Star Wars: Imperial R&D

[Assassin X]

My friend, he has a high iq and no life when it comes to star wars said:

-The ships move to fast and to tight of turns. Personally i like them the way they are.

He had like a millin other whiney comments about ships being to big or to small or not enough lasers or crap like that but since there so pathetic of tiny deatils that no one really cares about i wont psot them.

[Evenflow]

Well, I'm the biggest Star Wars nerd of all time, read all the books/comics/RPG sourcebooks and anything else you can imagine, and even I am amazed at the level of detail in this MOD. An Allegiance Star Destroyer? the Vengeance? Dominator? You've got to be relatively hardcore to recognize half the ships in this game.

[DarthFelth]

*raises hand*

me me i do

[evillejedi]

SvK: it's tricky, but here's the process:

1.make a invisible ion beam with a strong pull attribute (stronger than the thruster values on the ship you will be usually tractoring, but less than the main engine speed of the average target), set the tracking speed, range, accuracy and stuff to appropriate values for the type of tractor beam you want.

2. make another beam with a push value equal to the first one pull and make the range on it the minimum range you want a tractored ship to be held at. everything else can be identical, you can also make it do damage if you want.

3.assign the first beam to a fully turreted hardpoint.

4. assign the second beam to a hardpoint that is slaved to the first.

sometimes you get weird sliding behavior, but that could be interpreted as an attempt to escape (if it can move faster than the tracking)

another thing is the beam duration, I haven't decided whether a rapidly pulsed beam is more effective than an always on beam other than that the rapid beam my change targets.

Evenflow: yeah ISD's will be made much more fearsome, I definately agree on the 'a fleet of ISD's... So what' comment.

The bigger imperial cruisers are around, just not ready to get released at this point.

gravwells are always on,but their range is small, though still greater than the max weapons range for balance reasons. in the case of future releases they will only shut down if the subsystem is destroyed. Unfortunately I can't figure out a way to block friendly ships from HS too, so the grav wells are a little more advanced as they can be selectivly focused :-p

Assassin X: heh post the comments, i'd be interested.

[spacemoose]

Dude. You are insane. Or brilliant, or something.

[Sortsiam]

Spacemoose, I agree.

¡Loco! You work like a maniac, and the models you've made are beautiful. Evillejedi, you're my hero!

:bow::bow:

[SvK]

In HW1, you could give a beam weapon a large mass, and it would spin a ship in place.

[kenobi's blade]

I think that there should be some more new powerful Reb ships cuz i mean, look at the Executor! It's practically invincible. I encourage giving the Rebs the Star Defender and the Mon Remonda 90 and 80a. By the way, I'm new to this site but I know virtually everything about Star Wars.

[Kinjiss]

MC-90 is already in game, and 80a will be in next release, as well as several other ships too. Can't remember if Star Defender is in or not, but im sure it will be.

PS The Mon Remonda is the MC-80c(I think) so I dont think there are Mon Remonda 90's. Maybe you meant Mon Cal?

--Kinjiss

[Evenflow]

!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok, I'm pretty confused about something...

I was flipping through my sourcebooks last night looking for some ships to suggest to Evillejedi and I ran across a Defender-class Star Destroyer. Then in another chronology book it mentioned the Star Defender.... same ship?

Apparently I made a mistake when I called the Defender Class Star Destroyer a "Republic" class Star Destroyer. Sorry for that.
Anyway, the Defender Star Destroyer is smaller than an ISD but with five times the weapons and shields. That seems like a good Rebel super ship to counter the SSD to me....

[nickersonm]

The Republic Star Defender is also known as Viscount-class. It is very large, on the scale of an SSD, and was not constructed until just before the NJO series. It is first seen in Vector Prime, the first NJO book. You can get a good description of it in one of the first pages in the book.

- nickersonm

[evillejedi]

I'm actually worried the imps will be out gunned now :-p they still have the super cap and cruiser advantage, since most of the rebel cruisers are really weak.

but just to compare the strong ships

IMP destroyers that are powerful
ISD I
ISD II

REB destroyers that are powerful
MC-90
Defender SD
Republic SD


the Imps have a huge advantage once you get to cruisers and super caps, but the mon remonda, MC-104 Mediator and strident/viscount are really tough ships. Expect them to cost a bundle.

