Awesome!!! :mrgreen:
So you're saying Katami trained you???
Well, I trained Katami.
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Oh thanks, I don't know if I should allow the MS to build THAT, though. (It's a 7.5km long superbattleship that should be able to eat ISDs for lunch and SSDs for buffet. A new model is in the works and will be released Soon™ as soon as I figure out texturing a 3d model without losing sanity.)
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newtonianfreak666
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Sorry for the late reply... :oops: I didn't know that you had replied to my post... Apologies... Really :cry:
But, I'd like to point out 1 thing... I had to change the 15.7m gun type from blast to thermo. Because, forget Iocrym armor, even Xenophobe worldship plates are blast immune... So, the only weap I could use against higher order ships was the Antimatter cannon, which you probably know is not a very good choice for small moving targets and in 1 mission in Heretic system where I had to retrieve the Iocrym Communication Array thingy from the Xenophobes, I had to destroy the Xenophobe Ark which was impossible with the Tabinka's own guns as the armor was blast immune. :shock: Using the antimatter cannon on the Ark would disintegrate it completely and I couldn't get the array... I emptied my full payload of shells, and still no damage on the ark... :shock: :shock:
After I found out how to change the damage type, A WILD IDEA :idea: came to my mind!!! And I changed the Tabinka from a Battleship to a GODSHIP!!! :twisted: :twisted: :twisted:
So you're saying Katami trained you???
Well, I trained Katami.
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