A Broken Peace

Various custom ship tournaments go here, along with old encounters.

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Ensign
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A Broken Peace

Post by dotdotdot »

Admiral Beckett looked wearily over the bridge of the Harbinger, which was the age old flagship of the 12th Sector Fleet. His crew poured over the consoles and controls; they checked everything from heat-sinks to the targeting computers. The tracker systems had stayed unsurprisingly inactive throughout the whole routine. Beckett couldn't help but smirk at the fact that he had walked from the same cabin, through the same hall, up the same elevators, past the same flight-bays, over the same cat-walk overlooking the cooling units, and sat his behind in the same chair for over nineteen years.

The Admiral's adjutant, Commander Sarah Alix, perfunctorily marched up the stairs and past three stages of coordinators. She held her hand up to forehead in a salute, "All systems check out, Admiral."

The Admiral sighed, "Commander, what else is new?"

The Commander simply shrugged, "Not sure what you mean, sir..."

"Contemplate this, Alix," His smirk disappeared into a solicitous scowl, "The Terran Federation has spanned out from soul for over six-hundred years. Within those precious six centuries we have only had one major conflict." The Admiral held out a single index finger to emphasize his point.

"Sir, The Rebellion was the largest conflict Federation history..."

Beckett grinned at his characterization of The Rebellion, "A few disgruntled colonies pulled down the flag and put some other blotched cloth up. It lasted for less than six days. We called it The Rebellion."

"Sir, I don't think this is proper-"

"Of course not, Commander. Dismissed."

The Commander simply nodded and walked off back down the stairs. The Admiral looked on curiously through the view port, musing and imagining. It'd be great if there was something that'd shoot back out there. He then shook his head. If something could shoot back, it could kill him.

A small series of beeps forced him to turn his head to the far side of the bridge. A crewman worked feverishly on the communications link to translate the beeps into the audible transmission it alerted to.

"Mainscreen, Ensign. This may be interesting..."

The viewscreen of empty space disappeared to show the face of the Supreme Commander of all naval forces in the sector. Beckett stood from his chair and saluted, "SC Kariak, sir! It's an honor."

The SC simply put his hand up on the screen and then took it down, "At ease, Admiral. This isn't an inspection."

The Admiral attempted to hide a creeping smile, "What do you need, sir?"

"We've picked up some strange signals at the edge of sector space. I sent a fleet to investigate-"

"And they didn't return? How many ships, sir?"

"Six Spearheads. They didn't return, but they're still reporting. Admiral, they've found unknown stations. Scans show they're heavily equipped with railguns and other weaponry. I want the Harbinger, as the sector flag ship, to lead the assault."

"Sir, yes sir!" Beckett's shout of excitement made the SC go somewhat wide eyed.

"Excellent enthusiasm, Admiral. We need more of that in the Armada." The SC's comments tinged with sarcasm, but Beckett didn't care. He was going to get action...
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Mission 1: First Contact.

March 1st, 2789 A.D (Relative Earth Date)

Beckett emerged from the cold sleep pod and marched straight to the command chair. His crew started to scramble to their positions. The sleeping klaxons awoke from their century old slumber and brought the crew to its fullest. The view screen illuminated the TAS Harbinger's exit from warp to the sight of a full fledged battle...
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Hello there. I'd like to take this time and present myself. As you all most doubtedly know by now, my screen name is dotdotdot. I'm a big fan of the game (God knows how many projects I've blown playing it...), and I would like to present my little cinematic encounters. The ships are not all too fancy, but they are here. Enjoy.

Note: The encounter is not micramangement heavy.
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Ensign
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Post by dotdotdot »

(Uh...Ok. No response? I'll post some more missions then...)

Captain Hadith looked from the viewscreen of the Planetary Defense Station. The crude pylons of the shipyard below it took up most of its attention. The flashing bursts just beyond on the horrizon took up the rest of it.

"Fire Control. Sixty-five degrees right. Lock on. Fire."

In rapid succession, nearly 10 high-charged energy bolts fired off from the long charging ramp of the main gun. The bolts followed their course. A transmission filtered into the communications link.

"It's Commander Kiral, sir, should I put it through?"

"Do it."

The link gave the audio of a Hestia II skipper off the horizon, fighting these strange alien invaders, "Sir, we are holding them back. Just a little more and-" The transmission went silent for a moment before resuming, "Sorry, sir. Just a slight rock in the rear...We fixed it. With a bit more effor we may be able to hold them off."

