Firefly [WIP]

Ukomalkaizio · Post by **Ukomalkaizio** » Mon May 05, 2008 11:40 pm

Other than the wing vulnerabilities and the stretched core, this ship looks like great success.

Good coloring scheme, too.

Lizzie · Post by **Lizzie** » Tue May 06, 2008 3:19 am

This ship reminds me of a Gradius boss. And thats a good thing.
It seems a bit thin in places though.

Kagu · Post by **Kagu** » Tue May 06, 2008 7:36 am

The odd thing around the core was supposed to be 'shielding' for the reactor, but I think I overstretched it a bit.. I also made it before I decided on a general color scheme and colored it red. I'll see if I can fix that.. When I have some more time I'll set up some rudimentary shielding for the frontal wings and such.

Zancloufer · Post by **Zancloufer** » Tue May 06, 2008 8:54 am

I actually like the red core. Works well IMO. Though the Uber powerful laser with only 1 degree of Aiming is a tab Cliche

Kagu · Post by **Kagu** » Tue May 06, 2008 10:32 am

It's still got one degree of firing arc [two?], but I did tone all the weapons down.. Personally, it's balanced for its size in my opinion. This is the current version.. I added in some pulsars to their places at the rear edges of the outer stabilizers and nuked the plasmas at the front.

Current weapon loadout:
Two railguns, located in front of the bridge. 5 damage per component, fires in bursts of three. 100 damage each shot, total.

Two gatling blasters, located on interior stabilizers. 0.8 damage per shot, 200 in a burst. Degree of deviation is 40. Fire rate of 10, which I''m going to have to tone down.. Apparently I forgot about it.

Twelve weasels, located on edges of outer stabilizers. These are prooooobably going to be nuked soon. They don't really fit in with the ship..at least in my opinion. Possibly missiles or sidewinders instead. Suggestions?

Eight pulsars, each with damage of 3... Does anybody know how many pulsars the gun shoots in a single shot? I don't see any variables for it. Fire rates of 60, probably changing soon. Delay of 15, reload of 240. Speed of 45, accel of 15.

Two beamers, damage of 40, duration of 45. 1800 damage total per shot...Bugger, didn't tone them down quite enough.

Additional modules at the moment are some aegis for the decorative parts..two impeders, and two matrices.

I also took the liberty of shrinking the core shielding down and recolouring it and its supports... looks a tad better now.

Lizzie · Post by **Lizzie** » Tue May 06, 2008 10:44 am

Looks much better now. Love the core.

Ukomalkaizio · Post by **Ukomalkaizio** » Tue May 06, 2008 11:19 am

Kagu wrote:Twelve weasels, located on edges of outer stabilizers. These are prooooobably going to be nuked soon. They don't really fit in with the ship..at least in my opinion. Possibly missiles or sidewinders instead. Suggestions?

Missles.

Kagu wrote:Eight pulsars, each with damage of 3... Does anybody know how many pulsars the gun shoots in a single shot? I don't see any variables for it. Fire rates of 60, probably changing soon. Delay of 15, reload of 240. Speed of 45, accel of 15.

There should be a thread in BF General Discussion with those stats and more... Clip size = number of stars released.

Kagu wrote:I also took the liberty of shrinking the core shielding down and recolouring it and its supports... looks a tad better now.

Indeed it does.

Kagu · Post by **Kagu** » Wed May 07, 2008 1:51 pm

Here's a download of what the ship functions like right now..
Clicky.

If anybody would be willing to test it out for me in-game, that'd be nice; 1. BSF goes down to a framerate of 1 when I try to load it and 2. I still have little idea of how to balance a large ship like this.

I did replace the weasels with missiles; I also changed the lasers a bit to be more strobe-y. I'd appreciate any feedback on weapon balancing and such, thanks.

M123 · Post by **M123** » Wed May 07, 2008 3:41 pm

Here's what I can suggest:

1. Reduce the HP from 500,000 to somewhere below 10,000, that way it is actually possible to defeat the ship.

2. Decrease the exhaust frequency on the thrusters to the default level (-1), this will probably improve the framerate significantly.

