^There they are, the Beta version of the conniving, sneaky, underhanded war mongering enemies of the Star Kingdom of Manticore.
The set is still in beta, I have to fix some firing points and invslots(which were coppied over from the manty set and relabeled. it worked mostly but i got to fix a few items, mainly the station and base)
Also got to set them up with a proper race portrait, they're using the manticore's atm.
Also because I used a different method when making the individual ships, they may not scale exactly right when compared next to the manty set. This is because I was a noob when I did the manties, and they need to get fixed to conform to a new standard. Back to top
I would imagine a slew of new components. Alpha and beta nodes to move the ships, the "fusion bottle" for supplies, missiles with huge range and instagib short range firepower, ordinance storage... I guess you could have drone launchers take the place of missile pods. I suppose you'd move most the ship production off planet, maybe with orbital farms and industry, Can you get shipyards onto units line satellites?
I don't know how you'd get the feel of the directional combat right. Unless you can limit what weapons will fire in combat based on the direction the ship is pointed, you'd be able to fire a broadside from chase. Also you can't roll the wedges up... Back to top
Fusion Bottle: Warp Core/Quantum Reactor
Alpha/Beta nodes: renamed engines/wp openers
Missiles: minor tweak really.
"instagib"? Um, I'm guessing you mean high rate of fire short range weapons? Those are easy.
Moving ship production is pretty easy, just make orbital shipyards more effective than planetary shipyards. Back to top
If you were to remove the "All ships get a central 360 firing point" function, would that mean that ships would be limited to the firing arcs specified in their _XFileClasses.txt files?
If so you could remove the bow and stern firing arcs and end up with only arcs to broadside.
Not sure how the AI would handle this though.
Although it should be possible to create nose to tail formations, which when matched with a Maximum range strategy, would result in even the AI adopting long lines of ships facing off perpendicular to the enemy.
Very much like space battles in the HH series (and the Napoleaonic era)
Human players of course would have the ability to attempt such tactics as 'Crossing the T', but it would be just as risky a proposition in-game as is was in real life.
Probably much more so due to the increase accuracy and range of the weaponry.
It would give the tactical game a decidedly different feel, thats for sure.
Could be interesting though. SEV Visual Mods:
Black UI Reduced Size Shipsets Back to top
ah, right, firing arcs... not a fan of those myself, but it does sorta work. does the AI have ANY ability to comprehend how to use a firing Arc that's limited to the side of the ship? Back to top
ah, right, firing arcs... not a fan of those myself, but it does sorta work. does the AI have ANY ability to comprehend how to use a firing Arc that's limited to the side of the ship?
I remember reading in another thread that if the default center firing point 360° feature is disabled, the AI will change the facing of the ship to target the enemy with the closest arc.
In any case though, if the ai strategy is set to maximum range it will naturally move to within its outer missile range then turn oblique to the enemy. This would bring it's broadside arcs to bear.
I can imagine this being quite a cool mod if its possible.
You could reduce the missile tonnage to allow dreadnoughts to carry broadsides of a hundred missiles or more, and even set up the firing points to display each firing flare to simulate massed launches as in the pic above.
It would also probably be possible to modify the explosion effects to create a simulation of the missile's bomb-pumped laser warheads.
The broadside focused combat is a key element of the warfare in the HH universe though, so the ability to restrict the firing arcs must be a major component in any HH mod.
I'm on the road on the moment so I won't be able to test this for some time.
Anyone care to try this out to see if it's workable? SEV Visual Mods:
Black UI Reduced Size Shipsets Back to top
I remember reading in another thread that if the default center firing point 360° feature is disabled, the AI will change the facing of the ship to target the enemy with the closest arc.
...
Anyone care to try this out to see if it's workable?
It works, but not well or consistently. How well it works often depends on relative ship positions at the start of combat.