Defender SD's aren't 5x as strong as an ISD II, I'd say more like 2-2.5x but they are certianly nasty.

the strident/viscount seems to be about 6-8km long according to technical commentaries so I'll go with something around that number, I managed to track down some artwork from WOTC of it, but then lost the link, so if anyone has the image (black and white 3/4ths hand drawing of the bow from crackens threat dossier I believe) can you please post it.

also since there is no official rendering of a MC-104 Mediator as of yet do people mind if this LF concept art is used for the design? personally I think it is pretty cool.

[AsterXiphos]

Oooh, purty . . . I vote for that

[Kinjiss]

I second that motion!

[AsterXiphos]

Ok, so I've done some looking around, and I've found some concept pics of what is presumed to be a Defender-class destroyer (or whatever you want to call it). It all seems quite disorganized after you get past the Mon Remonda . . .



Someone on the "Jedi Council Forums" on TheForce.net said that was a Defender SD.



Ugly, but someone said that was the pic for the Republic Star Destroyer from Craken's Threat Dossier. Ugh! :omg:

This battle ship was a smaller version of the Imperial-class Star Destroyer, and was designed for use by the New Republic. It first saw duty during the latter stages of the Black Fleet Crisis and the battle against the Yevetha, although production was limited to a few ships. The Republic-class was designed to be the follow-up to the Victory-class destroyer, and was developed by Walex Blissex himself. They were designed to be cost-efficient replacements for the Imperial-class destroyer - two Republics could be manufactured for the cost of one Imperial, with twenty percent of the crew complement and twenty percent more firepower than the Imperial-I class destroyer. The Republic-class ship measured 1,250 meters in length, and was crewed by 8,168 crewers with 260 gunners and up to 3,200 troops. They were armed with 40 heavy turbolaser batteries, 40 heavy turbolaser cannons, 20 ion cannons, and 10 tractor beam projectors. It also transported a full wing of starfighters.

I also found a couple other pics presumed to be the "Viscount" and "Mediator" (looks suspiciously like the Mon Remonda), I'll post 'em if you want 'em.

[evillejedi]

the viscount picture I am looking for is quite distictive from mon remonda.

the pics you posted are from WOTC source material.

anyway, I got through the Mon cal destroyers, still needs some texturing but here's some comparison.

some other shots have been put into the concept gallery

I need to finish up the mining ship and a few rebel fighters. once this is done I'm going to overhaul the armor system, do icons and then work on performance and balance for the next release.




for icons, do you guys want: (all from the side)

A) simple outlines (relativly easy)
B) HW2 style schematics (lots of work)
C) full color renders (really easy)
D) something else

[Turgidson]

> Evillejedi

I've sent you a (long) ranting by email, have you checked it ?

For MonCal lengths, I remember they are supposed to be 1200 meters long for all MC80 series (MC80, MC80A, MC80B). I also remember the Mon Remonda is a MC80B, as SWTC says :
http://www.theforce.net/swtc/mcc.html#monremonda

Republic class SD is supposed to be shorter than the ISD, but pack sensibly the same weaponry than ISD MkI.
http://www.theforce.net/swtc/dagger.html#republic
SWTC says the picture is probably inaccurate, so feel free to design a dagger design of your own. If it's from Rendili, it's probably quite close to VSD design.

MC90 Defiance is purple.

The Star Defender ("Viscount" class, it's a MonCalamri design, so certainly not a "Defender Star Destroyer") is supposed to be huge, as Nickersonm said. I'd say approx 12-15 kms long. Perhaps slightly better shielding than Executor, but less weaponry.
I suggest using the MC104 Model that JM made, and scale it up :
http://www.btinternet.com/~jmdare/xwaegdown.htm
Anyway, there's no canon picture of the MonCalamari Star Defender that I know of (and beware, some EU sources ain't that accurate, remember the 8kms long Executor ? ).

Note that the "MC104" itself is a fan-made ship, it's not canon at all.

For Mediator, I'd suggest using the model from the NJO Project : http://njoproject.skywalkeronline.ne...mediator.shtml
(fan-made model)
I don't like their Viscount (which is also fanmade design anyway), cuz too bulky. Their Mediator looks very fine, very sleek, really in the lines of the Defiance's design, and not of the "ugly organic mess" from older ships.

