Page 4 of 5

Posted: Fri Aug 29, 2008 8:30 am
by Wicky_42
Hah, thanks M123, you ninja'd my ass ;P I could add the badge (or something similar) with doodads if anyone thinks it worth it, but I'm reluctant to inflate the module count much more - every little bit of speed = more ships to play with :D

The pics are flipped cos the ships were facing the wrong way when I took the photo so I flipped them in photoshop and didn't notice the bridges till I was making the ships. Meh, no real harm done, apart from confusing a few peeps :p

In all fairness, though as M123 says (and I pointed out a while back) the light cruiser is based on the shuttle/personnel transport, it does have an added gun deck detail over a previous blank hull with a docking bay sat in it. But yeah, not much of a change...

Thanks to all those who commented on these ships, it's nice seeing your work being appreciated :D

_______________________________________

Cunning update: A new ship!

Yes, just as you were concerned (or relieved, whatever) that I'd run out of Hiigaran ships to rape, I had a slow day and made one up myself... so, um, yeah - I guess this is where you all get to see whether there's any skill in what I do or whether I'm just filling in the spaces...

So, without further ado I present to you the Hiigaran Assault Cruiser:
http://www.wyrdysm.com/battleshipsforev ... ruiser.zip
Image

Image
Ok, yeah, its a damn doodle... but all the other ships had a pic to show what they're supposed to look like, and this is what I worked off, so theoretically it's all the same thing, right?

With this ship I tried to take the idea of the Battlecruiser's shape and then run with it to create a ship that's almost a design hybrid of the Hiigaran strike craft and the BC... and a fair sight cooler than the brick of a cruiser that the modding community came up with.

Armament wise, this is an upscale of the destroyer - four cruiser class kinetic cannons (one's doubled) and a centrally mounted assault kinetic cannon, basically a doubled mag size, increased reload time variant, designed to (hopefully) help saturate enemy vessels that use point-beam defences - the bane of the slow firing, heavy hitting kinetic cannons. To further supplement this are four repeater kinetic cannons, firing significantly lighter shells in a scattered pattern at a much faster rate than their more powerful brethren - less effective against capital ships not sporting point beam defences, but lethal against frigates and other smaller craft. In addition, it has three side mounted torpedo launchers on each flank, (almost) straight from the destroyer (they were about right anyway...).

So, as the first original ship to be made to this style I think it's pretty cool... I love it over the light cruiser (for comparison's sake, both ships are the same size and have the same stats save the assault cruiser is a point faster and more manoeuvrable and they are pretty much exactly the same size, spike to stern (wonder how that happened...). However, combat wise the two ships (before the addition of the repeater cannons) were very equally matched).

If this goes down well I plan a weapon refit of the light cruiser to make it an ion cruiser (basically ion turrets instead of kinetic cannons).

As an extra aside, fighters and bombers have had their hp halved, and all anti-fighter weaponry (flak included) is having its damage halved. Corvettes will remain unchanged, making more of a distinction between pulsar anti-corvette turrets and the more common anti-fighter pd blisters (and helping flak turrets to snipe weapons less effectively...)

Posted: Fri Aug 29, 2008 9:37 am
by Lord-General Thunder
Oh, just a random criticism; I don't think you really need to use a deiterling to represent a hyperdrive. It's overkill, IMHO.

On a lighter note; Nice light cruiser!

I'm not sure about its synergy with the rest of the fleet (just doesn't have the same feel), but its well-executed, nevertheless.

Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2008 8:38 am
by Wicky_42
Thanks for the crit - I'd been wondering about the hyperdrives for a while, and most of the time they seemed to cause more problems than they were worth. Without them the BC performs pretty damn well, though it does lack the random factor that made earlier fights just that bit more entertaining (jumping out of fire, jumping inside the other ship, jumping into debris fields...). So yeah, Deitlings are out officially.

The assault cruiser fits in well with the fleet, imo. It's sleeker and more aggressive-looking than most of the stock Hiigaran ships, true, but the tapering nose is a feature common through interceptors, corvettes, frigates, and BC. Only the destroyer and light cruiser (and carrier, mothership and shipyard) lack this design feature, so in a way my design fits the Hiigaran design ethic better than the other smaller cap ships (:P). The wider white border and pronounced narrowing sections are perhaps what makes it stand out the most from the other ships. If you can suggest a way for it to seem more 'integrated' then I'm open to suggestions.

Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2008 8:49 am
by Water_and_Wind
Its probably the white border. That and the repetition stands out much more on the white sections than the blue ones, so shrinking the border (by expanding the blue area to retain its width) is my suggestion. These are really good fan ships (and original ship).

Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2008 9:30 am
by Lizzie
Ships are ok. Their engines BLOW though. They blow BAD. I dunno how to begin with fixing them but they look like crap compared to the rest of the ships.

Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2008 6:59 pm
by Wicky_42
How so? I never had a problem with them, and no-one else seems to have a problem with them. Care to elaborate a bit on just what makes them so offensive to you?

Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2008 1:32 am
by Lizzie
Wicky_42 wrote:How so? I never had a problem with them, and no-one else seems to have a problem with them. Care to elaborate a bit on just what makes them so offensive to you?
And I couldn't give less of a shit about what other people think about them.

But honestly using a aegis wall to show the engines isn't the best way to go. Making little engine segments poking out would be better methinks since the ships in the game don't have long impulse-like drives.

Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2008 2:09 am
by Wicky_42
I'm not really sure how these signify an 'impulse drive', but these aren't actually the engines, they are the engine glow. As anyone who's paid attention to Hw2 would know, homeworld engines aren't big glowy strips sticking off the back of ships, or little triangles or whatever, they are big round vents at the rear of the ship, often concieled by an overhang. Whilst stationary this means nothing of the actual engine system can be seen from above, but whilst moving there's a gentle glow around the vents/exhaust pipes/thrusters/whatever.

I chose to show this glow with aegis, and as an aesthetic effect stacked two outer aegis under a lighter central section for a bit of gradient. There aren't any 'little engine segments' to have poking out, so imo this was the best way to show the drive sections. True, aegis isn't a very realistic effect to have at the rear, considering Hw2 ships are supposed to be more vulnerable from the rear, and I could use boosters instead, but this effect is shiny... so shiny...

Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2008 2:23 am
by Lizzie
Wicky_42 wrote:I'm not really sure how these signify an 'impulse drive', but these aren't actually the engines, they are the engine glow. As anyone who's paid attention to Hw2 would know, homeworld engines aren't big glowy strips sticking off the back of ships, or little triangles or whatever, they are big round vents at the rear of the ship, often concieled by an overhang. Whilst stationary this means nothing of the actual engine system can be seen from above, but whilst moving there's a gentle glow around the vents/exhaust pipes/thrusters/whatever.
I've played HW2 more times then I can count so don't pull that "Anyone who's paid attention should know" bullshit on me. All the cap ships have round engines in the back. Concealed? Yes but having them poke out a bit here would look better then this overall glow your trying to attempt.

Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2008 3:23 am
by ArcaneDude
Either way, the full aegis walls look bad. :roll:

Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2008 3:59 am
by Wicky_42
Ok, so, the Hiigaran Assault Cruiser has had a couple of tweaks - the boarder has been compressed a load and the engine glow redone. Now booster-fuelled and all little... I personally don't see anything wrong with 'aegis wall' engine glows, beyond the aegis part. Not particularly ugly. But none the less, here's an alternative. What say ye?

Before:
Image

After:
Image
Boarder reduced, engine glow redone, dietlings removed, team colour added to the panels that formerly housed dietlings, as per the BC.

Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2008 4:26 am
by Billy Joe Bob
Hey, you know I actually like this one better than the before shot!

Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2008 4:37 am
by Arcalane
New engine glow looks flat and kinda half-assed to me. Add another layer of aegis, but white?

Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2008 4:49 am
by ChaosTheory
Wicky_42 wrote:As anyone who's paid attention to Hw2 would know, homeworld engines aren't big glowy strips sticking off the back of ships, or little triangles or whatever, they are big round vents at the rear of the ship, often concieled by an overhang. Whilst stationary this means nothing of the actual engine system can be seen from above, but whilst moving there's a gentle glow around the vents/exhaust pipes/thrusters/whatever.
Thrusters, I dare say . . . ? Thruster module, modded, perhaps . . . ?

Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2008 5:21 am
by Wicky_42
Well, here's what the engine effect looks like in game:

Image
Shot at 2008-08-30

Notice the ambient glow? no cones or hard trails or glowing bricks. Or puffy trails, CT. That's why I went with an aegis 'wall' of glowy-ness. The cruiser does have a little hard glow on its rear, but that's a texture detail, not engine effect. If I were to stay true to the game, within the confines of BSF, I'd stick with the glow I had before, but make it boostered, not aegised. Bricks of glowyness just weren't really the style I was going for.
Here's a compromise:
Image
More contained within the ship's hull than before, and boosted rather than aegised for that added vulnerability.