I tested by removing all firing points but one, and then assigning different arc values to that firing point. In my testing, firing arcs confined to the port side usually worked ok; starboard side only worked if ship was to the right of its enemy on battle start, other relative starting positions resulted in only a few token shots or none at all; aft worked but firing rate was drastically decreased because the ship would only pivot its aft end to shoot every 5-6 seconds (weapon reload time was 2 seconds); forward worked just fine.
This was just quick and dirty testing, but it suggests that substantial fiddling will be needed. One other important point: the game's UI does not indicate the firing arc in any way. You would need to be sure to list the firing arcs for each ship model somewhere in-game.
EDIT: Also, these aren't really firing arcs as much as animation restrictions. So every weapon type on a ship would be confined to the same arc, even PD. Sky Mod v0.6 Alpha 2 Back to top
It works, but not well or consistently. How well it works often depends on relative ship positions at the start of combat...
This was just quick and dirty testing, but it suggests that substantial fiddling will be needed. One other important point: the game's UI does not indicate the firing arc in any way. You would need to be sure to list the firing arcs for each ship model somewhere in-game.
Thats interesting info, Skyburn.
I'm guessing that the issues you not relate to the AI's ability to rotate facing to engage targets, in which case it may not be a major issue for an HH mod - as I noted earlier, you can almost guarantee fleets maintain a broadside to the enemy aspect using tailored formations and strategies.
Firing arcs can be made clear on each ship's inventory portrait.
Skyburn also wrote:
EDIT: ...these aren't really firing arcs as much as animation restrictions. So every weapon type on a ship would be confined to the same arc, even PD.
This might actually fit well with the effect we are trying to achieve.
In the Honorverse, as with during Napoleonic Naval battles, a ship's bow stern were largely undefended.
Attacks from these angles ('Down the throat' and 'Up the kilt') were particularly deadly.
<<Edit>>
To get the ball rolling on this, I knocked together some flagsets for both the Manticore and Haven forces.
I don't think firing points would be a huge issue in early game 5 on 5 combat, but late game fights with 25+ ships might not allow enough kiting for them to get into firing range without a disadvantage in the vicinity of receiving a couple shots first. Back to top
Well, there's also the issue of directional shielding... in HH ships only have normal shields on the port and starboard, the top and bottom have the impeller wedges which are pretty much impossible to shoot through. The bow and stern have weak shields that are barely there. If that. Back to top
I don't think firing points would be a huge issue in early game 5 on 5 combat, but late game fights with 25+ ships might not allow enough kiting for them to get into firing range without a disadvantage in the vicinity of receiving a couple shots first.
This may not be an issue, as the missile range in the Honorverse is much longer.
The time it would take a salvo to traverse this distance should allow the defenders to turn oblique in order to engage their PD arcs.
marhawkman wrote:
Well, there's also the issue of directional shielding... in HH ships only have normal shields on the port and starboard, the top and bottom have the impeller wedges which are pretty much impossible to shoot through. The bow and stern have weak shields that are barely there. If that.
Impossible to simulate this in SEV, though I think that removing fire arcs to bow stern could result in a similar effect.
In the books turning the impeller wedge into the line of fire is no guarantee of invulnerability, as a certain percentage of any salvo will detonate in areas not covered. These shots then must contend with the sidewalls (shields), so in that respect its not that different than SEV.
We only have to imagine that the ships are actually turning their wedges, and that the damage we see to the shields results from the detonations not stopped by the wedge.
We aren't able to have weaker shielding at bow and stern, but remember that missiles attacking these areas will not be interdicted by PD fire, so we will see much more damage from these attacks.
The reason for it will be somewhat different from the books, but the result, and the tactical considerations from it will be relatively the same.
Some challenges involved in modding this, but I think its actually feasible.
I'm afraid I am going to be a bit tied up in RL to deal with the brunt of the work for the next while though, so hopefully someone else will jump on this one.
I can probably spare a bit of time to tune shipsets and firing arcs and do some graphics work, though.