3. The impeders and point beams are a bit too powerful, together they can stop every projectile fired at the ship. Recommend nerfing them. (set the stats of both the point beams and impeders to default. You could then make the point beams slightly more powerful than normal by decreasing the reload time.)

4. You might want to change the core colour from green to something else...

5. If possible, try decreasing the number of sections used by replacing the repetitive areas with larger sections and stretched sections (avoid going over the top with the stretching, though). This will help to improve framerate, loading times and the appearance of the ship.

6. I would also recommend decreasing the speed to about 1.00, and the acceleration to about 0.03. It might also be a good idea to reduce the turning speed, as well.

-----

Other than those things, your ship is quite good. I especially like the gatling blasters, they work well and aren't overpowered.

Kagu · Post by **Kagu** » Thu May 08, 2008 8:23 am

@M123
1. Yeah, that was one of the things I forgot to nuke... Thanks.
2. Decreased, but haven't tested it yet..
3. Nerfed, thanks.
4. Last time I checked, it was set to default.. I changed it to orange now, though.
5. On my to-do list. I think the messy repetition is mostly around the inner stabilizers, right? That and the frontal bridge area.
6. Nerfed, thanks.

Also, a question for anyone. If the ship were to have any offensive modules, which do you think would fit best? Just so it isn't too well-rounded, I'll likely kill off the impeders and make it only one matrix if I want any other modules on it.

Another quick question that I haven't seen answered anywhere else.. Is the damage for a weapon the total damage for each shot (i.e. if I had a burst of 20 and damage of 20, each bullet would do 1 damage) or damage per bullet?

mtheminja · Post by **mtheminja** » Thu May 08, 2008 9:38 am

Maybe Gluon Bolters on the section 13s in the outer wing connections (similar to where you put the nanos). You can make them do neat things if you mod them heavily enough...

Bad Boy · Post by **Bad Boy** » Thu May 08, 2008 10:49 am

As to your question, I suggest either gluons or goslings. Also, the damage is the amount of damage each bullet does. Thus, a blaster with a burst of twenty and twenty damage would do four hundred damage per bullet in the clip. So, if you have a blaster with twenty damage, twenty burst, and twenty clipsize, the clip would do 8000 damage per clip. For that reason, you should probably lower the damage if you raise the burst.

Kagu · Post by **Kagu** » Thu May 08, 2008 11:08 am

Thanks for the suggestions and the answer; it'll probably be gluon bolters. I'll add 'em in soon.

Also, can anyone suggest a site on which to host updated versions? I don't want to clog up the site database with constant updates.. Megaupload?

Atherealprime · Post by **Atherealprime** » Fri May 09, 2008 11:27 am

First, of all...I like it. You know most great ship builders go for impressions of godliness....*cough (Seraph/Kazual)

however, not many go for a bug-like (not trying to type-cast)..... "truly alien" "out of the box" godliness. I think you are on to something pretty amazing. The design by itself shows that you have above par creativity. Keep up the good work because soon you'll have no problem making great ships.

-I also agree that a good power core can inspire you enough to make a good ship.

Kagu · Post by **Kagu** » Fri May 09, 2008 3:17 pm

I'm honored by your praise, but to tell the truth, I kinda pulled the entire design out of my arse. [Not literally, and pardon my language.] I started playing around with the idea of a shielded core, made a huge bridge to match, and started up stabilizer sections in appropriately located areas. Really, I wasn't going for the alien look or anything, just a nice big ship I could have fun with. And I did. Now I'm just running with the idea and hoping to give the forum a good ship.

Anyways, current status on Firefly project:
I'm testing out the gluons -- I took out the impeders -- and balancing them. I'm also trying to remove part of the clutter but having some annoying skirmishes with depth when I remirror stuff, but it's looking a bit better. Might add glow/'flames' to the engines to match the rest of the CSC fleet.