(and check your mail, unless you've already read it and found it useless )

[vandem]

Turgidson already mentioned some of this, but here's a interesting URL concerning all the different types of Star Destroyers - including the New Republic versions.
I don't agree with the "Imperial" and "Super" designations, but the site does give an idea of the size & firepower of the NR "Defender" & "Republic" class Star Destroyers. It also mentions another uber NR SD called the "Rejuvenator".
The following excerpt is notable (URL) :
"Mon Calamari Star Defender -
the largest starship ever produced by the Mon Calamari, the Star Defender was created for use by the New Republic Navy some twenty years after the Battle of Endor. Nearly twice a long as a standard Mon Cal cruiser, the Star Defender was also the largest ship bult for the New Republic fleet. (VP)"
The "Defender" SD and "Star Defender" Cruiser is 2 different ships designs.

I might be stating the obvious... just my 1/2 cent of input.

[Turgidson]

From what I remember, the Star Defender is only said to be at least twice longer than former battlecruisers (and that's only a visual impression/description in a novel, not a tech spec - and visual impressions can be quite wrong at times).
http://www.theforce.net/swtc/mcc.html#defender

I'd go approx 4 kms- for Mediator, and 10 kms++ for the Star Defender.

[Swiftiee]

I think for now simple outlines will do. But then I think schematics should be a goal.

If you want, I can do schematics. Maybe I can use Adobe Illustrator and some creativity to do so.

[Turgidson]

Fo the icons : just have text, and it's fine to me. Easy to check, no risk of mistakes, quick to do.

BTW, has anyone been able to revert back to HW1's style interface for ship groups ? (that is, a text listing)

[Dragon45]

Text groupings! That would own... please eville, please?

[spacemoose]

Outlines or text would be fine as far as I'm concerned. At this stage in development all I think that is necessary is some way to know which ships you've selected, no need for aesthetics yet.

[evillejedi]

Turgidson:

I believe the 1200m number was an average simply because at least in the movies nothing standardized to this number and I try to go off the movies when references are available. the liberty class is obviously 1.5 km and the rest vary.

I also reclassified the mon remonda because given its battle history, it had to be more powerful than a destroyer and was more near the cruiser size. if anything it might be classified as a MC-90A

Republic class was built/designed by mon cals and by the VSD designer, so it would have mon cal design elements, I will change it from the picture, but probably make it look similar ( I promise it will look a lot cooler)

in dark empire the MC-90 is blue, but since NOTHING in dark empire seems to be true color I made it grey with blue tint, if you can find a reference that superceeds dark empire then I'll conceed. (btw I scanned the pictures in DE and the color is significantly blue. :-p)

According to SWTC the viscount may be that big, but reading through it a few times it seems like it probably isn't over 10km, and yes there is a picture floating around which I thought was a good design. I understand the 'inaccuracy' of EU sources, but sometimes they have good art that can be used :-p

hmmm I thought I saw MC-104 tagged on the mediator somewhere. heh that ship looks pretty bulky to me and not sleek at all :-p the LF concept looks much cooler IMO and is in the right size range 2000m-2500m which makes the mediator about 2x a destroyer. the star defender could be 2x the largest known mon cal ship before it, the independance at 4.3, so maybe 8.6 km?

so on that note I need some class designations for these ships.


hmmm for icons I've had a lot of people tell me they couldn't visually link what they were building to the text. I think I will do the renders for now because it is extremely quick and obvious what you are building, the text will be overlayed on the ship image. text groupings would involve a bunch of UI modifications

[AsterXiphos]

Here's a pic I found that claims to be a Mediator Star Destroyer:



And this claims to be the Viscount:



Whatever . . . just render some cool looking ships, and I think people will be happy. What little canon there is on these ships all disagrees anyway.

[kenobi's blade]

Actually, there is a such thing as the Mc90. I read up on it in the Essential guides to Vehicles and Vessels.... I still think that it's a good idea to give both sides a few new cap ships. BTW, after this mod is under control and complete, are you going to consider adding in the Chiss, Yuuzhan Vong? I think it could be like and expansion pack to the mod and the alliance would become the New Republic while the Empire becomes the Imperial Remnant.

[kenobi's blade]

I am not much of a programmer but I can give lots of stats on any vessel!

[kenobi's blade]

Stats of the MC90 are:

75 turbolasers
35 ion cannons
6 proton torp. tubes The MC90 was the first Mon Cal ship designed specifically to be a battlecruiser.