Hmm... okay, but I just thought of something. Warp points... even if it's only a range of 300, anything that comes out of a warp point will take fire from pretty much everything on the map... Which is kinda realistic, but not neccesarily fun. Back to top
You could maybe program a large Safety zone around wps. Make fighter capable of fighting seekers like djas weapons and the problem is solved. Back to top
Warp point defense battles aren't a major element of the HH fiction, due to the fact that warp points aren't the only method of interstellar travel.
One solution to removing WPs as chokepoints might be to set up systems to have multiple WP links to each other. That would make heavy on-the-point defense much more unlikely.
Actually on that note, how easy is it to edit game setups to have specific system and planet arrangements? For example using a galaxy setup that mirrors that of the Honorverse?
I'm thinking that creating a viable mod with unique tech tree and combat system might be a major undertaking, and a real challenge to balance.
Perhaps an alternative would be to look at creating a pre-set scenario, where the universe is pre-generated and the tech tree much more limited?
It would tend to focus the game on the key issues of fleet combat and strategic movement than on exploration or economic development.
I haven't seen much in the way of scenarios for SEV, but this would seem to be a case where I could see the approach working well. SEV Visual Mods:
Black UI Reduced Size Shipsets Back to top
Actually on that note, how easy is it to edit game setups to have specific system and planet arrangements? For example using a galaxy setup that mirrors that of the Honorverse?
If you feel adventurous you can use se5mapcreator to make a galaxy to your heart's desire. It is easy to use and dose not require editing any setup files except if you want something like this for example .
Cool.
So it looks like it would be possible to create reasonable facsimile of the Honorverse galaxy.
Tons of maps online for reference.
Here is a pretty simple one
I don't think its necessary to include every system, but a decent number that includes at least the ones mentioned in the books, with enough warp links between them to limit chokepoints (while allowing slow, but relatively safe transit)would provide a good basis.
The major warp lines from the Manticore Junction would provide for fast long-distance movement (at least for the Manties), but as marhawk points out, and the books confirm, assaults on these major WPs are pretty much unthinkably suicidal.
As all potentially habitable worlds in the novels are already settled, I think we could pretty much remove the colonizing aspect, but I think we would need to have a starting setup that featured a relatively large number of colonized worlds, shipyards and even starting ships for each side.
I guess this could be done by the mod creater and saved as a save game?
Or is there a different mechanic for creating scenarios? SEV Visual Mods:
Black UI Reduced Size Shipsets Back to top
Might be issues with the scale. I haven't figured out how to change the Light year dimensions of a system yet.
I don't think scale would be a major issue.
I'd be happy with a reasonably recognizable representation of the major star systems. SEV Visual Mods:
Black UI Reduced Size Shipsets Back to top
but as marhawk points out, and the books confirm, assaults on these major WPs are pretty much unthinkably suicidal.
Yeah, satellite blockades and fun stuff like that...
I can think of one time in the books where a major assault was done via warp point, but... the defender didn't know the WP was there... (It was a one way warp point that was essentially invisible on that end.) I think that was a minor warp point not a major one, but you get the idea. It was STILL a pitched battle even though the warp point itself had no protection. Back to top
In the honorverse I think the main issue is that WPs have only a certain capacity (something like 30 dreadnoughts) before they become unstable and need time to stabilize. Going through with such limited numbers , and no room to maneuver against superior forces and fixed defenses is not a particularly healthy idea.
Though it seems that such an assault is going to be attempted in the most recent novel (which I am about half way through)...
I won't say any more in case some of you are planning to read that book, of course!
So anyway, who is going to have a go at creating this very different and combat heavy Honorverse mod?
With the final version of the new book being released early in the Spring I suspect there may be some interest.
actually if anyone would be willing to take a wack at a race portrait for the peeps, I'd appreciate it. I think there's a eruo book cover out there with prictart's picture on it, but i don't know about the guy she replaced.
Also, If anyone(*coughgurachncough*) wants to, I was thinking of making a set of grayson, andermani, sileasian, ect flags and race portraits and using them for neutral players. They could just use the ships that already exist. Back to top
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