Phase I Features:
- Fixing of undereffective close in weaponry, and overeffective fighter defense shields. No more invulnerable heavy fighter phalanxes - close assault with these hogs should be hazardous at best. Also gives battle frigates a great advantage against the small craft with their "personal" arsenal of CIWS.
- x3 effectiveness for all directed energy weapons. They are not laser pointers.
- Capital scale weaponry should not bounce off fighters' armour, no matter how heavily it is protected. Big plasma and kinetic shot will destroy all fighters and corvettes in a single hit, if they hit. Allows for rendering of battlefield hazard from stray shots.
- Remodelling of battle engagement ranges (conceptual only). The present battlespace is a good rendition of the deadly close-in arena where everything runs on full automatic mode. Doesn't require much brain power in letting a tactical computer run a task force, right? Letting capital scale weapons engage at 5x their present range will allow for NGCS-like simulator gameplay while retaining the detailed and visually impressive close in battlespace that is the key feature of PDS.
This final feature is the main target of PDS 8.0. We are implementing a new layer to the PDS battlespace, one that hopefully allows for an optimal compromise between traditional RTS, and hardcore simulator gameplay, if not delivering two gameplay experiences at once - managing a battleship engagement literally beyond visual range by assigning targeting priorities with the sensor manager, while simultaneously directing a second front of close-action against fast attack craft and assault ships.
Simply imagine PDS now as merely a component of a larger naval engagement in the heavens. 8.0 will thus deliver a multi-spectral gameplay experience - and our main enemy here of course is CPU power. Good excuse to finally perform optimisation for PDS weaponry I say.
V8P1 also contains the following additions/bugfixes for PDS7:
- Hitpoint fixes for Prince of Hiigara IV and Supermonitor
- Improper hardpoint orientation for one of the Marquess A's torpedo catapults
- Operationalisation of LiirHra Block 17 and 18 class CLs, and MRAM2-EC (not proliferated yet outside LH 17/18).
- AI ships start off with aggressive tactics in skirmish games, resulting in the elimination of early-game exploits (important in duel and scenario gametypes)
- 1 scenario added to "PDSV8 Scenarios" section depicting a LiirHra cruiser raid (from V7.1 test package)
Notes:
I have renamed the gametypes for the skirmish menu - they now start with the "PDSV8" prefix for easier recognition.
Unzip into HW2 directory over PDS7 installation.
The old penguin-mayhem site is gone. And I was in the middle of combing through the old threads...
(will tell zen)
It is peanut butter jelly time 
