[WIP] [Steampunk] Lighter than air

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a Sir
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Re: [WIP] [Steampunk] Lighter than air

Postby a Sir » Wed Apr 23, 2014 3:54 am

R4V3-0N wrote:yes. I have a few idea for drones, but we can't make them face 'up' if you will. well maybe besides defense drones, but either way.

I would love to help you but I am helping with one mod, trying to do my own. etc.
Both overhauls and such.... but I wouldn't mind pinching in time to time.
I think I would be best to make drones.

It's fine! Any help is appreciated!
R4V3-0N wrote:Quick question, are you planning to keep shields in game? if not we need to rework the concept of weapons in ftl by a lot.

I think there won't be any shields in the current imagination of the mod. I agree we would need to heavily re-balance hull and weapons.
R4V3-0N wrote:I think upping the rarity of beam weapons would be in order. Beam being stuff like fire beam, focused sun light, etc.

replacing the concept of lasers with ballistics.
Missiles seem okay, just a bit more rare but not as rare as the other stuff.

I think ballistics should be the main weapon most groups will use. While being deserve such as a series of ballistics that can do extra damage to system, double hull damaging, shield pierce (1 bubble), incendiary (can cause fire), etc etc etc. Heavy (cannon) ballistics, fast breaching sniper. etc.

Just some ideas and concepts, I got quite a lot of ideas so if you do not like this one or want it altered I can patch up another right up for you.

These ideas are all decent and could all really fit into a steampunk world. I especially like the sun-beam though!

R4V3-0N wrote:I am on break for 2 weeks atm, I am board so I will most likely make a drone for you today.

Thanks a whole lot! :)

Russian Rockman wrote:The bug faction should probably just have wings though. That way not everyone has to have jet packs. Also the jet packs that Gencool made could easily be just jet burst/bursts of steam, not combustible jet packs. They only activate for a second at a time.


That makes a lot more sense in a steampunk world. Nice idea!

Russian Rockman wrote:Also, a couple questions on how you propose to handle certain things:
  • Will you keep mind control, hacking, sensors, and the backup battery?
  • As far as enemy ships go I realized that if you are doing a side view, then you don't have much room for them because the targeting window can only be expanded a few pixels.
  • The enemy hull indicator will look weird past 22 pixels so if you want to make them stronger then that you may just want to give them beefed up versions of the Rock Armor augment.
  • Flying drones, I would like to keep them, but will you be able to make them fit the side view style.


I think these are all systems that can be kept in the game, but I don't see a lot of people usng mind control and sensors when the energy is extremely limited and based on where the crew is. I'd rather have one more weapon than being able to mind control an enemy. (except for boarding events) Hacking can be useful since it has a cooldown, meaning that the human-zoltan doesn't have to be in the room all the time for it to work. Backup Battery would be super-useful because of this. The sensor system... I'm not so sure if it would be useful, but it can easily be in the game.

I also figured out that problem with the targeting window... I guess the enemy ships will be a lot taller than wide.

I guess using the rock armor augment could work... Or maybe giving them a OP healing drone?

For the flying drones, I know that the drone needs to be somewhat circular and rotate in every direction... It might be hard but hopefully the drones would still look good with those limitations.

Russian Rockman wrote:And some ideas:
  • Shields may actually work as a sort of magnetic reflection field.
  • Since the mod will focus more on hull and dealing with breaches you may want to be able to upgrade "pressure control" past level 3. If you removed doors that would make this even more necessary and kind of an interesting concept since you couldn't really balance out oxygen anymore between rooms. And on a side note I can see a Lanius automaton being interesting.
  • The lack of shields will actually make it much easier to damage systems, which wouldn't be a bad thing necessarily if they weren't so hard to repair. Also crew will be much more vulnerable too. So as far as weapons go you may want to focus on weapons that do simple hull damage, cause breaches, cause fires, and then only certain classes of weapons that can actually damage systems and damage crew.
  • And also, I thought I would let you know that I know a way how you could redo the entire upgrade screen so that it has your own descriptions of the upgrades for each system. No hardcoded explanations of what each upgrade does. It also wouldn't be as weird if you want to upgrade certain systems past 8 power. So when you get to that point.... Let me know.


Magnetic reflection field still doesn't sound extremely steampunk-y :/ But besides, a big reason for the removal of shields is because of the great amount of energy that shields need to operate. Always wasting those precious human-zoltans in the shield room wouldn't be very effective... Some of these ideas are great! I like the idea about weapons made for damaging systems... I'l let you know if I need the help for the upgrades :P

Russian Rockman wrote:Also, so much steampunk airship stuff on deviantart.
http://www.deviantart.com/morelikethis/197230014?offset=10
Obviously you can't use any of it directly without permission, but for inspiration I suggest you take a look.


I already checked most of deviantart for inspiration ;) Thanks for the advice anyways!
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Russian Rockman
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Re: [WIP] [Steampunk] Lighter than air

Postby Russian Rockman » Wed Apr 23, 2014 4:33 am

Since you can't actually increase the cost of buying reactor power how do you plan on limiting the power the player can have? You could possibly lower the cost of system upgrades and the scrap gain you can get from events and defeating ships I guess. It's also too bad that you can have only 8 crew because that means you can't implement your whole Zoltan idea as deeply as I would have liked.

Mind control would make sense for taking control of automatons, but not humans. If you could give humans the slug ability that would be cool, but they can't be slugs and Zoltans unfortunately.
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R4V3-0N
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Re: [WIP] [Steampunk] Lighter than air

Postby R4V3-0N » Wed Apr 23, 2014 5:47 am

Image

my first drone and possible hardest choice for me to do as my first. :|
I realized it is hard to do a propeller that is 3 pixels wide from the view point or 1 pixel wide without it looking like random lines. Perhaps you can edit it a bit.

