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Star Wars: A Galaxy in Chaos (Mod by Rifraf and Majestic)

Rifraf

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No biggie. I know you are very busy right now. I still have plenty to do so no hurry. I'm just jumping all over doing bits here and there and thought I'd focus on some of these finer details.
 

Majestic

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It's something I really want to get back into over the next month however. I will probably knock out the last YY Feddie station first however. That has been nagging at me for like 12 months now.
 

Rifraf

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I've been working on a personal mod using Majestic's Star Wars stuff basically Galaxy in Chaos in stock A2 because I like warp travel and wanted to get people's thoughts on somethings.

I've been researching on Wookiepedia the time frames of the lore and have everything pretty set. It starts around the Rise of the Empire era or movies 1, 2 and 3 and progresses through the Rebellion era or moves 4, 5 and 6. You'll start with the earliest ships and have to work your way up to stuff seen in Return of the Jedi.

I wanted to get some thoughts on research. Specifically I am thinking of reducing the research of chassis and weapons and things like that and just making the research be by era for the most part. Each era will take say 15 minutes or so to research so you'll only have access to the ships in each era to play with until research is done. You may win the game in any ear if you beat the enemy so there's no guarantee you'll reach the final era.

I may use a second research option to research specific ships while researching eras so you keep getting access to better ships while in each era. Sure you can build the best ship in each era, but they'll be expensive so you won't always be able to field lots of the best ship. I just wanted to get some opinions on this and see what others thought.
 

Terra_Inc

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I wanted to get some thoughts on research. Specifically I am thinking of reducing the research of chassis and weapons and things like that and just making the research be by era for the most part. Each era will take say 15 minutes or so to research so you'll only have access to the ships in each era to play with until research is done. You may win the game in any ear if you beat the enemy so there's no guarantee you'll reach the final era.

I may use a second research option to research specific ships while researching eras so you keep getting access to better ships while in each era. Sure you can build the best ship in each era, but they'll be expensive so you won't always be able to field lots of the best ship. I just wanted to get some opinions on this and see what others thought.

Sounds fine to me. If I remember correctly, AOW had a similar system, although with research going from smaller to larger ship classes. I also like the idea of splitting research. Offering a basic set of ship classes, with the option to research some more advanced ones, sounds fun.

I don't quite remember, can you do the invisible indestructible research pod trick in stock A2? That would be worth looking into, to avoid a player losing an entire era of research to some clever artillery bombardment.

What are you going for in terms of fighter/carrier mechanics? I personally prefer the "carrier as shipyard" approach. It has its shortcomings, but I feel like it's the best compromise you can make with the stock A2 engine if you want to have actual carriers. The next best thing would be to treat fighters like very cheap normal ships and just pretend that carriers exist. (I have to admit, I'm not a SW lore expert - are there dedicated carriers in the SW 'verse? Or do capital ships just carry a complement of fighters?)
 

Rifraf

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Thanks Terra. I'm just messing around with a personal mod and it helps with ideas for the real mod in FO. I don't think the invisible indestructible research pod trick works in stock A2 though I'll give it a shot.

As for fighter/carriers most capital ships carried fighter/bomber wings, but in the original Fleet Command mod they were all produced at shipyards. For now I've kept it that way. I'm making the Tie fighters cheap and mass produced and require only 1 crew person. Their shields don't recharge, but they don't last that long anyway. Since the Rebel ships have shields and warp I'm making them more expensive and require 1 officer instead of crew.

In the Galaxy in Chaos mod for FO they are just launch-able fighters from the capital ships that you don't control so just messing around. I'm working on balance in my personal mod now seeing what works and what doesn't and what may translate over to the real mod. I just like to keep posting ideas here and see what others think or what ideas they have.

I didn't think about losing a research pod and a whole era in the process. That may take some rethinking now. Thanks for that
 

CABAL

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I have to admit, I'm not a SW lore expert - are there dedicated carriers in the SW 'verse? Or do capital ships just carry a complement of fighters?
Both. There's a Star Destroyer variant that's a dedicated carrier, for instance, but usually a ship just has a fighter compliment.

What gets tricky for coding Star Wars fighters is that there are light fighters, such as TIEs, that lack a hyperdrive and can't stray far from their base or mothership, and heavy fighters with hyperdrives, like the X-Wing, that are capable of independent system-to-system travel. Logically, TIEs would make the most sense as Fleet Ops style fighters, but X-Wings wouldn't work so well that way and would make more sense as independent ships. It's not even clear if the Rebels have ships that can carry and launch X-Wings since we only ever see them based at terrestrial facilities. This kind of inconsistency could be confusing, though, particularly for people who don't know as much about the differences between the fighters. This kind of mix might also prevent dogfighting, which just looks cool.
 

Rifraf

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For the Galaxy in Chaos FO mod we went the route where you control the capital ships and the fighters on each side are launched and dog fight on their own. You don't control them. Majestic and I felt we didn't want to have to control a bunch of small fighters and wanted to focus on controlling the larger ships.

I like the idea Cabal proposes as well though where the Tie's are launchable/auto controlled and the Rebels build each fighter and control separately. Majestic made a few of the rebel cap ships capable of carrying/launching fighters. I've been reading through the Wookiepedia for ideas there as well. I just wish they would have made A2 where ships don't stop and shoot stuff. It all would have looked so much better if they ships kept moving about while shooting and such.
 

CABAL

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I just wish they would have made A2 where ships don't stop and shoot stuff. It all would have looked so much better if they ships kept moving about while shooting and such.
I'm on my laptop with no A2, but A1 had a 'director's cut' option somewhere that caused ships to keep on the move while firing rather than sitting still. Some of the ships, like destroyers, even had patterns to follow cited in their ODFs. Maybe A2 still has that buried in an H file or something?

I had another thought, too, since you're using warp for hyperspace. Two thoughts, actually. First, there are both Legends and New Canon Interdictors which explicitly prevent hyperspace jumps via gravity wells. Can ships in A2 have gravity wells? If so, Interdictors would be a fun feature.

Second, I'm pretty sure there's a line that prevents ships from turning to fire at their target and keep their current orientation instead. They still turn to navigate, they just don't point their nose to shoot. That might be a way to emphasize the size of certain gigantic ships, like Star Destroyers.
 

Rifraf

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Was that the "attackpath" line or something like that in the ship ODF? I always wondered what that was on the Defiant or Saber and I think even the Intrepid in A2. I'll have to dig through the files and see.

The Interdictor in the SW Fleet Command mod does have the gravity well projector special though I can't for the life of me remember the last time I tried to see if it works. We implemented it in the FO mod as well though since there's no warp there I think it freezes ships for a short time? I'll have to refresh my memory.

I think the line is turntofire or something like you said in FO. I don't know if it works in stock A2 though? I'll have to try. One reason it may not work well is because I restricted the fire arcs of most weapons so if they don't turn to face the enemy they may not fire on them? I did it because some of the large ships that have a mix of limited arc and 360 arc weapons I made the 360 arc ones have no firearc so they can fire anytime while the ship has to be reasonably facing the enemy for the rest to fire.

I always hated how pules weapons on the port side fired through the ship to hit an enemy on the starboard side etc.
 

CABAL

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I'd just set multiple hardpoints for the weapons so that each weapon can shoot from either side and disable turntofire on those ships because I like the look, but turning works, too. I'd do it less if you could make ships broadside properly like in Homeworld.
 
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