[evillejedi]

AsterXiphos: first one is the mon remonda, second pic is what I was looking for. It is very similar to what I came up with in my inital massing diagrams, except mine was more slender.

kenobi's blade: MC-90 is in the current version (read before posting :-p) also the chiss and the vong are very vaguely described and have very few known ships. The vong would require WAY too much time to do (organic + animations are out of the question in any reasonable time frame) however many of the NJO ships will be included.

[kenobi's blade]

Thanks, as long as the Star Defender and some NJO ships are in I'm happy. Sorry about the MC90, I was talking to some other guys who said it didn't exist. Bye.

[AsterXiphos]

Yeah, as I said . . . looked suspiciously like the Mon Remonda . . .

[General Veers]

You should add in the Eclipse-class command ship, it would be SWEET!!!!! Info at URL.|
|
\/
http://www.theforce.net/swtc/dagger.html#eclipse

[Swiftiee]

Well, here's a schematic of a Mon Calimari cruiser that I made.

I used Photoshop. Using one of those Mon Calimari cruiser comparison sheets as the source, I turned it into grayscale, turned it back to RGB color, used the "Find Edges" filter, and did some layer magic on the cruiser. Voila, here is your Homeworld2 schematic. If this is something you wish to do for the Star Wars HW2 mod, I'll continue to do more.

I think this one is the Liberty:

[evillejedi]

hmmm that does look good, however I think I'm going to do the renders without textures. Doing so seems to give it a much more schematic like look.Swiftiee, If you know how to set up the lua image maps for icons I'll send you the renders. Otherwise I'll do the icons myself since there will be a lot of files. anyway thanks for the inspiration.



as an example it looks cleaner without texturing.

[Evenflow]

Yeah, I don't think textures on the icons are neccessary. Looks great so far!

[Swiftiee]

Originally posted by evillejedi
hmmm that does look good, however I think I'm going to do the renders without textures. Doing so seems to give it a much more schematic like look.Swiftiee, If you know how to set up the lua image maps for icons I'll send you the renders. Otherwise I'll do the icons myself since there will be a lot of files. anyway thanks for the inspiration.



as an example it looks cleaner without texturing.

Yeah, glad to be of some help. Once I learn about HW2's file formats, I'll try to help out.

Looks better than mine. Good job.

[evillejedi]

heh photoshop batch scripting is excellent :-p if you want I can send you the action script, it probably needs some tweaking

[Turgidson]

> Evillejedi

Sorry for the quoting, but I feel it adds to clarity/ease of reading, since your post is long and mine will be too. BTW, did you read the email I sent you a few days ago ?

> "I believe the 1200m number was an average simply because at least in the movies nothing standardized to this number and I try to go off the movies when references are available. the liberty class is obviously 1.5 km and the rest vary."
http://www.theforce.net/swtc/mcc.html#liberty
Actually, a game (X-Wing Alliance) references its length to 1.5 kms, but without the ship's name and with different engine configuration. Also, note that the Lucasart games were not always of high accuracy.

> "I also reclassified the mon remonda because given its battle history, it had to be more powerful than a destroyer and was more near the cruiser size. if anything it might be classified as a MC-90A"

Actually, I think the battle history might be explanable by shields alone. They would be enough to explain a high survivability, while assault fighters cripple the enemy.

Completely disgaree about the "MC-90A" classification, since its an older design than the MC-90 Defiance class. From what I've read, Mon Remonda was still an "intermediary" design between civilian ships and "pure" military designs.

IMHO, the Mediator class battleship should be approximatively of similar power to the current Mon Remonda.

> "Republic class was built/designed by mon cals and by the VSD designer, so it would have mon cal design elements, I will change it from the picture, but probably make it look similar ( I promise it will look a lot cooler)"

SWTC states a Rendilli design, so merely a "dagger"-style ship. What is the source for MonCals associated design ?

IMHO, perhaps add a few "bulbs" to represent MonCal shielding technologies (the ship would look close to an interdictor, perhaps with a few small, elongated bulbs instead of spheres - perhaps 4 bulbs only, it's enough IMHO). Don't forget the big advantage of the "dagger" design is that all guns can point towards the front.

> "in dark empire the MC-90 is blue, but since NOTHING in dark empire seems to be true color I made it grey with blue tint, if you can find a reference that superceeds dark empire then I'll conceed. (btw I scanned the pictures in DE and the color is significantly blue. :-p)"

Well... OK, but the ISDs in DE don't look as blue.

