Shrike's Ultimate Overhaul (DEV)

[Song]

The legs still don't *quite* look grapnellish enough....maybe beef them up a bit to make them look more mechanical. But it's pretty close. The trouble with a phage style body is that the rocket moter would go in the tube, and where the phage keeps its RNA would be where the missile keeps its warhead....which is the wrong way around for imapcting the target and having the legs deploy. But hey, we're in space, what's a 180 degree rotation before impact that we don't see?

[shanejfilomena]

One word: TUNA.
that was the Soviet Space Ship that crashed into the moon prior to the American landing at a "steel shattering 166 miles per hour".
it too was supposed to make the turn before impact. .oopsey.......


P.S.: this little known fact = Americans were the first men on the moon for earth history, but they did not reach it first.

[Song]

One word: TUNA.
that was the Soviet Space Ship that crashed into the moon prior to the American landing at a "steel shattering 166 miles per hour".
it too was supposed to make the turn before impact. .oopsey.......


P.S.: this little known fact = Americans were the first men on the moon for earth history, but they did not reach it first.

Nor were they the first to see the dark side. Luna 9 managed it before landing, IIRC.

[Song]

Anyway. Having been messing around with Luminous a little, I'm going to work on replacing some graphics.....once I sort out a few remaining issues. One question I have over explosion graphics: Do the mask and explosion have to be seperate images? In my source files the explosion is a .jpeg and the mask is a bitmap..is this important, or can I go with a single format/file and just use the code of the graphic resource to make it work?

[digdug]

Do the mask and explosion have to be seperate images?

they have to be separate. masks can only be 1bit or 8 bit pictures. I'm not sure that 24bit jpeg are working as masks.

about the lamprey, can you sketch something that I can follow ?

[Song]

Do the mask and explosion have to be seperate images?

they have to be separate. masks can only be 1bit or 8 bit pictures. I'm not sure that 24bit jpeg are working as masks.

about the lamprey, can you sketch something that I can follow ?

I'll give it a go sometime.

[Song]

Here's my To-Do list for SW&A, not counting working out a sketch of what Lamprey does (which I'm working on, it hasn't been easy to visualise it in a way that works):

Luminous Images:
-Get the images working as mask/image combos
-Get palettes working
-Edit the config to make large explosions work better, probably via trial and (mostly) error.

Weapons:
-Name the MX-3 something decent
-Balance MX-3
-Get the ripple-fire weapons working (maybe)
-Balance SZ/RZ weapons, enhance weapon effects
-Balance Australis again
-Overwrite disposable launchers, possibly add stationside code to allow reloads. (see CW/Corporate)
-Balance/tweak Messenger missiles and launcher, review names
-Lamprey
-Rebuild Kytryn launcher
-A few more weapons I need to make

Automatons:
-Rewrite Turrets from scratch to use stations, not ships
-Balance/tweak Auto-Moskva defense device, add some more on-ship autoturrets
-Add support for "Turret clearer" ships that remove turrets after a while if they're too close to something (No gate camping until there's a thousand dead ships there, sorry)
- Make stations use turrets instead/as well as guards in certain cases.

CW/Corporate:
-Edit station guards
-Place automaton defenses
-Allow for missile pod reloads at certain bases
-Remove manticore guards from stations, and make them do something else
-Add Aurochs Assault Craft, make it do stuff
-Make some more weapons actually *turn up* on ships, rather than in shops (seriously. We've got too much stuff you never see being shot at you)
-Edit auton dealers to make them sell turrets as well.
-Add later game traders with armored Antares Vs and escorts (manticores?)
-Add later game small traders with stealth armor
-Add missions to use the new stuff?
-Add armor tweakers/shield sprucers/whatever it is I'm calling them. You know, THEM.

Gaians:
-Balance Gaian Gun
-Make new GDC
-Make new Gaian Armor

Iocrym:
-Make PlasmaExplosion1 & 2 actually look impressive
-Make PlasmaExplosion3, and use it on the ICS. We want a KRA-BOOOOM, not the current "pffft"
-Rebalance PlasmaExplosion3 so it doesn't instakill the player. Because I know my first version will have that issue, knowing me.

