G'day Moddb Community!
We have been silent for the past couple of weeks but we have most certainly not been idle! We have been able to implement a couple of different things and get them to the point where we felt comfortable showing them to all of you! So, with no further delay...
Shield Fx
This concept was actually scrapped, but thanks to Herby's dogged persistence he found a compromise between the limitations of the Homeworld 2 game engine and the possibilities we had. Thanks to Stargazer of course for the shield script and the FX themselves, but it was Herby that saved them!
We have actually got two sets of hit fx working in the game, one for use on shielded targets and the ones you are more familiar with from release Alpha that we are using for unshielded targets, please note that the hit FX here are the original ones from Stargazer's shield demo way back when and subject to improvement!
The twist with out shield system is that once a ship's health reaches 25% the shields collapse, and unless you act quickly your ship will likely lose it's hull integrity and explode!
Of course the shields tie into other technologies in the Trek universe, lets have a look at the next FX framework that we have implemented in the last two weeks... this one ties in very closely with the shields!
Cloak Fx
The Cloak FX you see above is animated, with a different red circle when the cloak is deactivated. The tie in to the shield FX is of course that the cloak deactivates the shield, the shield collapses and the ship goes to 25% health to represent the vulnerability of a cloaked unit. When you disengage the cloak the shields come back up and the ship returns to full health!
This FX was developed to offset the poor transparency FX for cloak that Homeworld 2 has, now it's much easier to keep a track of your cloaked units!
How else can there be more new?!
Well, in the past few weeks we have exchanged all unit sounds for Trek ones (still working on the status sound scripts) and I have to say it sounds much better when you're not reminded of Homeworld 2 all the time!
We have created a flagship for each race and around that two new starting fleets! There are now the options to have the "Outpost" starting fleet that we all know and love, the "Full Fleet" starting fleet which will give you a large fleet to battle it out straight away with and the "Flagship" starting fleet which has one ship (the flagship) that can call in all units and its own tech tree.
The Flagships are the USS Enterprise E, Martok's IKS Negh'Vah and Donatra's IRC Valdore, there was a suggestion that we give the Federation a Galaxy or Nebula class vessel as the flagship instead as they tend to be more hardy or versatile in game play, please comment about this :o)
Until next time!
Continuum Corp.
From what I read about the shield system, it is as if there is damage-taking penalty for unshielded target (as stated in the quote below).
"the shields collapse, and unless you act quickly your ship will likely lose it's hull integrity and explode!"
Is that right?
Also, IKS Negh'Var was destroyed during a coup by Morjod at the end of the Dominion War (according to Star Trek novel "The Left Hand of Destiny"). The new Martok's Flagship is IKS Sword of Kahless (which is also a Negh'Var class). Or perhaps you can add Chancellor class warship (IKS Gorkon, Captain Klag) as Flagship instead.
As for Starfleet flagship, the Enterprise E is good enough for me.
Of course you're going to take more damage without shields! :D
Regarding the IKS Negh'Var, we have used the information available at Memory Alpha in deciding it, the stories in the Star Trek books are not going to be referenced in our mod unless there is a big enough chunk missing from the "canon". Thanks for the input though :)
The Left Hand of Destiny is written by JG Hetzler himself (who portrayed as Martok). So, it feels like canon to me.
Anyway, it's up to you guys to choose the setting. This is probably an alternate timeline after all.
Everytime i see a new news update on your page it makes my day! Great to see that you guys are still at it. Just KNOW that this WILL go a LONG way and this can't just be the best ST mod ever, but also the BEST mod ever. Can't wait for the next release, once the final completed release is out I would not mind donating even though I know that's not the reason you guys are doing this! Once again, keep it up and give me NCC1701-A !!! haha. *please try to fix the pause that occurs wen ships warp in, it would be amazing if phasers start striking AS SOON as they warp in enemy territory like the shows !!!*
It certainly is one of the better mods out there, especially as this is only at alpha release currently.
However it felt as though the down time after a warp jump was to force you to play tactically instead of just jumping into the middle of the enemy fleet and wiping everything out with one massive barrage.
You can always mitigate the downtime penalty by choosing the advanced warp engines upgrade, its just a clever way of making defences count for something and adding a level of tactics into the game :) one of my personal favourite features!!