I like the dark blue design (saw JM's model ?) because it makes this ship something "special". With the sleeker design and the colour, it really looks like a break from previous MonCal ships, which is what the ship really was.

> "According to SWTC the viscount may be that big, but reading through it a few times it seems like it probably isn't over 10km, and yes there is a picture floating around which I thought was a good design. I understand the 'inaccuracy' of EU sources, but sometimes they have good art that can be used :-p "

Actually, I didn't find that art that good (unless MonCals = ugly mess of bulbs blocking the firing line of the weapons). I know this is purely subjective.

For the length, I honestly think this ship is really massive and in excess of 10 kms. It would also be logical from a military point of view : NR had difficulties against Executor class SSDs, and refitted the Lusankya for their own use. I suppose the NR would then try to build a ship able to fill the role of these mighty command ships.

Note that a ~1300 m long MC90 can beat a 1600 m long ISD, and Executor is an old design. So, I assume the Viscount's shielding would certainly at least compare with Executor's.

> "hmmm I thought I saw MC-104 tagged on the mediator somewhere."

Source ? Actually, the MC-104 Odysseus was a fan-made design of JM. I guess someone assumed that, given the length of the Odysseus, Odysseus would be the Mediator. But that's not the case.

> "heh that ship looks pretty bulky to me and not sleek at all :-p"

Looks fine to me, because :
- curves allowing good fire concetration in the front
- relatively low number of bulbs (doesn't look too messy with bulbs)
- engines don't seem underpowered, given the size of the ship

OK, ain't as sleek as a dagger design, but looks much sleeker and "military-oriented" than most MonCal designs (only Defiance and Mon Remonda look quite military).

> "the LF concept looks much cooler IMO and is in the right size range 2000m-2500m which makes the mediator about 2x a destroyer."

Can you post that picture again ?
Quite OK for a 2500 meters ship. This would make it just above the Allegiance SD.

> "the star defender could be 2x the largest known mon cal ship before it, the independance at 4.3, so maybe 8.6 km?"

Independance = Home One ? Cuz the only "Independance" I saw was in Lucasarts XWing game.

> "so on that note I need some class designations for these ships."

Will be hard to find EU sources. Feel free to use your imagination.

> "hmmm for icons I've had a lot of people tell me they couldn't visually link what they were building to the text. I think I will do the renders for now because it is extremely quick and obvious what you are building, the text will be overlayed on the ship image. text groupings would involve a bunch of UI modifications"

Ermm... how to quickly distinguish ISD MkI and ISD MkII in the pics, or VSD MkI and VSD MkII ? Not forgetting that most MonCals look similar when sighted from the side.
Perhaps mix pictures and text, then.


> AsterXiphos

Can you give me the source for this picture of the Viscount class MonCal Star Defender ? Thanks.
SWTC doesn't give any picture reference, and this website is probably the most accurate SW source on the web.
And I find the design quite ugly anyway.

[kenobi's blade]

Judging by how things r going, how long do you think it'll take before the new mod is out. And, in the new mod, will most of the ships on the rebel side be comparable to the imperial ones. I stand by what I said before: if the Rebs dont get something as good as the Executor (Viscount -class posiibly) then all the Empire player(s) has to do is pool their resources and get an executor. Just my opinion.

[AsterXiphos]

Turgidson: My computer went down last night, and I'm on a roommate's this morning. I've got it bookmarked on my other computer, and will get you the source as soon as I have it up and running again. Depends on how fast I can get a CPU . . .

May I just offer my opinion as well . . . that the Viscount isn't the purtiest of ships . . . and "not very purty" translates to "oh yuck" when a ship is made bigger. The pic I posted makes it look small (yes, I know it's bigger), and it looks bad enough!

kenobi's blade: I <almost> think it'd be fun to not have anything as big as the Executor . . . it makes it more fearsome. If you're a good strategist, you shouldn't have much of a problem denying your opponent of an SSD. Just hassle resource ops, destroy shipyards, etc. It would take a heck of a long time to pool resources if they're constantly rebuilding defense forces. So I don't think it'd be that easy for them to "pool their resources."

[evillejedi]

Turgidson: I got your email, except you posted here before I answered it, and public discussion is more fun :-p

I guess on mon cal destroyers there just needs to be some variety in sizing to make it feel like you are actually building different ships.