[Song]

SW&A and SM&M+ are now cancelled.

However, the parts in them (and the other stuff in the SW&A changelist that didn't really belong there) are going to go into a different project...SUO. Shrike's Univeral Overhaul. I'm currently planning how to approach this, but it's looking like it'll be an adventure extension...It will not so much change the story, as change how you get there. And since the featurelist for it is about twice the size of the SW&A list (at an early stage)...it's going to take a long time.

[Song]

The new ships for SUO are going brilliantly. The Antares V makes a really good ship if you give it some nice armor. And 4 rapid fire cannons. And escorts.

[Song]

Ok. The Commonwealth Fleet and the Rogue Fleet are going to get some interesting changes.

As well as the new AAC, they're getting a new (old) varient of the Manticore for strike missions, Aquilas that actually do something, and some missions......that might tempt the player into, just perhaps, siding more with the Rogues. Times are desperate for the Fleet....and some things they're doing perhaps aren't as rosy and above-board as the officials back home might think. I might swap around the balance of power as well. Notice how the Rogue Fleet actually has bases? Why aren't there commonwealth Fleet ones as well? Now there will be.

[Song]

I'm doing preliminary testing on the Aquila of Doom....Admiral Decker mentions them in vanilla...Aquilas with Lamplighter fitted. They're looking hard to balance, even as a miniboss.

(The Mk.1 prototype died quickly to an IM90+150%, as you'd expect, but it did a LOT of damage beforehand. Might have to tweak the missile setup.)

[shanejfilomena]

awesome, i too played with the ship a little but never thought of this .....but I DID send them out acting as salvagers once ( they just collect stuff and once they self upgraded but the upgrades were level based and the ship starts with powerful stuff as it is )

[Song]

The single limiting factor of the Lamplighter gun (which pretty much makes the UberAquila USELESS against a phobos without a numerical advantage) is the range....compare it to the lightning turret, and it's pretty poor. That lets a phobos hit the aquila hard while it's getting into range, and if it tries to flee. I'm trying to get around this, but it's looking tricky.....I may have to give them a secondary armament of TeV9s or katanas, just so they aren't hopelessly out-ranged.

If anyone knows how to get a ship to use different missile against different levelled enemies, I'd love to hear...that'd make balancing this thing waaaaaay easier.


Britannias are getting 2-3 varients of missile arming....the NM900 will stay, the Azriel launcher will also possibly come into play, and a very small number will be fitted with NAMI Heavy launchers (exactly what missile they'll use I haven't decided. Probably swarm-buster M4s, S-series missiles and the odd M3...I think I can simulate tactical use of missile in the short term by ordering them in the cargo hold (for a swarm-killing mission for example, give 2 britannias each 1-2 M3s, then 15 M4 or 20 S1/2/3 missiles, in that order in their hold...they'll load and fire the M3 [EMPing the swarms] then use swarm-busters to take out the nasties while they're down).

[Song]

Development work on S.U.O has resumed. I'm working on getting some custom explosion effects for the M series missiles working...got myself GIMP, worked out how to tweak enough bits of Luminous to do some serious experimenting soon (although my goal of writing a new config will have to wait)...and I'm close to starting work on the second version of the deployable turrets. The first version's not going to waste though, probably...I think I can adapt it into an enemy tool. On top of that, I cleaned a cubic metre of fluff and hair out of my cooling system today after minecraft nearly melted the processor, and everything's running nice and smooth as a result.

[Song]

The Mk.4 AWESOME cannon is, as a side point, going through testing. The Mk.5 will be released on Xelerus as a stand-alone god-mod as soon as I've tweaked out the few issues left in the 4. Please do not take it seriously.

Edit: The reason the 4 is not being released is largely due to the small issue of it being too strong for a GM weapon...although it's interestingly unpredictable.