I got some other ideas in mind that would be easier due to lack of prop.
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xlandar
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Re: [WIP] [Steampunk] Lighter than air

Postby xlandar » Wed Apr 23, 2014 5:51 am

i've been working on some steampunkish weapons. I know this is still very similar to the vulcan, i'm still figuring out a good steampunk style.
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art and coding tutorials wanted, pm if you have some good ones please!Image
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Gencool
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Re: [WIP] [Steampunk] Lighter than air

Postby Gencool » Wed Apr 23, 2014 7:13 am

Thanks guys!
Have some thoughts on workarounds re:downward walking

My opinions; Jet/steampacks just for mantis, as they have the speed to no make it look awkward

Could have steampunk base, maybe one race a bit deiselpunk (mantis?) and maybe one with verne/tesla attributes (Rock?) and another more clockwork (engie?)
Remember races/ships/augments don't have to line up the same as vanilla.

A Tesla race could use zolt shields+the new zolt sheild drone as defence- make it a tesla coil of sorts.



With hull/sheild;
Shield could mostly be replaced w/ dodge or cloak.
If all ships have at least 1 autopilot, it gives them free, innate defence.

With weps;
I like the idea of hull damage being rarer.
Maybe have the majority of weapons use 'blast' targeting (meaning it's harder to hit exactly what you want to)
Beam weapons could all be much shorter and slower (less ship-cutting)



Lastly rave/xlander, those are lovely!
Rave; isn't there an animation sheet for the drone's engines?
Could be used for spinning props.

Xlander, try some more venting pipes?
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- Gencool (aka Puppetsquid) -- I make weird stuff
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R4V3-0N
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Re: [WIP] [Steampunk] Lighter than air

Postby R4V3-0N » Wed Apr 23, 2014 7:19 am

No there is no animation unless it's changed, it's just a separate part of the image (for defense drones, it points the apposite direction to where it's orbiting, to attack drones it fires the opposite direction to where the drone will change direction) unless it's changed in AE, was gonna remove the middle engine for that... after I know how to make a good prop engine.

Using the 'frill' and balloon design, I made this 'mosquito' Image (add prop engine for finished drone).


Edit: normally I won't help 'to much' with overhauls especially since I'm helping one and (forever) alone on my own. But your work is a LOT more harder then me, practically removing or altering every weapon, augment, drone, race in game into your own or own cover. As well as events and names and everything.
It makes my one seem easier/ shorter. hehe.

Edit:

I found a good sprite to replace the mantis in your mod!
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Russian Rockman
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Re: [WIP] [Steampunk] Lighter than air

Postby Russian Rockman » Wed Apr 23, 2014 8:11 am

Really nice to see that this is all coming along! I really like your ideas Gencool. Especially the idea for a Tesla race that is the only one to use Zoltan shields. "Steampacks" is an awesome name. The tesla race will be cool because they can rely on things like hacking and "ion weapons" (whatever your planning to turn those into).

Those drones look really cool, but I kind of think they should be a bit bigger, in the center so you can maybe distinguish them more, but then again the hulls of the ships will be smaller themselves. Which actually makes me think, there may not be shields, but the drones will revolve around where the shields used to be so keep that in mind.

Also, I realized that "humans" if given the Zoltan ability, will also explode when killed and I believe they will explode in a green cloud so keep that in mind as well.

And I was thinking about some ideas for hazards the ion storm will just be a normal lightning storm, which will be cool because you could still use the clouds and you can even keep normal nebulas as storms (would also look cool on the world map). Suns could be I guess just a big heat wave, say you're traveling over a desert region. Asteroids could even be like hail storms. And pulsars I'm not sure, maybe some kind of anomaly related to the Tesla race? Or another kind of lightning storm.
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Gencool
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Re: [WIP] [Steampunk] Lighter than air

Postby Gencool » Wed Apr 23, 2014 8:30 am

That's a point!
I'm not sure how hazards work, but I know CE made custom ones.
Ionisation would probably have to be changed to something akin to 'locking up'.
Storms could block vision, where thunderstorms could also do damage and start fires when lightning hits?

Asteroids would be devastating without sheilds...
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Russian Rockman
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Re: [WIP] [Steampunk] Lighter than air

Postby Russian Rockman » Wed Apr 23, 2014 9:30 am

You're right that asteroids would probably be devastating without shields and they would always do damage, no way to change that. Therefore they should be removed from this mod. You can make new hazards by scripting events to limit certain systems (enemy and player ), or by giving the enemy dummy weapons (only affect player). For example "asteroids" could be added back in as a "blizzard" via an invisible enemy artillery that always fires at a slower pace than normal asteroids but they would only hit the player( which isn't ideal). Whereas a tornado event could prevent all piloting and/or cloaking of both the player and the enemy (better). Were not really in the process of writing events right now though, but it's cool to brainstorm. I'm thinking that most hazards would probably just involve various storms, but if you can think up something else interesting please say so.

I'm sure ionization can be easily explained by overloading or shorting various systems, electrically.
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R4V3-0N
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Re: [WIP] [Steampunk] Lighter than air

Postby R4V3-0N » Wed Apr 23, 2014 10:50 am

If I make the drones bigger then they sort of become to big for the UI to handle.

The thing is the normal FTL drones do not require props, wings, frills, control surfaces, etc that is as spacey as steam punk themed ideas.

I do have some awesome ideas with defense drones though that will require a broken UI but oh well.
R4V3-0N, a dreamer.