As a design note on mon cal ships:
generally mon cal ships have a dagger shape, it's just less defined and doesn't have the continuous rise to the stern.

However, this highlights a critical weakness of Imperial designs. on a ISD, at most 8 medium guns can hit anything in a significant cone behind the engines, if you believe the weaponry numbers, (but logically place the guns for maximum coverage, and assuming that the engines produce crap loads of radiation that prevent guns mounted near, there which seems very reasonable), and none of the heavy batteries (unless they are mounted on at least 30m towers, which all evidence is to the contrary).

An Imperial captian would be wise to pay close attention that something doesn't bite him in the ass, lest he lose his engines and take significant structural damage while being able to do nearly nothing to the attackers. The sloped aft of mon cals allows weapons placment there. (granted they have sucky guns anyway,but that's my next point)

in a large fleet engagment, manuvering room is limited and once you close to weapons range, fire will be coming from all sides. unless you can disengage and rejoin the battle from outside, having equal fire arc coverage of defensive weaponry is essential. This way you can orient the ships main batteries at a target and not risk having a significant blind spot the enemy can attack. Also in a fleet engagement directional manevurability is no where near important as lateral manuvering, unless your heavy weapons depend on it.

the next point to make is that mon cal bumps are where the weapons are placed. Since rebel engineers just hacksawed their way through the ships, hopefully they would place weaponry in logical spots. The bumps don't impeed weaponry, they allow it to be off the hull and have a larger fire arc. most weapons on an ISD are limited to a 100 degree / 180 degree firing arc (except for the spine mounted guns. which aproach 200/270-360) if guns are mounted on the bumps, most mon cal guns have a 200/360 arc. If you have limited weapons this is ideal. This is exploited on the later designs like the MC-90 because you have a dagger shaped hull with weapons blisters. There still is a blind spot, but since the stern is less angular and the weapons are raised, more guns can cover. symmetry is more a concern for ease of construction, operation and repair with generic parts than it is for firepower. There is also the fallacy that sleek and cool looking = good warship ( modern day example A-10 warthog)

This starts to explain my reasoning behind the mon remonda. If it was a converted liner and we know that mon cals have built stuff up to the home one in size and it is a powerful enough ship to scare a lone SSD (let alone survive a few passes and multiple battles without refitting) it has to be siginificantly better than an MC-90. an MC-90 wouldn't scare a SSD, in fact technically its weapons bounce off they are so crappy (SSD armor quality is almost 2.5 times higher than the penetrating power of MC-90 guns).

It also seems that mon cal generators are not nearly as powerful as imperial ones, given the smaller and weaker armament on equivalent sized ships. (most of the power is shunted to shields, and fleet tactics indicate reluctance to engage large imperial warships unless a significant force can be assembled, thus gauranteeing that the ship will be availble to do suprise raids). ALso the mon remonda was commisioned shortly after endor compared to the MC-90 final design. It seems logical that the mon cals took one of their larger liners, slapped on as much imperial weapons technology as they could their hands on and sent it off to the NR as quickly as possible and said give us a few more years and we'll build an actual warship. Since the design was converted, there would be limited weapons placment area, necessitating a larger ship, also larger power gens would have to be installed also necessitating more open hull area.

I agree with you on the two other points though. the mon remonda was survivable because of insane shields. and the mediator should be roughly equivalent to it, but a better warship. However if the mon remonda was = MC-90 in general terms I wouldn't flinch as an SSD commander (remember during ship trials a few ISDs hyperspaced into! the executor and it just didn't care)

as for the viscount size and power, I agree on the SSD shielding equivalency. However, there is tons of evidence that the NR senate was strictly opposed to big warships lest the NR just become another empire. The new-class ships were designed so that they were flexible and could respond to small sector conflicts. they were smaller but better armed. The lusankya, Intimidator, Guardian and possibly the Aggressor (unless it was lost during DE) were used sparingly and usually for defense and in some cases mothballed. Only when the black fleet crisis occured did anyone bring up the idea of actually constructing bigger ships, but it wouldn't make sense to build something as long as an SSD, mon cal ships are much bulkier and could feasibly mount a significant weapons percentage of an SSD on a much shorter hull. the NR was also extremely cash strapped and its fleets relied on mobility to support other fleet actions. They didn't have the money or the political backing to build another SSD, but you could easily slip one or two ships that were much less intimidating through the budget. that way you have have more distributed firepower, but it can be combined rather quickly (better to have 3 weaker ships than 1 uber ship when trying to keep the peace, not fight a war)

the viscount was probably the answer to any emerging threat. remember it was designed and commisioned before the vong invasion so there was only a need to put down the occasional megalomanic, not entire fleets.

the executor will still be the most powerful unit in the game for many reasons. I assure you that it won't be some pitiful leviathan that falls to a single a-wing and ewok sorcery. The NR was scared of SSDs even when they had more modern ships in significant numbers.

icons will still have text, but it will speed identification to have an idea of what you clicked on without trying to remember what the ship does everytime.

