Registered: Oct 2001
Location: UK
Posts: 22

What source material was used for the MOD? (and other qu's)

This has been touched on in another thread.

I've just finished the demo missions. Well done etc. (this has been said many times). Mission 3 was the hardest - ouch.

The weapons carried by the capital ships don't seem consistent with any one source. eg. the Olympus Corvette I feel should carry missiles, the Nova should carry a dual laser/pulse turret. There are several sources one could use, I agree with others that there is a lot of crap tech detail on some websites; did the team settle on one primary source?

Will the ships/weapons be altered at some stage in a final release?

Could the team confirm how they reached a decision on what each ship carried.

Secondly, I remember Icefire writing that FRED2 will allow us to create our own missions. At present I notice that full functionality has not been reached, eg. no icons for ship changing in the briefing screens. Is this on the agenda?

Thirdly, and least importantly (I suppose), when altering the demo missions in FRED2 I can't seem to get the change ship & weapon options to work. I don't have this problem with self made missions - am I being thick or is there a simple answer?

Thanks to anyone who reads all this, even more thanks if you can answer any of the above.

Regards.

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Registered: Oct 2001
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One short thing. Go look through the briefing icons. They are all there but under different names. For example a corvette is something like a cruiser wing briefing icon and there are briefing icons for ships which have not been even released yet like the Avioki.

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: The Cold Northland!
Posts: 8392

Icons we had to play around with so we could get most ships from most species instead of just Terran, Vasudan, Shivan icon like FreeSpace 2.

No idea about the loadout problem your having.

The weapon loadouts are based on several different sources. The first source is the TV show. The second is AoG, and the third is the various B5 Tech sites around.

I watched episodes and scenes over and over to figure out some of the details and in most cases, we side with what the show tells us (but not always). AoG is balanced for their game and therefore isn't always perfect either. They invented the Dual Pulse/Laser weapon setup on the Nova Beta. I played as a Nova in AoG once . Broadsided a Sharlin I did....blew its hull right off.

So basically, its a combination of what we think is right and what we think works best for FreeSpace 2's engine. The Olympus will have missiles later and the Nova might have a modified tables version with beams on some of its turrets. We'll just have to see.

So there is a basis for everything that we make to fit the game engine and to make it fun.

For instance. With the Nova. When we started with the model. We had a single Heavy Plasma gun. We used it on the Hyperion and on the Nova for all its turrets (because according to most sources, those are all Plasma turrets). But in testing, the Nova was blowing away every single fighter it touched because the heavy plasma turrets were firing 300 point damage bolts and there were a whole lot of turrets.

So, we created version 2 of the Heavy Plasma turret which satisfied two things. Balancing so that fighters had a chance against a Nova class. And story because Nova Dreadnoughts were reported to be under powered and unable to fire all their guns at full power. Regardless of if this is true or not, this is how it works and it works nicely.

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Registered: Oct 2001
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Posts: 1

From the FS2 modding guide I plucked this:

$Flags: ( "FLAG1" "FLAG2" ) Flags need to be between " (don't know how to call this in English, sorry) and brackets have to be at beginning and end. *** ( how DO you call this: " ) Possible flags are:

"Huge" Not sure about this one either. Think it sets this weapon as an anti-capship weapon for the AI ***


With this setting, the Cap ships would slug it out with each other firing their primary beams only at other cap ships and all those many secondary beams as the fighters.

?

I know absolutely nothing about FS2 modding, so please accept this as an ill informed guess at best.

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Registered: Oct 2001
Location: UK
Posts: 22

Thanks Icefire.

Most sources agree that the Starfury carries 4 weapons - did you reduce this to 2 for balance purposes?

I agree with your comments about balancing/playability & the limitations of the FS2 engine. I would say that I wouldn't expect the heavy guns on a Capital Ship to come near hitting a fighter in most cases, but in FS2 this may not be possible to simulate.

The Icons I referred to were note the moving briefing icons but the static ones in the loadout screens - where you swap ships and guns/ammo. These seem to be missing.

Note in the demo missions I can't access the change loadout/ship tabs - I guess you/ve disabled them. But in self created missions I can.

Ta.

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Registered: Oct 2001
Location: Germany
Posts: 140

According to most sources, the Starfuries have four forward firing guns and two light backfiring...

Just had a look at the plastic model I built and yes, it's true, although in most episodes they only fire the lower two forward pointing ones...

The TBP 3d model has all four guns as well. I think this should be added by giving the Starfuries two gun banks so you can switch between or combine. At least, the upper bank hasn't to be armed so it makes sense again, that the Starfuries in release 1 only got 2 guns...

What do you think?

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When I first made my furry and when I first converted Tomcats I had to sets of primary cannons,
but no I was wrong

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Registered: Oct 2001
Location: UK
Posts: 22

Number of Guns on the Starfury

Well people, I believe that the fighter should have 4 forward firing guns. The plastic kit, the CGI model in the show & lots of "official" sources say 4 guns.

Note sure fo a rear firing on the Aurora though, I think this is on the Badger.

Any more views?

Ta.

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Registered: Oct 2001
Location: Nottingham, England
Posts: 1470

I personally think that although there appears to be four weapons mounts for the starfury, only two should be able to fire as standard. I base this opinion on i) the fact that I can't actually recall a starfury firing from both mounting pairs in a given combat and ii) the fact that just because a mount is there it is not necessarily the optimum firing mount for a weapon and may be a reserve if the primaries are destroyed/overheat (needing minor rerouting) or may cover a different firing arc altogether.

These are just possible explanations but mainly I think this because it is the way starfuries are depicted on the show.

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Registered: Oct 2001
Location: UK
Posts: 22

" Guns on the 'Fury "

Ok, I'll go along with that.

Though, if you read the A-Z guide & Garibaldi's Security guide - both are clear there are 2 types of guns & don't mention any reason why they can't all fire at once.

Having said that - in the show they only fire 2 guns!

No point in debating this any more - 2 guns looks ok, is consistent with the show etc etc.

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Registered: Jul 2001
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Posts: 882

quote:

---

Originally posted by Trinity
Ok, I'll go along with that.

Though, if you read the A-Z guide & Garibaldi's Security guide - both are clear there are 2 types of guns & don't mention any reason why they can't all fire at once.

Having said that - in the show they only fire 2 guns!

No point in debating this any more - 2 guns looks ok, is consistent with the show etc etc.

---

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Registered: May 2001
Location: Canada
Posts: 436

U're not supposed to go into switch weapons/ship screens

In B5, ship weapons hit fighters all the time, and this has nicely been done in the mod too.

the briefing icons was a small glitch... who cares

and from all the sources combined, I think the mod's weapons are very accurate.

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Registered: Oct 2001
Location: UK
Posts: 22

Londo,

Yes, I agree. Overall the balance is great.

I just can't wait to play Centauri and bludgeon some Narn back into the fields!

Great Maker!!

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