"Bully for us. Beckett won't be happy."

"To hell with him." The commander said over the transmission. It wasn't any secret to the Armada that the Admiral spoke with a smile concerning this war. Very man wished for something to wipe his smug smile.

"He's going to be popping his head in here for the tail end of the fight. I'm guessing he doesn't want the Harbinger's paint scratched."

"Yes s-" The transmission went silent again. It didn't start back up.

"Sir, we've registed two ship losses on the front."

The captain shrugged, "Keep an eye on the battle. If any enemy ships enter our range, blast them to pieces."

"Sir yes sir."

Another transmission was recieved by the communications grid, "This is Commander Adams of the Harding, we're heading in with reinforcements. Sit tight. Harding out."

Hadith scratched his head, "We're holding them off plenty. What is this obsession with overwhelming force?"

The scanners the registered the loss of another ship.

"Then again..."
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Mission 2: Battle over Andor

March 12th, 2789 A.D

The Harbinger rocketed out of warp with the bulk of the 9th Flotilla. The small detachement was on loan from the 14th Sector Fleet, but the 14th SF command vessel was in dry dock and alien fleet movements demanded action of the Harbinger. Admiral Beckett was happy to oblidge, especially when he saw the Andor Defense Fleet in tatters when he arrived.

"All ships, in formation. Hold the enemy off from the shipyards. Defend Andor."
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Admiral Beckett wore his signature wide smile on the Planetary Defense Cannon. He knew it irked Captain Hadith, but he didn't care what the Captain thought. Hadith was his rival in Aramada Academy on Earth. When he was recieving his stars, each and every one of the three that rest firmly on his shoulder, he made sure Hadith attended. The childish rivalry was one of the few ways he dealth with the monotony of stellar peace. Yet, he had something better to deal with.

The Harbinger slowly docked with the station and Beckett boarded it.

Hadith waited at the end of the airlock with a team of marines.

"Alan." Hadith said sullenly.

Beckett maintained his wide grin, "Amar."

"Admiral Beckett, it is an honor to have you on board this station."

Admiral Beckett's grin only stretched wider, "Hurry up to the toilet, captain, I know it must've taken a toll on you."

Hadith allowed himself a grin, "I've always wondered how the hell you got those stars."

Beckett simply walked up to the captain, "Apparently me eagerness rubbed off on people. Namely Kariak." He walked on and Hadith followed, "Captain, I'm leaving you the ships I brought 'cept for the remaining Titans. Those are 12th SF ships and we have to root out the alien garrison on the edge of the system. Enjoy."

With that, Beckett turned on his heels, "Everything's in order, Hadith. I'll put a good word in for you with the SC."

Hadith smiled, "Thank you sir."

"Don't mention it."

"Beckett, we've picked up some strange warp patterns around Haskit and New Dria. They're large and there's a lot of them. Be careful."

"Certainly, captain. I'll keep that in mind." With that, Alan Beckett head off back into the Harbinger...
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Mission 3: End of the Harbinger

March 12th, 2789 A.D

The Harbinger emerged from warp to a calm battlefield filled with alien rubble.

"All clear, Admiral." Commander Alix stated.

Beckett smirked, "Good. Pull the ship into orbit and maintain it for the constructors."

Commander Alix, "Yes sir." She turned her head to the controls, "Navigation, try not to hit anything- Are those portals?"
Beckett leaned forward...

"Multiple warp signatures detected, Admiral." An officer reported, "Permission to engage?"

"Confirmed. Give them hell."

Alix protested, "Admiral, there's more warp signatures incoming and none of them are ours."

Beckett simply laughed, "We have yet to face anything that give the Harbinger any real trouble..."
Bad Boy
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Post by Bad Boy »

Quite good encounters, sadly people on these forums seem to hate encounters, I don't know why. My only suggestion to remedy that is to keep bumping it. Anyway, I suggest you release these ships as a fleet in the custom ships topic, might generate a bit more interest (although it didn't work for me but...). As for the encounters themselves, I suggest you start modding weapons, but it's not really necessary. More importantly, lower the number of deflectors and point defense weapons. When a ship can be completely covered in deflectors, that's bad. When a group of stations (see the second mission) can completely obliterate any and all projectiles that get near them, that's bad. Other then those few glaring problems, it's quite good. The ship design is simplistic, but that helps to keep it moderately fast. On that note, I suggest you use fewer pulsars, they slow down framerate quite a lot when used in bulk. Oh, one more thing, this isn't necessary, but I find it makes things look nicer, you could start spawning ship in formations (look here for examples -sorry for the shameless advertising of my encounters, if you mind, I'll remove it, but I just put it to show you what I meant-).

One question, is the third mission supposed to be beatable? Judging by the name, I assume not, but I just want to be sure.

Anyway, good encounters, keep it up.
mtheminja
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Post by mtheminja »

I've played almost all the encounters on the forum so far, but it's harder to comment on them. Besides, there seems to be way less forum activity overall these days, so that wouldn't help...

I've only played the first one of this set, and it was pretty generic, but it was surprising how quickly it ran. Somehow it felt like it should have run slower, so you're getting the 'epic battle' part right. Bad Boy's comments are basically right, and all the ships merged into a blob of death near the end of the first one, but that might be different in the others, I'll try them soon.
Last edited by mtheminja on Sat May 17, 2008 5:16 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Strideo
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Post by Strideo »

I think maybe a simple poll to get minimal feed back on whether or not people are actually playing the encounters might be a good idea.

I added one to my encounter thread: http://www.wyrdysm.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1719
So far it is the only encounter I have made.

I'll try and play your encounter and give you some input when I get a chance dotdotdot.
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Post by dotdotdot »

The mess of point defenses and deflectors are meant to make the fights longer, but I do realize it does get tedious; however, the fights would be really short in the later mission considering I throw superweapons into the fray. I already had about 10 or so of 12 planned encounters done by the time I started posting, but I'll keep this advice in mind when I go through them again and with future encounters. Also, a good deal of the ships (Warlord and such) that I use for the aliens were made on the old shipmaker.

And, yes, mission three is a cinematic more than anything.

Anyway, can I ask a few things?

One: Does the dialogue add anything, or should I just stick to one paragraph briefings?

Two: Is there any way to keep the ships from bunching up? Does AI range or formation rank have anything to do with it?
Bad Boy
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Post by Bad Boy »

The dialogue is good, but it's not necessary. If you don't want it, you can take it out (it would definitely make less work for you), and it wouldn't hurt much. There's not too much you can do to keep ships from clumping, the only thing I can think of are setting the ai range at a fairly different value for the each type of ship. Setting the formrank might work, but I think it only works if a group consists of three or less ships, plus, the only formranks that work are 1, 2, and 3, the rest of them don't seem to do anything. One more thing, the fighters you get in the last mission have way too much range. They can outrange every enemy ship.
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Ensign
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Post by dotdotdot »

I just got tinkering with the AI range, thanks.

And I assume you're talking about the Avengers. I'll fix that.

I'll upload the rest of the encounters I made for this particular story and then work on something else with the advice you guys gave me. Thank ye all.
Nevindar
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Post by Nevindar »

I too agree that theese encounters are quite nice, although the deflectors are kinda annoying at some times. But the longer battles the better, right? Anyway, the first mission was very easy, I didn't even participate in the battle. The second one was more challenging, although that cool looking orbital gun (Good idea) made shortwork of anything. The third one was much harder than the precious two, I like the "last stand" feeling.
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[url=http://www.wyrdysm.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2085]Random encounters from alternate universes - Update: Sat May 17, 2008[/url]
[url=http://www.wyrdysm.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2057]My Blueprints and shipyards - Updated: Wed Jul 30, 2008[/url]
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Ensign
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Post by dotdotdot »

That's the point of the deflectors in this universe: Megaguns like the PDC are common. Anyway, there's also the Longbow which is even more powerful.

Mission 4: Battle over Doron

April 9th 2792 A.D

The ambush at New Dria left the 12th Sector Fleet and the entirety of the Gamma Sector Armada in dissarray. The loss of the flagship in the sector was a major blow to morale and projection power for the Terran fleet. Since then, the GSA has had to fall back from system after system to consolidate its forces. Admiral Alan Beckett, the former commander of the 12th SF and the sector flagship, has taken command of the Doron Defense Fleet to coordinate the remainder of 9th and 14th Sector Fleet in the face of encroaching enemy armada.

Captain, as commander of the last battleship in the area capable of responding to the advancing armada, you must aid Beckett and the DDF in holding off the enemy fleet. Protect the Aurbach shipyard at all costs: everything, even your life is secondary.
Hiant
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Post by Hiant »

umm... i see you've playeed KOTOR 2 cause you named it The Harbinger...
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