I'm just kidding about this, but I should remove resource injections and starting RUs for everyone that says 'just build one executor and you are set' I'd like to see you build one from scratch and survive (try to figure out if you can sustain 500 RU's per second for 4 minutes while still fighting off anyone else) when anyone can build an SSD you better be scared off your ass. Also it is designed such that it can be completly pummeled, withdrawn and repaired :-p

whew, that was a long post, if you don't read it, don't complain if I say 'go read it' when you ask a question who's answer is in there.

[Evenflow]

I really do hope you're kidding about the RU injections being taken out. I play against the CPU anyway and have an extremely limited time per day to play. Usually less than 1 hour.

[evillejedi]

heh I am joking , but it's tempting to threaten people who don't have self control :-p

also I completly overhauled every single weapon and ship file last night. this implements the new armor system, cleaned up a lot of stuff and should also eliminate the 'ships concentrating fire on one spot all the time' issue. Ship hulls values have been recalculated to include shields (will be redone when shields are implemented.) I was an organizational step I needed to do anyway.

[spacemoose]

I hope you don't make some uber Rebel ship to be a direct counter to the SSD. Such tit for tat balancing is so banal.

But in a similar vein: I was confused by your comment that the MC-90s weapons not being able to penetrate the Executors armor. Does that mean that the MC90s and other rebel cruisers are wholly ineffective against the SSD?

[evillejedi]

not ineffective, just that the SSD armor is much superior, so the damage they do is reduced by a percentage. each weapon class can do max damage to the equal armor class and lower, on armor values higher than the weapons class the damaged is reduced between 0-50%

[The5thElephant]

While MC ships may not have as powerful generators, they have much better shielding than Impstars and have back-up shield generators incase the main ones get taken down. So make sure my moncals have good defence! Also I don't see what you mean by MC ships having sucky guns. They have pretty equivalent turbolasers to an impstar, but just less of them. In damage they are about equal for each turbolaser.

Also another weaponry system MC ships have are bomb-blisters. Some of the bumps on MC ships' hulls can detach and detonate in a large explosion of energy and shrapnel that can wipe out quite a few fighters or corvettes, so that may be an interesting short range flak type weapon to put on MC ships (of course you wouldn't be able to simulate the blister popping off but it could be just really short range powerful flak.

[evillejedi]

hmmm good point on making the blisters a flak weapon, it was mentioned before but it sounded hard to implement, now it will be much easier.

as for MC ship guns, in Role playing terms the ISD II has 50 7D guns and 50 10D guns with 20 4D ion cannons

the MC-90 has 75 4D guns and 30 3D ion cannons.

effectivly in the game 2 4D = 1 5D, I'm a lot nicer than that in my scaling, but ISD's have significantly more powerful weaponry

as for shielding the MC ships will have between 5 and 9 times the shielding, so it seems to work out pretty well. the only thing I keep running into is the ion cannons, if I raise them too much stuff gets disabled too much, but too little and nothing gets disabled ever. I'm having a hard time trying to find the right balance.

[Sortsiam]

Could you possibly script the AI so that ships in defensive mode will only fire ion cannons, and ships in aggressive mode will only fire their turbolasers and missiles? That would present some interesting options - if a player could afford to take the time, they would simply disable the enemy ship and capture it, but if they were desperate, they would have to use their lasers and missiles to remove the threat faster.

[The5thElephant]

evil, another solution to the blister weapon is a very fast and short range missile (set it to shoot only at things that are within a very small area nearby) where the missile model is one of the blisters. Its explosion could have area damage.

[evillejedi]

aSortsiam: s far as everyone can tell you cannot script stances to anything. It looks like an engine limitation and it really hurts to not have that functionality.

The5thElephant: actually that's exactly how I implemented it:-p