Improvment Suggestions

posted on October 14th, 2003, 1:15 pm

Hey,

The mod is great. Plain and simple. Though I see room for improvment. Here are some ideas:

Lighting - There are three lights --- Ambient - set to 32 | Light 1 - face straight down, set to 68 | Light 2 - any upward direction, set to 192. This makes it look more realistic.

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More realistic scaling. e.g. the Intrepid is bigger than it should be.

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Create more backgrounds. You probably will but just incase you wern't.

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Create a pack/patch that removes the '_1' & '_2' textures for better texture resolution for more powerfull PC's.

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The Romulans look amazing. I think that they set the standard of model and texture quality you should aim for with the other races.

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I had a thought for a federation weapon that's based on the Romulan saboutage weapon.

Federation Diplomacy. this will allow certain ships to convert NPC's to their cause.

This weapon could also open up possibilities of having more NPC races.

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I also thought that the three cannon ships at SF Command should be more main stream and not warp-in's.

So my thinking is, move them to ordinary shipyards, and replace them with ships like... say... the Dauntless, Prometheus, and perhaps the excelsior since it is so different from the other ships.

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Well, there you go. What do you think? I think these ideas could make the game a little more realistic and a bit more fun.

[Lt.Cdr.White]

posted on October 14th, 2003, 1:55 pm

Last edited by Lt.Cdr.White on October 14th, 2003, 2:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.

More realistic scaling. e.g. the Intrepid is bigger than it should be.

Good point, I wanted to suggest that, too. Mostly because the Defiant class is much too big. I know you can't make it exact, for example the scout ship would become too small, but some tweaking would be great.

Here are some comparison charts, the sizes stated on Ex-Astris-Scientia are very good because they take into account everything from design specification to screen appearance:

http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/fleet-charts.htm

I don't rember, but I think the sizes of Nebula and Galaxy are off in Fleetops AND Armada II. The saucer section of those ships is nearly identical. At least it has to be the same size ingame to be correct.

I had a thought for a federation weapon that's based on the Romulan saboutage weapon.

Federation Diplomacy. this will allow certain ships to convert NPC's to their cause.

I like that idea very much, it's fitting to the Star Trek philosophy perfectly.

posted on October 14th, 2003, 2:17 pm

@Lighting
Hm, some maps should already have additional light sources. As beta3 focuses on map environment you can expect more improvements there

@scaling
well, as you already said you cannot make it perfect, cause this is a strategy game. but i will have a closer look to it

@backgrounds
same as lightning, there will be additional background shemes for beta3. Of course they will be the same high quality you are used to

@textures
removing the _1 and _2 files causes the vessels to look very rough and the pixels jump up and down we are working on a more fitting way to handle the mipmaps (the _1 and _2 files)

@Romulans
thanks
i think the romulan vessels and stations have the same quality all the other vessels have. but as in the last version you can expect more model and texture upgrades of existing vessels in every beta

@Diplomacy
The Federation Techtree has been completed with beta2. perhaps there will be some additions cause of new, planed features, but i don't think the federation will get some additional super weapons like this. perhaps such a special ability will appear on a neutral building

@SF Command
well i like the idea of having support from home (which suits to the federation). We will improve the warpin effect or add another effect, but i think SFC will stay


Thanks for your feedback. i will think over all points in the coming days and will have a closer look on it for the next beta. We want to create a mod the fans like ;-)

posted on October 14th, 2003, 2:51 pm

humm they are not bad ideas

posted on October 19th, 2003, 3:16 pm

First let me say that I havent played the mod more then 5 minutes.I have spent the last 2 days pouring over the mod itself looking a what your team has made.

I am a big special weapons fan.I have many goodies that would be great in this mod.

Requests:
A probe weapon that will show a portion of that map.It fires like a torp and is sod based. when it reaches the target area it shows the souronding portion of the map around the probe for a breif time. I have this unreleased by Captain Future.
Nuclear Weapons with realistic shockwaves.I have these.

More Space Monsters that are on the map.I have many that are created for A2 and from SFC 2 and 3.New TNG style Doomsday machines, space dragons, Deemons Crystaline Entity, Gomtoo, Galaxys Child, etc...
More Space objects such as Rassilons Gas giant that you can hide your ships inside or have some type of effects.

posted on October 19th, 2003, 3:24 pm

hm ... im not a staff member but ... perhaps you should have played the mod ... probes are there (federation IDONTKNOWWHAT class has it already ... and such things like non player races are planned for beta 3 but the game is designed for fighting other players not non player races ... but this Gas giant could be a good idea but to much objects would surely slowdown the game ...

[Optec]

posted on October 19th, 2003, 3:35 pm

Last edited by Optec on October 19th, 2003, 3:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.

in the coming betas you will find many things to interact with. For example Non Player Races which act as independent (map specific) enemys, mercenaries to hire or neutral stations, which grant special effects.
We are also working on map-events, like a solar erruption from a sun, an ion storm and things like that. We will continue our tradition and create the models ourselves ;-)

posted on October 19th, 2003, 5:26 pm

Requests:
A probe weapon that will show a portion of that map.It fires like a torp and is sod based. when it reaches the target area it shows the souronding portion of the map around the probe for a breif time.

humm kind of like the spy plane on red alert 1???

posted on October 19th, 2003, 5:57 pm

Ahem... Did anyone notice the special weapon of the Canaveral class? Right, it's a probe!

posted on October 19th, 2003, 7:34 pm

yeah i know that but i don't use the cnaaveral class so i'm not sure what it does (takes shround away or fog or sum wiered thing

[Lt.Cdr.White]

posted on October 19th, 2003, 7:53 pm

Last edited by Lt.Cdr.White on October 19th, 2003, 7:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The Canaveral is a good class, I think.

Its phasers are "long range". The Canaveral can take out any defence platforms without being hit. The best alternative to the credit-consuming Steamrunner.

The probe is its special weapon. If you aim and activate it, the ship automatically flies towards the target and stops as soon as the target is in range of the probe (which is a rather long range). Then the probe starts and travels to the target. On the way to the target you can see the space around the probe and all ships nearby. In fact, this more or less does the work of a scout ship but cannot be destroyed.

The only difference to the suggested version is that it does not fly to the target and stays, but only scans until it reaches the target. You cannot scan an area for a period of time, but you can find enemy bases and fleets easily.

[Optec]

posted on October 19th, 2003, 8:11 pm

Last edited by Optec on October 19th, 2003, 8:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.

yep, i also do like the canaveral class.
btw you shoudl check it's resource costs. it is one of the few vessels which costs more tritanium than dilithium, so you can perhaps combine it with a vessel which costs much dilithium (my favourit ist the excelsiorII)

posted on October 19th, 2003, 9:14 pm

I am more interested in looking at the actual files themselves and seeing how the mod was put together rather then actually playing the game.I only needed 5 minutes to see that this was a top notch mod for myself.
And Im very heartened to hear that there are probe weapons in the game.

Making the models myself was the one skill I didnt have when I put Shockwave together so I made alot of freinds who happened to be model makers.

The Gas Giant by Rassilon is available at AFC if you wish to view how it works.It disables most things but you can hide your ship or fleet inside of it.Inside the gas cloud is a "planet" with a energetic lightning storm inside.It does not damage your ship!

The mercenary system would be huge! Im also a fan of Warcraft 3 btw.

posted on October 20th, 2003, 7:13 am

humm gas gaints that you can hide in now that would be cool, would be evn better if you could build in it

posted on October 20th, 2003, 11:21 am

yep, the mercenaries - like all neutral stations - will work similar to wcIII
we are also working on another - still secret - feature which is similar to one from wcIII :detective: